Special Camp Sites – Stuck In Low Gear

The Serengeti delivers. A bit too much.

Andrew — Mon, 25 Jun 2018 15:13:00 +0000

Sorry, this one is especially long, so you might want to grab a coffee. If it’s too long for you, no worries, I’d suggest skipping ahead to the “The Road” section so you’re primed for the next post.

Western Corridor Serengeti

Before we rose from our tent that morning we heard lions calling not too far away. We gave them some time and were excited to see if we could find them on our morning game drive. Dawn brought a great view of the plain below, golden light, clear skies, and wildebeest, it was very “Serengeti” for lack of a better term.

The large herd from the day before seemed to have mostly dispersed, so we headed off to find our lions. Just a few hundred meters into the plain from camp we picked out a lioness to the east, but she was pretty far away. This is where I lament the off road rules compared to the Masai Mara. We could see her walking through the field, and about a dozen topi on high alert watching her, but we couldn’t get close. A lot of the areas of the park I wouldn’t drive off road even if it was allowed, it’s too risky for me. With small washouts, rocks and termite mounds hidden among the high grass you could easily get stuck. Here though the grass was low and the ground hard packed and it was tempting.

It seemed the topi had the number of the lioness and she paid them no notice as she plodded up towards the tree line, probably to rejoin her companions. I assume this was a failed hunt, for after the element of surprise is lost they make no effort to attack, and the prey animals, contrary to what you’d imagine, make no effort to flee, as long as they judge they are out of sprinting range of the lion.

We saw a different version of this in North Luangwa NP, where we stumbled across what was likely a failed hunt by a leopard of impala. A male impala was making their trademark call (I can’t describe it. A shortish guttural hiss?) at the leopard, chasing it off, as if to say “I see you, get out of here”. An impala chasing a leopard! Amazing. Again, once the element of surprise is lost the leopard gave up, and the impala slowly moved up and called at him and the leopard slowly moved off. The male impala continued to call and follow the leopard to make sure the leopard moves far away from the impala’s group.

Anyway, back to the Serengeti. The lion seemed unreachable to us so we needed a new strategy. One of the disappointments of the Western Corridor area of the park was the lack of small tracks off the main road. Many parks and other parts of the Serengeti, are a maze of small two spoor game viewing tracks off the main road, to give access and vistas and to various areas to look for wildlife. This area had a bit of that, but not much. Leading uphill from our campsite seemed to be a small track, so we thought we’d check it out.

First gear and creeping along through the grass we could tell that it was driven occasionally, but it certainly didn’t seem to be a regular game viewing road. We proceeded and it crept further into the hills and started to climb. We saw the fringes of another large herd of wildebeest and a few zebra on the way.

This road is not on any of our four maps, but that isn’t really that uncommon. Maps only tell part of the story, and we’ve found that all through our trip each map seems to only have a majority, but not all, of the information we want. By getting multiple maps that overlap you hope that the information gap gets smaller and smaller, but never seems to really go away and inevitably results in frustration after folding up another map for the umpteenth time. This goes for digital maps as well.

Up we went, wondering where it would go. Eventually I put the cruiser into low range, the trail had become steep, and we were treated to wonderful views of the Grumeti river below. We wondered if maybe we had been camping in the wrong spot, perhaps the Kira Wira Hill campsite was at the top and we had stopped too early?

More up, more low range. Rocky. Eventually it dawned on us what was happening. We found ourselves headed towards a radio tower, and this was probably the service road. When we made it to the top we found that it was a ranger lookout post, no doubt spotting for poachers and other activity. They gave us a wave and we waived back and indicated that we’d head back down. They didn’t seem annoyed, but this was another characteristic of the Serengeti we found, that the rangers have “a light touch”. They’re present, somewhere, watching, but they didn’t seem to trouble themselves too much with the tourist aspect of the park. Thus the continual minor confusion about campsites I suppose. There is a lot for them to focus on, and they have the impossible job of managing a absolutely massive swath of land, from road and infrastructure maintenance to poaching to tourists and guides, it’s a lot to do.

After our adventure up the hill we tried to get down to the river. We explored along the Grumeti and found a few tracks with a river view, and spotted a few of the famous Grumeti crocodiles, no doubt excited themselves about the migration and the feast that awaited them. When the wildebeest finally work up the nerve to cross the river the crocs will be waiting. Later that morning we saw a crocodile with a wildebeest victim, already expired.

The migration is a curious event. Over a million wildebeest live in the Serengeti ecosystem. I say ecosystem as the park is not fenced, and is bordered by various other lands, some game management areas, conservation areas, private land, and the wildebeest do wander out of the parks at times. Very briefly, the wildebeest form their usual small social groups when grazing on the short grass plains in the south of the Serengeti or in the adjacent Ngorongoro Conservation Area. This is where calving occurs somewhere around January/February. As they deplete the grazing they forsake their small social groups and form massive herds and begin to move north, making it towards the Grumeti or maybe east of there around June, and eventually to the Masai Mara by late July or so for the famous Mara river crossing, reportedly even more spectacular than the Grumeti river crossings. After that the herds disperse for the ample grazing, and eventually work their way back south again in time for calving. You can track the migration at this website, Herdtracker.

