Down the road we soon went until we encountered a large pile of rocks signifying the Kenya-Tanzania border. We returned to a different spot on the same river and watched more hippos. Returning to the lodge we spotted two unusually shy cheetahs who bolted at our appearance. We chased after them but our bus got mired in the mud for the second time that morning. The first time we got stuck, so did all three of the other busses on safari with us. None were left to the vultures. We eventually freed ourselves and returned to the lodge. Lunch was followed by a drive into Tanzania and the Serengeti Game Reserve.

The Serengeti is 460,000 square miles and contains a million and a half animals. The vastness of the place is overwhelming. We saw great herds of elephants and giraffes and everything else on our way to the next stop, Lobo lodge. We got to Lobo about 3:30 P.M. which was too early for the customary tea-time.

Lobo wildlife lodge was in the middle of the Serengeti atop a 3000 foot tall monadnock. Such granitic protuberances dotted the entirety of the Serengeti. The architectural design of Lobo was amazing. The sleeping quarters weren’t anything out of the ordinary but the bar and dining room are unable. The whole dining facility was built, floorless, directly onto the rock. The steps from one level to another were natural rock formations and one whole wall of the building was a natural sheer rock face. The dining facilities were large and its other three wall were made of glass. Outside there was a swimming pool made from a natural depression in the rocks. It even had a natural rock "diving board."

Lobo was alive with critters. On our drive up to the lodge, the driver slowly pulled over to the side of the road near some scraggly plant-covered rocks. He motioned for us to be quiet. As we looked about on the rocks, we saw a pair of dik diks, the smallest members of the deer family. They stood no more than 18 inches at the shoulder and had little pencil stub-like horns. We watched them for a few minutes until they nervously skittered off.

At the top of Lobo, around the backside of the swimming pool, was a rope that separated a precipitous trail from a 3000' drop and a view of the watering holes below. There were some telescopes set up so that the animals at the drinking holes didn’t resemble mere bugs. Many large red and blue lizards were about too. After Chris and i chased a few of them, i went to bed.


11/22

This morning we left for another lodge, Seronara, where we would eat lunch and chase cats. We got to Seronara at mid-morning and headed into the bush. Soon we encountered zebras which we had seen before but not in numbers such as this. This was the semiannual migration of most animals from Keekorok to Serengeti. There were THOUSANDS of zebras on the adjacent fields and on the horizons. It was overwhelming.

All of the busses were running around looking for cats and soon a leopard was seen. It was extremely well camouflaged in the trees and only three feet long not counting the tail. In another tree, about a half mile away, was another leopard of similar size.

Near some rocks we saw a female lion basking in the sun but the real treat of the day was yet to come. Five microbusses had encircled a male and several female lions and the passengers were in the process of filming them. Suddenly, the male got up, which was enough to get everybody’s cameras clicking. He yawned, looked around nonchalantly, and proceeded to walk over to a female, whereupon he casually mounted and mated with her. Talk about feline indiscretion; and mom got most of it on film.

Driving back to the lodge, we saw a female lion sleeping in one tree and a leopard sleeping in another tree. The leopard straddled the branch with his forelegs while his back legs hung over one side of the branch sidesaddle. He was really sacked out.

After lunch we headed to Oldavai Gorge (OG) and Ngorongoro Crater. Ngorongoro is pronounced ngorongoro.

On the way to OG we saw two cheetahs sleeping (at least they were sleeping before we got there) in a tree. The female of the two was very much pregnant. We also saw a zebra carcass that was not only surrounded by, but filled with, vultures. It was like a scene from a Lovecraft story. At first we didn’t see the dozen or so vultures that were inside the zebra’s chest cavity, but their gnawing and movements inside soon gave them away. The skin on the zebra would ripple in an obscene fashion and then a vulture or two would poke its head through the skin like an abominable boil erupting. Not a sight for the squeamish.

We finally headed out of the Serengeti but not before we passed through a vast plain with no trees or shrubs and very little grass. There, we saw hundreds of thousands of gazelles and wildebeast on either side of us with an occasional zebra thrown in for good measure. This was the stuff of nature films. Here was the last animal resource of this magnitude on our planet. Only under these circumstances could a human begin to appreciate the diversity and abundance of life that existed on earth before we loped about in fear and wonder.

As we drove on and on, the seemingly endless numbers of animals began to dwindle. And we still haven’t seen paved road since we pulled off Kenya Highway whatever. By the way, Kenya and Tanzania used to be under British rule so the countries still adhere to such British customs as tea at 4:30 P.M., dinner at eight, and the most difficult to adjust to, driving on the left hand side of the road. This wasn’t as noticeable in the bush country however, because we were usually on one-lane dirt or gravel roads. But it was weird in the cities.

