Masai Mara, Kenya and the Serengeti, Tanzania: a colonially drawn border runs straight through. And divides a Maasai nation.Travel would be so much easier if you could pass from one to the other.
Instead travellers must go the long way. Back to Nairobi, then through the Namaga border crossing (we've been here before) to Arusha.
Tanazania insists on this arrangement: They don't want Kenyan travel guides taking people through to Serengeti on the impression they are still in Kenya; They want to charge for visas; They want people using the tourism infrastructure of Arusha. They charge like wounded buffalo for park admittance fees - and they have a double header: Ngorogoro and the Serengeti.
The cross border nigling has interesting sides. In the Masai Mara we spotted grass fires. If he can be believed, our guide reckons the Tanzanian park people light fires to create smoke to hold the wilderbeast as long as possible before the migration.
I have a little difficulty with Ngorogoro. I want to say Orongorongo, as in the hills east of Wellington.
Masi Mara and Serengeti are all about big, open, sun-baked, African spaces (like Australia, it makes you realise how confining NZ geography is) ... and animals. Most well known af all being the wilderbeast migration. At the last river crossing for the wilderbeast, the Mara, crocodles were gathering in 'crowds' at the crossing point in expectation.
One for the books. We witnessed at close quarters, two hippos mating in the river. The male had a big smile on his face ... and there were stacks of crocs nearby! I thought he was supposed to never ...
Like clockwork the 6:00pm thunderstorm rolls in across the Masai Mara. Firstly, the sky goes dark over the yellow grasslands lending a wonderfull light. Animals make a delightfull contrast against this darkening setting. Then down it pours. Again like clockwork - for an hour. It clears to allow the witnessing of a magnificent full-moon rise. Stars burst out a-twinkle in the dark west.
The rain adds a bit of interest to the four-wheel driving next day.
During that night we heard drums and chanting coming from the nearby village as the Maasi dance to the full moon.
The road from Nairobi to Masi Mara is truely a shocker. Nicknamed locally as the 'Masai Massage'. But when we again enter Tanzania the roads are good. Roads in Kenya really are crap. Admittedly there are lots of roadworks in progress, which will be good in the long run - operative word being 'long'.
I have written earlier about the tourist trail Dar to Nairobi. Back in Arusha again, 5-6 weeks later, and now peak northern hemisphere holiday time, it's a three-ringed circus. And as of 1 July, all prices and park fees go up. The tooth ended costing more than just the dentist.
On both safaris, as fate would have it, we are again landed with some intersting people to share the 4WDs with. In Masai Mara, it's two young English people, Fi and Jim; Yahtzee novices - but now hooked. And in the Serengeti, a Norweigan couple Aslaug (an occupational psychologist completing her PhD with a thesis on Change Management) and Bjorn, a civil engineer. Both Yahtzee devils.
Animals. Animals. Animals. Big Five. In Masai, a large lion pride devoured a wilderbeast. In the 'geti, lion cubs bounce after their mum. Fabulous leopard and cheetah experiences. Still, after some time, just fantastic.
There's lots of great potential mountain bike tracks. So long as you back yourself to out ride big cats, dodge buffalo, rhino, and elephants etc.
But an interesting side visit which fitted in perfectly with some of our reading. Serengeti features the Olduvai gorge and not far away Laetoli. At Laetoli were found fossilised footprints (3.6 million years old) of Australopithecus afarensis, the earliest-known incontrovertible evidence of humanity's existence. We're talking the craddle of civilisation. No hominid fossils exist from this period (yet found anyway), but these footprints have almost concluded argument on which came first in human development: the upright and striding bipedal gait or the large brain. The brain appears to have lost. We walked first, then our brain developed, then we invented tools. But Olduvai does have fossilised skulls, from a later period, of earliest hominids, and findings of some of man's earliest tools. Way cool. What an interesting place.
Back to Arusha, with a cool and lucky spotting of a leopard at Lake Manyara on the way. We make a visit, just to complete the full picture, to the UN Rwanda Genocide Trials to sit in on a court hearing for a brief time. Not to hear gorrie details or anything, but just to observe the process. Interesting.
Picked up a couple of interesting news snippets:
The June figures for the Kenyan police clampdown on the Mungiki sect reached 112 dead (including 11 policemen). It continues in July.
A Mexican, Carlos Slim - who looks anything but - has overtaken Bill Gates as the world's richest man, making his fortune primarily in cell phones. Not surprising. Third world/developing nations can leapfrog generations of technological advancements. There never would have been copper to the shacks, roundels, huts, bandas here in Africa, but cellphones are everywhere. Makes you wonder about pricing models at home. There's plenty of broadband about (internet cafes in remote places have wi/fi, broadband satellite.
And, after not hearing a sausage about it, the NZ team missed winning back the America's Cup. I'd like to think they are now over that folly and just let it go.
I've (often) written about corruption and nepotism in Africa. Well I never, I read George W. has commuted a two and a half year prison sentence for a former vice-presidential aide buddy. Ah, you gotta luv it.
Back to Nairobi, for the fifth time. We have now 'done' East Africa. A couple of days to sort out some business and then the push north. Next stop Ethiopia for some culture and history.Getting there will be half the fun. Until very recently the only way was to climb aboard an armed cattle truck convoy, risking attack by shifta - Somalian bandits. There's now a bus, safer - though apparently still armed, to get us across the Dida Galgula desert to Moyale, the border post. From there to Addis Ababa is a piece of ...
Pinch me, I'm dreaming.
Max
aka Mad
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