This year had delivered a huge rainy season, so the grass was plentiful and the migration was “late”, because of course the herds modify their behavior based on available grazing. Also it is not a single million strong herd, but many herds of thousands or even perhaps 10s of thousands, and almost all will eventually make it to the Masai Mara. Some may go the more eastern route bypassing the Grumeti and others may amass on the banks of the Grumeti to cross there. The river crossings happen in fits and starts at first, a few hundred here or there, or thousand, and over time as the herds become tighter and tighter packed on the southern plains and banks below the river then they cross more frequently and in larger groups.

Exploring, we took the road to the north side of the river, starting at the western end by the Kira Wira Airstrip and into the plains on the north side of the river. It’s a beautiful track and only a few other vehicles. We found that there were some medium sized herds of wildebeest here, so we could tell that some were already making the crossings. But where!? We were sort of desperate, or maybe I should say keen, to see a crossing, but it was hard to find where it was happening. We asked some guides and for the first time on our trip they didn’t have the answer, I don’t think their clients were getting to see river crossings either.

Though we had seen wildebeest in spades, massive massive herds of them, we didn’t catch much action that day. We settled into Kira Wira Hill campsite for a second night with high hopes for the next day, wildebeest below us, honking away. In the morning, again wildebeest that had kept us company last evening with their honking had thinned out, but instead there was a line of them stretching from one side of the plain to the other plodding almost single file towards the river. Migrating, as they’re wont to do. We packed up pretty quick, keen to see if we could catch one of the elusive wildebeest river crossings. We drove through huge herds heading towards the river, and we systematically drove down each track that actually had a view of the river, and impossibly on each one there were no wildebeest actually at the river. How is this possible!? They’re everywhere! But not here.

Finally on the last track that had a view we saw a smallish (500?) herd milling about by the river. A few came down to drink and then scurried back up the bank, spooked by something. We waited longer, and again they started to head down to the water. And then it happened, just like that. One ran across the river, another followed, and then suddenly there was a dense line of wildebeest charging across the river. Splashing, rushed, honking, more splashing and up the other bank. It went on for about 3 or 4 minutes and then sort of petered out, that was all of them. No croc attacks, but we got to witness our river crossing and we were happy.

We had our fill of the herds and it was time to head to a new section of the park. The migration was amazing to see, but if I were to complain about anything it would be the difficult access to the Grumeti river, which might have been compounded by the heavy rains this year, making some tracks inaccessible. We had two more nights in the park, booked in the south at the Moru kopjes, so we got on the road and made our way south.

Moru

The Moru kopjes are closer to the Naabi Hill Gate in the southeast, where we would exit the park. Since the migration was more north we anticipated that this area would be quieter and have less other tourists. Predators are non migratory, so should still be in residence, and also the Moru area is known to be where the rhinos prefer to hang out, so we also were hoping for some rhino sightings.

Quieter indeed, we drove around the very scenic Moru kopjes all afternoon and saw…nothing. One or two giraffe in the distance, an impala here or there, but not a lot. This was concerning, as game begets game, but we were here and the area is really beautiful so we enjoyed that.

In the afternoon we had checked out our campsite, Moru 3 special campsite, to double check it wasn’t booked by a tour operator and to suss out how we’d set up in the evening. It faces west, so we made sure to be back to make camp in time for sunset.

Some thoughts on wild camping. The prudent bush camper is perhaps more cautious about predators than we are, thought it’s hard to know, and we certainly attempt to not be irresponsible. We’ve met some who make sure to eat dinner before dark, so that if they need to head to the vehicle or the tent for safety they’re ready to bed down for the night. This also means that you’re not distracted by cooking in the dark, when an unwelcome guest might approach to investigate, and that you’re not doing something that might interest them, like cooking meat.

We loath to eat dinner too early, so that’s not how we do it. And in doing so we expose ourselves to the risk of what was to follow over the next three nights.

Wild camping comes with all kinds of advice, some of which I’ve mentioned before. Build a fire, place your chairs facing out between the fire and the vehicle, use a light to check for eyes, etc, etc. There is a trove of anecdotal information, and it’s difficult to separate what might have been luck for someone vs. what is truly wise advice. And then it’s often oversimplified.

Like, “Get in your tent if a lion comes close to camp.” How close? For how long? This is the question we had to answer that night at Moru 3. We pulled up to our spot, did our usual maneuvers of one person driving and the other directing to find a flat spot.

Side note, bush camp criteria include: flat spot for the vehicle so the roof top tent is flat, good view, good location for fire at right angles to vehicle with room for chairs between fire and vehicle, enough overhead clearance for the roof top tent, in shade if possible, wind on opposite side of the vehicle as the kitchen so the cooker is sheltered and the smoke from the fire blows away from the tent, ample view of surrounds to watch for predators, photogenic set up for sweet pics to share later. If this seems like a tall order, it is. Every time we make camp we sacrifice one or more of these criteria, and you don’t always get to choose which one. So already some of the wild camping advice gets thrown out right at arrival.

On this night, after we arrived and were about to set up the tent I took a little scan around and what do I see? A lioness about 50 meters away, lazily perched on top of the kopje above, watching us set up. Hmm…now what? What would the veteran bush hand advise? It’s almost sunset, a bit late to head to another camp. The grass is too tall to shift a few hundred meters down the road. She appeared relaxed, not overly interested in us, more like she was making sure we wouldn’t disturb her nice spot, not like we might be dinner.

