Onward From The Serengeti To Lake Masek

All good things must come to an end, and so it was with our time on the Serengeti. As our trip began to wind down, the reality of leaving Tanzania in a few days time began to weigh heavy on my heart. An African safari, like a trip to the Galapagos, is one of those things people call a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The sad truth of it is, though, that I had left the Galapagos wanting to return, and the same thing was feeling true of Africa. Still, we had two days of exploration left, so I tried to shut it out of my brain and live in the moment.

On our way out of the park, we stopped to watch our cheetah friends one last time. The momma in me stood in solidarity with this momma and recognized the hard work she had done to raise these four cubs. Cheetahs have a tough go of it on the Serengeti. While they are fast, they are not as formidable as other big cats and often lose their prey to other predators and scavengers. So, I took a minute to be proud of this momma for all she had done to help ensure the survival of her family. I took a video of them so I would always have them, and on we went, passing some reedbucks who posed for us on a termite mound as they kept watch for predators.

In the national parks in Tanzania, tourist vehicles pay for an allotted time in the park. We had two days in the Serengeti. We had to be out of the park at a specific time or we would be charged for another day. Day passes for tourists are not cheap, so guides have to plan carefully to keep you on schedule for your departure. Ammy was working to get us out of the Serengeti on time that morning but, as we passed a rocky outcropping, we spied on top of a rock a momma lion and her cub. It was our Lion King moment. I imagine Ammy, silently defeated, was doing the math in his head, trying to determine how long we could sit and watch these lions. But, come on. Lion King.

As soon as Ammy was able to pull us away from this scene, he began hauling it out of the Serengeti. I’m talking like 45 miles an hour on dirt roads for an hour. The top was still open, as were some windows in the heat of the late morning sun. After a while, it occurred to me that the breeze I was enjoying in my hair might not be such a bright idea. I tried to cover my head with a scarf, reminiscent of the women in movies in the 1960s riding in convertibles. Still, later it would take me 20 minutes of painful and painstaking work to comb the knots from my hair. For the record, Ammy did get us out of the park in time…with six minutes to spare.

We were headed towards two lakes in the northern part of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Lake Ndutu and Lake Masek, the latter of which would be our home for two nights. This is where the wildebeest migration is at this time of the year, and we were hoping to witness some of it. As we grew closer to the Ngorongoro region, we began seeing more wildlife, cape buffalo and elephants, along with wildebeest and zebra.

I never stopped being amazed by the elephants. African elephants are massive. It’s hard to get a sense of exactly how big they are until you are right there with them. This photo offers a little perspective. This big guy was crossing behind the Land Cruiser. Imagine if he had been next to it.

We finally wound our way back into the conservation area. While we were confined to roads as much as possible in the Serengeti, Ammy was free to go off road here to get us into the wild and closer to the animals. This was our first opportunity to approach the migration and witness it first hand. It’s hard to get a scope of the migration on the ground. It’s even more difficult to capture it with a lens or even a video. Still, we tried.

The numbers of wildebeest and zebra are unimaginable. You’d think you’d seen the last of them and then you’d round a bend and there would be a line of hundreds upon thousands more. This was our first taste of the great migration and our first understanding that we would not be able to grasp its immensity, no matter how hard we tried.

Our travels off road through the savannah eventually took a toll on our ride, and we ended up with a flat tire in the bush. The day before we’d stopped multiple times to assist another safari vehicle by providing spare tires. This day it was our turn to be stricken with a punctured tire. Ammy worked quickly to get us back up and at ’em, though. I enjoyed that bit of time on the ground in the bush a lot more than Ammy did. Joe and I found a huge snail shell while out looking for rocks to keep the Land Cruiser from rolling off the jack. Never miss out on the opportunity to enjoy unexpected downtime. You never know what you might find.

We were back in hillier territory now where the foliage was more abundant. We began to see impala and dik dik and giraffe again. It was a welcome change from the endless plain. We drove past Lake Ndutu and saw flamingos and other shore birds before climbing up a hill and landing at our next lodging, Lake Masek Tented Camp. This was the final stop on our grand tour, the largest of the camps where we would stay. It was also the most modern of our lodgings, with rooms equipped with telephones (you still have to call for your nightly escort to and from your tent) and bathtubs. We joked that, after where we had been, this was on the level of the Disneyworld Animal Kingdom Lodge. It had every luxury a westerner would want in a resort room. We were back in the land of hairdryers. To me it felt a little bit like someone was trying to break us back into our cushy lives back home. And I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

Tents on raised wooden platforms

Luxury in the bush

View of Lake Masek from our screened tent porch

Swimming hole

On our way to dinner, I caught this marabou stork perched upon a dead tree near our tent. These guys are something else. Can’t wait to tell you about them tomorrow.

Once it was dark and we were settled back in our tents, I thought someone turned on an ambient creature-noise machine. We were up on a hill with the lake below us, and the sounds coming from the surrounding bush were magnified. I spent about fifteen minutes standing in my pajamas on the screened-in deck trying to capture the yips and cackles of hyenas on my phone, but the darn hyenas became shyenas each time I pressed the record button and they stopped their vocalizations. They were mocking me. You’ll have to trust me, though. I’d travel to Tanzania again just to hear them sing me to sleep.