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| 27 October 2003 - The rough guide to the Serengeti | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
The track started off nicely: the Great Rift Escarpment to our left, a few antelopes, and quite a bit of birdlife. And the going was quite decent too, all the way to Engaruka (S2.99695 E35.99871). As you enter the village, the locals have set up a Monduli Council gate where you have to pay a "council" fee of $5/person. Lack of communication skills on the collector's part prevented me from finding out which community projects (i.e. into whose pocket) the tourists' money is going towards. But I did get an official receipt and he kept on saying that we were now able to visit the Engaruka Ruins for free and proceed past Engaruka to anywhere without having to pay more money. We had planned to visit the ruins anyway so we headed off in their general direction (just after the gate take a left where the road splits and head east for about 4.5km). It was pretty obvious that not many people go there because the track was a little unclear as it wound its way through the extended village, past dukas, huts and people's backyards. There is a small, very basic community camp site (S2.99771 E35.96085) just past the school on the other side of the stream, where the track ends and the ruins begin. We arrived in the late morning and the heat was like Nandos hot peri peri. At the camp site we found a bunch of guys from the British Institute for Research in East Africa doing research on the ruins. A GIS researcher from Nairobi took us around to see a few of the more interesting areas. He has been coming around for the last 14 years and knows the area very well. Still, there are many unanswered questions about this old settlement, which is estimated to have housed as many as 5000 people about 500 years ago. Evidence of irrigated, terraced cultivated fields are everywhere, and they are now using satellite images and old photos to help with their research. The satellite images have revealed that there are ruins all the way up the Great Rift Escarpment and on to Mt Empakaai. Geologists and scientists have visited the area to study the various theories. The most likely theory is that years ago the river changed its course, leaving the irrigation system useless, and the people left, probably scattered in various groups in different directions. What is strange, and unanswered, is why there are no similar stone ruins anywhere else. As ever, funding is a researcher's problem so it will still be a while before the full story behind the Engaruka Ruins will be known. Admittedly, not much is left to look at, but you do wonder how different the place must have been. After scrambling around hot rocks for over an hour we thanked our impromptu guide (he was keen to show us around some more) and retreated to a shady tree for a cool pineapple for lunch. There is another basic community camp site in the village but for a night, or even two, we would recommend the site by the ruins. |
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Later in the afternoon we noticed a 4x4 on a side track near a dry stream, with a couple of people outside. As we got closer they seemed to be waving at us. The bonnet was open and one of the guys was busy with something, the other had a container in his hand. I went to check on them and it turned out they were South African, working for a hunting safari company in the area. They had gone for a drive and got stuck on a very rough track when their Cruiser's engine water boiled. They had some water and were waiting for the engine to cool down before heading back. Isn't it amazing where you find South Africans these days? Shortly thereafter we had our first view of Lake Natron, just a shimmering haze in the distance. To reach the lake, the track winds around as it descends the last few hundred metres. In the dry, apart from the dust, reaching Lake Natron is no problem. In the wet season the track is often impassable, especially the many streams, none of which have bridges or causeways. Oldoinyo L'Engai's volcanic actions are given away every time you cross one of the streams: the "soil" and stones are coloured in shades of black. We found driving through the streams interestingly strange, and wondered whether the water would be black or brown. We knew of a few possible places to camp but did not feel like going through them all so went to Lake Natron Camp because it seemed like the more established place. As we arrived we were pounced on by a couple of wannabe guides. Not much pisses me off more than wannabe guides that are more interested in extracting money out of you rather than leaving you alone so you can settle into camp (and by this time we had been in Tanzania long enough to have worked out that most Tanzanians we had met wanted to be our friend/guide/watchman/whatever to extract as much money as possible out of us). Camping was expensive at $8/person but I negotiated it down to $6 so we decided to stay there for the night. Apart from one other tent in the camp site, we were the only guests, even the tented camp was empty. In the dry season the lake shrinks a lot because it is very shallow, so the shore is quite far from the camp site. You can however go for walks directly from the camp but it is shorter to drive out onto the dried lake surface and reach the birds on foot. The camp site was nice with grass, shady trees and usable ablutions with cold (lukewarm actually) showers. I told Peter-the-wannabe-guide to come back the next day so that we could get on with dinner and relax in the hot wind. Shortly after we arrived, the Maasai women making and selling beadwork under one of the trees packed their wares and left. They have an agreement with the camp that they may spend the days there and sell things to tourists but may not go to the tourists. In theory this might work well, but every now and again they come and go specifically past the tourists and ask if you don't want to buy something. |
