Safari: Part 1

Shannah Tovah to everyone. I’m back in London, and enjoyed a great Rosh Hashannah with my family, who I cannot ever seem to get enough time with. Just to catch everything up, I took the New York Bar at the end of July, and the Multistate Proffesional Responsibility Exam on August 7. I spent a great week in New York with the Greenbergs and the Waynik Larrisons, and then made my way out to California. After seeing too many close friends and family to name, the week was capped off with the great privilege of being at Nicole (Scher) and Ari Gesher’s wedding. I then headed back to Atlanta where I finished selling the last of my furniture and packing up my life after 4 years of Grad School at Emory. I flew to London on September 3^rd, and spent a few days there before leaving Europe for Africa.

While my sisters got off easy, my parents took a hard line towards my television watching habits when I was growing up. Rather than cartoons, which were forbidden at all times except early weekend mornings, I grew up on a steady stream of A&E and the Discovery Channel. Nature documentaries on Africa were common viewing, and seeing all this incredible wildlife, in person, became a goal of mine from a very young age.

After a daytime flight from London to Nairobi, I spent one night in Kenya before catching an early morning flight to Tanzania. I was met at Kilimanjaro airport by Masha, my guide from Rangers Safaris, who would drive me and the other members of my group through the National Parks of Tanzania. At the coffee lodge, I met the other members of my group. There were Mary, Diane and Cynthia, three ladies from Cairns, Australia, who were travelling through Africa together for a month. There was also Fabrizio and Catherine, who were from a town near Lusanne, Switzerland. After lunch, the six of us settled into our seats in a modified Toyota Land Cruiser, and headed for a our first stop, Lake Manyara National Park. We arrived at the hotel in the late afternoon.

The hotel is situated overlooking the Great Rift Valley, one of the truly incredible geologic featrues of the world. It is the boundary between two tectonic plates that have pulled away from each other, forming a massive valley. It runs from Lebanon in the north, forming the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, all the way to Mozambique in the south. The valley and its geologic activity are responsible for the rift lakes of Malawi and Tanganyika, which are two of largest, deepest lakes in the world (and home to African Cichlids, a family of tropical fish which I kept for many years). It created the fertile soil that made Zimbabwe Africa’s breadbasket, and the gold and diamond deposits that enriched much of the African continent.

We arrived at Lake Manyara too late to go on a afternoon game drive, however early the next morning, we set out for the valley floor. This was my first game viewing experience,  my senses were heightened. At first, one notices the absence of the sounds most of us are used to, however, you soon become aware of a whole other catalog of sounds that indicate the wildlife present just out of sight. Lake Manyara was the most forested area we visited the entire time. The highlights of Lake Manyara were definitely the hippo pool and the giraffes.

After lunch, we set off on the long drive to Serengetti National Park. It took most of the afternoon, mostly along dirt roads. We travelled through the Ngorongoro Conservation area, and briefly along the ridge of the crater. The conservation area and Seregngeti border each other. The key difference between the two is that the Masai are permitted to graze their cattle and live in the conservation area, but not in Serengeti.

We enterred Serengeti National Park and immediately popped the roof up on our Land Cruiser. August is not the best time of year for viewing animals in the eastern Serengeti. The wildebeast and zebra have migrated to the north, leaving the Serengeti plain sparsely populated. As we moved northwest through the park, the amount of animals around us gradually increased. We started seeing small groups of thompson’s gazelle and impala. As we got further northeast, elephants and buffalo began appearing. This was when we saw our first lions. On that first afternoon, we saw two individual females, a female with two cubs, and briefly before reaching our lodge for the evening, a lion and lioness.

Early the next morning we set out for a full day of game viewing in Serengeti. There were two particular highlights of that day. First, we were driving through the park when we spotted a lioness walking with a particularly purposeful stride. Every minute or so she would pause, put her head up and look off to our left. After she did this a few times, we looked off to where she was looking, as saw a herd of gazelle. We quickly drove around to get ahead of her and positioned ourselves in prime viewing area of where she would stalk from.

It was one of the more gripping things I’ve ever seen in my life. We watched as the lioness crouched down and stalked towards the unsuspecting gazelle. She got very low to the ground in a way that exagerated the movement of her shoulder blades. She used the road we were on as cover and moved closer to the gazelle. She was less than 50ft from me when she broke. Fortunately for the gazelle, she hadn’t picked a specific one to go after, and was unsuccesful. Even so, it was incredible thing to watch.

Secondly, we encountered a family of elephants at the river. Elephants travel in family groups led by a matriarch along with other adult females and their babies and young adults. As the approach maturity, young males are kicked out of their herds and often times form small groups of their own. Fully grown bulls tend to travel on their own. As we approached the river, the elephants backed away, but gradually become more comfortable with our presence. Everything was fairly calm for a while. We watched the elephants as they bathed, and drank, and threw mud on themselves. Suddenly, the matriarch became very alert, the adults surrounded the babies, and the entire herd focussed its attention away from us. Our guide said he thought he had seen a lion. Then the matriarch spread her ear, raised her head,s and rushed towards a patch of grass at full speed. As she approached it, we saw two lions scatter away in retreat. Whether or not they intended to attack the elephants is unknown, but the protective habits of adult elephants were on display in a very big way.

The next day we travelled to the Ngorongoro crater, which is the world’s biggest intact caldera. Ngorongoro is interesting because it has a permanent water supply, and as a result, its animal populations tend not to migrate. After driving much of the previous afternoon, we arrived at Ngorongoro as the sun was setting. Our lodge was on the crater rim, and it got quite cool at night. We set off early in the morning for the crater floor, taking our breakfast with us. As we descended the 2000ft to the crater floor, we encountered a large family of hyena, as well as a sizeable wildebeast herd. The lions were not long in in showing up, and we saw a pair of black-maned brothers chasing off some young intruders. Later we found a family of adult females, subadults and cubs as they were starting their morning routine. Lions prides are very similar to elephant herd in their structures. They are generally comprised of an alpha female as well as other adult females, subadults and cubs, and are led by as many as 3 dominant males who tend to be brothers. Young males are expelled as they approach maturity. Recently, Ngorongoro has developed issues with inbreeding in its lion population due to the lack of migration of lions in and out, and the limitted number of prides in the crater.

After Ngorongoro, there was one more park to visit in Tanzania before heading north to Kenya. Tarangire is the third largest national park in Tanzania. It was the most barren of the 4 we visitted, and the most devoid of life. We did not see any predators, btu we did see lots of elephants. As we approached our lodge, we saw an entire herd at the entrance. This is the dry season in Tanzania, and they were making themselves at home, using a spigot that was left on at the hotel. It’s not exactly easy to get in and turn it off with a bunch of elephants around. The other interesting thing that happened in Tarangire was that one of the trucks we were travelling with got a flat. We stopped and Masha helped their guide change it. I had spent all this time observing the wildlife from inside the protected confines of the Land Cruiser. This was the first time I had been outside, itn eh middle of a park. Things were very quiet, and I walked up the dirt path a little bit (with Fabrizio). There were no animal tracks in the road at all, which was unusual as we were used to having animals clear out from in front of us as we drove. It made me feel a little safer. Little did I know that I’d get a lot closer to the animals when I got to Kenya.