Of Heresy, Old Friends and Near Misses

[twaffle]

Thanks Lynn and Paul (glad you're back, can't wait to hear all about it).

Edited January 7, 2019 by wilddog

[Atravelynn]

Great shots from that hole in the ground. Does the relaxed nature of the animals in the crater extend to the eland, which are habitually shy? Noticed you caught one.

[twaffle]

Eland were reasonably compliant, as they are in the Mara North C. In Serengeti I spent most of the time viewing the fleeing backsides of large eland herds.

[ZaminOz]

Fantastic photos Twaffle!

[twaffle]

Thanks ZO.

[twaffle]

A 30 metre hike to paradise …

 

 

The Serian Landcruiser stopped in the middle of what looked like a wide, grassy valley. On the left stood a tangle of rocks, piled high, one on top of another with some scrubby bushes growing out between them. Baraka firmly said that we were to get out here and walk the rest of the way to the Lake Eyasi lookout. I was sure that he said we were going for a 30 metre walk, which at the time I though was slightly odd. A 30 metre walk to a lookout hardly seemed worthy of note, but they do things differently in Tanzania. Well, scanning around there was no way that there was any escarpment within 30 metres of where our truck now sat. No cameras we were told, “the local Maasai don’t like photos taken near their camp”. Now these were definitely not tourist savvy Maasai or they would have let us take our photos of them and then haggled for a fee. Things were looking up and all that I'd heard about this area being unspoilt by tourism could be true after all.

 

 

Intrepid explorers that we were, we left the safety of the Landcruiser and began our 30 metre walk to who knows quite where. Baraka is a guide so full of enthusiasm that one can excuse some of the simple mistakes of language … we became used to viewing sunsets in the morning, or was it sunrise in the evening! What a beautiful place to walk and as the 30 metres stretched into 300, we enjoyed birds and flowers, skittish eland in the distance, some zebras and Grant’s gazelles and the occasional Maasai herder bringing in the cattle to the boma. An authentic, non touristy boma with great big fierce dogs to protect everyone. The children waved and didn’t ask for money or pencils, and there wasn’t one beaded necklace draped over a makeshift display. Perhaps it really was paradise.

 

We slowly started a steady climb towards more trees and bushes in the distance, and roughly 30 minutes after beginning, we found ourselves on the edge of one of the most spectacular escarpments I have ever seen, bila shaka! How to describe it? Not a hut nor village nor camp in sight; sheer cliffs descending into crazed and dry looking plains which reached across to the vastness of Lake Eyasi which was mottled blue and pink and grey in the diminishing rays of the setting sun.

 

 

 

We met John Moller (I had met John in 2010 and it was really nice to see him again. He had inspired me to take a different direction with my landscape photography and I think it made me reassess all my work and I haven’t really looked back since. I wish others had a chance to see his photography, it is unusual and exciting.) and Mikey Carr-Hartley (John was showing Mikey around the camp and the area as he has his own company as a safari guide and also has a number of camps himself). I balanced a large gin and tonic with one hand, whilst I tried to set up my tripod with the other. The battle became a three way tussle between me, the tripod and the flies, but surely gin would kill any fly germs … so the drink was ultimately finished.

 

 

 

Mikey found a kudu perched on the side of the escarpment, although how anyone could possibly have seen it I will never know, but in truth, we all managed to see it in the end. I have a “Where’s Wally” photo which Mikey shot on my camera so that he could show us where it was standing. I still have days when I struggle to see it … see how you go!

 

[twaffle]

More Migration Madness …

 

It really becomes the most difficult dilemma when staying at a true bush tented camp. There may be Maasai askaris patrolling at night, but there isn’t a great crowd of tourists to give the illusion of civilisation; and then the night slowly crowds in on your tent and the soft glow of the hurricane lamp outside can no longer keep it at bay. So do you give in to your own sense of insecurity and close the canvas flaps, or do you embrace the wildness in your soul and let the fly mesh become the barrier between your fears and the excitement of pretending to live dangerously.

 

I stood inside the tent and looked out, so quiet and peaceful, and decided that I should embrace the wilderness, heavens knows, the mad rush of a so called civilised world was waiting for me in 7 days. The canvas flaps will stay open.

 

I have to say one thing, Alex knows how to supply his guests with comfortable beds. Both this camp and the one in the Mara had the best, most luxuriously wonderful mattresses I have ever experienced on safari. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a pretty important consideration at the end of a long day in a safari vehicle, and even after a 30 metre or 30 minute walk.

 

So I tossed and turned in my comfortable bed. The ‘almost’ full moon streamed in through the open canvas flaps of the windows. The wildebeest in this arm of the migration swept closer and closer to the tent and watched the dark shadows move across the front of the open tent. Then they moved back, coming ever closer until they dominated the tent’s front rectangle of mesh and all the time making the incessant ‘muh’, ‘muh’. Migration immersion for sure, but not conducive to sleep. Over the top of the constant munch, muh and muffled hoofbeats another sound slowly rose to dominate every other sound. The magnificent roar of a lion starting from a low rumble and ending in a crescendo of sound. And again and again as it slowly came closer and closer.

 

The recipe was now; lions roaring and getting closer; moonlight to see prey; lots of prey around my tent; canvas flaps open but mighty strong fly mesh safely zipped up and 1 human snoring so that aforementioned lions would know that there was a tasty morsel inside. At least one of us slept.

 

As I appeared the next morning in a groggy state of having embraced the ‘wildness’ in my soul, I didn’t have the courage to let anyone know how uncertain and apprehensive I had been. Asking in a light and carefree manner whether the flaps should be up or down in this part of the Serengeti, I was told by Baraka that the lions down here were very difficult and not at all like the friendly Masai Mara lions and that I should always put the main canvas flap down. Fantastic. John said not to be ridiculous and it was perfectly safe, enjoy being out in the wilderness. I mean, the fly campers sleep under fly sheets!

