Just got back into Arusha today! The past 2 weeks have flown by...they were absolutely amazing but its sad to say goodbye to our last safari together. We had lots of goodbyes...to our wonderful Tanzanian colleagues, as well as our amazing camp/cook crew that made sure we all gained a couple pounds from the delicious food they cooked. We also finished our wildlife ecology part of the program, because for the next month we are scattered around Tanzania by ourselves doing our Independent Study Projects.
Ok, so I'll start with Ngorongoro Crater, which was our first stop!!! The crater was absolutely breathtaking. We were at a public campsite right on the edge of the crater and it had stunning views of the lake below. Because it is such a popular tourist spot, cars are limited to a maximum of 6 hours in the crater per day. We dropped in at about 9am and spent the day looking at wildlife, and especially hunting for the black rhino! There are only 24 left in Tanzania right now, and they only exist in the crater. Amazingly, we ended up seeing 5 of the 24 which is pretty cool! That day was also the first time I saw a male lion! All I can say is holy crap, because seeing a male lion for the first time literally took my breath away. We happened to get extremely lucky because the male (and another female) walked right in front of our Land Rover, so we were about 10 feet away! We were told they were courting, so they quickly disappeared over the hill, but I managed to snap a couple good pictures! The crater also has the highest density of predators in the world so we saw about 20 or so lions that day, along with a ton of hyenas, including one cute little guy who was napping in a pipe bed! It was extremely hot during the day down in the crater but absolutely freezing up on top...I barely slept the first night, not because I was freezing my butt off, but there are huge forest hogs that come root around our tents at night! The campsite was not fenced and the forest hogs are 3 feet high at the shoulder so they are huge! We had some zebra visitors at night as well, and I got to brush my teeth next to them while they were grazing :)
After Ngorongoro we headed to Oldupai Gorge for a stop and then off to the Serengeti!!! We had a lecture at Oldupai (commonly misspelled as OlduVai) Gorge and got to see where the first hominid fossils were found..they also had the first footprints ever found of Homo erectus. They had a cool little museum to look around as well. After Oldupai, we stopped at the Shifting Sands for a quick visit. The sands were weird....we were driving through Maasai land, where its sandy and dry and flat, and all of a sudden we come upon this enormous pile of jet black sand, just sitting in the middle of nowhere. The Maasai believe it has magic in it because over the past 20 years or so, the pile has moved in a straight line about 400 m. Even scientists can't really explain it; the winds obviously blow in all directions, yet the pile only moves in one. It was weird.
We got to Serengeti that evening and set up camp (no fences!) and set off to do reconnaissance for our study groups. My group (the non-ruminants) were going to study predator-prey dynamics of predators, mostly lions. Sure enough, within about 15 minutes, we found 6 lionesses snoozing in the grass. AND, lucky us, there happened to be a crocodile chowing down on a zebra in the river right across from the lions! Pretty damn cool to see within our first hour at Serengeti! The next 3 days we spent there collecting data. From 6am until 11am our group went lion hunting. THe first day of actual data collection we found 8 baby lions in a tree! I didn't know that much cuteness could exist...2 of the cubs were pretty tiny! The moms were nowhere in sight, because they were probably off hunting.
The afternoons we spent having student presentations and then the evenings were reserved for pure wildlife viewing! We saw tons of cheetah, leopards (which are super sneaky and like to hide in trees), lots of Thompson's gazelle, and hyenas. We were also lucky enough to see 6 lionesses that we found the first day eating a freshly killed zebra! THey had just killed it and it was so cool to be able to watch them eat. You could hear the flesh being ripped off and bones being cracked.
It was really sad to leave Serengeti after only 4 days but we were all getting excited for Maasai homestay.
We left Serengeti and stopped at the hippo pool on our way out which was awesome, but really smelly. There were about 50 hippos in a pool, basically lying in their own poop. There were also a couple crocs as well! The hippos are MASSIVE. You wouldnt think it looking at them, but they can run faster than humans on land, and they weigh as much as a Land Rover. Don't mess with the hippos.
We drove through Northern Serengeti and were lucky enough to see the tip of the wildebeest migration coming down from the north and moving into the southern plains. The drive was only 100km or so but it took a while because it was pouring rain and all of the Land Rovers got completely stuck in the mud and we all had to get out and push a couple times. We spent the night at a town called Wasso that night at a guesthouse and relaxed for the evening (took my second of what would be three showers the entire 2 weeks). The next morning we headed to Lake Natron and went to the COOLEST waterfall I've ever been to. The water was really warm and out entire group ended up going skinny dipping in the falls for 2 hours.
