There
is this thing called mal d'Afrique, an indefinable feeling of loss that compels
visitors to return to Africa time and again. A state of mind actually, it is
nevertheless real and infectious.
Theories about the
cause abound: it is a taste for dust; it is the alteration of one's vision,
becoming preoccupied with distance, far horizons, the sense that you've stepped
into a place of endless pristine wilderness; it is the feeling of detachment,
your spirit telling you you've found a place to linger; or maybe it is your
inner being recognizing the birthplace of its origin.
One thing is
certain: much like the common cold, there is no cure and the best you can do is
treat the symptoms. And, so it was that, seeking some relief, I headed to
Tanzania for a first-time visit to the
Serengeti.
The excitement of returning
to Africa notwithstanding, a trace of uncertainty hung over me as the
twin-engine, 18-seat plane (known as the 'bus' by safari camp workers) from
Arusha, Tanzania's 'safari capital,' made its way to my first stop. I fretted
that the Serengeti, a fixture on most everyone's "Places to Visit in a
Lifetime" list and the subject of countless television documentaries, might not
live up to all the hype.
As the plane banked hard to begin its
alignment with the airstrip's dirt runway, I gazed down on the vast plain. The
mid-morning sun sparkled in pinpoints off the plain, a sure indication that the
heavy rains of November recently had flooded this area of the Serengeti.
Nevertheless, beside the airstrip a small herd of giraffes languorously strode
among nearby trees, grazing on leaves, and beyond them, the odd wildebeest
stood impassively. These sights were the salve for my long-raging case of mal
d'Afrique, and I grew confident that the Serengeti, home to the largest mass of
free-ranging animals on earth, would, in fact, be all it's touted to
be.
After deplaning, I was directed to a car for a short hop to the
Grumeti River Lodge, a tented camp tucked away in a remote valley in the
western corridor of the Serengeti. Those who have yet to visit Africa are
advised to forget whatever association camping brings to mind. This is
something quite different. Although it offers only canvas walls (and at the
same time all the varied magical and romantic sounds of the African bush),
Grumeti in all other ways proves luxurious. Consisting of 10 spacious tents on
raised concrete platforms set under makuti (palm frond) canopies, Grumeti Camp
provides discreetly separated tents, each with a well furnished deck and
interior, king-sized bed, overhead fan, electric lights, ensuite bathroom with
hand basin, flush toilet and al fresco shower open to the stars and the
occasional curious vervet monkey.
But best of all, the camp abuts a pool that
supports a resident pod of
hippos and casts an atmosphere of sheer
in-your-face Africa. So while the manager advised me of the camp rules upon my
arrival, the most important being never, ever leaving your tent after dark
without a staff escort, the hippos serenaded with a cacophonous chorus of
snorts/grunts/bellows and harrumphs.
Safari camps are nothing if not
ultra efficient, and after the recitation of the ground rules I was told to
grab my photo gear, to not worry about my bags and to hustle to a vehicle that
would catch me up with a game drive already in progress.
Within minutes
we spotted an idling Land Cruiser that held a middle-aged couple who appeared,
from a distance, to be involved in some odd religious rite as they flogged
themselves with horse tail swatters. After hopping into the new vehicle,
sitting down, and immediately sensing pricks through my clothing, I realized
they were gamely trying to ward off tsetses, those nasty biting flies that have
retained their modern morphological form for about 34 million
years.
Following introductions all around, Waziri, the driver and guide,
posed the question guides will ask all new visitors prior to their first game
drive, "What do you wish to see?" "Big
cats, and after that, everything else," I replied. With that, we moved off. A
short time later, Waziri, stopped and said, "I see a cheetah sitting in the
grass far off on the plain. Let's go near and observe." We approached within 20
yards of the
cheetah, a beautiful female, who paid us
little attention, her gaze focused on a not-too-distant pack of gazelles.
Waziri began to speak, first in hushed tones then in an increasingly excited
and dramatic manner, much like an announcer of a thoroughbred horse race. "Look
at this beautiful animal. See how she stares at the gazelles. If we continue to
watch perhaps we will see a hunt."
"She is rising, look at how she is
holding her body and beginning to stalk the gazelle. She must get within about
50 yards of its prey to have a good chance at a kill, but she is still about
100 yards away, now 70 yards away, still too far."
"But look! She is
starting to trot; the gazelle see her and are moving away. There, she is going
to full speed now, maybe 100 kilometers per hour! She was too far away, but
still she is passing some members of the pack, she is focused on a very young
gazelle. No, she will not catch the young one; she is stopping, giving up the
hunt!"
We all sat back, winded, most likely from holding our breath, but
winded all the same, as if we had been chasing prey. "Let's have a look,"
Waziri said.
We pulled up within 5 yards of the cheetah. She sat on her
haunches, her chest heaving as she took huge gulps of air. Waziri explained
that although cheetahs can attain terrific speeds within a short time
(standstill to top speed in an astounding 3 seconds), they do not have the
stamina to go more than 200-300 yards at that pace.
At dinner that
night, an excellent four-course affair held in a boma (a traditional enclosure
under the stars), Waziri said he wanted to show us some
zebra and to expect an all-day game drive the
next day. Our destination would be the Seronera, located in the heart of the
Serengeti. An all-day drive was a departure from the usual game-drive routine
of a three-hour early-morning drive and a late-afternoon drive that usually
lasts past sunset, and I wondered what Waziri had up his sleeve.
