Day 3.2: Lions and... lions and lions...

... oh my! But first, an elephant.

So, I'll get to the lions. But picture above is a nice segway into this week's "so you want to go to Africa" segment: safari "housing".

Being the cost-conscious travel we are, we opted for the camping option. Even in camping, there are two options: basic camping and luxury camping. Basic camping is what it sounds like: camping in tents in campgrounds that have facilities roughly comparable to what you would find in a national park in the states. We toyed around with luxury camping, but it was quite a bit more expensive, and if you google "luxury" camping, you can see why. The tents in luxury camping are pretty much like the Perkin's tent in Harry Potter #4 where everyone stays for the cribbage World Cup, i.e., a tent in name only.

The pictures above are opposite sides of the same lodge, one from the "backside" road and one from the "rimside" of the crater. I mention it because David told us it was the most expensive lodge in... well, I can't remember exactly how big a geographic area, but definitely around the crater. It's around a $1,000 dollars a night. Now, before you say, "what a waste of money," I would like to point out that you get your own servant. As in, your OWN SERVANT. Not one for the room, not servants like a cook here, a waiter there, and a bell hop elsewhere, but your own personal servant. You wake up, and they are waiting in your room, having drawn a bath, towel in hand, and toothpaste on your toothbrush. When you eat in the dining room, each patron has their servant standing behind them, and all the servants serve everyone's food in unison. When you go to bed, they make sure to fluff your pillows and tuck you in before leaving for the evening.

Yeah, I found it really creepy also, and David said most Americans do as well. Not so with the Europeans, particularly the French and British, who he says take it as a given. Takes the meaning of aristocrat to a whole new level.

My bosses on the campaign in Iowa used to say "yard signs can't vote." I think, however, that even they agree this is a prudent use.

The tents were made of a heavy canvas, and quite roomy. We had two tents, one for us boyz, and one for Resha, and the one William and I shared had plenty of space for us to sleep and store our stuff. We could even stand in them and hang up clotheslines.

This is the first appearance of the gnome. During our planning, we all decide to take "mascots" that we were going to take pictures with on top of Kili. This is the Hokster, the Virginia Tech gnome William brought. The others will make their appearances in due course.

This van was at our first campsite after Lake Manyara. These people drove it down from Europe (specifically Austria) to go on safari. David said they are quite common, and I believe him, as my friend Sergey is doing exactly that now, driving from Capetown to Europe. Check out his blog. Lighter on the commentary, but he's an extremely talented photographer.

One interesting thing both David and Sergey told me is that it is actually illegal to drive a vehicle from Europe into Africa and then sell it. Apparently so many people used to do the Europe to Capetown trek and then sell their cars there, it completely destroyed the local auto market. So, if you drive it in to Africa, you have to drive it out.

On another side note, I asked David where he and the cook, Hans, slept. He said that most campsites had a tent or shed away from us tourists where they slept. I thought he may have been pulling our chain and maybe they weren't being treated above board, but I actually snuck around the first campsite and did indeed see where the guys slept in a three-walled concrete hut, albeit packed like sardines with other safari operators. Turns out, they like this because it allows them to shoot-the-breeze well into the night with other safari operators, who all know each other. The cooks are even crazier. I'll get into that when I talk about food later.

The buildings above are typical for a campground. The one on the right is a dining hall, and the one of the left is where the cooks prepare food.

This is the inside of the dining hall, but sometimes we dined al fresco, as seen below.

I'll cover food in a future post.

We were a bit lucky in that all of the places we camped had running water and hot showers. The one at Ngorongoro even had wall outlets, which were filled with plugs of people trying to recharge their cameras. If you go to some of the more off-the-beaten-path, you are lucky to get running water. Which brings us to funny story number one.

We had eaten dinner after going to the crater, and Resha needed to use the "nice" facilities (to be distinguished from the non-flushable pit toilets). It's reasonably dark at this point, and the "nice" facilities are on the other side of camp, about 200 meters away (shown above). She goes off, only to come running back yelling "pardon me chaps, but I indubitably believe that something is obstructing my way to the l'eau." I have, of course, taken the liberty to translate what she actually said into British English, and take it down a few octaves.

