We saw the most amazing animals at Serengeti, but after the Cape buffalo kill and lion fighting by our tent last night, I was more than happy to leave this park and continue our journey.
We left Serengeti and drove toward Ngorongoro. On the way, we had to stop several times to pay a fee to drive though small villages. This might explain why some of those dirt roads were in much better shape than some of the high clearance 4-wheel drive roads that passed through other villages. Either way, I was still sick and Ezzie had to pull over a few times so I could "check the tire pressure" along the way. At least there were no lions to worry about in this area. :-)
It wasn't long before we arrived at the entrance for the Ngorongoro Crater, and we had about 15 minutes to relax while Ezzie took care of obtaining our permits. We saw more Superb Starling, which have gorgeous metallic blue feathers and a bright orange belly.
After we paid, we drove for a short while past thousands of migrating wildebeest, all moving in a thick line across the plains.
We then visited a local Maasai village. We had passed many Maasai tribes over the past 5 days and would be spending time with the Maasai on tomorrow's trek through the hills and when climbing their sacred volcano, so it made sense to learn a little more about their tribe.
When we arrived, they had a group of men and a group of women. Lukasz joined the group of men, was given a stick, and was invited to join them in a welcome dance.
Then it was my turn. I took off my hat to don their colorful ceremonial collared necklace, which is large and round, and looks a bit like a spaceship.
I also had a short welcome dance and song.
Then everyone lined up for a group photo under an acacia tree.
And they did more singing, this time with the guys jumping. I wonder if any of these guys have ever played basketball? They sure can jump high!
The Maasai are semi-nomadic and pastoral. They raise cattle and goats, and eat raw meat from the cattle, as well as raw blood and raw milk. The thought of nicking a cow's artery for blood letting sounds rather vampireish to me and disgusting, but that's their culture! Unless being used for medicinal purposes, they do not consume grains, fruits, or vegetables. You'd think they would have high cholesterol and get sick from not getting enough vitamins, but they are actually healthy and have lower cholesterol on average than most Americans.
The kids, particularly young boys, spend their days out in the fields herding goats and the men herd the anorexic-looking cows. The cattle - male and female - all have horns and a large hump as if they were part camel. The men often carry a large knife in a sheath on their side and carry either a large staff or spear (in the event a lion or other predator comes in to attack the herd). At night, they bring the livestock into their little village area, which is surrounded by either poisonous plants or the thorny branches from acacia trees to keep the cattle inside and the predators out.
The men do not become warriors by killing a lion or other animal (they used to do this, but due to the threat of endangerment, they usually only kill lions and leopards in defense rather than through hunting). To become a warrior, boys of a certain age (about 15) undergo circumcision in front of the entire community. To show their bravery, they must not flinch or cry during and for 20 minutes after being circumcised. If they pass this test, they are allowed to wear red - the color of the warrior. Warriors are the ones who protect the cattle and the tribesmen from predators and enemies.
In addition to taking care of the children, the women also help the children with herding sheep and goats, collecting water and other supplies, and making the beaded jewelry that both the women and men wear.
The Maasai don't drive cars. They walk most places, and can cover a lot of miles in a day, or they use donkeys. Donkeys can carry 70-100 lbs, so when they have anything heavy, large, or in large quantity, they strap it on a donkey or have the donkeys pull a cart. As Ezzie says, the donkey is the Maasai "Range Rover". :-)
The Maasai are very colorful people! Their clothes and jewelry tend to use bold bright colors, and like the red the male warriors wear (which stands for bravery and strength), the colors are symbolic.
Blue symbolizes energy, the sky, and water. Green symbolizes nourishment - the land provides food for the people. Orange represents hospitality, friendship, and generosity. White (the color of cow's milk) represents purity and health. Yellow represents fertility and growth (like the sun, which is needed for the plants to grow). Black represents unity and solidarity. I bought a colorful beaded bowl, which has just about all of these colors in it!
These are their homes (and that's Lukasz bending down to crawl into one). Men can have multiple wives depending on how many cattle they own. About 10 cattle will be enough dowry for one wife, so if a man has 50 cattle, he can have 5 wives. No matter how many wives a man has, each wife makes her own home. Homes are made out of wooden branches, mud, small sticks, and cow dung. The cow dung is particularly important for keeping water out when it rains.
The homes are very small, but there is room for preparing meals.
There is also a large space for the adults to sleep, and a separate spot for the children to sleep.
The Maasai have their own language, which differs from Swahili, though many also speak some Swahili and English. We visited one of their schools while class was in session. These kids were about 8-10 years old. They didn't have desks or pens/pencils and paper. Instead, there was a chalkboard with some words on it that the children were learning.