 

I’m no coward, for the next 6 nights I undid the main canvas flaps so they would hang half way down, amazingly I slept deeply from that point on.

[Kavey]

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!

[Game Warden]

Stunning photos Twaffle. Just getting up to speed on the report. Such a shock and loss to Alex's Serian team I'm sure.

[bushwalker]

Awesome pictures and fine words….thanks

[Atravelynn]

I'm doing a better job imagining lions parading around your tent with open flaps than I am finding the kudu. Is it barely visible behind a tree, upper right? Or is that also my imagination? Beautiful scenery shots!

[Shreyas]

A very vivid description of the Serengeti night. I hear you on the "mighty bush tent" Have myself been in a situation of a hyena clan brawl right outside my bush tent....hearing a hyena's territorial howl on the other side of the canvas makes one feel so powerless!!

 

The Serian Serengeti sounds like such a perfect setting. How far exactly is it from Ndutu. As from what I read and hear, the migration spills out into Maswa quite considerably, right?

[Super LEEDS]

Like Atravelynn, I can't see the kudu either (conclusively) but have seen several lion, a few rhino and an elephant!

 

Thanks for sharing the report so far and well done for leaving the tent a little ajar! The description of the lions being "difficult" is quality.

[twaffle]

Thanks everyone. The kudu is standing in front of a rock, quite centrally. At the end of the report I'll post it again with a circle around the animal. Super Leeds, too funny! A bit like wildlife spotting, my prized sightings are often rocks and bushes.

 

Shreyas, don't know mileage of Serian to Ndutu, but it's roughly a 3hr game drive or 2hr without stopping. You drive through Maswa GR and onto the edge of Ndutu then onto the lake. It makes a nice easy game drive day as the country is so varied.

[Super LEEDS]

Found it. Oh my, it's tiny!! And just looks like some erosion/colouring - striations? - on the rock.

[twaffle]

That's probably it, well done!

[Atravelynn]

Good clue. I think I see the head shot. Or else it is Super LEEDS rhino.

[pault]

I found something, by looking where it would be if the photographer tried to put the center focus point right over it. However, I really couldn't say it is a kudu. Are you sure it wasn't one of these "log animals" that Sangeeta and Atravelynn are so good at spotting?

 

Still liking the reporting and what a view! I think you were very brave to sleep with the flaps up but it doesn't help with the amount of sleep. Sounds like a wonderful night. I thought the (indirect) reassurance that it was just as safe as sleeping in the open under a flysheet was funny and very "male"; although of course it is true that there is nothing at all to worry about, a baboon would never keep the tent flaps up, I'm sure!

[JohnR]

I can see its ears so I guess there's a kudu in between.

[twaffle]

Honey badgers are trouble!

 

You know the feeling? Had a great day out in the field and taken some reasonable photos. You want to brag about how lucky you were. So with a lovely sense of calm and satisfaction you stretch out your legs in front of the camp fire, nurse an icy gin and tonic and prepare to regale everyone with your sightings and adventures. And then the others sit down and without any sense of shame tell you about their great day! What is wrong with people these days? Why would anyone want to know about their encounters with honey badgers? Especially when some people have never seen them and really want to. Grrrr. So just because they saw 4 Honey Badgers doing interesting badgery things on the plains, it doesn’t mean that they are superior wildlife spotters at all. And because they had close encounters with these little critters, I chose not to tell them about my wonderful time with a gazillion lions and more gazillion cheetahs. So there! To top it off, John showed me some photos he’d taken of a HB attacking their vehicle, fairly leaping at it with teeth bared. Made the lions I’d seen look quite tame.

 

Feeling not a little sulky, I determined on the next day that HBs should be ours.

 

The following morning was misty, wet and vaguely mysterious as we headed out into the woodlands.

 

 

There is something magical about driving out into the dullness of an overcast morning and moving into a forest of twisted and tortured trees, then to see the wildebeest and zebras starting to move out of the shadows and into the slowly brightening day. I almost expected to see wizards and goblins, although I have to say that some of those young wildebeest looked a little goblin like. It was a scene I wasn’t prepared for, and was unlike anything I had seen in pictures of the migration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surrounded by all this beauty, I still had the hankering in the back of my mind that somewhere we would surely find the honey badgers even though I knew that this wasn’t their country yet.

 

 

 

We moved from the acacia woodland onto the plains (with a breakfast stop along the way) and at the farthest extent of our arc back to camp we saw them. Little scurrying black dots in the distance. We drove across the plains as quickly as we could until we were able to take a blurry ‘proof’ photo before they disappeared down a burrow.

 

 

Thinking that we may be able to return on a future drive, it was then that I made the fateful decision to waymark the HB den, not knowing what ramifications it would have one cold and wet night in the dark of the Southern Serengeti.

[JohnR]

The suspense is killing me...

[twaffle]

I'm going to bed!

[Super LEEDS]

Nooooooo, please continue. How can you leave us on the mighty Honey Badger - times 2 at that?!

 

This trip report reminds me of the tv series Lost: seems to go on forever, leaves you on cliffhangers with no answers but you're always back for the next dose!

 

Also, the island in Lost was controlled by a big, evil monster too

 

If mean comments like this don't encourage you to give us MORE MORE MORE, Twaffle, nothing will.......

[pault]

Gratuitous cruelty to your readers!

 

(Grudgingly) Fabulous shots of misty wet morning and dung beetle.

[twaffle]

If its any consolation, I didn't sleep well at all.