Dave Taylor's African Safari: Dave Taylor's Safari Diary - Tanzania: Ngorongoro Crater to Nairobi, Days 7-10

Dave Taylor's Safari Diary
Tanzania: Ngorongoro Crater to Nairobi, Days 7-10
Page 6

Breathtaking Sights

There are few places on Earth that I have visited that truly took my breath away. The Grand Canyon is one. The Canadian Rockies are another and further north, Alaska's Kenai Fjords National Monument, another. The list is small. These are special places that for me combine magnificent scenery and spectacular wildlife. Tanzania's Ngorongoro Crater is a welcome addition to that list.

We left the Serengeti National Park in the morning and crossed into Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The land appeared much the same as the countryside we'd seen in the park. Here, too, we drove across what seemed to be a flat, endless plains. There was a fundamental difference though. In the Serengeti, humans are visitors, not permanent residents. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area was severed off the national park in early 1959 and a new approach was taken here. Wildlife and traditional human land usage are allowed.

Maasai Villages

Maasai villages and cattle can be seen throughout the conservation area. The Maasai have lived here for 200 or 300 years and continue to do so today. To a Maasai, cattle are wealth. Each day, the young boys (5-13 years old) take their father's herds out onto the plains to graze. At night, the cattle are brought back to the thorn corrals that surround the manyatta (or village). Lions patrol these plains and Maasai cattle can be tempting targets.

The Maasai are nomadic herders and have little interest in killing wildlife unless it threatens their herds. It is not uncommon to see a few zebra or wildebeest grazing near the cattle.

Prehistoric Sensations

Mankind has lived on these plains for at least four million years. Our first destination within the conservation area was a place called Olduvai Gorge. It was here, in 1959, that Louis Leakey and his wife Mary discovered a hominid species now known as Australopithecus boisei (Robust Southern Apeman). Leakey's work was to convince anthropologists that our species had an African Origin. In 1976, four years after Louis’ death, Mary discovered the fossilized footprints of three hominids that strolled across another part of this plain 3.6 million years ago. This site, Laetoli, was created when a nearby volcano (Sadiman) spewed forth some ash that the family walked through. Rain fell immediately after and turned the ash into a thin layer of mud that dried cement-hard, preserving their tracks as well as those of other animals of the time.

At Olduvai there is a small museum that has casts of the tracks and the fossils found here. It is possible to arrange a tour of the sites themselves but this must be pre-booked with a guide.

Select a Page:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19