Africa

Day Six: Sunday, Christmas Day

The Serengeti

In the middle of the night, some very large animals (or so it seems), pass by our tent. Gaaruumph! they holler, and I jump up to find the flashlight and whistle we have been given if we need to call for help. But the sound fades, and we go back to sleep, the flashlight under my pillow.

The air is exquisitely fresh, the light glowing, as we step outside at sunrise. Below the deck is a well-used path, but no animals are in sight. The Mbalageti camp is situated in the western corridor of the Serengeti on a point of the Mwamveni hill, and offers a breathtaking panoramic view of the Serengeti plains and Mbalageti River. The name comes from the old Maasai language, meaning wildebeest.

Though we are not close to the ocean, the air, the light, and the landscape reminds us of the California hills near Big Sur, as we pass through the dewy grass alongside the pathway. In daylight we get our bearings and visit the main lodge (to see if we have internet service, and we do – sort of) and then the dining lodge. We are greeted with a “Jambo!” and, a “Merry Christmas,” as it is indeed Christmas morning. There is a huge buffet breakfast and we choose a table overlooking the Serengeti, from where Smooch, our travelling bear, can enjoy the spectacular view.

Today we are going to do, roughly, a half-day safari, though Elias looked somewhat disappointed when we informed him of this. There is a gorgeous little glimmering turquoise pool with a 180° view, and some comfy loungers that called to me last night … and after our incredible journey yesterday, we both feel we need some time off today. So the plan is to drive to the Ndabaka Gate and back again, spending a little more time photographing what we see. The not so good part of this plan is the suspension bridge, and the washed out road on the other side of it.

We see the French family at breakfast and the boys greet us with a, “Bonjour Madame. Bonjour Monsieur,” in their singsong voices. After breakfast we meet Elias at the main lodge and run into, again, la Famille Plouffe, as we have endearingly come to call them. They are doing exactly what we are – a half day and then the pool! I feel there is safety in numbers (like the zebras) and am a little braver about the bridge and the road. We all set off, tackle the bridge, and pick up our personal jeeps on the other side. We travel just behind les Plouffes and watch in awe as their amphibious jeep parts the waters allowing us to follow in their marked ruts.

Finally we land on drier road. The elephants are still where we saw them, the day before, browsing among the thorny acacias and then, Elias spots something in the tall grass. As David and I follow his gaze, two tawny backs appear and before we know it, we are looking at a beautiful pair of lions. A male and female have graced us with their presence, and patiently hold their regal poses as we photograph them until they turn, and disappear back into the grasses. It is another pinch-me-moment and we wait several minutes before moving on.

The animals are out in full force today, as we pass ostriches, topis, our first Coke’s hartebeests, some elands, giraffes, and waterbucks. On the main road to the Ndabaka Gate we are stopped by a large group of baboons – maybe fifty of them – hanging out on the road. As they groom and pick ticks from each other, it is hard not to notice their human-like characteristics. They are in no hurry and basically ignore us as we wait until they move off the road.

Elias tells us that the baboons, gazelles and zebra are often seen together, each having a specific role in monitoring the presence of predators. Something like - eyes, ears, and nose! Sure enough, no sooner do we start rolling again when a large herd of bachelor Grant’s gazelles, followed by zebras bring the jeep to a halt again. A few brown-striped baby zebras, frisky like their colt cousins back home, buck across the road, then stop to eye us in the safety of their moms’ shadows.

It takes a couple of hours to get to the gate. I had hoped the monkeys from yesterday would be there, but they are nowhere to be seen. We use the facilities and are quickly back in the jeep to return to the lodge. On the way back we notice a tree with many woven balls of twigs (they look a little like elastic band balls) about the size of a grapefruit. These are the nests of weaver birds and it’s all I can do not to get out and grab one for my nest collection. (I see one later, on the ground, but figure that in my luggage it will get crushed, and in carry on it will get confiscated!)

I am a little anxious to get back – mostly to get the flooded road and suspension bridge behind me – so we do not make too many more stops although brightly coloured birds and the grazers are in great abundance. Elias delivers us safe and sound and after a quick lunch, David retires to the tent to read and I am lying poolside on the comfy cushions.