So, we all go wandering off the facilities, only to find several large zebras obstructing our way. Now, they weren't really doing anything, but it was still kind of freaky running into zebras, especially with their eyes glowing red from the red light emanating out of our head lamps. At first, we didn't know what to do, so we do what comes natural; attempt to go around them. This is largely successful as they do not move, but then we realize the paths are there for a reason: there is a lot of hidden zebra "dookie" outside of the paths.

Or it could have been elephants. Back to the picture at top, this monstrosity of a beast appeared in our campsite during dinner, and caused quite a buzz.

What was he doing you ask? Well, it's actually quite simple, he was really, really thirsty. The tank he is drinking from is a water tank. Since we are so high in altitude, it is necessary to provide water pressure, much like the water tanks you see in small towns in the Midwest.

The kid on the left is the son of the only female safari driver we saw, which I guess in itself shows a bit about gender roles in Africa. I remember this was her son because she took charge of the situation when the elephant arrived, ordering everyone not to get too close, and everyone seemed to treat her with respect. Of course, it could also have been for show to let everyone know how "PC" they are.

Anyways, the Ngorongoro campsite on the crater rim was by far the most spectacular.

This was the tree at the center of the campsite.

The three panoramas are the views from under the tree looking out 360.

Now, as you can see, our tent is pretty exposed. Which brings me to my second story. So, Bill and I are happily sleeping away in our tent at night, after a rousing round of Uno with Resha (I won the most). We played a lot of Uno. All of sudden, we both wake up to a stampede. Of zebras.

David had told us that this is common, and that the zebras "rarely" run into tent, but when you hear hooves pounding all around you and the tent canvas rattling, you don't have the most confidence. Eventually, the stampede subsided, and we went back to sleep... only to wake up a few hours later to nature's alarm clock...

... a hyena. How did we know it was a hyena you ask? Well, as I mentioned before, David's favorite animal is the hyena. One reason he likes it is because of the way it laughs, or as he puts it, saying "are yooooooooou sleeping?" Anyways, we all woke up to that distinct laugh which, all of us being engineers, were able to triangulate to just outside of our tent. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but not by much. This time, still being jet-lagged and all, we did not go back to sleep, and just sat in our tents staring at the ceiling, hoping hyenas don't like enclosed spaces... or human flesh. I guess the hyena got bored, because we then heard the laughing stop, and a rustling as he (or she) moved on.

Which brings us to my final (and favorite) camping story.

We are at our final campground a day later, and it's a pretty basic campground in the middle of the bush right outside of the gates of Tarangire. Unlike the other campsites, however, it's situated reasonably close to a village and does not have walls, with only a flimsy brush fence surrounding it. Aside from having driven through it, you could also tell it was close to a village because there was a bar/club down the street playing music well into the night. If we weren't so beat, we would have gone over.

Anyways, because I guess it was so exposed, this campground had a guard; a Maasai warrior.

They are the ones with the poles. For a guy who guards a campground regularly and probably sees a lot of tourists like us, he was really shifty and awkward. Or maybe that's just how they are. When we were walking back to our tents from the dining hall, Resha almost ran into him, as he was just hanging out among some trees, not making a sound. We stopped when we saw him, not knowing really what to say, and I guess he sensed our awkwardness, so he backed away.

Later, William goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth. As he is happily brushing and flossing, he looks in the mirror and, without a sound, sees that the Maasai warrior has entered the bathroom (to be fair, the bathroom only has three walls and the guy is standing outside of the "fourth" wall) and is staring at the back of William's head. At this point, William just keeps brushing because, well, what else is he going to do. So, he tries to play it off and just act normal, but the guy is still just staring at him without moving, and the thought does cross his mind of "is he going to send that spear he is holding into the back of my head?" Anyways, William finishes everything up and is contemplating how to leave, when the Maasai warrior says "hakuna matata." Sensing a friendly opening to engage, William then turns quickly around to acknowledge him, only to find that he is gone, again without making a sound.

Like this guy, I am getting kind of sleepy, so I promise I will write about the lions in next week's post. Until then, same bat time, same bat channel...

Day 3.1: When we are confined...

