Memories of Tanzania

by Anne Rothwell

Having travelled via Egypt, we flew into Kilimanjaro airport and made our way into Arusha. We booked into a hotel for the night and, although I carry adaptors, what a treat it was to find 13 amp sockets!

Our first outing was a walk around to see if we could find a good safari deal. The town was pretty basic with rough potholed roads, so I was surprised to see in the window of a small bookshop, a pile of Beta Mathematics answer books written by my ex-husband. I went inside and found that they didn’t have the books themselves, just the answers! Even at only 7p a copy, they were hardly a bargain.

We eventually discovered Wilson, who agreed to take us in his landrover for a few days’ safari to the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti National Park. He picked us up early the next morning and we stopped in a village on the way and bought some huge red bananas which were really sweet. There had been heavy rain and we drove through pools on the unmade road. As we got into the middle of one, we stopped. We’d broken down with the water two-thirds of the way up the wheels. The driver had to clamber out over the bonnet and stand on the front bumper to do a running repair. In the meantime, I managed to photograph two little boys who’d appeared from who knows where, as they tend to do when there’s something to see.

After travelling all day on unbelievably bad major roads and calling at Lake Manyara National Park, where the lions are said to climb trees (a treat we missed), we arrived just after dark at our first lodge on the crater rim. In the morning, we flung open the curtains to look into the crater and were confronted by thick cloud below us, but by the time we drove down after breakfast, it had cleared and we could see for miles. Several hundred yards from us, we could see a path which was coming down into the crater. It was dotted with scarlet splashes from the blankets worn by the Masai, who were allowed to bring their cattle into the crater early in the morning to allow them to graze, surely a risky business with all the wildlife around. Otherwise, the crater, an enormous extinct volcano measuring 260 sq km and 610 m deep, is entirely devoid of humans except those in safari trucks.

This place was simply superb! It must have contained almost every kind of African animal which exists. The first creatures we saw as we reached the bottom were several zebra. Later we actually saw the single leg of a zebra, as this is a totally natural place and no safari park. We also saw plenty of lions and could drive up within about 6 feet of them. One lake was full of flamingoes, another of hippo and there were numerous elephants, cheetahs, wildebeest, warthogs, hyenas, jackals, baboons, monkeys, giraffes, antelope, ostriches and, in the distance, a group of rhino. There were many more species of animals and birds, literally too numerous to mention and we were so fortunate to be viewing all this from our own vehicle, whereas others we saw seemed to be packed with people.

We left Ngorongoro, knowing that we could never surpass the wildlife experience we’d just had. But we set off into the Serengeti, looking forward to many more treats in store. There was plenty to see en route: part of the huge wildebeest migration returning from the Mara river; a beautiful big bushcat hiding behind some undergrowth; and at intervals along the roadside, boys holding up drained ostrich eggs for sale.

As we got deeper into the Serengeti, we passed close by a pair of lions. The male looked very thin and was lying on his side. Marven commented that he was on his way out, at which he opened an eye, looked up at us, then got up and proceeded to mate with the female. It was only afterwards that we realised that lions always mate for several days without hunting or eating. In fact, they were in the same spot when we returned three days later.

We eventually arrived at Seronera Lodge, which was miles from anywhere and built into a large kopje (rocky outcrop). Running around the rocks and the hotel verandahs were rock hyraxes, mammals which look like large guinea pigs. In front of the lodge was a natural rock plateau, where we sat alone drinking sundowners and watching the sunset across the plains. Paradise! The African skies are so beautiful; clear and wide and scarlet at sunset.

We didn’t realise that we had come during the flying beetle season. As the lights came on along the verandahs, they were zoomed in on by large black beetles with blue and yellow markings on their backs. The authorities refused to kill any creature as it would upset the balance of the National Park, so it was a case of opening and closing your door very quickly to get into your room: not a very successful undertaking. We attempted to flush them down the toilet, but they always reappeared, crawling up the sides, making using the loo a risky undertaking. As we entered the dining area of the lodge, we were surprised by how dim the room was. All was explained as we approached the buffet full of stews and they switched on the lights above it to serve us. Instantly, there was a ‘plop, plop’ as beetles fell down into the food. The servers merely scooped them out with spoons. Fortunately I’m not squeamish and have a cast-iron constitution.

During the night, we heard a lion roaring quite close, indicating a kill. Sure enough, a minute or two later, we heard the starting up of a 4-wheel drive vehicle as the rangers set off to investigate.
The following day, I thought all was surpassed when we passed by a mother cheetah and her three cubs. That is, until we saw a leopard dragging an antelope up a tree. Who needs David Attenborough!

First published in VISA issue 60 (April 2005)