Arie Goes on Safari: The Beginning

It seemed silly to go all the way to East Africa and not see any lions, so I booked a ten-day safari in Tanzania. We were picked up at Kilimanjaro International Airport and driven in a rather large Toyota Land Cruiser (the real kind, not the SUV) to a place called the Serena Mountain Village, an unreasonably fancy resort a few miles outside Arusha. We didn't get there until 11pm, but the staff were expecting us and were waiting with dinner, which was also unreasonably fancy. Instead of bed nets, half of our room was cordoned off floor to ceiling by a net -- a new approach, and honestly not a great one. We woke up, had a ridiculously ornate breakfast, sat through a patronizing briefing ("Some of the roads here are not paved! Souvenir sellers might try to rip you off!"), and set off for the bush. This picture shows a vervet monkey. Foreshadowing: These things are evil.

Our first stop was Ndarakwai Ranch, a private reserve set between Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. When I heard we were staying in tents, I pictured the tents we used in summer camp -- little triangle things that are a pain to pitch. No. Our tent was larger than most New York City apartments, with separate compartments for the shower, toilet, and sink area. No electricity, but lots of lanterns and a flashlight. It was loosely attached to a wooden platform and had zippers to get in and out, though we figured out that it was easier to enter by stretching the bathroom flap open. Also there was wireless internet (and a charging station in the central area). There were no mosquito nets, but then there were no mosquitoes -- too much altitude, too cold at night.

The food at Ndarakwai Ranch wasn't bad at all. As expected, it was all western food -- pretty much everything we ate on safari was western food. I don't think they want to scare the white people with matoke and ugali, fine, but it gets a little silly -- at one point we were sitting in a mess tent in the Serengeti eating spaghetti.

Our first activity was a game walk. At Ndarakwai the activities are supposed to be group activities, but the only other guests were a large group of French tourists, so we got a private guide -- I think they felt bad for us. He was Maasai, although the only outward sign of it was the large holes in his earlobes (a Maasai cultural thing). At least, those were the only sign until a few minutes into our walk, when a fly bit me. I wondered aloud if it were a tse-tse fly (they carry sleeping sickness) and without blinking he grabbed it out of the air, looked at it, said no, and let it go. That's a zebra skull in the picture.

Ndarakwai has permanent water, so it gets a good stream of wildlife. No lions, though. The first creatures we encountered were baboons; a tribe of them lives near the resort. Baboons are interesting little primates. Their distinctive feature is a set of large pads on their butts. The pads are basically giant calluses that provide cushioning when they sit. They're omnivores -- they mostly eat fruit, but we often saw baboons picking at the dirt for insects. Some have been known to kill monkeys, sheep, and goats. They live in troops that can contain hundreds of baboons. Troops can have conflicts with other troops, and baboons have been known to take babies from other troops as hostages. Someone told me that baboons can be vicious to humans -- allegedly a baboon ripped off someone's arm and beat him to death with it. I'm not sure I buy it, but they do have very strong jaws. Male baboons sometimes stick to their dominance hierarchy in determining who gets to mate with females, but a male often attempts to seduce a female by acting friendly -- grooming her, giving her food, etc. I assume this works about as well for baboons as it does for humans.

Next we climbed a termite nest, then watched some zebra do their thing. The wildlife at Ndarakwai is not habituated to people, so you can't get very close to it. That is, the zebra run away from you. I just finished Guns, Germs, and Steel, and the author asserts that zebra are ill-tempered and too nasty to ride. They seemed to me to be skittish, but then, I didn't climb on any of them. Not for lack of trying. This photo shows elephant footprints -- before we saw elephants, we saw plenty of signs of elephants -- footprints, broken trees, etc.