We dress (as best as we can) for dinner. It is, after all, Christmas. We wander up to the main lodge and talk with a young couple who have just returned from a day’s safari to the central Serengeti. They are very excited, because they saw a leopard, “hanging over a branch in a tree.” Apparently, loners, leopards hunt at night and often drag their kill (can be one or more gazelle, young impala, etc.) up onto the branches of a large tree where they will consume it over several days. They will also spend a lot of time sleeping in the tree – which sounds not a whole lot different from our cat, Minou.

 

At the dining lodge we are again greeted with equal “Jambos” and “Merry Christmases” and take our seat next to la Famille Plouffe. The boys again politely acknowledge us and we exchange our days’ adventures with Madame et Monsieur. They have invited their driver to dinner and I wish we had been so thoughtful … and wonder if Elias is missing his family this Christmas time (although he has not said so, we assumed from the Christmas music the other day, that he is Christian). There is an amazing array of food – everything from East Indian cuisine to a fully stuffed turkey – and with gratitude for the day, for the gift of Africa, we relish this Christmas dinner on the Serengeti.    

Africa

Day Five: Saturday, Christmas Eve day

The Incredible Journey

It has rained in the night. Our itinerary describes this day as, “… a full day, multi hour drive across bumpy patches of road … rough and unfinished … though most now is newly paved. Six to nine hours depending on game drives and breaks.” What the itinerary fails to say is, that is only IF, it has not rained and one gets to use the shortcut down the backside of the Oloololo Escarpment to the paved road just north of the border.

Today, we get option two.

What George explains to us once we are settled in the van is that we have to go around the escarpment and pick up the main road, way north of the short cut. “What’s the road like? Like this?” asks David as we bounce down the awful road one more time. When George does not answer we both exude a nervous laugh. “Ah … and how far do you think, George?” George does the horizontal wave thing with his hand as we swerve to avoid a new crevasse in the road and he looks at us in the rearview mirror.

So begins our incredible day journey. The awful road proves to be a fairly good road compared to what we traverse for most of the next twelve hours. Everything from deeply rutted mud trails to boulder-strewn roads that are so highly crested it seems that we are driving on just the two outside wheels. In the first hour we see our first wildebeest, which momentarily distracts us, but not enough to want to take a picture. Just ahead of us is another guide, who George keeps calling to get updates on the road. After a few torturous hours, he turns and waves the phone at us, and tells us there is another shortcut ahead we can take. Good. It can’t possibly 

get worse.

 

About twenty minutes into the shortcut I am thinking, we could die here and no one would ever know. It is a path. A muddy, water filled path, at best. But George is an amazing driver and as he pushes on, the path becomes more of a donkey trail and then, a dirt road, as the barren savanna yields to a more fertile and lush landscape. David and I begin to relax a little and take in the view from our windows. We are indeed in agricultural land and see a multitude of huts, people working the fields with oxen, roadside lines of donkeys laden with firewood and various other produce and soon, small villages. Everyone is out today … walking, biking … to market. Chickens are at a premium, because it is Christmas Eve day, and they swing from bicycle handlebars, children’s outstretched arms, and women’s baskets. Everywhere there are chickens.

The road becomes more road-like as villages give way to small, third world towns, of chaos and disrepair. So many people are walking along the side of the road in both directions. Where are they all going? A common shocking sight is women and small children bathing, washing, and collecting dirty brown water from roadside ditches. The women are beautiful in their wrappings of bright fabrics, the children barely dressed in tattered t-shirts … I wonder how they all stay alive. Children are not in the least supervised – no helicopter parents here. Many of them, no more than five or six years of age, are herding goats along the road, or carrying jugs of water, or squatting on the shoulder just inches from the traffic. How often do they get hit by a car?

The road finally morphs into asphalt. I have had to use “the facilities” for over three hours. Earlier, David was allowed to get out of the van and relieve himself. But for me, George has a gas station in mind and finally, we pull in to it. In my travels I have used some interesting and undesirable toilets, but this is not good. I make a mental note to wash everything I have on tonight.

It is past noon and we are getting hungry. George has a picnic lunch for us on the seat beside him, but his goal is to get us to the border at Namanga and hand us off to our Tanzanian driver. He keeps telling us we are getting close and then points to the road where we would have come out, if the shortcut had been open.

At the border, George stops the van at a barrier, shows some paperwork, gets back in, the barrier lifts, and we proceed through. We are now in a sort of no-man’s land between the two countries and this is where we will get our Tanzania visas, clear customs, and meet our next driver. It is bedlam but, remarkably, the procedure does not take more than twenty minutes. We are introduced to Elias and his Toyota Land Cruiser, the picnic lunch is passed into his hands, and we say goodbye to George. I feel badly that he has to backtrack the way we came. I hope the tour company will buy him a new vehicle.