Anyway, we proceeded down the left-hand side of our one lane highway for about 40 more miles until we got to OG. A little history about OG: In 1931, an expedition to OG found an abundance of Holocene animal fossils, but little trace of hominid remains. Dr. Louis B. Leakey was along on this early expedition and it was there that he formed his much disputed theory that east Africa was the cradle of mankind. To support his theory, he returned in 1959 with his wife, Mary. This time they were being funded by the National Geographic Society. His wife found the first traces of Zinjanthropus, the oldest known hominid remains at the time. (Forty-five days after i completed this journal, Louis and Mary’s son, Richard, found hominid remains that were dated at about 4.25 million years. These remains were more than 2.5 million years older than those discovered by his parents.) Mass digging ensued and the Leakey’s were somewhat credited with proof of their theory. Before this, archaeologists believed that Europe or Asia, not Africa, had fostered the earliest primates.

Leakey has been a childhood hero of mine, and even though i cannot meet him (he died just two months ago), i was able to see some of his dig sites, findings, and even the exact place where Mary found the now famous jawbone of Zinjanthropus. It was thrilling. Besides the air of recent and ancient history about OG, the place was loaded with rocks and fossils. During the Holocene, this area had been a highlands rain forest, alive with game, water, edible plants, and apparently several species of competing primates. Now it was a low-lying badlands area with soil outcrops colored by alternating mud, dust, and ash deposits (the area also has a distant and recent volcanic history.) Chris and i collected rocks and illegally collected fossils until it was time to go. We visited a small museum with some of OG’s treasures, and then left.

All this time we had been slowly drifting south and then east in a big circle from Kenya. Soon we were heading east to Ngorongoro crater that was 10 miles across and 2000 feet deep. A vast mountain range loomed in front of us and Ngorongoro was on the edge of the range nearest us. The highest peak in the range reached to 10,764 feet but the lodge where we stayed was only at 8000 feet. Compare this to Kansas City, which is just under 1000 feet elevation.

After an hour of driving upwards from the already mile-high plain, i got my first good look at the crater from the access road we were on. It was unreal. In the middle of this huge bowl in front of us was a lake with pink shores, the mark of the flamingo. Around the lake were mud flats, assorted small ponds, a 30 to 40 acre acacia forest, and miles of open plain dotted with animal life. All of this was surrounded by steep, craggy mountains making up the crater walls. The view was breathtaking but as we proceeded to travel the four remaining miles to the lodge, the ride was almost life taking. I’ll get to the ride in a minute.

Because this whole area was covered with volcanic rock, the soil was very fertile and the slopes were covered with dense vegetation not unlike a rainforest. The ground was covered with a soft, spongy mud because this mountainous region attracted a lot of rainfall. For these reasons, the road to Ngorongoro Lodge was treachous. Treacherous was really an understatement. The road would parallel a very steep slope and curve in and around the ridges and valleys. Every time the microbus would ascend a steep incline, which would transport water as though it was a stream, the bus would fishtail 2 or 3 feet. The driver was fighting the wheel like it was a cobra. I thought the ride was quite thrilling but mom’s white-knuckled hands left deep grooves in dad’s knee as a testimonial to her reaction.

Ngorongoro has a sizeable animal population because it is fairly easy for critters to descend into its fertile bottoms but difficult and tedious for them to climb back out. As we were driving up to the lodge, a bull elephant crashed through the bush ahead of us making his way into the crater interior. We politely gave him the right of way.

Seeing the lodge ahead was a relief. The hotel was as classy as Lobo or Keekorok and every room had large windows and a crater exposure. The lounge and dining room was very large with a sloping roof. It resembled a ski lodge. Mahogany beams and furniture were abundant. The veranda offered a beautiful view of the crater since the lodge was perched on the lip of the crater. There was even a 20X telescope for remote critter watch
ing. Tomorrow we would take a four- wheeled land rover into the depths of the crater. Rotsa Ruck.


11/23 (Thanksgiving)

Around eight, we descended into the crater via a Toyota land rover. The drive was hectic, spastic, frantic, and hair-raising.

At the bottom we drove over to a sulfurous lake that contained a couple of birds. Half a million to be exact. Most of them were flamingos. Just like Nakuru, the mud flats around the lake stunk. It smelled much worse than flamingo guano. We went on to a very muddy marsh where some hippos were swimming in a spring. One hippo was about 8 feet long and our guide said it weighed nearly 2 tons.