... and the animals run free. Quite literally a reverse zoo. They are the boss.

So, how did we get here?


On day 3, we headed to Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Also known as Ngorongoro Crater, it is an UNESCO Heritage Site, and pretty much the awesomest place to see animals in the entire world. And I say that without the slightest bit of exaggeration. If you are going to go to one place on safari, and could only pick one place, you have to pick Ngorongoro. Not the Serengeti. Not Kruger. Not the Maasai Mara. Ngorongoro. Period. End of discussion.




So what's so great about Ngorongoro? Glad you asked!



Ngorongoro is technically a conservation area, and not a national park. This is because while pretty much all normal human activity (primarily primitive hunting and grazing) and residence is banned in national parks, the Maasai have activity and residence rights in most of Ngorongoro, excluding the crater. Ah. The crater.




16-20km in diameter and 300-600 meters deep, the crater is the largest unbroken, unflooded caldera in the world.




Still not impressed?



Okay, how about this. It has the highest concentration of predators in the world. And because of the low amount of foliate in the Crater, you can spot them all day long.



Interested now aye?


The predators are there because they go where there is "food," i.e., wildebeest, gazelles, zebras, etc. There is an abundance of "food" in the crater because (1) the steep walls of the crater makes it more difficult for animals to get in and out of the crater, (2) the floor of the crater has several permanent watering holes, and (3) the lack of foliage makes it, kind of ironically, easier for the "food" to spot the predators. It's almost as if both the predators and food have agreed on these unwritten rules, and may the best animal win!


By the way, the second panorama above was taken from our amazing campsite on the rim of the Crater. I will cover our sleeping accommodations on the safari in next week's post. But a word about how we got to Ngorongoro.





Getting to the crater is not for the weak of stomach.


View Larger Map


As you can see, Ngorongoro is on the major highway between Arusha/Lake Manyara and the Serengeti. But "highway" is a bit of a misnomer. After Karatu (where we stopped for lunch), the paved road ends and the ascending red dirt, rocky road begins.




Now, given that it is a gravelly dirt road, it's pretty smooth. Until you get to the entrance to the Crater.


(hattip to http://www.kurquhart.net/nsu/tanzania/ngorongoro.crater/ngorongoro.crater/images/crater.jpg)


From there, if you have a habit of getting car sick, sea sick, motion sick, etc. sick, well, you may want to take every pill known to humanity before taking the thirty minute journey down to the floor of the crater. But first, the calm before the storm.




This panorama is of the area right before the descent point. The houses you see at the center right are the Maasai inhabitants which make Ngorongoro the conservation area.



One of two videos that I regret not taking is our vehicle's descent into/ascent from the crater, as we were jostled all over while the Range Rover climbed two foot rocks before descending four foot gullies... all while David cruised happily along at a cool 10 km an hour. Luckily, our car was all roller coaster fans, so we had a blast.


Which brings us back to the predators, and a bit of animal psychology.


One of the most frequent questions when I got back (aside from climbing Kili questions), was "aren't you afraid the animals will eat you?" The short answer, is "no," and the longer answer is "at first I was, but not towards the end." Let me explain why.


Animals are smart. Extremely smart. Particularly predators. When we were going to Lake Manyara, we drove through a town called Mto Wa Mbu, which means river of mosquitoes. Aside from being the first time that we were accosted by local teenagers selling trinkets (one tried to trade me his dollars for my dollars - I have no idea why), it was also the first time David explained the intelligence of the animals. The edge of the town backs into Lake Manyara National Park. It gets to the point where one side of the road is the national park, and the other side has people's houses. Apparently, there is a problem where monkeys will cross the road from the national park, steal food from people's houses, and when they are noticed, run back across the road into the park, knowing that people can't chase them into the park.


Now, you say, "well, aren't the animals just instinctively running away into foliage when chased?" Normally, I would agree with you... except the monkeys then turn around and, just one meter inside the park boundary, taunt (yes, taunt!) the people chasing them.




The above video obviously isn't from Africa, but it has 3.8 million Youtube hits, and makes my point.


