Oldupai Gorge—Day four on safari

View from our porch

During the night and early this morning, we heard the bull elephant (that we saw yesterday), hanging around our tent. We got up and sat on the porch hoping to get a glimpse but no luck. Every time we went back to bed, it would start grunting and growling again, almost like it was teasing us. There were mounds of poop outside our steps the next morning!!

We grabbed breakfast and had our custom boxed lunch made, then we were off on the road again.



Secretary bird




Driving along the road the first new animal/bird we saw was a large secretary bird. As soon as we slowed down, it started walking away fast.

At one point Issa started driving off the path, plowing through bushes and rocks. He had spotted some water buffalo and wanted us to get some close up shots.




buffalo skull

 

We are noticing that there are bones of animals everywhere, especially skulls of water buffaloes (not just on this plain, but on every plain we have driven on). We have not see many other skulls, but you can be guaranteed of seeing a water buffalo or wildebeest skull every 5-10 km during a drive through the flatlands.



Today we are heading to Olduvai Gorge to visit the museum and learn about the archaeological finds of the earliest human remains. The path we took was a dirt road between the Ngorongoro National park and the Serengeti. It was extremely barren; at one point driving on dried, white lake bed and at other times on barren, dried wasteland.

We are constantly amazed at Issa's ability to get us around. We will driving on a paved, lined highway and then all of sudden, he swerves off the road onto what looks like a tire tracks in a never-ending, dirt landscape. This has happened time and time again.

Maasai @ the Shifting Sands dune

At one point we could see in the distance this smooth, large, dark mound appearing slowly out of the flat lands. It was a very strange thing to see in the wastelands. When we stopped, we discovered it was a huge, black sand dune named the "shifting sands". Pop!! out of nowhere two Maasai women appear to sell us handicrafts.

The Maasai are EVERYWHERE!!! In a restaurant in Moshi—they are at the bar or hanging out watching the TV. At our lodges/camps—they are working as porters or security guards. On the paved highway—they are on their bikes going down the road, walking or crossing the highway with their cattle. And in the barren fields and wastelands—they appear out of nowhere.


Oldupai gorge

 Arriving at Olduvai, we attended the orientation and quickly learned that the proper pronunciation is "Oldupai" with a "p" NOT "Olduvai" with a "v" (the latter is used in most textbooks). The word Oldupai is a Maasai word (surprise, surprise) for the sisal plant which grows in abundance in the gorge area.

We visited the small museum, took some pics and then were on our way again. We were disappointed that they didn't allow people to walk freely around in the gorge, which was something that we would have liked to do.

Driving back to our tented lodge, we came across several animals up close, giraffes being one. At one point we all spotted a black cat wandering in the scrub...we were wondering...could it be a small leopard? Issa thought maybe a cheetah. Off road we went again, trying to figure out what the heck it was. It turned out to be an small black, domestic house cat, in the middle of friggin nowhere. Very bizarre.

Baobab trees viewed from our porch

Made a few stops at curio shops along the way to check out paintings and masks, then off the highway onto another dirt path to our next tented lodge—Losirwa Lodge.

Sunset viewed from pool-side at Losirwa Lodge