On the way out from the spring area, the land rover got stuck and when a four wheel vehicle gets stuck, it’s stuck. It took a lot of pushing and men sprayed with mud to get it out. Near the spring we also saw a couple of hyenas. They cowered and ran from the land rovers but we were close enough to see their almost horrifying features. Besides their beady eyes and dirty yellow, spotted coats, their most bizarre feature was their sloping backs, like wolves with terrible posture.

We went back and forth across the crater bottom looking at gazelles, zebra, and buffalo. In the center of the crater, we could look around and see nothing but walls as if we were in the center of a huge, flat-bottomed bowl. After driving some more, we came upon a cow rhino and her two and a half year old baby. They posed nicely for us and we moved on. About 150 yards away was the bull rhino. He wouldn’t face us and we ended up taking nothing but butt shots. We left him and moved slowly through a herd of about 300 gnus to a thicket near a creek. Inside it were two lions engorged from eating. We heard from some other people later that night, that a herd of ten lions, two females and eight cubs, was stalking some zebras and selecting the weaker ones to prey upon.

We saw some very beautiful birds in the crater such as the Blacksmith Plover, a white and black splotched bird that makes a sound like a hammer on metal; the Egyptian goose with its brown, black, red, beige, white and cinnamon coloring; and the crested crown bird with its crest of pointy feathers atop its head. Birds were everywhere we went on this trip and we saw many of the more renowned ones such as ostriches, secretary birds, and those little white birds that ride on the backs of each and every hippo.

We saw an eland next, the largest member of the African deer family. It had large horns which were straight but spiralled. Near the eland’s hangout, we ate lunch in an apparently idyllic grove but this turned out to be the most dangerous lunch of my life. I was sitting in the middle of a clearing in the grove, ignoring my boiled egg and picking over the boiled chicken, too often found in our daily boxed lunches, when suddenly a bird flew down unexpectedly and snatched the drumstick out of my hand, scratching me in the process. Suddenly there were several of these African Black Kites in the air around us trying to steal our food. These birds are related to our falcons back home and are normally predatory, but these birds had found it much easier to steal than to hunt. There were about 20 of them and soon all the people were hiding under the trees and in the jeeps. The people began to throw food up in the air and the kites would swoop down and make spectacular catches.

Things got nasty though, when someone threw some food to a dog that had accompanied some Masai children to the grove. When the dog ran for the food, a couple of birds dove at the dog and tore at his ears to chase him away. The Masai kids seemed unimpressed. They were only there to pose for pictures and collect money. They were carrying gourds with them that our guide said contained a beverage made from cows blood which the Masai used as a staple. We didn’t feel so thirsty or eager to try local foods all of a sudden.

There were some attractive and less dangerous inhabitants of the grove. Weaver birds flitted about and would politely eat bread from your hands. They were yellow with black on the wings and a black face mask surrounded by a thin line of scarlet. They were making a hell of a racket in the thicket. We said good-bye to the Masai and ascended the crater by a different route.

At one point on our ascent, we went across a small gorge, thick with jungle vegetation, and gifted with a small stream complete with waterfalls running through it. It was as if we were in the middle of a tropical rainforest. Actually, Ngorongoro crater gets rain almost every day. The local help said that because of the rain and partial cloud cover, there was a rainbow every day at the crater. There sure were for the two days we were there.

We finally got back to the lodge where most of the family slept and i sun
bathed. That night, some stock character American tourists wondered why we weren’t having turkey and celebrating Thanksgiving at the lodge!


11/24

To quote Sally Brown (Charlie’s little sister) and dad, mom wasted a good worry. All Thursday she dreaded the condition of the road to our next stop, Lake Manyara. It hadn’t rained in the direction of the lake so the roads were relatively dry. We took off and the descent to the lake area was anything but frightening. The scenery was too awesome for anyone to think about being frightened. At a couple of places the road was directly atop ridges so thin that we could see all of Ngorongoro on the left and the ridges and hills leading to Lake Manyara on the right. It was really far out considering we were 8,500 feet above sea level.

After about an hour of driving we got to the lake area. Lake Manyara is about 250 square miles and very salty with soda and other alkalis in it. We dropped off our luggage at the lodge first. As usual with these African tourist hostels, this one was located on a steep cliff overlooking the lake.