"Okay," you say, "monkeys are almost people (depending on your view of evolution), so they are smart. But that still doesn't mean predators are smart." Which brings us back to the whole eating people on safari thing.


For millenia now, the predators in Africa have played a game with humans where they try to eat our livestock (humans actually aren't that tasty), and we try to kill them, whether for food, their hides, to prevent them from eating livestock, or other purposes. Moreover, in addition to not being tasty, because we keep trying to kill them when they get close, and since there are so many other things to eat which don't fight back, you would think that the predators would evolve wanting to avoid humans at all costs. However, that is not the case.


The national parks and game reserves (like Selous) are a relatively new phenomenon in the world, with Yellowstone being the first, established in 1872, and much later in Africa. Despite this relatively short time period of time, as with the monkeys, the predators have quickly adapted to the parks and reserves, and realized that as long as they do not attack the humans riding around in goofy cars in the parks/reserves, we will only observe, and otherwise leave them alone. And so, as you can see in the video, they pretty much walk with impunity among us.


Now, this would all be remarkable enough if it was an evolutionary bi-product. However, it is even more than that; it is taught. It turns out that the cubs of lions and cheetahs in particular exhibit this behavior right out of the womb. For some reason, however, the relationship is not as strong with hyenas. And we know it's taught, because these cubs learn the boundaries of the park, and what it can and cannot do in given areas. Pretty awesome.


So again, in short, no, you do not really have to worry about getting eaten by a lion in a park. The only caveat to this is that once in a blue moon, they do get a rogue predator who gets a taste for human flesh (regretably, it's almost always a Maasai child). When that happens, the predator has to be put down, as it will then definitely attack people again. So, don't worry. We are still at the top of the food chain.


Okay, enough talk. To the predators!




Not five minutes from when we reached the floor, we were ridiculously lucky to run into a pair of cheetahs. There are only seven in the crater, and as you can see, they are among the more difficult to spot in this environment. They are also the more shy of predators.




They weren't particular difficult to spot in this instance, however, because there were about a dozen cars parked along the "road" also taking pictures of the cheetah. So, this is one of the problems of safari. Currently, there are no limits on the number of vehicles allowed in the Crater on a given day. While I will go into timing issues in a future post, during the high season, David said it would not have been unusual to see a hundred (yes, a hundred) vehicles clustered around the cheetahs. There is talk of instituting a limit, but for now, the cash is too tempting for the government to pass on. The Crater is the most expensive place to visit in Tanzania, as it is $50 per person to enter the conservation area, and then another $100 per person for a day pass to enter the Crater. And you can't stay there. You can't enter before sunrise, and must exit before sundown.






Our first views at the floor of the Crater were pretty awesome, with the hills rising up from the Crater rim as the fog burned off.





You can see the clouds fall in over the top of the east side of the rim. And hullo food!




We found this little guy just chillin' in the grass. I smell bacon (and I think the lions do too)!




I mentioned that I thought this guy looked fat. David then politely informed me that "he" was a "she," and that "she" was pregnant. Oops. Remind me not to do interviews.




I guess this zebra family right next to the preggo one should have tipped me off.




Male Thomson gazelles, aka, the losers. Like for lions and elephants, there are two types of gazelle herds. The first has one male and many females. The second is all males. Basically, the most dominant males get all the chicks (determined through head butting), and the others are s.o.l. In fact, even young male gazelles, after they reach a certain age, are kicked out of the herd by the dominant male. Family values eh?




Ostrich-like birds with, once again, a pink haze of flamingos in the background.




The view from pretty much the center of the Crater.




Getting closer to water.


How we pretty much spent the entire day.

Our first hyenas, we think with a kill. They are David's favorite animal. He likes the way they laugh.

An actual ostrich. These suckers are big.

Our first up-close view of a herd of mostly wildebeests, and some zebras.


David pointed out the pairs facing opposite directions. This is for protection. It's also why some of the wildebeests are standing in non-parallel while some lie down: they are taking turns keeping watch for predators. It's also why wildebeests, zebras, warthogs, and all the deer-like creatures intermingle - they kind of have a joint agreement to watch each other's backs for predators.
Okay, enough of the prey. Massive amounts of predators next week. Stay tuned...