Hemming and hawing for a few minutes we decided to camp here anyway and just keep an eye on her. We figured when we couldn’t see her we should get worried. So Jenny stood watch while I set up camp, and then we swapped, and I stood watch while Jenny got dinner prepped. For once we agreed that perhaps it was unwise to wait too late for dinner. I made our usual lion preparations, book, pee bottle, toothbrush, water into the tent.

We lit a big fire early, and I continued to watch our companion on the rocks above while opposite her we had a wonderful sunset, though it wasn’t quite as relaxing as it could have been. She alternately rested and casually picked up her head to check on us. We ate dinner it a bit of a rush, pasta paired with red wine, out of a bottle this time instead of our usual boxed wine. We’re classy.

As dusk came and the light was a wonderful blue color our lioness finally rose. She stood on the rocks, silhouetted against the blue sky and paused. Then she let out a guttural call to her pride, repeated maybe 5 or 6 times, louder each time like she was warming up and the final roar. It was spellbinding to see her like that and we could feel the call in our chests. A moment later we heard a response further away, it seemed it was time for the lions to start their work for the night.

With that she disappeared from view, and we decided it was time to retire for the evening. A hasty clean up and into the tent with some cards and the bottle of wine. We sat in the tent, playing cards and finishing the wine while listening to the call of many lions to the south.

Also it was a really beautiful evening and we were slightly put off by having to retreat. As the call of the lions faded it seemed like they were moving off. Was it safe to get out of the tent? There are no absolute answers in Africa. We must make the judgement ourselves and do the best we can. We came down and spent a little more time by the fire, but not wanting to push our luck when Jenny saw a hyena close by we called it quits and made for the tent.

Early in the next morning we heard the lions calling again, and this time very close. We could here them stepping through the grass and their calls sounded like we were standing next to them. Sleep was impossible, but we just stayed in bed and savored it, feeling secure in our roof top tent.

The calls faded and after sunrise we got up to head out on a game drive. Jenny did a quick scan for tracks and there were huge lion footprints about 15 meters away, so they had been close, but just passing us, not coming to investigate us closely.

Amazingly after all that cat cacophony last night we didn’t sight any lions, I couldn’t believe it. It had seemed like they were all around us. We spent the rest of the day game driving around and were pleased to see more game than we had the afternoon before. Giraffe, zebra, topi and a couple wildebeest that seemed to have decided not to migrate and instead attach themselves to a small herd of zebra. A little north of Moru in the afternoon we stumbled across some mating lions, and after lunch the lioness must have tired of her suitor, she had climbed a tree and fallen asleep.

Our last night was at Moru 4 special campsite, a few kilometers north of our last spot. The campsite is really spectacular, perched at the top of a broad shallow kopje. We drove the cruiser right out onto of a huge flat surface of rock and were able to use an old fire ring and camp right on the rocks. We arrived a little earlier than we normally do, making time to take a bush shower out on the rocks in ample daylight. A two liter water bottle does the trick and is really refreshing after a long day in the car. We have a solar shower thing, but we only used it once, I spent most of the time fiddling with the valve wasting water and not much time showering.

After last nights experience we summited the small rise to our west with a little lion trepidation, so that we could watch the sunset. Foolish ideas of bringing our machete for lion defense entered my head, and I considered the advice that you should never run from lions. Would I be able to heed the advice if we walked up the rocks and found basking lions? Probably not, but fortunately I didn’t have to find out, the rocks above our campsite were empty and we enjoyed a nice sunset.

For dinner we had curried lentils and I made fresh chapati, which was becoming one of our favorite meals and is super flexible with whatever vegetables you have to throw in the lentils. The fresh chapati isn’t too hard to do in camp and sort replaces the sourdough bread I like to bake at home.

We enjoyed a beer around the fire and discussed our lions from last night, remarking on how this was a much more peaceful evening that the night before. Jenny had the big flashlight and had been doing the scan for eyes from time to time, but the problem was there was a lot of them. There was a resident troop of baboons and a few grazers hanging around in the distance, and in the light of the flashlight it’s hard to tell how far away eyes are. On one of Jenny’s scans she had climbed partway up the tent ladder for a better view and started watching one set of eyes that seemed a little different than the others, and it was getting closer.

“It’s a cat.” She said with some urgency. I turned around and saw that it indeed it was, and that it was close and it was pretty big. “Get in the tent.” I said, “When you’re up tell me and I’ll come after you.” I didn’t want to be standing on the ladder behind Jenny while she messed with the zipper, my back to our visitor. I opened the door to the cruiser while I was waiting so I was ready to jump in the car if need be. It only took a few seconds for Jenny to get in the tent, and in that time I could start to see the vague outline of a large cat in the firelight.

“I’m in.” And I quickly raced up the ladder and we lied down in the tent, peaking out the flap. Was this safe? I had no idea. Again, the advice, “get in your tent,” is sorely lacking detail. Should we close the flap to be out of view? Or was being in the tent enough. It’s commonly held that animals see vehicles as a solid object and don’t pay attention to the occupants inside, but in this situation you can’t help but wonder if that is the whole story.

We watched and in a few seconds it became clear that it was a leopard. Our wildlife book refers to them as “the prince of stealth,” and it was certainly completely quiet, but the book also says that they avoid humans. It’s generally understood that if a leopard was intentionally approaching a human (or anything else) to hunt it, you wouldn’t know about it, being the prince of stealth and all. But here one was, waltzing right up to us. So now what? He came less than 10 meters from us, and passed our camp at a tangent, watching us, eyes reflecting in the firelight.

