Our Travels: Sunday, June 28. Oldepai to Serengeti

This morning we were treated to a beautiful sunrise as we bid good bye to the Ngorongoro Crater. The air was crisp and the reflection of light on the lake was something we will all remember for a long time. We decided we wanted to get right on the road, so we packed up breakfast for the 150km trip to Serengeti National Park. Normally a trip of this distance would take a couple of hours tops. That would be if you were on paved roads and didn’t have to wait for wildlife to cross in front of you… We however, haven’t seen a paved road in a few days, so we settled in for yet another “African Massage” on the washboarded dirt roads of Tanzania. Sometimes it isn’t even the bumps, it’s the incredible noise, as if the road is trying to shake the car apart! Luckily the trip was broken up with a visit to the Oldepai Gorge, where the Louis and Mary Leakey made many famous fossil discoveries of early man.

The first thing I learned is that we have been taught wrong – it isn’t Oldevai as we were taught, it is actually Oldepai. The German who worked in the area, misunderstood the word and it’s been that way ever since. The site had a two room museum with one room dedicated to the Laetoli footprints discovered by the Leakeys. These are hominid footprints that are 2-3 million years old (can’t remember off the top of my head) that were preserved in volcanic ash. The actual site has been reburied to protect it, but there is a cast of some of clearest prints in the museum. The other room dealt with the stratigraphy and various hominid remains that have been found there, most notably, Australopithecus bosisei (A. robustus) who is about 1.7 million yeas old and Homo habilis, who is roughly the same age. They are found in the same fossil layer, but were separate species along the same line of evolution. After a short talk from our local archaeologist guide, we drove out to the site where Mary Leakey discovered H. boisei. For most people, this isn’t terrible interesting, but for me it was very exciting to be in a place where the line of human evolution can be traced from Austrolapithecus all the way to H. erectus and beyond.

Back in the car everyone was feeling pretty nappy, but you can really nod off when you are being bounced over hill and dale. After a while, we arrived at the gates of Serengeti National Park. I continue to say it, but the landscape surprises me at all turns. Due to the fact that there was rain a couple of day ago, the landscape was green, if not lush. Certainly not the arid landscape that I was expecting. The plain is vast and flat, but throughout there are many rock outcrops, or kopjes, that are home to many species of animals. We thought that we had seen a lot of animals at Ngorongoro, but the number of animals here is staggering. There are vast herds of zebra and wildebeest.

I don’t really want to go into a laundry list of what we saw, so I am posting more pictures than normal that I hope will tell the story. Even the route to our lodge was a game drive! The highlights include a sizeable herd of elephants drinking around a pond maybe 50 feet from the road. After seeing an almost incomprehensible amount zebra (and waiting for some of them to cross the road!) we took a detour to an area with several trees. Imagine our surprise when upon further inspection we saw a small pride of lionesses napping among the branches! At points some of them would look up and gaze in the direction of the zebra, but they must not have been too concerned that they would miss a meal, because none ever made a move to get up. A short distance later we got a real treat – a pair of male cheetahs were crossing the road to settle down and gaze over a small group of zebra. It is amazing to me how predator and prey coexist together. The zebra were very much aware of the cheetah, but were seemingly unconcerned. Speaking of zebra, we drove to another watering hole were the number of zebra was staggering. They just kept coming, there was no end to them. We couldn’t help but laugh at the beauty and absurdity of it all. Further along we reached the wooded plains and began to see giraffe, impala and other animals until we reached out lodge.

That was not the end of the safari fun however! After a quick lunch it was back to the car to check out a hippo pond. We thought it would be like what we saw back at the crater, with lots of hippos laying peacefully nestled in together and on top of each other. There were still lots of hippos (more even!), but there were anything but calm. There was constant movement – tails swishing the water, ears flapping and lots of bellowing and blowing of bubbles. Here are there little fights would break out with the mandatory display of teeth – a lot of this was done by youngers hippos, testing out their mettle.

On our way back to the lodge we were treated to a sunset just as memorable as the sunrise we work up to. The lodge is really quite special. Again, the goal is to blend into the landscape so each block of rooms looks like a two story round hut. The other special thing is that this isn’t within the walls of the compound, we are right in the park. So much so, that once it is dark you are required to call for a guard to take you anywhere on the property. It is not uncommon for a lion or panther to pass through and they would like to keep their guests in one piece J

It has been a great day and we can’t wait for whatever adventures tomorrow will bring!