THe next morning was the start of homestay and the begining of one of probably the hardest yet most rewarding experiences I've had thus far in TZ. We met our mamas and were taken back to the boma where we'd be living. I was fortunate enough to be randomly placed with another SIT student who was in the same boma as me, which I was INSANELY grateful for over the next couple days. We walked about 2 miles to our boma and were quickly dressed up in traditional Maasai wear. Neither of our mamas spoke any Kiswahili, only Kimaasai, so we relied a lot on other Maasai to translate for us. My Swahili actually got a lot better during homestay because I only spoke Swahili, although Sam and I spoke English to each other. I put pictures up on Facebook, but I was wearing about 3 layers of clothing and about 14 necklackes, 8 or so bracelets, a little hat thing, and some earrings. I can't even BEGIN to tell you what I smelled like after 4 days in those clothes. I never took them off...I slept in them, walked in them, and most of all, sweated in them. No joke, it was probably 100 F every day and we living in mud huts called enkaji that are made of cow dung and sticks. They are really solid though and don't have any sort of ventilation. To add to that, they always have a fire going inside to cook with, and they would feed Sam and I mugs of chai the size of my head. I'm actually surprised I didn't pass out. They also fed Sam and I the biggest bowl of rice I have ever seen. It was literally the amount you would make for a 6 person family...and they were actually shocked when I didn't finish it. The houses are really small, and they basicallly consist of 2 beds (which are sticks covered in a cowhide), some small shelves, and a fire pit. I slept inside the boma the first night and well, didn't really sleep. It was sooooo hot and I was sleeping with 4 other people on a cowhide and there was some little kid snoring up a storm, so I mostly just lied there waiting until 6am. THe next 2 nights I ended up sleeping outside with 4 other people on a cowhide on the ground. We would literally get back from the esoto and just crash. The esoto was realllyyyy cool to watch. At 10pm our sisters would take Sam and I about a mile away to a big cow pen and we would watch the warriors dance. I wish I could have taken a video but they all do this grunting sound like a lion that sounds SO COOL. THey compete to see who can jump the highest. We were watching practice esotos, but in the real deal the girls watching pick the warriors that can jump the highest, and they become lovers (I guess that is what you'd call it?). All of the girls (including me) had these MASSIVE necklaces on. It looked like I had a giant dog collar on. We were supposed to dance so they made all of your other necklaces jingle up and down but I completely failed to get mine to do that because I could barely hold my head up with all the jewelry on! Anyways, it was really fun to watch and be a part of; the singing was amazing to hear.
Physically, the work I did at homestay wasn't too hard, except for collecting firewood. Each day Sam and I went to fetch water which wasn't that far away, but it definitely took a while to get used to carrying the water...they strap it to your forehead! I probably had 20 lbs of water on my back strapped on with a giant cloth that was then tied around my forehead...quite interesting. Firewood was another story...we hiked for about 45 minutes across the river and up the escarpment (Rift Valley Wall) and chopped down wood and then again strapped it on my forehead. I was pretty proud of myself though because I had this massive bundle on my back and we had to hike down the escarpement, which was pretty steep. Except then while crossing the river I tripped on my robe and fell over into the river with my firewood still all strapped on. Giant fail.
Although Maasai homestay was one of the coolest things I've done, all of us were VERY ready to get back to camp. It doesn't seem like much, but when you havent showered in a week and its 100F out every day and you never take your clothes off it gets a bit irritating. Also Sam and were probably asked Umechoka? literally 90 times a day, which means are you tired? A nice gesture but a lot of little things added up after 4 days. Also, I woke up every morning next to the morani (the warriors) petting my hair. No joke, they liked to pet my hair all the time. A little creepy after a while...
We all had these dazed looks on our faces after we got back to camp, and everyone was so exhausted. Actually pretty entertaining looking back on it, but a lot of us were pretty cranky at the time. It was cool to see everyone else dressed up though. That evening we slaughtered a goat as a celebration. I didn't know if I would be able to watch but it wasn't actually that bad. They strangle the goat so that all the blood stays in. And then (and I still can't believe I did this), once the goat was skinned and cut open, we all drank some of the blood straight out of the body cavity. It really wasn't as bad as you would think. Then we also all ate part of its kidney raw, right after they cut it out. This sounds absolutely disgusting as I'm writing this now but it was super cool and I was proud of myself that I did it!
We had a free day in Lake Natron the day after homestay to hike to more waterfalls or just hang out at camp by the river. There were seven of us however, that decided to try a "Maasai cleansing tea," which pretty much cleanses your body of everything. The entire camp crew and our academic directors had done it when we were at homestay, and you basically rid your body of everything in it. It sounded kind of cool so we gave it a try. The tea tasted absolutely horrible and we had to chug it. Within 15 minutes though all of us were basically doubled over in pain...and i won't go into too much detail here, but lets just say i've never thrown up that much in my entire life. It takes about 6 hours to pass so by that afternoon I was good to go and ate a nice lunch and took a nap.
So that basically sums up my past 2 weeks here in Tanzania...sorry for the novel I just wrote, but a lot has happened! We're all back in Arusha now for a week, having finals week. We have our final ISP proposals due, and set off for ISP this friday! I'm going with one other student to Ndarakwai, but its going to be weird to not be with the group for a month. The 24 of us have all gotten so close.
And for all you valley people who know Sula Willson, we're meeting up at the end of November as well! She's going to be in Arusha for 3 weeks. She's actually currently in Serengeti and is on her way to Lake Natron for her Maasai homestay! We just missed each other by a couple days.
Alright, time to stop procrastinating and start my papers....
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