Well, that was it, early to bed for me! After a while we heard hyenas, and this presented us with a dilemma. Hyenas are notorious for carrying off anything left out in camp. Sure, garbage or food or whatever, but also chairs, cast iron pot, really anything. They are immensely strong and can crush bones with their jaws, so for them to drag off you camp chair into the bushes to see if it’s worth eating is entirely possible. And since we’d jumped in the tent in a hurry everything was still out for the taking.

The leopard had passed, as far as we knew, for at least 30 minutes or so and was probably well on his way. Hopefully. We discussed if we should go out to pack up, and if so who. Jenny volunteered, but I went instead. Not that I thought attack was likely, or I wouldn’t have gone, but in the unlikely event that one of us was hurt Jenny has far more medical training and is much better equipped to treat me for some trauma or another than I am. That would present the funny, but not, scenario that she’d have to drive me to the airstrip or wherever for evacuation, and let’s just say that land navigation isn’t her strong suit. “No, the other left!”

Jenny scanned for eyes while I scrambled down the ladder and threw everything in the back, closed up and was back in the tent in about 30 seconds. The prince of stealth is an extremely patient hunter, and lions too, so I told myself being quick would reduce the time they had to execute their plan of attack. Really though I am being overly dramatic, probably the only thing that was really out there by then was a scrub hare, but I was jumpy none the less.

Later that night we heard more noises near the tent, but we couldn’t tell what it was. It was enough that we couldn’t sleep, so we scanned around with the flashlight and saw a buffalo about 10 meters away, grazing. Mystery solved, there was no risk for us up in the tent and we went back to sleep.

The next morning we collected ourselves and got underway for our last morning in the Serengeti. Barely a 100 meters out of our camp, I thought I saw rhinos right at the base of the kopje below camp. Usually the professional guides are amazingly good at spotting while also driving, but one ahead of us drove right by them and I thought maybe I was mistaken. As we got closer though, sure enough, three black rhino grazing at the base of the rocks. Wonderful. I felt bad that the car ahead of us had missed them, and they were too far up to flag them down. A lesson to all on safari, you should be on lookout too, don’t just put all your faith in the driver.

They headed away from us and we took a chance and drove about 5 kilometers to try to get around to the other side of where they were heading. They worked their way over the hill towards our new spot. We stopped and watched them, eating our regular game drive breakfast of hard boiled eggs and biscuits. It used to be boiled eggs and rusks, but rusks are nowhere to be found in Tanzania.

A couple other vehicles came up we had the pleasure of pointing out the rhinos to them and everyone was really stoked, even the guides. Eventually the male rhino started to get a little agitated, sensing we were close and he started checking a perimeter around his small family. Rhinos have terrible eyesight, so if you stay put and quiet in theory they should miss you, but they’re aggressive and are plenty capable and willing of ramming your vehicle. We patiently waited and the male rhino got closer and closer, looking agitated. About five vehicles were watching now, and he was close enough I was starting to think of moving away, but I was caught in the safari drivers dilemma, where by starting my car and moving I might make myself a target. None of the guides started their vehicles so I followed suit, but I had my hand on the keys and was ready to go.

The rhino decided that all was okay and moved off, and we relaxed a bit. What a great sighting! I chatted with one of the guides and he said the rangers in this part of the park all have dents in the vehicles from rhino ramming. It was a great way to end our time in the Serengeti, and with that we slowly started making our way towards the gate.

The Terrible Road

Now I must introduce the greatest threat to the Honey Badger of the whole trip, and if we had known what would have struck more fear in our hearts than the leopard. This nemesis is the dreaded Serengeti – Ngorongoro Road. Anyone who has been there will know what I’m talking about. It’s about 90 kilometers of absolutely the most corrugated road I have ever had the displeasure of driving on.

The road is gravel, straightish and on an almost flat plain. It’s wide enough, but heavily cambered. At the edges it’s very loose gravel, cambered enough that if you move all the way over to avoid a bus or truck approaching at speed the back end of your car starts to slide out. And if you drive slow enough to control the car the corrugations torture you and your vehicle with violent shaking.

It’s also very dusty, and since our air con is broken we have the windows rolled down and we’re being covered in a fine gritty dust. When there is no traffic we tried in vain to find a speed that gave us control of the car and would ease the worst of the vibrations, but there seemed to be no speed that would work, the corrugations were too tall. At times we crept along at a barely tolerable 15-20 kph, and at others we tried the technique of going fast, allegedly to skip across the top of the corrugations. On this road the corrugations are high enough that this seems not to work, or not very well anyway.

We watched the safari vehicles drive like maniacs, particularly the ones that guides were driving empty of passengers careen across the road barely in control, sometimes driving up to 100 kph, and you could see them wrestling for control at the wheel. It seemed very dangerous, and later we talked to the Toyota manager in Arusha and he told us about all the accidents and rollovers on that road. On top of that you can tell that those drivers don’t own those vehicles because they would never abuse them like that.

I cannot describe how awful this road was, other than to dwell on it for several paragraphs, which you in turn now have to suffer through. The fact that one has to pay as much as you do for park fees and that somehow they don’t take care of this is incomprehensible. Also it is ironic that we drove all the way across Tanzania and found that there are strictly enforced speed limits everywhere and thousands of speed bumps on the main highways to keep people from speeding, and yet on this road we felt we were near collision with speeding busses and safari vehicles numerous times and there isn’t a sign, a police officer or a speed bump anywhere along the entire thing.

