Friday, June 21, 2013

Safari

We had tears of joy in our eyes. We were just so overwhelmed. Beauty of this magnitude was just not possible. To see so much majesty one after the other was just too much. It was an experience of faith. It was hard not to see the wonders of nature as God's creation. As the last rays of sunlight were hiding behind the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater, I had to sit down and just stare at the pink orange sky. I admired the whorls of clouds turning gray, and was oblivious to the shouts of Masai warriors who came to the lodge to show their famous jumping dance to the guests. I simply had to pause. I stopped to thank God for bringing me to Africa. It all seemed a dream while I was experiencing it. It is even more unbelievable now that I am trying to recall what I saw one month ago. 
Ngorongoro Crater
  
Climbing Kilimanjaro

I had a tough day before the safari. We arrived at the Kilimanjaro Airport after a night without sleep because we simply could not say goodbye after one month of being together. So after our farewell dinner, we had drinks at the bar until it finally closed, then went back to our hotel's restaurant where we just spent the night talking before rushing to the airport. As soon as we landed, we were off to Moshi and then to the Machame Gate at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. 

Pole pole - slowly, slowly - our guide wisely advised us as we climbed from about 1600 MASL (meters above sea level) to 2700 MASL. He warned us several climbers have experienced altitude sickness even at that relatively low level because they were not used to the altitude or climbed too fast to acclimatize. As we walked up the trail and I saw the ancient trees covered by moss and fern forming an arch over our path, and as we heard the sound of waterfalls cascading cold water melting from the snows on the peak, I kept silent and meditated on the beauty of nature. When we paused beside a stream, Mahesh splashed water over his face and I followed suit, feeling the coolness of the mountain refresh my face after a tiring climb. Soon we saw the scenery change as tropical rainforest gave way to evergreen trees. Six hours of climbing later, we finally reached base camp - the Mandara Hut. We were a bit disappointed because there was nothing to see but lodges. We could have climbed 45 minutes more to reach a point with a nice vista but we had to turn back as it was getting late. It was then that my calvary began. Wearing shoes too small for my feet, each step was torture as my toenails were squeezed between my toes and shoes, especially when I had to step on big rocks. I grimaced in pain almost every step. My toenails turned black and one was even torn away when my son stepped on it, but I can only remember how my teammates helped me every step of the way. Christian kept bugging the guide if there was an easier trail I could use; Yingying asked the guide to hold my arm while I was descending. I refused the guide's help so she went ahead and walked beside me and held my arm as I stepped down. Mahesh went back and forth handing me peanuts to eat. When we were only about a kilometer away from the gate, the guides decided to carry me. As they ran downhill and skipped over rocks while I was held aloft, I was scared to death of toppling over and breaking my neck. It was already dark and raining when we finally reached the bus and then drove to our hotel in Arusha.
Straining to smile after climbing to Mandara Hut Base Camp

Ngorongoro Crater

I was able to shrug off the pain from the previous day as excitement took over when we set out for Ngorongoro Crater. We were introduced to our guides and then rode our specially built safari jeeps, which had roofs that could be opened for better wildlife viewing. We drove past Mount Meru, towering 4000 meters above Arusha, heading for the Lake Manyara area. We saw Maasai clad in red shukra (blankets) herding cattle and our guide began telling us stories about the Maasai. I learned that, traditionally, they ate only raw cow's meat, milk and blood and nothing else. They did not eat plants because only animals ate plants and were they not beings higher than animals? When we saw two boys in uncharacteristic black robes and with their faces painted white, we were told they had just been initiated - circumcised - and will soon enter manhood. Later on, my friend Jackson who was a Maasai but was now working in the city as a guide, told me they needed to look ugly while newly circumcised to avoid attracting women while they were still "injured." He also told me how those boys would soon go on a hunt, usually for a lion, to prove their manly prowess and so become full fledged Maasai warriors.

As we turned right from the junction, we saw our first giraffe eating acacia leaves around fifty meters from the road. We all shouted with glee as we saw an animal in the wild for the first time. Little did we suspect how much more we were going to see in the next three days. We took a lot of time taking photos and just observing with wonder. We were not even in a National Park. We were on the main road and we were seeing giraffes!

We kept driving west and soon I noticed we were going downhill and in the distance rose a massive green wall covering the entire horizon. It was the escarpment of the Great Rift Valley and we were going down into the valley and then climbing on the other side to get Ngorongoro. On the left side, we saw Lake Manyara, which Hemingway called "the most beautiful lake in Africa." Climbing the escarpment, we saw breathtaking views of the lake and the mountains in the distance. We stopped by a town called Mto Wa Mbu - River of Mosquitoes - to have a toilet break and I was once more assailed by touts selling bracelets. I was annoyed at first when they started talking to me in Japanese, but when I told them I was Filipino, they started asking questions about Mara Clara and other Filipino telenovelas. "Was Rachel alive?" one asked. I was ashamed to admit I did not even watch the show, but pleased to realize we were exporting our culture to, of all places, Africa. 

