This
morning we left Ngorongoro and set out northward, toward the cradle of
civilization at Olduvai Gorge and beyond that to the Serengeti Plain. Our goal today was to try to complete our
photographic quest for the ‘Big Five’. This phrase was coined back when the
great white hunters came to Africa to prove their hunting skills, coming back
with horns and/or skins of the most difficult animals to hunt: lion, leopard,
African Elephant, rhinoceros and Cape Buffalo. Since the end of the age of
hunting, more species have been added to the list of must-haves for the
photographer: cheetah, giraffe, zebra and hippo. Well, if you go back over yesterday’s photos,
you will note that we’ve covered six of the Big Nine so far. Of the remaining,
the leopard is the most difficult to capture on film or digital card. Follow
along and you’ll see what we managed to add to our list today…
Morning
dawned a little cool but with the promise of a beautiful day. Here are a couple
of photos from our balcony, out over the Ngorongoro Crater.
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| One of our fellow group members, Dick, took this one for us |
It will
be a shame to leave this place but we have more different and interesting
places to see on the rest of our tour. So, after having packed our duffel bags
for a two-night stay in Serengeti, we set out for a long overland journey. Of
course, no car trip can be entirely glitch-free:
Our
first stop was at Olduvai Gorge. This is a long standing archaeological dig
that was opened by Louis and Mary Leakey in the early 1920’s and where the
oldest evidence of Homo Habilis was found in 1960. Homo Habilis is modern man’s
ancestor who walked upright, was noted for making and using tools and had a
social culture that included some form of family unit. There’s a long story
(no, they didn’t just throw a dart at a map and decide to dig out here in the
middle of nowhere) that goes with how this spot was found – suffice it to say
that sometimes keeping something just in case somebody might need it some day
really paid off in this case. Louis Leakey happened to find some dusty old
fossils that a butterfly scientist had picked up and put on a shelf in a corner
of a museum and deduced that they were early man’s tools…and the rest, as they
say, is history. Here are a couple of
photos from the site and the most important find that established the family
culture of 3.6 million years ago.
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| Overlooking the Olduvai Gorge site. At least four universities do digs here every summer |
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| A cast of the original footprints that lay about sixteen miles away in a secondary site. The man's, woman's and child's footprints here proved that early man lived in family units. |
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| One of our safari trucks. In the background to the left are our Tanzania drivers Severin and Manase. |
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| This cute little guy is an Agama Lizard resting on a board in the sun. |
As we
headed out across the plain, suddenly leaving what little track we could see
that looked like a road and driving along what was no more than a couple of
ruts in a field of short grass, we started to see just how big and endless the
Serengeti actually is. It isn’t completely flat - the distant hills are a
lovely backdrop to the view in any direction, but it is hard to conceive of
anything this size just covered in grass with trees and bushes relatively few
and far between. Here’s an idea of what we mean:
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| Zebras out on the plain |
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| Grant\s Gazelles |
Everything
is so vast that it is difficult to believe that the zebra and wildebeest
actually manage to survive the trek each year. And not long after that we were
reminded of just how dangerous that is - a hyena came across the road ahead of
us, fresh after a meal and having forgotten to wash his face.
We’re
not sure what he and his friends had just been eating, but the zebras in the
area didn’t seem to feel threatened by them. Nor did the warthog or the
Thomson’s Gazelles. We were glad that the hyenas weren’t hungry when all of a
sudden our guide Severin pulled to the side of the road and informed us that we
had a flat tire – and that we would have to get out of the truck while he fixed
it!! Get out? In the middle of the middle of nowhere?? With hyenas and who
knows what other predators possibly lurking??? Yup! Apparently they were more
concerned about other safari trucks hitting us than four-legged attackers, so,
yes, we did all get out of the truck at the side of the road. See?
The only
time we were a little nervous was when the vultures started flying overhead…..
Once
that was fixed, we continued on for another ten minutes to our lunch stop. It
was a picnic area up on a hill that was an obvious regular stop for most safari
tours and highway buses. The kitchen staff at the Ngorongoro Lodge had packed
us wonderful (and too big) lunch boxes that the local bird population wanted to
share. They were everywhere except in the boxes!
We had
noticed the dark clouds moving overhead just before we started lunch. By the
time we finished we were already feeling a few raindrops. So off we drove, but
we managed to find a few lionesses taking an afternoon spa break before the
threatening clouds started to drop their load all over us. 
Of
course, you can’t go for too long without seeing something out here, and after
the rain we came across some more elephants. In this case, we counted 11 of
them all in one place, including a few young ones.
And
after that we turned off the goat-track that passes for a road and onto what
looked for all the world like two wagon ruts in the grass!! While it felt like
we were “off-roading”, Severin told us we had entered prime leopard-viewing area – open fields with
shady trees nicely spaced from each other. Leopards are real cats – they like
to spend their days up in the trees. This gives them a good vantage point for
spotting prey and keeps them out of harm’s way themselves. They are so strong that
even once they have killed a meal, they can drag the carcass back up into their
tree to eat in peace. So there we were, all peering up into the trees, looking
for the tell-tale (tail?) signs of a leopard – the legs and the tail hanging down
off a large, fairly low limb. So we drove, and we drove and we drove some
more…and then we spotted a group of about eight other safari trucks all in one
place. Well, we knew that something had to be up if that was the case. So
Severin drove over and could see exactly what everybody else was looking at:
Yes! We
did it!! We had made our conquest of the Big Five Photo Challenge! And in fine
style, too. More often than not, the leopards are so far away you can hardly
see them. This guy was no more than 20 feet from the road and 15 feet off the
ground! So we’ll just leave you here to enjoy a few more photos of this big
cat:
Once we
left there, we forgave Severin for each and every bump in the road and all the
washboard he had driven us over all day – then he drove us for another hour and
a half, over even more bumps and washboard, to get to the Four Season Serengeti
Lodge, where we are staying for two nights. On the way we ran through some more rain, but found our first impalas.
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| A male |
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| Part of a harem of females |
The
O-M-G in the blog title didn’t just refer to seeing the leopard, it also
referred to this lodge. We have never seen anything so beautiful and integrated
into the landscape as this hotel. We’ll post some more pictures tomorrow, but
for now you can look at these:
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| Overlooking the pool and the elephant watering hole |
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| The lodge lobby |
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| Our room - bathroom and closet 'room' (yes it is that big) are behind Monica on this side |
Well,
we’ll be off early again for a long morning of game driving. Stay tuned – now
we’re on the lookout for cheetah to round out the Big Nine!