By the end my nerves were shot (and Jenny drove the majority of it!), not only with fear for my life watching other vehicles speed towards us with the barest of control, but also over concern for the Cruiser. Even with our attempts to be gentle to her she was getting the absolute worst torture of the trip, the suspension, wheels, tires, everything being ceaselessly vibrated to breaking point. And that wasn’t the worst of it, that we would learn the next morning.

Finally we were spared, having survived this most torturous of roads and were treated to the view at the lookout point on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater. The plan was to camp at the Simba public campsite on the rim that night and head into the crater the following morning before sunrise, at 6 am. If you search the internet you will find the Simba public campsite is not well regarded. It’s perched on the rim of the crater, has a little bit of a view and is famous for being cold and windy, crowded and having dirty ablutions.

We arrived and found it sunny and with a light breeze. There is an upper and lower campsite, both with huge lawns to pitch a tent on, and a massive wonderful fig tree in the middle of the upper site. It’s a free for all, there are no designated spots, and you could camp an army here. There is also a sign that says “No parking on the grass” which poses a problem for the roof top tent camper. We think however this means that you shouldn’t park on the grass if you’re ground camping, so we just picked a sort of flat spot in the grass near the edge. We elected to go for the upper campsite, even though it’s reputed to have funkier ablutions, as the lower sight was already packed full of ground tents, part of some tour groups.

We were excited about being in a public camp site. For the first time in a while we’d have someone to chat with, have a source of water and a place to do dishes and real, though not the best, ablutions. Oh, and garbage facilities, which was big, our garbage situation was getting pretty funky and starting to smell. We chatted a bit with some other self drivers and settled in. A little later a huge overland truck with about 15 or 20 passengers and 4 guides pulled up and exploded gear and tents all over the place and things were a little hectic, but really after our solo time in the bush we couldn’t complain.

Taking our time, doing dishes, prepping some vegetable curry for dinner we enjoyed the evening. It didn’t really seem like there was a place for a fire, which would be nice since it was cooling off, and I was hesitant to make one on the nice green grass. There was what seemed to be cow shit here and there, which was annoying since we payed $30 a person to camp here you’d figure you’d get a shit free campsite, but you don’t. We saw a few ash piles at the other side of camp, so I started to wander down to the lower camp to see if I could find a ranger to tell me if it was okay to make a fire on the grass or not.

A ranger in full fatigues and armed with rifle stopped me before I got far. He said “Wait. Buffalo.” Then I noticed that what I had thought was a herd of cattle (and thus cow shit) moving between the camps, was in fact a herd of cape buffalo, walking single file through camp. He reminded me that they’re dangerous and said to go back towards my car and he would watch them.

I dropped my fire enquiry and went back to tell Jenny about the buffalo. “Oh, really, buffalo?” “Yeah, but they seem to be just moving through,” I assured her. Famous last words. Even though buffalo are dangerous, we were recent veterans of lions and leopards in camp and weren’t too worried about it. A cape buffalo isn’t the same as buffalo in America. They look like a big cow, but with wide curling horns. They’re grazers, but are also wary, patient, and will charge anything they perceive to be a threat and then gore them with their formidable horns. Or so we’re told, even though it’s hard to believe. But they do kill lots of people, so we kept aware and continued with our typically too late dinner preparations.

I should mention at this point that we were tired and frankly a bit travel weary. The excitement of the last few evenings and the dawn starts for game drives were catching up with us. We’d either been bush camping or camping in less than great campsites (sorry Mara West and Tembea Mara) for the last 12 nights. And then there was the Serengeti-Ngorongoro road. We were ready for a break.

I’ll detail it more in the next post, but the Ngorongoro Crater is both a highlight of the trip but also comes with sky high costs, so the next day had huge expectations, but we were tired enough that I was worried it was going to be a bit of a waste. However there is no other way to get here, and no way, practically, to postpone till later, and really I’m whining about minor things in the grand scheme of things. A spicy curry and a decent nights sleep in our public campsite and we’d be good to go. Ahh, but it was not to be.

The buffalo stopped around the big fig tree and started disperse and graze on the beautiful green grass. Now I understood the “cow” shit everywhere was not from cows. The ranger came over and warned all the campers to be careful. And with the curry almost done he yelled at us “Get in your car! Get in your car!” They were getting pretty close. We turned off the burner and jumped in the car to wait them out.

And wait we did. To prepare for the evening I had put my book in the tent, and that was a mistake. It was getting late, it was dark, we were hungry and stuck in the car and I had to pee and I had no book. A McKee with no book is an unusual circumstance, and in that situation would have been my coping mechanism. We counted six buffalo surrounding us, one just a few feet from the front bumper. We waited. Jenny was getting pissed off, I was tired and this was annoying. We wanted to see the big five, but we didn’t need them to join us for dinner. Finally all but one moved off and I was brave enough to jump out of the car and pee on a tire and jump back in the car while the ranger yelled at me.

We waited some more and finally the last one moved far enough away that we could watch him. Jenny was tired and angry, and we were trying to decide if we should just say fuck it and go to bed without dinner and waste our curry. Instead we regrouped, and with one of us on watch the other made rice as quick as we could (which, as rice all over the world, refuses to be cooked in faster than 20 minutes). Curry in hand and buffalo still nearby we took our dinner to the tent with us. Jenny was still frayed and I tried to help. It’s been a good trip so far, but we were starting to crack. Earlier that day I was stressed out and at wits end on the corrugated road and Jenny pulled us through. Now it was my turn to try to hold it together for her. I think we make an excellent team, since when one of us is going to pieces the other one is strong for them, and then we switch.