After about four hours drive from Arusha, I finally caught my first glimpse of Ngorongoro crater. So many superlatives have been used before and I am sure they were all warranted for it was a truly jaw dropping, astounding view. It is the largest unbroken caldera in the world at about nineteen kilometers in radius. At the bottom was a green plain with a small lake off to one side. At the rim, we were 600 meters above the floor so it was difficult to see any animals yet we knew a veritable Garden of Eden was awaiting down below.

Africa's Garden of Eden

We drove around the crater rim and finally started descending. As we went deeper and deeper, the immensity of the crater became more evident as we felt ourselves surrounded by a great blue-green wall. Certain areas of the floor were yellow and purple as they were carpeted by flowers in full bloom since we went there in the middle of the rainy season. I saw birds perched atop candelabra cacti and trees full of hanging, round, birds' nests. When we finally reached the floor, it was an unbelievable menagerie. Because the crater was relatively small compared to the vast plains of the Serengeti, the concentration of animals in the crater was much greater so almost everywhere we looked, we saw wildlife. We saw zebras grazing and their foals suckling; we saw a warthog - pumba - chasing off another warthog; we saw buffalos sleeping and chewing cud; we saw pink flamingos on Lake Magadi looking for snails; we saw gray herons and secretary birds and all sorts of birds soaring. As we drove further on, we saw a herd of elephants in the distance, about seven of them. They were like tanks sitting on the plain with the crater wall behind them. Then our guide told us it was a lucky day for two of the tanks were not elephants but black rhinos. Black rhinoceros were extremely hard to find because there were now only about twenty of them in the entire crater and they have almost been hunted to extinction because of their prized horns. We could not get any closer, but I saw them with my two eyes - a couple of black rhinos with large black horns, one lying down in the grass resting, the other grazing. Not one hour into our game drive, I had already seen buffaloes, elephants and rhinos and only needed to see a lion and a leopard to complete my Big Five.
Foal suckling from its mother zebra
 
We then drove to the Ngoitokitok Springs to visit the a bloat of hippopotami cooling off in the pool. We took group photos with them in the background and we were all afraid one of them might just get out of the water and bite us in the butt. It was late afternoon by that time and we had to be on our way. Simba iko wapi? I kept bugging the guide as he searched desperately for a lion but it was not our day. We ascended the crater walls once more and I wondered whether I could ever return to this amazing work of God. I put away my camera and I just stared and stared at the green plain speckled with yellow and purple, at the tall blue green walls surrounding us on all sides, at the clouds sliding across the crater rim. I wanted the images seared in my memory for I knew there were but a few places on earth as beautiful as this.

Elephant with the blue green crater wall in the background

After a day long drive, we finally got to rest at the Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge situated right on the edge of the crater and from where I was treated to another display of the sun setting behind the crater walls. As the sky turned from orange to gray to black, I saw a million stars shining so bright: it was the Milky Way blazing a trail in the night sky in a way it could not in cities blighted with light. We had an outstanding dinner and impeccable service at the lodge. As we made a toast for our other colleagues who were not with us on safari, I really felt lucky. This was the life I thought.

I was up early the next morning hoping to catch the sunrise but the view was obscured by fog. I just took a walk around the lodge when I found Birgitte and Saro looking at something. When Saro saw me, she told me to approach quietly and pointed to the bush. And there I saw a large elephant not more than thirty feet away from the nearest hotel room! I was thrilled to be so close to the beast, but so terrified too about being trampled to death. It was just another unbelievable moment in a truly unbelievable week.

Serengeti National Park

We were off to Serengeti National Park - the mother of all national parks - after breakfast. Not more than an hour into the drive, the safari jeep broke down. By that time though, we were so used to Tanzanian time and were so happy with each other's company, not one of us expressed anger at the delay. We went out of the jeep, played music and then ate our packed lunch in the bush. We saw several Maasai herding goats up the mountain. They were such a beautiful sight - tall, dark figures wearing shining red cloth against a backdrop of green hills and endless plains. One felt this was truly their land.