They were being taught English while we were there, so we asked if they could demonstrate their knowledge. They said "sure" and asked one of the kids to come up front. The teacher asked him to spell a few easy words in English and he wrote the word using his finger in the sand. Impressive! (I was tempted to give a word to Lukasz and ask him to do the same...)
This was their bathroom, which was basically two holes in the ground, no doors separating the holes, and no privacy from the outside on the far side. It also had two wobbly pieces of flimsy wood to stand on. Before we left, I had to use the bathroom, but there were a few guys standing there talking that didn't seem to care if I was going to the bathroom. It was an interesting experience to say the least!
When we left the Maasai tribe, we headed up to the top of the Ngorongoro Crater (about 7500 ft), which is where we'd camp for the night. Along the way, we saw a large group of giraffes along the side of the road.
When we arrived at camp, there were several Marabou storks there to greet us. Their size is rather intimidating! I think Lukasz remembered getting bit by the raven on Mount Kili and wisely kept his hands behind him... :-)
They aren't super beautiful, but their beak looks deadly!
I have no problem watching from a distance. LOL
While our tents were getting set up and our dinner cooked, we walked around to the edge of camp to look down into the crater's bottom. The sun was setting, which made a beautiful picture in the sky and reflecting off of the water below.
Although I was actually not sick anymore, I still had to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. We were told this campsite was much safer than Serengeti's, but I still had to exercise caution as there were 5 Cape buffalo between 10-20 feet away from our tent hanging out. It was dark and they were very intimidating at night. I went the scenic way, back past the kitchen area giving them a wide birth and hoping none were hiding out in the narrow passage between the kitchen and the bathroom area. I was also hoping that none of the other 4-legged animals I read about that live on top of the crater were near our camp. These include leopards, hyenas, and cheetah.
The buffalo seemed content to just stay where they were, but knowing there were large buffalo right by our tents made it a little bit more difficult to sleep once I got back in my tent, especially after reading about how they violently attack people, killing more people each year than lions and making it to the top ten most deadly animals list. I fell back asleep, and other than fresh buffalo dung near our tents, there was no sign in the morning that there were even Cape buffalo around.
We had a nice relaxing breakfast before heading down into the crater. Along the drive, we passed more Maasai villages.
As we headed around the crater ridge, there were some openings in the trees with views into the crater bottom. Ngorongoro has 3 craters. We would be descending into the main one, which is the 6th largest unbroken caldera in the world. Before the volcano erupted (about 3 million years ago), it's estimated that it stood 4500-5800 m high - almost as tall as Mount Kilimanjaro (5895 m)! The other 2 Ngorongoro craters are the Olmoti (which is known for its large waterfalls) and Empakai (which is made up mostly of a large lake).
I had read there was the highest concentration of animals in the crater of any park in Tanzania. As a result, I was expecting to see every type of animal in large volumes tightly packed together by a watering hole (the lake). This was not the case. It seemed just as spaced out as the other parks we were at, with a few animals scattered here and there.
The first animal we saw down inside the crater was the ostrich.
One thing I didn't mention in my other posts about the ostrich is their mating ritual. The male's skin turns red when he's ready to find a mate. They dance, flap their wings, and strut around, swinging their head from side to side with the hopes of attracting a female (I know some men who do this). They also make loud and rather annoying sounds that attract the female ostriches.
The females play hard to get, but eventually go to whichever male has the loudest voice and the best dance moves. In return, to let the male know she's interested, she also does a little dancing ritual. She shakes her wing tips, bobs her head, and crouches down. The male then comes over and mounts her.
The male can have many females - they are not monogamous - but usually there is one primary hen in his "harem" who is dominant. This hen has first choice of where to nest, and she will lay her eggs before the other females.
Despite the rather spirited "dance" this girl did, the males in the video below didn't seem interested and kept right on walking.
The best part of the Ngorongoro Crater was seeing the endangered black rhino. This also was the last of the "big 5" that we needed to see.
There are 26 black rhinos in the conservation area and we saw 2 of them! These are not only severely endangered, but rangers have to be down patrolling the crater bottom 24/7 as poachers try to descend into the crater at night and kill the remaining rhinos. Rhinos are killed for their horns, which are used in Asia for medicine. Also, in parts of North America and the Middle East, the horn is used as a rare and priceless ornamental dagger handle.
The black rhino (and the white rhino) are actually grey in color, but have different lip shapes because of what they eat. Both are herbivores, but black rhinos eat a lot of tree leaves, berries, and bushes, while the white rhino eats mostly grasses.
Lake Magadi is in the middle of the crater and is full of pink flamingos. We didn't see any flying, but they actually have black wings (which can only be seen in the air during flight).
