Serenading Serengeti

At the outset, I apologize for typos/grammatical errors in my posts- I write as time and internet connectivity permits, and don’t have the privilege of proofreading! So sorry.

From Nairobi, we flew to the gateway of all safaris- little town of Arusha in Tanzania. As soon as we landed and were waiting in the meandering immigration lines, Manav had a bit of an allergic reaction to one of his mosquito bites; nothing terrible but he was very itchy. I had some Benadryl tucked away but it was in the bag that they had just taken to have checked (turned out it was legos that were suspect!)...anyway, while I could have waited to get it, my instinct to just help find him instant relief was very high. So, I look around and there is a desi family (probably living in the UK, judging from their accent) in the immigration line next to ours...so I lean over and ask ‘Aunty’ if she has an antihistamine and right away, out comes a whole strip of it, complete with directions on dosage for a child. I am touched by these random acts of kindness I see as I travel...we thank her knowing , we will never meet again. 

Oh wait, now we have the meds but nobody has water on this side of the prison they called the airport..so, as I get Manav to try and swallow the pill using his own saliva (what?? You’ve had to do that sometime, haven’t you??!! Essential life skill, I say!), I see the hitherto stern- looking Tanzanian immigration officer turn around, walk out of his little glass cubicle and come back with a bottle of water, pours a glass for Manav and then proceeds to give it to him, with a big smile and essentially for me, a warm welcome to this endearing country!! As we’ve spent the last 8 days in mainland Tanzania, its people’s warmth is just so so endearing. Genuine, warm, effusive show of love, joy and care. 

The phrase Hakuna Matata (no problem, no worries ) is used unhesitatingly for all kinds of situations...only shadowed by the even more used Karibu...meaning, ‘you are welcome’. We quickly learned few other Swahili words and I must say, the children are much more adept  at remembering the words. 

The next few days were just a splendid journey into the wild. We traversed through multiple landscapes, highlands, plains, savanna, woodlands, coffee,  rice and banana plantations. We ate Ugali (porridge), and lots of arrowroot and taro/tapioca. Slurped on juicy mangoes and passion fruit. But most off all, we saw animals and birds- raw, unfiltered, unphotoshopped - thousand and thousands of them set against spectacular backdrops, white alkaline lakes, dried up river beds. Many migrating in throngs northwards in search of water, where crocodiles await in stealth silence in Grumeti and Mara Rivers. Others just living the resident life in the world’s largest intact caldera- Ngorongoro. Ngorongoro is easily one of my top 10 must-sees in the world. The kids kept count, but we saw upwards of 80 species of animals that we could identity and several more that we didn’t care to learn names of but simply marveled at their existence. 

We spent the 8 days at Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro. With a side trip to Oldupai Gorge and to a Masaai tribal village (Manyatta). 

Yes, we saw the big 5- Elephant, Cape Buffalo, lion, leopard and the black rhino. The lions being most common (we saw 47 of them) followed by elephants-matriarchal herds and solitary tuskers. You can imagine the kids’ squeal each time we saw a baby elephant within arm’s reach!! There were a ton of baby animals..I think our timing after the birthing period helped. 

We drove around for miles in search of the highly elusive leopard and rhino. We almost jumped out of our skin when we spotted (hehe) a leopard just dangling its legs from a tree about 20 feet away. Along with several other safari vehicles, we waited there patiently for it to move, but alas- this one was camera shy, perhaps or just didn’t appreciate the constant paparazzi:)) Our eyes were exhausted looking through our binoculars but not a move from this shaker of the Serengeti! 

There are only about 2000 black rhinos left in the world..some say about 32 of this critically endangered beast left in Ngorongoro...our guide, Papa Joseph said it is unlikely that we would see one. And Manav decided he could not wear his newly bought,’i went to Serengeti and saw the big 5 T-shirt )..he was even considering using a permanent marker and changing the 5 to 4:)) just then, we saw a Himalayan car rally of sorts ..scores of tan-colored, open roofed beasts of the safari- Toyota Land Cruisers race towards this one spot and lo and behold, not one but two rhinos, just standing around, basking in the sun. We spent an hour gawking at their glory, AND got a constant commentary from Manav on conservation efforts to save different animals around the world. It’s like he is possessed when he talks of animals and their habitat, ecology, and behavior. He gets genuinely misty-eyed when he talks of critically endangered species or those on the verge of extinction. His knowledge of species that are ‘data deficient ‘ is astounding- not sure where he picks up all this info. 

Manali is a sprouting photographer. She has the tenacity and enthusiasm to capture just the right image. She hung out of the top part of the safari multiple times, fearlessly till the male lion looked her straight in the eye..she was the self- assigned CTO for our trip. Her job included making sure all gadgets were charged etc each night. 

The children came up with other C-suite designations; CFBO (food and beverage Officer), and CEO (Chief Entertainment Officer). Somehow I was stuck with CCO (Chief Cleanup Officer!!)).

While the Big 5 surely earned their recognition among safari goers, its the wildebeest that I was most enthralled by- our guide, Papa Joseph told us the wildebeestee was made of spare left-over parts of other animals! Still to me, they were cute. Watching these animals in the wild, motivated me to learn more about them. That’s another aspect of travel that  I love....the insatiable search to learn more, understand more. I learnt that wildebeest and zebras tend to stick together during their migration because the wildebeest know where to find water and zebras have a strong memory to lead them there. 

We saw thousands of zebras (Manav insisted that some are black on white stripes and others are white in black stripes), thousands of Thompson’s and Grant’s gazelle. We saw ostriches doing a mating dance. We saw olive baboons (they can bring down a leopard!), baboon babies riding on their mana’s underbellies. We saw African black kites dive bomb, elands mating (this needed some explaining to the children), waddling warthogs, Egyptian geese, the large Kori bustards, water bucks that looked like they had a white toilet seat stuck to their buttocks, Sacred Ibis, yellow bull stork, lilac breasted rollers that resembled the color of one of Mummy’s saris , and southern ground hornbill, which the kids quickly pointed out that it was declared as one of the world’s ugliest birds. We saw mongooses and crocodiles and hippos soaking in hippo pools. 

We saw Masaai giraffes crossing the road, leisurely as twigas (giraffe in Swahili) do, munching on picturesque Acacia trees. My favorite, the ancient and wise-looking Baobab treees, watching in. 

We saw nature at its rawest. No fences, no caregivers, no mercy. An eagle mauling a smaller unrecognizable bird, headless and featherless, a pack of hyenas circling in on a herd of wildebeest, trying to get the weak one from the pack, and last but not the least, we saw a lioness having just hunted two zebras...it’s claws and mouth still dripping blood, panting heavily. She looked undeniably strong and potent yet seemed like she would not eat her Jill until the patriarchal ritual of the male eating first was completed. The anthropologist in me can not help but see all this against the light of human evolutionary behavior. 

At night, we slept in tents that were pitched in mobile safari camps, essentially make-do camps that were set up depending on where the animals were likely each season. Manav and Manali chatted up co-campers, while eating roasted corn under a starry nights. The teenage girls from Lucerne, Switzerland and their physicist dad, the four year old from Venice, Italy and the Masaai Ashkari (night guardsman) who shared his tricks at warding off wild animals if they came close to our tents. Hard to believe but we heard lions roar at night, as I clenched the kids close to my chest in comfort. Together, we made memories. 

The Serengeti serenaded us with it all- the soft and the strong. The savage and the scenic. 

Next blog- ‘Where we were all one- Olduvai Gorge.  When we were all one- The Masaai Tribe’.

Next stop- ZANZIBAR. Until then, Hakuna Matata, my friends! See you later, Crater!