Safari (Serengeti - The Masai and Great Migration)

The second day in the Serengeti led us through the Ngorongoro caldera (crater), but we were just passing through today and saving exploration of the crater for our last day. The landscape near the crater continues to be very dry. On the rim of the crater it is more lush and they clearly get more rain. Sadly, we spotted a safari land rover crushed that had lost their brakes and rolled down the side of the crater. We were told a number of people lost their lives. Unlike at home, the wrecks of cars and buses seem to stay where they are without the equipment and know-how to remove the wrecks. We saw this with a bus crash on our drive to Dar es Salaam from Arusha. A bus had crashed and burned killing over 20 people and their belongings were being picked over when we went by a week later. We were very happy to have hired a private car and driver for the journey. We started to see vultures, hyena and jackals as we travelled further into the park. The migration is still on in the Serengeti. 

On our approach to the Serengeti we visited one of the Maasai villages that dot the landscape around Ngorongoro. The villages are surrounded by either a picketed fence or thick acacia thorn bushes to keep the wild animals out. The houses are built in the traditional way with mud and cow manure over thin branches of acacia. I was told they simply apply more manure when it rains. At the time of our visit the village elders we meeting to discuss where they would take their cattle herd because it was very dry and they had to move some of their cattle. The Maasai continue to live very traditionally on a diet of cows milk, blood and meat. They don't eat vegetables. This is a very interesting culture that endures considerable hardship to continue their traditional lifestyle. 

The villagers were making some extra money by welcoming the tourists for a tour of their village. This secondary income helped pay for their government school fees and a kindergarten they started. They also  sold interesting crafts they created out of beads and seeds. The hut I visited had a hide bed and a few recycled pans. They cooked and heated with charcoal they made from the local woods. The teenager who showed us around (he was a male as the women are without property rights and a voice in this social system), had ambitions to go to medical school and learn western medicine. I am told by other Tanzanians that the Maasai are very bright and do very well in school. The village was led by a chief who had 12 wives. The village pool together to put on a dance when you arrive and then you are invited to join the groups. None of the women could communicate in English but we shared a moment. They dress in bright colours to repel the 'wild things'. Very interesting their choice of plaids for their clothing. Inside their huts are very simple with only a few cooking utensils. The men wear recycled tires fashioned into a thong type sandal. The women wear elaborate neck pieces and dance to rhythmic sing-song chanting. I was jumping up and down thinking they were jumping, but one of the ladies reached over and touched my shoulder to indicate only the shoulders go up and down. Apparently the men jump up and down but not the women. What must they think of outsiders?

As we travelled further north and west towards the border with Kenya we started to see the herds of wildebeest and the lazy lions who were enjoying the migration. It's interesting to observe in nature the symbiotic relationships between the animals. The wildebeest invariably were being led by the zebra. The zebra had better eyesight and were a warning system for them and the wildebeest would invariably be eaten before a zebra. On the backs of the zebra and hippos were birds that enjoyed the ticks, bug and flies that attacked the animals. And the baboons were around all the campsites waiting for cars to be left unattended. We were told by our Tanzanian guides that they waited for the black guides to go to approach the table or vehicle knowing that white people would not be a threat to them.  The ever present lions were sleeping during the day on rocks or in the deep grasses. We saw a number of 'lounging leopards' hanging from the trees and a future cheetah with their rounded ears sitting in the tall grass waiting for an unsuspecting prey. At one point a leopard mother with two cubs was trapped under a log by a group of baboons who kept approaching waiting to take one of the leopard cubs. The mother managed to out wait the baboons who moved on and we later saw her trying to hastily teach her cubs to climb the trees. This is a tough environment to survive even for the big predators.