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In the morning Isla was quite keen to get a guide to show us where to drive on the lake to go and see the thousands of flamingoes that breed there. I thought I could work it out by myself but gave in and decided to try out Peter. As we only had 2 seats in the Landy, Peter had to stand on one of the steps en route to the lake shore. Getting to the dried out shore was pretty straight forward: as you reach Lake Natron there is another one of those council gates and a few signs for the camp sites. Just before the gate there is a track to the right (if you cross the stream you have gone too far) that leads down to the water. It can be completely trodden by cows' hooves but still easy enough to follow. We parked the Landy in a dried out area (the lake's dried surface is very much like the Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana) and walked to the water's edge. Simply put, there were many flamingoes. Even more simply, our guide doesn't know much about anything except to show where the birds are and where to drive. The meaning of a guide was lost on him. We even showed him some of the birds through our binoculars. So we just walked around wherever we wanted, identifying a few birds, and taking photos. |
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 Flamingoes left, flamingoes centre, flamingoes right, and there are many many more  Oldoinyo L'Engai towers above the lake and surrounding countryside. Any thoughts Isla and I may have had of climbing it fizzled in the intense heat |
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As the morning got hotter our guide thought that we would soon go back to the car so that he could get his money. He was wrong. You cannot walk all the way to the water's edge because you will sink to your hips in mud so the birds are a bit too far away for a standard zoom lens. So I walked all the way back to the car to get my big zoom lens to get a handful of (hopefully) better shots. For $4 each, our guide was going to sweat that day. Our walk over, he then tried to convince us to take us to their Maasai village for a "cultural" visit. But we disagreed on price: we were willing for $1 each based on his previous performance, he wanted $5 each. We said no thanks, paid him, and went for a drive to look at the other camp site options. Our advice is to forget the "guide", and enjoy the lake shore on your own. Lake Natron is a worthwhile out-of-the-way destination: there are more flamingoes than you are likely to see anywhere else, many other water birds, and the view of the lake on one side and Oldoinyo L'Engai towering nearly 2.5km above us on the other side make it quite unique. We first drove out to the Waterfalls Campsite (S2.63849 E35.87376) but the guys there had been sitting in the sun for too long. The place is a community camp site, little grass, little shade and a bad toilet, in other words, little or no effort has gone in making the place better (the camp has been around for a while). At $10/person/night (not negotiable) I just had to ask where the money was going because it looked to me like maximum money went into pockets but nothing went into the camp. The answer was interesting: $5 goes to the owner, the other $5 goes to the council/community. And they thought this was cheap because only recently was the levy at the gate replaced by this payment system. Now the gate stands open but previously each tourist had to pay $15 to enter the area! So in their minds this was much better. I explained to them that as tourists we were not interested in replacing their government to keep their community going. As tourists we expected to pay a reasonable amount given the condition of the camp and facilities available. The owner then had to decide what to do with that money, but clearly some of it had to be spent on the camp every now and again. And at $10 each this placed their camp as the most expensive we had found in the country (except national parks of course) and the worst value for money. This reasoning was lost on the manager, assistant and wannabe guides. The camp's redeeming feature is the nearby waterfall, the path for which goes straight through their camp. Isla and I had thought of going to check it out, without a guide, but decided against it because it was very hot and we did not want to get into any lengthy discussions about costs to see what is essentially a public waterfall. The "guide" fee to the waterfall is $5, a guide to climb Oldoinyo L'Engai is $40 for 2 people (cheap compared to Lake Natron Camp but I am not sure who/what you get for that).