Flamingos can run on water, using their webbed feet to help them gain speed before taking off into the air (which sounds like a water plane). They are 4-5 feet tall, but only weigh 6-8 lbs (unlike the ostrich), which is why they are able to fly.
When flamingos eat, they dip their head in the water, turn it upside down, stir up the water and mud on the bottom of the lake with their beak, and sift through the mud water to collect the shrimp or algae with their beak like a large spoon. Also, if you watch them walk, you'll see that their knees bend backwards!
An interesting fact about flamingos is that the pink from their feathers comes from the food they eat! There is beta-carotene in the plankton, shrimp, algae, and other crustaceans that make up the flamingos' diet.
Along with the flamingos, we saw more hyenas. This one was enjoying what looks like an antelope leg.
And there was one lone hippo in this lake (at least that we could see), and the flamingos didn't seem to mind him being there at all.
We saw Blacksmith Lapwing like the ones below also at Tarangire Nat'l Park.
And we saw Egyptian geese at the Tarangire Nat'l Park. However, we did not see them resting on top of a hippo. :-)
There was a small school of hippos over on the far end of the crater, in a little pond isolated from most everything else.
They were covered in white cattle egret, and didn't seem to mind.
In addition to being up on top of the crater by our camp, there were plenty of Cape buffalo down in the bottom of the crater as well.
The migration of the wildebeest continues...
As we started heading toward the opposite side of the crater, we saw a group of lions napping by the rocks.
I've shared a lot of pictures of lion, but haven't shared many facts about lions with you... Lions are the 2nd largest cat in the world - the largest being tigers, of which there are none in Africa.
Compared to other cats, including house cats, and those we saw like the leopard and cheetah, lions are very social and live in prides (which usually have 1-3 males, 8-12 females, and their cubs). The Ngorongoro Crater bottom houses over 60 lions!
I mentioned earlier that lions sleep a lot and the females hunt, but in addition to sleeping, male lions will fight to protect each other, their territory, and (as we saw in Serengeti) their kills.
Members of a pride keep track of each other by roaring, and their roars are very loud (I can attest to this) and can be heard up to 5 miles away.
Only the male lions have manes. The females are more agile and lighter than the males, but because many of the animals they hunt are faster than them, they hunt as a group using teamwork by fanning out and having some of the lions go around back to lure prey toward the other lions who lie in wait to pounce on the unsuspecting animals.
Just past the lions, we swung around to the other side of the lake and saw more zebra grazing.
And then we saw another rhino. This was the second black rhino we saw, and he was much closer!
Both the male and female rhino have 2 horns, which are used for defense. Rhino are often seen by themselves because they are solitary creatures, unlike giraffes and zebras who hang out in large packs. They spend a lot of time in the shade or rolling around in the mud (which repels bugs and protects them from the sun).
They don't reproduce quickly. Females have only one calf at a time, and they have only one every 2-5 years. The calf stays with the mom for about 3 years, at which time it is big and strong enough to live on its own.
As we continued heading toward the other side of the crater, we saw more wildebeest and warthogs.
Despite being a blonde, this warthog is just as ugly as all the other warthogs we saw. LOL
There was a large green marshy area that served as a watering hole on the other side, and many animals were there, including hartebeest, wildebeest, Cape buffalo, ostrich, zebra, and gazelles.
Despite seeing them in 2 places, they are considered endangered birds due to losing their homes and being removed (both the eggs and birds) from their environment illegally.
There was also a spot at the other end of the watering hole to use the restroom and have a snack. This was also a nice little place for hippo to sun themselves on the grass or take a dip in the pond...
I think there's something in the water behind you. Better not go for a swim...
The hippo were playing peek-a-boo in the water.
They would be completely submerged for a minute or two, then slowly pop the top of their heads up, and then go back under. It was entertaining to watch.
Wanting to show off the black under her wings, she took off, flying low over the water.
Time to eat! I see a nice delicious fish!!
When we turned to get back in the Land Rover, we saw several yellow weavers making themselves at home. You can see how small they are compared to the size of my 1 L water bottle.
We were just about ready to leave the crater bottom and head up to the top toward the Ngorongoro Highlands. On the way, we saw more zebra.
Mom and baby hugging each other.
Bath time little one! But mom, I'm thirsty. Can't I have a little more milk?
We got lucky once again and saw a lion resting by the dirt road.
He got up when he saw us and took a little walk.
Apparently, he just had to use the bathroom.
Because then he went right back to laying down.
Life is so rough when you're a lion.
The day consists of sleep, sleep, and more sleep.
Or watching the animals (and safari vehicles) passing by.
And posing for pictures.
The lion was the last animal we saw before climbing out of the crater and meeting up with the Maasai people to begin our trek through the highlands.
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