Exhausted we finally went to bed, too late for the very early start we had planned, particularly with the unexpected challenge waiting for us in the morning.

Logistical Notes:

Here are the GPS locations for special campsites (SCS) we either stayed at or visited:

-Grumeti SCS: S2° 13.598′ E34° 23.866’. Maybe 100m or so West from this location. There was a tented camp here, so we didn’t go all the way in.

-Kira Wira Hill SCS: S2° 12.744′ E34° 14.100’.

-Kira Wira 2 SCS: S2° 10.058′ E34° 09.563’. Same as Grumeti, might be 100 or so meters west of this spot, there was a tented camp there.

-Moru 3 SCS: S2° 44.658′ E34° 46.448’

-Moru 4 SCS: S2° 41.809′ E34° 46.490’ Accurately shown on T4A

-Sero 4 SCS: S2° 26.361′ E34° 52.012’ Accurately shown on Maps.me

The Serengeti

Andrew — Thu, 21 Jun 2018 13:05:00 +0000

We made the short drive from Bunda to the western entrance of the Serengeti, Ndabaka Gate. Most people enter from Arusha side via the Naabi Hill Gate after transiting or visiting the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We’re doing it “backwards”, therefore payment and reservations for the park were not quite as straightforward, though really no matter your angle of attack I’m not sure “straightforward,” Serengeti, and Ngorongoro ever should be used in the same sentence.

Fortunately now all park fees for both parks are payable by credit card at the gates. No more convoluted bank deposit slips brought back to the park offices, or smart cards charged up for hopefully the right amount or whatever. Those are still options, but payment at the gate was much easier for us.

We wanted to stay in the so called “special camp sites” so we could camp in the complete wild, alone, as opposed to the public campsites. For this the charge goes up to $50 pppn, in stead of $30. We arrived at the gate around noon and began the lengthy check in process. We gave them our preferred areas we’d like to visit and they called the Arusha main office to see what camp sites were available in those areas.

They assigned us to Sero 4 and Grumeti camp sites. We planned to stay two nights at Sero 4 in the central Seronera region of the park, then two nights in the Western corridor, then a last night back in Sero 4 and then we would depart through the Naabi Hill Gate to the southeast. This is a little illogical, since we had to drive past Grumeti through the Western corridor to get to Sero 4, but we wanted to see the wildebeest migration in the Western corridor. The wildebeest are in no hurry this year (don’t they know we’re on a schedule?), late due to a big rainy season, so we figured even giving them a few extra days to make it to the Grumeti river would be good.

The park officials printed out our park permits with the wrong campsites and no dates on them, and just told us to not worry about it, go to Sero 4 and Grumeti. This seemed curious to us, in case anyone checked our permit. They assured us it wasn’t a problem, but we at least got them to hand correct the permit in case they were checked.

After this we also had to haggle about the car fee. The Serengeti is notorious for having high fees, particularly for foreign vehicle entry fees. This is allegedly to keep Kenyan tour operators from coming in to the Serengeti and undercutting local tour operators, but has the side effect of stinging fees for self drivers like us, who are not particularly common in the park. Technically the fee for any vehicle over 2000 kgs tare weight is $177 USD per day! Under 2000 kgs is $47 per day, so obviously we would prefer that. Several Tanzanians had assured us that even though we were over they only charged the higher rate to commercial operators. However this isn’t what happened to us, the park officials threatened to charge us for the higher weight and asked to look at our vehicle paperwork to verify the tare weight.

We were horrified, it’s already a pretty huge expense to come here, and it would push the daily cost to almost $450 USD a day to be in the park if they charged us the higher rate. This is partially because everything in Tanzania has a whopping 18% VAT. We handed them as much paperwork as we had on the vehicle hoping they would find a number that made them happy. Sifting through it all somehow they missed the tare weight on the registration and we kept our mouths shut, and after a while they gave and charged us the lower rate.

I don’t generally approve of dodging park fees, it is after all important to preserve these lands, and it is an enormous swath of land that Tanzania has set aside for conservation. But there have been a lot of recent price hikes in the park fees and we simply couldn’t stomach any more, so in this case if they missed that it’s on them.

After all that it was around 1pm we made our way into the park, with something like 100 kilometers to go to our campsite. As we went along the main road we saw a few large herds of wildebeest, it was impressive, but nothing like we would see in a few days time. Since we didn’t get into the park till 1pm we didn’t have a huge amount of time to wander, so we continued on our way towards the central Seronera region of the park. Once we got closer to our campsite we realized once again that we hadn’t asked specifically for directions to our camp. Time was running out, and I was concerned that we would waste a lot of daylight just trying to find the park office, but we didn’t have much choice.

In Seronera there is a small loose community that supports the park. A fuel station, a small garage, a staff village where some of the park support staff live, an airstrip, and for us the park headquarters, visitor center and tourist information office. We tried to find the park headquarters and couldn’t, or if we did it was a closed off compound not for the public, then made our way to the tourist information office.

We explained we didn’t know exactly where Sero 4 special campsite was, could they please direct us. It turned out that neither did they and I knew we were in trouble when he pulled out the same map we already had. After about 20 minutes of hazy directions and “It should be somewhere over here,” we decided to just take our chances and hope we saw a sign.