Then we saw a dik-dik, the smallest antelope. They're named after the sound they make when scared. If all animals had onomatopoeic names, lions would be called roars. That would be great. Leopards would be silents. Dik-diks are monogamous and are almost always seen in pairs. Next there was a family of warthogs, which are endearingly cute in a very ugly sort of way, and then eland, which are the largest antelope. Finally we saw a herd of deer. Our guide claimed that they were waterbuck. However, later we saw other deer and he claimed that they were bushbuck. Then whenever we saw deer and I would say "look, bushbuck" he would say "those are waterbuck" or vice versa. I think it's a trick they play on mzungu.

One thing about Ndarakwai Ranch is that its setting is beautiful. Mount Kilimanjaro is towering over the area on one side, though it's almost always draped in clouds -- there were only a few times that we had an unobstructed view of the peak. On the other side is Mount Kenya, also usually cloud-covered. The sun rises near Kilimanjaro and sets by Kenya, which provides for beautiful views. The drawback to Ndarakwai is that there are few predators around -- I was slightly mollified by our guide's promise that we would see plenty of lions in Serengeti. (He was correct.)

We saw some other animals on the walk -- the best were giraffes, which are extremely goofy. They look very elegant when they walk, but they're hilarious when they try to run -- it looks like they're trying to gallop, but they can't get any speed because of their huge heads. I guess it's tough when your center of gravity is so high. I saw giraffes at the giraffe center in Nairobi, Kenya, but it's different in the wild. For one thing, they don't lick your face. Also there were elephants.

And we saw vervet monkeys. I've seen these in other places too -- in this case, the Entebbe wildlife preserve, but again, different in the wild. For one thing, they're not trying to steal your food. Well, they probably would if you had any food. (Update: A vervet monkey tried to steal my food. Details soon.) The Ranch keeps most animals out -- baboons are strictly forbidden -- but most of the monkeys are allowed on the grounds. We saw blue monkeys on the grounds a few times.

As part of our walk our guide took us to a Maasai village. I'm highly opposed to "cultural tourism" and was resistant, but he insisted that it would not be the typical cultural tourism experience. Reluctantly we followed him to a string of huts and cattle nearby. I was pleasantly surprised -- it wasn't a fake village, no lecture on Maasai customs, no pressure to purchase Maasai handcrafts (no gift shop at all), it was just the home of a Maasai family that lived in the area. Our guide seemed to be friends with them. They seemed nice.

The Maasai are a tribe that live in Kenya and Tanzania. They're fairly well-known because they still live a largely traditional lifestyle, they dress in brightly colored clothing, and they occupy land near the national parks. Traditionally, they're nomadic herders, and there are nearly a million of them today. It's not clear how they reached this region; one Maasai guy told me that their story was that they originated from the Middle East and came to Egypt, but were poorly treated there so they decided to leave. He explained that "Cairo" is a Maasai word that means "where should we go?" They then proceeded to Ethiopia, which is a Maasai word that probably means "not here" or something, and then finally to East Africa. I think they should stop stealing my people's origin story -- we Jews were the ones who originated in the Middle East, came to Egypt, were mistreated, and left. Also, just like us, the Maasai don't eat milk and meat at the same time. Culture thieves.

The Maasai don't farm. There's a cultural taboo against "breaking the land" (planting, plowing, etc.). Instead, they depend on their herds for survival -- lots of milk and cow blood and a little meat. Uncircumcised children might eat vegetables too, but adults are expected to survive on only milk and cow blood and occasional meat (this sounds unlikely and unhealthy to me). They get the blood through a special slit in the cow's jugular vein that's supposed to be painless to the animal. I asked our guide and he said that no one drinks cow blood anymore... well, then he admitted that teenage boys do it because they think it will make them stronger. No one else, though. Because of the land taboos, traditionally they don't bury their dead, instead leaving them for scavengers.

