Do you want to live a great adventure? Make it a point to go on an African safari at least once in your life. It’s a great adventure that most people would really enjoy, especially on a custom designed safari like the one I did. It was specifically designed by Safari Kay to put us there in the great African Serengeti with the wildest animals from Tanzania, Africa.
After an exciting two-day stay in the Ngorongoro Crater, where we saw many wild animals, we left Lake Manyara on our way to the Grumeti airstrip for our next safari camp. Once we boarded the plane, the nearly hour-long flight to the Grumeti airstrip flew by. Upon landing, we were greeted by the camp representative and our driver. Then we went to a luxury tent camp run by Didas Godfrey. He was in charge of the operation of that specific Conservation Corporation Africa (CC Africa) camp.
Our private camp, CC Africa Under Canvas – Serengeti is a mobile tent camp that follows the semi-annual migration of wildebeest and zebra. That’s where we stayed for a few days. He’s in the Serengeti and it happened to be a short drive from his other permanent tent camp.
Located in northwestern Tanzania, the Serengeti The ecosystem extends to southwestern Kenya. It spans about 30,000 square kilometers or nearly 12,000 square miles. The Serengeti is home to the largest and longest land migration in the world, a biannual occurrence of more than a million wildebeest and some 200,000 zebras. This migration is considered one of the ten natural wonders of world travel. The region contains the Serengeti National Park and several other national parks and game reserves. Serengeti is derived from the Maasai language, Maa; specifically “Serengit”, which means “Endless Plains”.
In the morning we would get up early, leave our tents and head on a safari adventure with our guide and driver Frank Kivuyo. Frank is a native of that area in general. In fact, Frank is a Maasai who has been fortunate to have a great job doing what he loves the most, being in nature and experiencing nature and animals in their full and natural glory. Most of the Maasai live in Maasai villages scattered throughout Tanzania and Kenya. They have resisted integrating into the surrounding society and prefer to continue living in their native and traditional ways.
Frank is one of the exceptions to that tradition, although he indicated that it could change. He currently plans to study more about animals, conservation, and ultimately do serious research in that field once he finishes college. He will finalize his college elections this September (2008) after some personal interviews he has arranged.
If Frank had stuck with traditional Maasai ways, he could herd sheep or possibly become a Maasai warrior (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_warriors). That doesn’t sound like the Frank we got to know, but who knows, tradition is a very powerful influence.
We would load into his “office” his trusty Toyota Land Cruiser and head to where Frank thought there was the best chance of finding something interesting or new. All eyes were looking in the bushes, trees and looking for some hidden animal in the tall grass.
Every now and then it seemed like one of us would blurt out, “Look around behind the bush” or “What’s that over there?” etc. We got so good at detecting all kinds of non-animal things that Frank, our guide, would say “That’s an ALT.” It is pronounced as letters, not as a word. That’s a term that Frank had coined. An ALT was an “animal-looking thing.”
We had already seen many of the animals that roam the Serengeti, but at each outing we saw something new. We would also learn a bit of animal history and habits from Frank, who was very interested in animals, especially elephants. We had become used to seeing elephants, hippos, crocodiles, impalas, Thompson’s gazelles, wildebeest, zebras, and the like, but each sighting was still something new and different. That is why every time you go on safari, even to the exact same place, it is a new and different adventure.
We even invented a kind of game, in which someone bragged that they would be the next to spot a specific animal. Usually they were wrong and of course they would be punished for it. That little game continued for the rest of our safari. I bet overall we must have seen over a hundred AL-Ts. Now you may be wondering how that could have happened. You’ll know right away if you go on a safari in Africa and explore the Serengeti or another area in search of a leopard, cheetah, or other hard-to-spot animal.
Continued in Part II