Safari Notes - Tanzania
The town of
Arusha is situated at the foot of the 4565 meter high volcanic Mount Meru. It
traditionally outfitted all photographic and hunting safaris going into northern
Tanzania and continues to do so today. It has a Wild West atmosphere that
Hemingway certainly enjoyed when he was in town. He was a regular at the polished brass bar of The Long Bar of
the Safari House Hotel, where the professional hunters and their clients
gathered. Many of the old hunters I
know have recollections of meeting Hemingway there.
Tarangire
National Park was previously a hunting block and Hemingway hunted in Babati,
which lies on its border. The hills surrounding Babati are those that
Hemingway famously used to entitle his book “The Green Hills of Africa”, a
non-fictional account of his 1933/34 safari. The hills can be seen from
Tarangire.
The (1,612
square mile) park is located in southern Maasailand. It is made up of wide areas
of open acacia woodland and grassy savannah with the Tarangire River running
through it, attracting varied animal species to its banks. It is the huge
baobab trees and the large herds of elephant that particularly characterise the
park. Fringe-eared oryx and lesser kudu are the unique resident species, and
lions and other predators are often seen. The park is also of great
ornithological interest as it has the highest number of breeding bird species in
the world.
Africa has
the most diverse and largest collection of the world’s rock art and it is
believed to represent humankind’s earliest visual communication.
Three hours
drive from Tarangire, high in the distant hills overlooking the vast
Manyara was
a hunting area prior to its gazettement and Hemingway camped and hunted there
with his second wife Pauline en route to the vast game reserve of the Serengeti
plains.
Scenically
set against the western wall of the Rift Valley, the park covers 205 square
miles of which 140 square miles is the lake itself. Fringed by soda
deposits, the lake attracts huge flocks of flamingos and other water birds;
pelicans, storks, sacred ibis and Egyptian geese. The park is known for its
elephant, buffalo, giraffe, hippo and tree-climbing lions.
South west
of Ngorogoro Conservation Area lies Lake Eyasi, the southern shore of this salt
lake is the ancestral land of the Hadzabe, a hunter gatherer people. Their
origins are considered to be close to the Bushmen of the Kalahari, which is
evident in their click language.
Hunting is
universally controlled by the issue of licences and quotas in Tanzania with the
exception of the Hadzabe. The tribe are permitted to hunt in their
traditional way with bow and poison arrows. I enjoyed a day hunting with Hadzabe
men, and witnessed them hitting a guinea fowl at an impressive 50 metres. The
men typically hunt game birds and gazelles, while women forage for tubers and
wild berries.
The
Hemingways followed this typical route via Ngorogoro to their final destination,
the Serengeti plains.
Ngorogoro
Crater is a perfect caldera and one of the worlds biggest, and the crater floor is a
haven to some of the country’s finest wildlife, elephant, rhino, buffalo,
leopard and lion. The surrounding highlands offer superb trekking opportunities
to the Olmoti and Empakaai Craters.
At the foot
of Ngorogoro’s misty, lush rainforest highlands, en route to the Serengeti, is
the dry, desert-like Oldupai Gorge. Oldupai is the site where Dr Leakey
discovered fossilized footprints indicating that our earliest ancestors were
walking upright some 3.6 million years ago. In the gorge’s eroding walls is a
continuous record of human occupation dating back nearly two million years.
Before its gazettement in 1951, Serengeti was Maasai ancestral land as well an area that was world famous in hunting circles for lion. Hemingway and his wife, Pauline came to the Serengeti on their 1933/34 safari in search of lion.
Serengeti
means “endless plains” in Maasai language. It is this vast expance of high,
open grass plains and acacia woodland, hills and valleys, floodplains and rivers
that annually hosts the last great wildlife spectacle on earth, the circular
migration of nearly two million wildebeest, zebra and Thompson’s gazelle
towards the distant rains. The alternating wet and dry season is the main
mover of the annual wildebeest migration cycle. In the course of their
migration, the flowing lines of masses of wildebeest, zebra and gazelle
stretching from one horizon to another will cover a vast 500 kilometers while
constantly providing a source of prey for ever watchful, opportunistic
predators.
The flawless, empty beaches and maritime trading history of Tanga make it an exotic finale to a safari. As in the days of Sinbad the Sailor, men swathed in turbans patch sails and load the dhows with exotic cargoes of cloves, spices, and coffee. The dhows today like those simple vessels of the past sail out into the monsoon-swept ocean to be blown vast distances to Zanzibar, the Persian Gulf and Arabia. Exotic scents of the spice market pervade the old stone town of Tanga and the influence of Persia is evident in the town’s beautiful ornately carved, overhanging, wooden balconies.
© Sporting Wilderness 2001