After a three hour delay, we saw the landscape change from green mountains to dry, brown plains with tall grass and hardly any trees - the savannah. The road was dusty. We passed by the Oldupai Gorge on the way to the Serengeti. Oldupai is one of the cradles of humanity and is where many important hominid fossils were discovered. Then I saw nothing but emptiness. As far as the I could see, to the left and to the right, there was nothing but flat land. I had never seen so much space in my life! Serengeti was aptly named by the Maasai for serengit means "endless plains." We opened the roof and we stood on our seats and we raised our hands as we drove 80 kilometers per hour on a rough road. I felt the warm wind blowing strongly on my face and the searing heat of the sun and the swirling dust trying to squeeze into my eye and I tried to just soak it all in and feel everything all at once and thank God I was here in Africa, in the Serengeti, where time stood still and where the wildebeest migrated and the lions hunted as they have for millions of years and where the cares of the city seemed all so small and meaningless.
Endless Serengeti Plain
We stopped by the Naabi Hill gate to register. We climbed the hill, which was really a giant granite rock called a kopje that survived the erosion of the surrounding plain, and saw just how vast and how flat the Serengeti was. I asked my colleagues from Mexico and Argentina how they liked mi rancho and we laughed like old friends.

As went deeper into the Serengeti, we saw more and more wildebeest, first in the dozens, then in the hundreds, then in thousands. Our guide dismissed our excitement and told us not to ask to stop the jeep anymore for there was something better over the hill. Indeed, the vista that opened before us was another unforgettable sight. It was another endless plain but it was not green grass I saw but a black mass that stretched to cover the entire horizon from left to right. As we came closer, dust swirled in the air, and the sound of a million grunts and the smell of a million tons of dung pervaded the air. We were now in the middle of one of the miracles of nature - the Great Migration. More than a million wildebeest and thousands of zebras surrounded us as they grazed and moved steadily westwards before heading to the north to cross the Grumeti River and then the Kenyan border only to head back the following year as they have done for eons.

The Great Migration

Dusk was approaching and we still had not seen a simba. In the distance, I saw more and more kopjes, the iconic rock outcrops where Simba, the Disney version, was raised as a cub for all the animals to pay homage to. We all fell silent as made a turn for the kopjes. There was an air of solemnity and anticipation for we all knew we were there to stalk lions. We reached the first kopje and we strained our eyes looking. We drove around it and found nothing. We made for the next outcrop, and the next, and onto the next, and still found nothing. We did this several times more with no success. It was getting dark and the rangers would soon arrive to enforce the curfew so we started heading for the lodge. We were looking forward to some rest and resigned ourselves to the thought that perhaps a lion would be found the next day when, all of a sudden, the guide stopped the jeep, and started driving in reverse. And then we saw why. In the tall grass right beside the road lolling around and swatting flies like a cat was a magnificent lioness. Many have seen lions in zoos or on National Geographic, but there is really nothing like seeing this majestic creature just a few feet away in the wild. Sheer admiration for its beauty combined with a palpable fear of its ferocity. We looked and stared and observed and admired. We could have stayed there for hours but it was time to go.
Simba
We knew we were supposed to be at the lodge by that time but then we saw a herd of elephants right beside the road so we stopped right in front of a baby elephant. We realized that was a big mistake because in the middle of snapping photos, we heard a huge mother elephant trumpet its trunk and we saw its enormous ears flapping. Then it began to charge towards us. Before we realized what was happening, our guide was alert enough to drive off and had enough good sense to know that even a large jeep made of steel was no match for an angry mother elephant.
Tembo
The sun finally sank below the horizon, capping our day with the sight of tall, black acacia trees against a dark orange backdrop.

We were up early the next day and it was still cold when we started the game drive. And then we saw more animals one after the other: bachelor male impalas without a harem waiting for their turn to challenge a dominant male otherwise know as losers; a herd of giraffes picking the choicest leaves from tall acacia trees; a lone bull elephant crossing the road; a huge hippopotamus out of the water and running so fast to get to the next watering hole; rock hyrax, rodent like creatures clustered together on huge rocks; a troop of baboons following its leader perched on a mound looking around for predators. We also saw a male lion with its magnificent mane, but it moved away when we approached and then lay down in the grass to sleep like they do for most of the day.

It was our fourth day on the road, and our butts were tired from sitting and the dust was clinging to our hair and clothes, but we never got tired of looking. We could have stayed on for another week and we would have loved it. But I had been away from home for five weeks so it was time to head back to Arusha, and go back home.

I have taken hundreds of pictures and written so many words but I know I do not even closely approximate how truly astounding and amazing this experience was. It was one peak moment after another and just when I thought I was done and was ready for home, there I was crying in amazement at the wonder of it all. Africa is a magical place. I did not want to wake up from this dream of an experience. I still wonder sometimes whether I really was in Africa.

#IBMCSC Tanzania 10 
Sunset in the Serengeti