Casting around east of central Seronera we found a few signs pointing us east, but the track split and split again and we didn’t find it. We asked guides, a few people at a camp and each gave it some thought and said “Maybe over this way,” with some vague gesturing. To add to our concerns the sky was darkening and it was looking like it was gong to rain.

Eventually it got dark and we asked another guide, he suggested we just go to the public campsite and sort it out in the morning. Fair enough, conceding defeat he lead us to the closest public campsite and we arrived in the dark, again. And it began to rain. Sigh.

It wasn’t the best introduction to the Serengeti. Visiting such a prestigious park we had built up high exceptions and run up high expenses, so to arrive and spend two hours not finding our campsite, and to camp at the wrong camp in the rain was a bit demoralizing.

At the public campsite there was a large group of locals camped there, it almost looked like a camp for contract construction workers or something, but we found out after talking to them that they were students from a wildlife management school. We picked an out of the way spot and popped the tent in the rain, grabbed some perfunctory snacks for dinner and retreated to the tent. As we listened to the drone of their generator and the rain drops smacking against the fly we were feeling bummed, but also confident that tomorrow was a new day and we would have a fresh start.

The morning was overcast, left overs from the rain the night before, and we set out quickly for our fresh start. Almost immediately out of camp we were treated to a small pride of lions in the grass, things were looking up. The lions were mostly sleeping, so we continued on and discovered that we had been close to our designated campsite, it was about a half a kilometer further along the road. There was indeed a sign, but it was almost completely obscured in the tall grass and we probably would have missed it in the dark. We scoped out the spot for that night and were feeling good.

We headed off to the southeast towards some of the kopjes on the plains. Quickly the acacias of Seronera thinned out and we were in open savannah with only a few trees dotted here and there on the grassy plains. The Serengeti is famous for it’s rocky outcroppings, kopjes, which are also favorite lounging places for lions and incredibly beautiful. Sure enough, following the tracks wandering around the rocks we found lions sleeping off whatever they had been up to during the night. Wonderful.

We also saw elephants in the distance, and our fair share of zebra, topi, warthog, giraffe and a few wildebeest that had not joined the main migration. Also Thompson’s gazelle and impala.

Later in the morning we were heading back towards central Seronera and we heard a hissing noise from the back and discovered our first flat tire. We had let some air out of the tires to ease the pain of the corrugated roads along the western corridor, but maybe too much, as we had a small sidewall tear from the rocky conditions from this morning.

At least it happened in a convenient location. It was pretty flat and we had good visibility around us, so a quick scan to check for predators and we hopped out to change our tire. Several guide vehicles drove by as we were working and courteously checked to see if we were okay. In about 20 minutes we were done, on our way with our first flat behind us.

We carry two spare tires, so even with almost a week in the bush ahead of us we had another spare should we need it. We added getting the sidewall fixed, hopefully, to our growing Arusha list for after the park.

That night we settled into Sero 4 special campsite to enjoy the sunset. The campsite is set on a gently sloping hill with a wonderful view towards the east of a small valley, mostly yellow medium length grass around and two flat top acacias at either end of the campsite, a great spot.

At dusk just as we were starting to make dinner we saw headlights charging towards us and we thought maybe some rangers were coming to check our permit. As they came closer we saw a roof top tent on a land rover and I guessed, correctly, that this campsite was double booked. After the initial surprise we introduced ourselves and all was amiable. There was plenty of room for two without interfering with each other.

While working on our dinner we chatted a bit with our new neighbors, and we heard the whooping call of hyenas not too far away. A habit of campers in the bush is to carry a strong flashlight and occasionally scan the perimeter for the reflection of eyes. Ostensibly green eyes are harmless grazers and yellow eyes are predators, but of course sometimes the distinction is fine and yellow eyes alone do not belie the difference between a lion and a harmless small wild cat. We made our scan as the call of hyenas got closer and sure enough there was a hyena not 20 meters away edging the perimeter of our camp, no doubt investigating us.

Hyenas are often referred to as scavengers, and this is true, but they are also hunters perfectly capable of taking their own prey, often in packs. Seeing the hyena inspecting camp was disconcerting, but we watched him and he continued on his way. We kept an eye out for him for the evening, but he backed off further into the grass. Waiting to scavenge our trash we hoped, but later we talked to a guide who said the reason hyenas can be so dangerous is because we let them get close enough that when they decide to attack it is too late to do anything about it.

That night we had curried lentils and I tried my hand at making chapati, an Indian/East African flat bread. Though not perfectly round it was flaky and warm and turned out pretty well, something I’ll definitely practice some more.

Back to campsites. Trouble with special campsite bookings seems to be quite common in the Serengeti. In the few days that followed every self driver we met had either double bookings for their campsites or found that the camps they had booked were totally inaccessible, either roads were impassable or the camp was overgrown or whatever. With the incredible expense it costs to be in the park, just over $300 USD a day for us, and that isn’t including of course the cost of having your own vehicle, it is frustrating that the park doesn’t appear to know who is camping where and what roads are usable. Obviously the tour operators who are setting up large tented camps must have a better system to ensure that they aren’t double booked, and I presume that they inspect the sights before setting up and do what maintenance needs to be done so they can operate.