We stop at a second barrier, Elias shows more paperwork, and we are in Tanzania. Within minutes we already feel we are in a different country. The landscape seems a little less lush, and everywhere it is busier. Elias asks if we would like some music and soon we are listening to Bing Crosby crooning White Christmas. Elvis, having a Blue Christmas. It is oddly comforting and we listen to the whole tape of “classic” Christmas songs several times.

Our itinerary has us stopping at Lake Victoria to have our picnic but we are already way off schedule and so open our lunch boxes in the jeep. It is standard fare: a boiled egg; rock solid leg of chicken; potato chips; fruit drink; buttered bread; wafer cookies. Elias is a full time trained driver/guide, about thirty-something, and will be with us for the next four and a half days. His vehicle is a lot more comfortable than George’s, and he too, is both a good driver and very knowledgeable about the wildlife.

 

We arrive at the Ndabaka Gate, the most western entry point to the Serengeti National Park, the largest and most famous park in Tanzania. Elias advises us to roll up our windows as we exit to use the facilities, so that the marauding vervet monkeys do not steal anything. It is getting late in the day and we do not dare ask how much longer it will be to our accommodations. There has been a lot of rain here, too, and so the roads might be a problem.

There is a different feel to the Serengeti from the Masai Mara, and we follow the so-far-so-good road through high grasslands more heavily populated by lower bush acacias, and rolling hills off in the distance. We begin to see larger herds of wildebeests and zebras. The zebras we have been seeing, and will continue to see, are Burchell’s (also common or plains zebra). They are built like a large stocky pony, and their stripes are wider and quite distinct from the Grevy’s zebra. As a horseperson, I am amazed how healthy they all look, but then I think about predators and “the survival of the fittest” rule. A lame zebra does not last long here!

A couple of tortoises and, several minutes later, a five-foot Monitor lizard, bring the jeep to a full stop. All wildlife has the right-of-way here.  For the next couple of hours we see lots of buffalos, impalas, Grant’s and Thompson’s gazelles, baboons, topis … several dikdiks, the smallest of the antelope, and such a variety of birds. We see our first ostrich … then many more … and finally among some very thorny, picked over acacias, a small group of elephants.

We come to an intersection and turn off onto a trail through high golden grass, in the direction of some rolling hills. The light is unbelievable. Elias assures us we are close, which is good, as daylight is fading. But the fact is, we are still about an hour out. The road quickly becomes submerged in water and what is unknown to us, is that further ahead it is completely washed out. But of course, this is Africa, and we plunge on until finally we turn off this road and come to a full stop where several other jeeps are parked.

Before us is a suspension bridge. Perhaps 150 to 200 feet long, about eighteen inches of metal sheeting wide, suspended by thin wire cables, it traverses a broiling, muddy river. I am not afraid of a lot of things but there are two things that stop me cold. Heights, when there is no obvious ground below me. And crocodiles. Elias and a couple of porters grab our suitcases and set off to waiting jeeps on the other side as David follows with his knapsack and, my god, no free hands … as he has his tripod in one and the sac of stuff we have bought in the other. The bridge sways and bounces and I think of the crocs downstream just waiting for one false move … but I am brave, hold my breath, and follow the rest.

When we reach the Mbalageti camp it is dark. After checking in we follow two Maasai (with their spear) to our tent for a quick “freshen-up” before dinner. Even though we are beat from the long day and the room is exquisitely inviting, we do not linger, but follow our two waiting escorts up the low-lit winding path to the dining lodge. We pass a decorated Christmas tree in the bar and step onto the terrace, open air but for a thatched roof. There are perhaps a half dozen other tables occupied and we hear a multitude of languages. People are attired in haute couture safari and I feel a little grubby in my best Patagonia, but soon we are talking with the family beside us. They are Parisian – a mom and dad and two extremely well mannered young boys – speaking immaculate French. David tries a little New Brunswick French on them and they politely switch to English. We talk about cameras, photographing wildlife, our list of animals seen, and then all turn back to our meals. It is à la carte tonight – no buffet, but a beautiful gourmet selection with a real wine selection. Fantastique!

 

It is Christmas Eve. After twelve hours and over 500 kilometers, we have had an incredible journey and now, here in this little spot of paradise, we will sleep well.