Maasai used to be purely nomadic and were often cattle raiders (allegedly they have a myth that their deity gave them all the cattle in the world, so they are justified in stealing cattle from non-Maasai). Modern society has more or less ended these practices. Most Maasai now live in permanent settlements and cattle raiding is rarely practiced. Our guide told me that the government is pressuring them to send their children to school (primary school in Tanzania is mandatory for children ages seven to fourteen, though it's not generally enforced against the Maasai and the government has trouble enforcing it against many others).

Culturally, Maasai don't kill wildlife (mostly), and that meant that Maasai lands were crawling with big game. And that meant that when various governments wanted to establish wildlife parks, Maasai lands were prime targets. Maasai have been displaced from all of the major wildlife reserves. Though they still occupy about half their traditional land, more than any other single tribe in Tanzania.

This photo shows a newborn goat nursing. It's hard to see in the small version, but that's the placenta hanging from the mother.

Traditionally the Maasai wore leather dyed bright colors, but recently they have switched to cotton. They have retained the bright-colored garments, though, and they are generally very plain -- either no pattern at all or a very simple pattern. One-piece garments wrapped around the shoulders are common. Lots of jewelry too. The normal housing structure is a few huts, usually made of clay with grass roofs, and a wooden stockade for cattle and other animals. This photo shows the thorns of an acacia tree -- they grow everywhere and have giant thorns.

Maasai tradition measures wealth in cattle and in children, and a man must have plenty of both to be considered rich. Children of both genders are "circumcised", though it sounds more like mutilation. Boys were circumcised in large festivals that were held once every decade or so, after which time they were considered warriors. Adults were typically (and often are still) polygamous and polyandrous, and there's no custom of fidelity among spouses. Allegedly, girls who became pregnant before they were circumcised were fed to hyenas.

I think this family consisted of two brothers, several wives, and many children. They were wealthy, in Maasai terms -- they had very large herds of goats, sheep, and cows. I love goats and sheep, so I spent quite a while among the herd. Clearly a lot of white people pass this way because none of the family members were interested in the random mzungu petting their sheep. Well, one kid tried to wave at us, but his older brother quickly made him stop, which makes me think they had Instructions.

We found out that it's not surprising that the Maasai let visitors to the Ndarakwai Ranch tour their houses -- they receive twenty percent of the Ranch's profits. At first they were not excited about having to give up some of their grazing land for wildlife, but I guess the profit-sharing plan changed their minds. I wonder if that's why this family was so rich.

The experience was surprisingly pleasant -- the family were content to have us wandering around their herd, I got to pet sheep and goats, and no one tried to demonstrate traditional handcrafts at me. I'd still have rather spent the time looking at lions, but it wasn't a wasted hour. This boy was trying to play with a baby goat, and he was clearly very pleased to have fallen over while trying to catch it.

Incidentally, I ran into our guide the next day and he was wearing traditional Maasai robes. Apparently the French tourists didn't like that he was dressed in western clothing and made him go change. He seemed to be in good humor about it. This photo is of a plant from our walk, I'm not sure what kind.

After we had spent some time among the Maasai, we said goodbye and our guide led us back to the lodge. We had a surprisingly tasty dinner and then went out on a night drive, which means that we sat in a Land Cruiser while our guide (same guy) shined a red spotlight into the trees and on the ground looking for animals.

We saw a few little guys -- most notably a bush baby, which is a kind of primitive primate related to the loris. They're tiny and move very quickly, and it was dark, so he was hard to see. That's him there in the tree. We didn't get to see aardvarks, sadly -- they dig up termite nests with their strong claws and then stick their nine-inch tongues down into the tunnels to fish out tasty termites. We saw some zebra and some giraffes, though. Also various bucks of some imaginary kind, African hares, and African wildcats, which might not be real things. They looked like housecats with striped tails.

It is cold at Ndarakwai at night -- the coldest I've been in Africa. Fortunately they provided us with Maasai blankets for the drive. That helped a little. We got back to the resort, requested a wake-up call, and went to bed.

So ends the first day of my safari. You could continue to day two, more Ndarakwai.