Millions of years ago, there was a huge earthquake in this area of Tanzania, doubtless caused by the magmatic activity so near the surface. The quake caused the earth along the north side of the crack to drop about 700 feet. Many springs formed as water poured from the cliff face. The springs formed countless little streams but the total water output of them wasn’t enough to form the lake. Hundreds of years ago, there was so much rain that the current lake formed in the flats near the base of the cliff. The lake didn’t evaporate because it was continuously resupplied by the springs.

In 1961 a drought evaporated the lake away but there were such rains the following year that the lake rose hundreds of feet beyond its usual level. Hundreds of trees died in the flooding.

Driving to the lake we saw some baobab trees which have very large trunks. Lake Manyara is a national park so we were accompanied by a ranger. First we went into a small museum that had all kinds of local life, stuffed of course. Into the park next. The first few miles of our drive was through tropical rainforest with local birds and monkeys. We drove around and saw the usual things: buffalo, zebra, impala, giraffe, and elephant. The only unusual animal we saw was an extremely small elephant that everyone photographed.

We ate lunch at the lodge and swam in the lodge pool. At 3:30 P.M. we went back down to the lake. We traveled the length of the park to see a lioness sleeping like a human in a tree, with her front and back legs akimbo over the branches. I wonder if akimbo is Swahili?

Instead of proceeding further down that road towards a large waterfall and a couple large sulfurous springs, we doubled back to return. We did stop at one small hot spring that smelled like bad eggs from the sulfur. I was unimpressed but the other tourists marveled at it.

We also saw a baobab tree that was about 18 feet in diameter and we also saw an aurora bird. The aurora bird was the most decorative bird i had ever seen. It had green and black wings with a large iridescent blue stripe on top of them, a yellow and orange face, orange belly, and green and red chest. Really magnificent.

We went back to the lodge and enroute through the jungle i counted 27 springs coming from the cliff wall.


11/25

This is the last day of our safari. We left the lodge and after about two hours we saw something we hadn’t seen since early in the trip - paved road. This road led us to Arusha, a rather large town of just under 1,000 people; large by Tanzanian standards.

The chief commerce in Arusha was textiles. A mess of lying, cheating Asians, especially Indians, ran the shops. They would charge tourists ten times the original price of material and when the tourists bargained the price down to at least six times the original price, they thought they were getting a good deal. Mom bought some material and probably paid quite a bit over the normal price but she liked the material and was happy.

I had to buy a "religious" article in lieu of doing my religion homework for the classes i had missed. I also wanted to get something for the mantelpiece at home and something for the babysitter. I bargained two items from a street urchin from 35 shillings ($5) and 7 shillings ($1) down to 18 shillings ($2.70) and 5 shillings ($.70). Quite a savings - $2.70! I bought a soapstone egg that was jet black and a wood carving that was the image of a human with horns, cloven hooves, a tail and a pot belly. I later contrived a story for the religion class telling them that the statue was a fertility icon; it scared away demons that might harm an unborn baby. The class ate it up.

We left Arusha and traveled passed Kilamanjaro which was quite a ways in the distance. Dad and i talked about returning to climb it at some later date. Many people climb it and take advantage of the several rest cabins provided along the way to its 18,000 foot plus summit.

Somewhere along this route we passed over the equator. Along the road was a barren monument set up to signify the equator’s location. It was an eerie and desolate spot.

Around mid afternoon we passed into Kenya and stopped at a little village. I finally bought what i had been wanting the whole trip, an elephant hair bracelet, only this was made of giraffes hair but i was content to settle for that. Everywhere we went, there were local beggars trying to sell us junk. If it weren’t for our driver, we would have been suckered in or at least constantly pestered.

Our driver, Evans G. Mwaura, was a member of the Kikuyu tribe. He also acted as our guide at most locations. He spoke fluent English, Swahili, and a local dialect. He taught Chris and Kerrie much Swahili and became our close friend. He was aspiring to open up a tour agency of his own some day. We loved him. He was full of merriment at the right times and information at other times. He even damned near saved our lives a couple days back.

We were driving down a winding mountain road, very steep and full of hairpin curves. We were going about 30 miles an hour when suddenly a land rover came around the corner doing about 60. He would have hit us head on but Evans' quick thinking got us to the side of the cliff wall not a second too soon. We were very grateful to him because any number of things might have happened to us.

We finally arrived at Nairobi which welcomed us with open arms. Tonight’s lodging concluded the safari but not the trip. We still had a long way home. We said good-bye to Evans and wished him luck on his ventures. We promised to take his tour if we were ever back in eastern Africa.

Mom and dad ate at an Indian restaurant - something like the Three Bells. They still talk about that place to this day and use it to compare other Indian restaurants.

The end