The
distance from the Grumeti Lodge to the Seronera is about 100 km, or 60 miles.
But given the rutted, slippery condition of the road (again, it was November,
Tanzania's short rainy season), that distance requires about 3 hours of
driving.
The roads of the Serengeti, truthfully, do not make for
comfortable rides despite the robustness of safari vehicles. On a typical
drive, you will be jostled, hurled, thumped and lurched to each of the four
directions of the compass and all points in between.
But any
thoughts of discomfort evaporate instantly when presented with an interesting
sight, which luckily happens on a continual basis. So along the way to the
Seronera, we were diverted by the occasional warthog darting across the road
from tall grass followed moments later by a skittering handful of piglets; by a
strikingly beautiful Black-and-White Colobus monkey sitting practically
shoulder to shoulder with hawks high atop a tree along the Grumeti River; by
groups of various species of Africa's supreme scavengers, vultures, bickering
among themselves and intermittently putting on a fairly impressive show by
spreading their enormous wings; and by families of giraffes who, although they
preferred the road, yielded only when they realized the Land Cruiser
wouldn't.
We finally arrived at the western end of the Seronera, and the
Serengeti became a tapestry of wildlife spectacles, both large and small. On
retrospect, it almost seemed that we sat still and scenes moved past us: a
riverine glade populated with a herd of zebra, mixed in with
giraffes and wildebeest;
lionslounging in trees; a mother
elephant standing directly over her baby,
fitting as snugly as Russian nested dolls; a spectacularly-colored
lilac-breasted roller sitting on a tree limb trying to figure out how to
swallow an enormous grass-hopper it had firmly clamped in its beak; and
finally, what turned out to be the ace up Waziri's sleeve, the tail end of the
great migration, the largest movement of wildlife on earth as up to 2 million
wildebeest and zebra, in pursuit of food and water, rotate between the
Serengeti and the adjoining
Masai Mara Reserve in
Kenya.
On the
return from the Seronera, the dark gray clouds to the west portended heavy
rains at the Grumeti Camp, and as we proceeded both the road and the
surrounding plains evidenced signs of flooding. Three kilometers from the camp,
it is necessary to cross the Grumeti River. There is no bridge per se; instead
the dirt road here has been replaced by concrete and the vehicle crosses the
river which normally streams gently over the concrete.
As we approached
the crossing, it was clear that things had changed dramatically from earlier in
the day. The crossing then was easy and we had paused to grudgingly admire the
huge crocodile, toothy and glazed-eyed, that floated nearby in a pool on the
downriver side. Now water rushed over the concrete at an alarming height and
rate, and we all knew what awaited us should the vehicle be swept into the
river.
Waziri left the vehicle to better assess the height of the flow,
the ground clearance of the Land Cruiser and our chances of safely getting to
the other side. "Waziri," I said, "I guess it's important that the water
doesn't float the vehicle." "I'm not as worried about not floating, as not
dying," he replied. Who could argue with that kind of bottom-line
thinking?
Having made his decision, Waziri jumped on board and
slowly inched the safari vehicle forward. The vehicle held firm and moved
straight on, with no sideways motion detectable. Sighs of relief were audible.
This finale to the game drive, it seemed certain, would only embellish future
memories; after all, the appreciation of a thing is heightened by a touch of
danger.
Five days later, after subsequent visits to the northern
Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater, I was jetting home from Arusha to
Washington, DC. The 28-hour return afforded time to reflect on Africa's
vastness and remoteness, its abundance and variety of birds, animals, plants
and flowers-and much more than enough time to feel a familiar growing emptiness
in the heart.
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Steve Brynes
Theories about the
cause abound: it is a taste for dust; it is the alteration of one's vision,
becoming preoccupied with distance, far horizons, the sense that you've stepped
into a place of endless pristine wilderness; it is the feeling of detachment,
your spirit telling you you've found a place to linger; or maybe it is your
inner being recognizing the birthplace of its origin.
But any
thoughts of discomfort evaporate instantly when presented with an interesting
sight, which luckily happens on a continual basis. So along the way to the
Seronera, we were diverted by the occasional warthog darting across the road
from tall grass followed moments later by a skittering handful of piglets; by a
strikingly beautiful Black-and-White Colobus monkey sitting practically
shoulder to shoulder with hawks high atop a tree along the Grumeti River; by
groups of various species of Africa's supreme scavengers, vultures, bickering
among themselves and intermittently putting on a fairly impressive show by
spreading their enormous wings; and by families of giraffes who, although they
preferred the road, yielded only when they realized the Land Cruiser
wouldn't.
On the
return from the Seronera, the dark gray clouds to the west portended heavy
rains at the Grumeti Camp, and as we proceeded both the road and the
surrounding plains evidenced signs of flooding. Three kilometers from the camp,
it is necessary to cross the Grumeti River. There is no bridge per se; instead
the dirt road here has been replaced by concrete and the vehicle crosses the
river which normally streams gently over the concrete.
Having made his decision, Waziri jumped on board and
slowly inched the safari vehicle forward. The vehicle held firm and moved
straight on, with no sideways motion detectable. Sighs of relief were audible.
This finale to the game drive, it seemed certain, would only embellish future
memories; after all, the appreciation of a thing is heightened by a touch of
danger.