The next day we checked in with the park, not at the tourist office, not at the visitor center, not at park HQ, but at the airstrip, of course. As far as we could tell the park office at the airport (no sign) is the only place that either knows what is going on or can find out. It was good we checked in before heading out to the Western corridor to our Grumetti campsite, because we were told that camp too was already booked, that the officials at the Ndabaka gate had incorrectly given us that site even though they had called the main office in Arusha. We were given a new special campsite, Kira Wira Hill, but again they didn’t know exactly where it was, but assured us there was a sign. All of this was a bit exasperating, but I suppose is just part of the deal. I thought maybe we should have made more of an effort to book in advance, but since even other self drivers we met who had booked a year out had encountered similar problems perhaps it didn’t matter.

That morning we had great luck of sighting two huge male lions with regal looking manes. There weren’t up to much, but they did pose for us in the morning light, it was nice. We also spotted a mother serval, a medium size spotted cat, with a young cub. The cub was barely larger than a house cat kitten and must have been very young, and while the mother was watching us with concern the cub was playing around and seemed to be having a grand time. It was great to watch. Eventually the mother picked up her cub and ran into the grass.

In the afternoon we made our way west, towards our Kira Wira Hill special campsite. The Western corridor is more densely wooded than the central and southern plains of the Serengeti. The attraction is the Grumetti river, and that a large portion of the migrating wildebeest congregate there to cross the river before they make their way north to the Masai Mara.

Driving in we had marked on the GPS where the large herds of wildebeest were, so it was interesting to come back and see if they had moved. We found that they hadn’t moved much, but there more of them. Many many more. It is staggering to see so many animals. Even in just the two days that we had been in Seronera it was obvious that huge herds of wildebeest had moved into the area, preparing to cross the Grumetti. The herds were spread out in the plains along the main road and along the river, wildebeest numbering in the tens of thousands. It’s unbelievable that such a fantastic amount of grazing animals leaves any grass left at all, but it seems they do.

We did find our camp with relative ease that night, about two kilometers off the main road just at the tree line. We made camp and gazed at thousands of wildebeest on the plain below. As we watched the sunset there was an endless chorus of wildebeest making their curious honking noise, cavorting and grazing.

It was my birthday that night, and Jenny had attempted the impossible, to make me a proper gin and tonic. As everyone knows, a gin and tonic is just not right if you don’t also have ice and lime. A lesser drink might be consumed skimping on the details, but a G&T is all or nothing, in our opinion anyway. Lime we had managed to find in the market, a challenge in itself as all limes and lemons are all green and are all referred to as lemons. Ice was another story. Our 12v fridge has the power to freeze, as evidence by the numerous vegetables we had ruined by turning it down too far and by the milk for Jenny’s tea that is often half frozen in the morning.

She had put a few plastic containers of water in the bottom and turned it down to it’s coldest setting. Frozen vegetables, check. Frozen milk, check. Frozen water…no. Stubbornly they had refused to freeze, too much agitation on the bumpy roads I suppose. Oh the hardships we endure! I happily settled on cold beer, and Jenny made me French fries, sautéed carrots and boerwors over the fire. We could still hear the honking of a thousand wildebeest in the dark and lions calling, close enough to make us eat in a hurry, and life was good.

Logistical Notes:

In no particular order, here are a few things that might be useful if you’re visiting the Serengeti on your own.

There are no garbage facilities, it is strictly pack it in pack it out. We wished we had known this before we were a couple days into the park, we would have organized our trash differently. We ended up being able to get rid of trash once in Seronera, but I wouldn’t count on this. We burned our paper trash in our camp fire and packed out the rest, which was getting pretty rank at the end.

This is also a good reason to attempt to bring beer in cans if you can find it, as the empty bottles are heavy and take up a lot of space. We were unsuccessful at finding canned beer in Bunda. If coming from the west I suspect that Mwanza is the only place you could get it.

Provisioning from the Ndabaka side of the park, Lamadi has an well stocked open air market for vegetables, and meat I suppose for those more adventurous than us. Bunda has numerous small duka shops with haphazard selection, and I’m sure a vegetable market somewhere, but we couldn’t find it.

There is fuel in Seronera, usually. Don’t count on it if you can avoid it, and later we learned in Arusha that the fuel quality in the park is poor and can wreak havoc on a more discerning engine than our trusty 4.2, reputed to be able to burn almost anything.

Special camp sites. We think they’re worth the extra $40 USD ($20/ea) per night for the full Serengeti experience. Finding them and booking them is another story. I’d suggest doing as much research as possible on GPS coordinates for sites prior to coming, don’t count on the park being able to direct you. There are signs for most of the sites, but there are not always, and even when they exist they might be obscured by tall grass. Site 5 is not close to site 4, for example, and site 6 might be 20 kilometers away on a different road, so be sure you’re headed the right way if you can.

There are no facilities at all (i.e. no water, no toilet) at the special campsite, it’s just a place that is designated by the park that may or may not have cut grass and probably a good view. If you want during your game drives you can always stop by the visitor center, airport or public campsite to use the toilet. The public campsites also have showers.

Research special campsites here. I’ll post all GPS coordinates for the special campsites we stayed at in the next post.

There is a very small shop in the staff village, but don’t count on it for provisioning. It has a few odds and ends, but no real staples. Toothpaste, cigarettes, cookies, bottled water, maybe peanut butter and an eclectic assortment of other food, but it’s sparse and expensive. Beer is available at the bar in the staff village, but expensive.