With Vitalis’s shida (trouble) traveling from Arusha to Karatu yesterday on a Noah (a step up from a dala dala that stops at each village and packs about 20 riders in a small van the size of a large telephone booth) where he was stuck in Mto wa Mbu for several hours, we were just a bit delayed in our departure. He came at 6:00 am to get the vehicle, but had to wash it, check it out mechanically, and pick up some water prior to our departure. We didn’t leave Karatu until about 8:00 am, slightly later than I like, but at least we were on the road. Ashley, Laura, and Theandra were all packed and ready to go when he arrived at the house, and he had already picked up Saidi, who would be joining us for the weekend, in town.
The drive to Oldupai Gorge was uneventful and we met Professor Masaki, my friend whom we have visited for the last 8 years and is one of the directors at the gorge, in the parking lot for him to give the residents a talk about the history of the gorge. It is so amazing to me that Oldupai is visited by such a small percentage of those who pass by here on their way to the Serengeti. Having visited this site so many times and seeing so few vehicles here (even in the high season, there are typically only a handful here) while hundreds pass by on the main road several kilometers away. Oldupai (the correct spelling as many of you have heard me speak of in the past despite the fact that most Western references use the misspelling of “Olduvai” after the German neurologist who first visited here in 1911) is unquestionably the single most important archaeological site in the world and for the history of humankind.
It was here that Louis and Mary Leakey spent their entire careers searching for our closest ancestors, and only after nearly 30 years did, they find their first fossils confirming the significance of this region in the history of man’s evolution and finding that multiple lineages coexisted here for a significant period of time. Mary Leakey outlived Louis, but continued to work at Oldupai and nearby sites, and helped unearth the famous footprints left by a family of Australopithecines at Laetoli in 1976, and which were at the time the oldest proof of bipedalism by a hominid at 3.7 million years. To this day, Mary Leakey’s camp (and Land Rover) still exist at Oldupai and are now the site of a living museum in her honor. I had the privilege of visiting the Leakey camp long before it was open to the public, when Professor Masaki took me there in 2017, and brought me into one of the buildings that stored non-hominid remains, though I was still very impressed by the ancient mammoth tusk he had me hold that day which was probably a million years old.
After visiting the wonderful anthropological museum at Oldupai, in which numerous fossil replicas are stored of the early hominids and many other fauna, we decided to eat lunch there as the time was getting late and everyone was hungry. Though there are no black kites (such as those in Ngorongoro Crater that dive bomb you while eating lunch), the smaller birds were very aggressive in trying to steal any morsel of food they could find. At least they weren’t likely to steal an entire sandwich in a flurry of flapping wings as do the kites.
We left the museum area of Oldupai and descended into the gorge itself, traveling back in time as we moved to the oldest sediment layers, eventually reaching the black volcanic base that occupied bottom of this amazing geologic complex. We traveled across the now dry main riverbed, passing by the site where Mary had found Zinjanthropus in 1959, then representing the oldest human ancestor to date. We climbed the opposite side of the canyon on a road that has been essentially cut into the rock itself, driving by some remote staff housing, and finally finding the “road” to Shifting Sands. Calling it a road is a very generous term, for the entire distance is essentially two tire tracks in the sand and mud that constantly fork to avoid areas that are no longer drivable.
Once close to Shifting Sands, you can see the large pile of black volcanic sand that rises from the plateau and is constantly being blown in one direction about 5 meters a year. Originally ejected from Ol’ Doinyo Lengai, or the Mountain of God as known by the Maasai, the black volcanic sand is highly magnetized which accounts for the fact that it has remained together as it traverses the Serengeti plain, devouring brush standing in its way, though always moving in a westerly direction. The site is sacred to the Maasai, as is Ol’ Doinyo Lengai, and several other places in the area.
Departing Shifting Sands, the trail we take continues to the west and is a shortcut to avoid driving on the main road to the Serengeti, which is extremely bumpy, wash boarded, and rocky with safari vehicles traveling in both directions at very high speeds. Having had our windscreen shattered by a rock from an oncoming vehicle several years ago, doing almost anything to avoid taking this road is certainly an option you want to take. Having nowhere to fix the windscreen as we were traveling into the Serengeti National Park, we spent the weekend looking through a heavily duct-taped piece of glass that seemed like it could have collapsed at any moment, but it didn’t, and remarkably we were able to get home with it in that condition.
The trail from Shifting Sands intersects the main road shortly before it reaches the border of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Serengeti National Park, though you still have about 30 minutes to reach the Naabi Hill gate where you check out of the conservation area and into the park. We were running a bit late, so didn’t hit the gate until about 3 pm, and still had quite a distance to get to the camp where we’d be staying for two nights, Dancing Duma. (“duma” is Swahili for cheetah). As we left Naabi Hill and descended onto the Serengeti plains that are within the park, it was truly remarkable just how green everything was as far as your eye could see and beyond. This had been evident as we came down from the crater rim earlier in the morning and as we crossed the Southern Serengeti on our way to Naabi Hill.
What was also very clear was that the bulk of the great migration was now in the Southern Serengeti and in the regions of Lake Ndutu and Gol Kopjes where you could see long lines of wildebeest and zebra that were easily several kilometers, and there were many, many of these, in addition to tens and hundreds of thousands of animals just scattered across the plains grazing. We knew that we would be coming back this way in the near future, and so we continued to move on towards the central Serengeti and the region of Seronera. As we crossed the vast expanse of the Serengeti on our way towards our camp, which was just west and south of Seronera, we spent time game viewing and spotting various animals. The ground was very wet from recent rains that had come through this region, and the road we were taking that traversed towards the Sopa valley had long stretches of very muddy road that required some extra attention for navigation to ensure we made it through in one piece.
Driving through this valley that I have become quite familiar with over the last several years since we’ve been staying at Dancing Duma, the roads seemed to be their typical muddy mess as there is less sun here to dry them out. We are constantly coming upon forks in the road as the main path becomes impassable and we veer off into the bush on two tire tracks that seem to have been driven only by the vehicle that came immediately before us or at times we’re making our own trails.
Arriving to Dancing Duma just before sunset, we were greeted by the staff with cold washcloths to wipe off the dust and glasses of cold and fresh fruit juice as our baggage was carried up to reception before sorting out which tents each of us would be staying in. Laura, Ashley, and Theandra were in the first tent which was a triple, and Saidi and I took the next two tents as singles as we had the entire camp to ourselves for the night. We decided on dinner at 7:30 pm after time for a quick shower and took photographs of the amazing sunset that unfolded before us as we relaxed before dinner. Despite having been to the Serengeti so many times before, each visit is like the first for they are all very different. I’m sure it’s overwhelming for those who have come for the first time.
We discussed our plans for the morning, though I knew we would be leaving early as Vitalis loves a predawn departure on the first day, as do I. We would depart camp at 5:45 am and have both breakfast and lunch on the trail, spending the entire day game viewing, getting back to camp near sunset again.