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The following morning, with a few co-ordinates from our Kenya map (not a good map but at least had some tracks in northern Tanzania marked, better than the offerings from Map Studio) in the GPS, we set off to hopefully reach the Serengeti National Park before the end of day. Of course Peter-the-guide came around before we left to see if there was any money to be made, doing what I know not. The route away from the lake took us right through the nearby village and driving through it Isla and I discussed how there was no evidence of any projects that may have been carried out with the money collected from the few tourists that either paid the council gate fees or the camping fees. The track skirted the lake for 10 or 15km, and we passed quite a few springs with green grass growing down towards the lake and Maasai herding their animals. The track then left the lake and climbed a steep escarpment, reaching Sonjo (S2.28050 E35.69415) but we didn't drive into the village and continued straight/right to bypass Sonjo on the left. The track then climbed and became eroded and rough, unclear and with much cattle blocking our way. We really did not know whether we were on the right track or not, and regretted the decision to not go into Sonjo to check on directions, but the GPS showed we were heading in the general direction so why disagree with the GPS? |
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 View of Lake Natron from the top of the escarpment |
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The staff at Klein's Gate were quite relaxed, and who can blame them when hardly anyone goes through there. We paid our fees for 2 days and drove in, eagerly looking for animals and birds. It did not take long before we found our first large herd of wildebeest near the only public camp site in the Lobo area. The wind blew strongly so we cooked one of our sealed hiking meals, ate in the Landy, and were in the tent by the time it was dark. The camp site is not great, right next to a road with only a long drop and not even water, but it does offer views of the nearby plain and we were able to spot a couple of hyenas close by checking us out just after sunrise. We had the resident troop of olive baboons around us, and they kept a sharp lookout for the hyenas, while we kept a lookout on the baboons. After all, if the hyenas got too close the baboons would be a good alarm. |
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  Left: postcard-perfect giraffes in the Serengeti; Right: beautiful African thunderstorm in the making near our camp site |
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The next day we had until mid-afternoon to leave the park so in the morning we went driving around the Seronera River, one of the best areas to see a good variety of game. We wanted to see a few cats, but had no luck. We even found the balloon safari people having their pompous breakfast in the bush, but no cats. We also visited the Visitors Centre, a well laid out information centre, with good toilets. There we met the centre's manager Lemi George and had a good chat about Tanzania's national parks and he gave us a few tips of advice. If you are in the area, look him up. During a final drive past the Seronera River we saw 2 lionesses. Better late than never they say. The map we bought is unfortunately fairly inaccurate in a few places, and this is compounded by the signage at the intersections so we were about half way to Ikoma Gate before we realized that we were not on the Ndabaka Gate road. We did not have spare time to go back to the Seronera area so I took a connecting road heading in the right direction, and later an unmarked track took us to a dead end. What to do: go back to Seronera now or try the other track? I gambled on the other track and watched the GPS. After about 10km the track joined with the main Ndabaka Gate road and we could breathe a sigh of relief. Pity we did not have time to go back to the Seronera area and see where the correct turnoff was supposed to be and how it was marked. At least we still had enough time to look for animals and birds and get to the gate before our permit expired. |
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When to visit? People always want to see the migration but there is no 100% rule on this because the entire migration depends on the quantity and timing of the rains in the Serengeti and Maasai Mara. Generally speaking, in late October when we were there, most of the wildebeest, zebra and accompanying animals were in the Maasai Mara (Serengeti very dry at this time). As the rains begin in the Serengeti, the animals move down in November and by January they are all happily mowing the Seronera lawns. There is a lot of grass to be eaten and many wildebeests to be born so they stay in the southern half until April, when they start moving to the Western Corridor area to eat that grass too. By mid-year the crocodiles in the Grumeti River are fairly hungry so the wildebeest feed the crocodiles in June on their way to better pastures in the northern areas. They work their way northwards from July and by September they enter the Maasai Mara, where there is water and better grazing during the Serengeti's driest months of September and October. If you do not necessarily want to see the migration, or cannot be there at the "right" time, you will still find many wildebeest and other plains animals, and their predators too of course, so the Serengeti is still a worthwhile experience. We saw a number of mammals for the first time, and added considerably to our list of identified East African birds. And so our long-awaited visits to Ngorongoro and the Serengeti were over. We managed to "spice up" the journey by doing things a little differently, perhaps to get a little extra value out of the whole thing, but was it worth the expense? Yes it was. In SA Rand terms the Tanzanian national parks are exceedingly expensive but parks like Ngorongoro and the Serengeti are very much unique so we simply took the decision to choose carefully which parks we wanted to visit in Tanzania and spend the money. Once in the parks it was up to us to make the most of it, and this we did. |
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