Day 4

At 7 am a shout of 'Good Morning' aroused us as the hot water arrived. We washed etc and made breakfast by half past. Alex and Christiana were there and were disappointed to have missed the sunrise. After they finished we wished them good luck as they were leaving for the island and the diving part of their holiday. We met up with Kitembi for our walk and we set off across the grassland – just the three of us, chatting with him about Maasai traditions. We first saw some baboon moving along a line of wild sisal. Oldupai is the local name for the sisal and they say the first German settler mistook this and called the area Olduvai supposedly after the sisal. Kitembi picked something off the ground and asked if we knew what it was. We thought probably a seed of some sort. No, it was the remains of a dropping that a dung beetle had buried with its eggs inside. Apparently, the jackals dig them up and break them open to eat the eggs from inside! We made our way down off the little plateau and along to the small gorge, where there was water for the first time in months after the rain of last night. We followed the stream around and came across two Maasai women with their donkeys collecting water for the village back on the plateau. Kitembi showed us that the people had dug wells to collect the water, so they can fill troughs built into the banks to water their cattle. They always leave some water in there for the wild animals. Now we walked out of the gorge on to the plain and saw lots of tracks, including very large ones from giraffe. He told us that the leopards can kill a giraffe single handed. A Leopard will lie out in the trees and when a giraffe comes along, he drops onto it, sinking its teeth in. The leopard drinks the blood, but doesn't eat much meat, that often gets left for the vultures and other opportunist carrion feeders. As we walked along a flock of little birds flew up and amongst them were several pairs of lovebirds - very colourful. Other birds we saw were grey woodpeckers that have calls very similar to our green ones. Now ahead of us was a herd of about twenty Grants gazelle. They noticed we were there, but as we walked slowly by, they just moved slightly to one side and we strolled by them. We were now making our way back up to the plateau and Olduvai Lodge. The animals come to here to eat the oldupai (sisal plants) in the dry season as the spiky leaves contain water.
When we got back, Kim was looking out for us from the top veranda where people go to watch the sunrise. He waved, then came down to meet us, loaded up the van and we left. Our destination was the Olduvai Museum. Before we got there we spotted a small group of giraffe with some young. Kim drove across to them and we took photos. Then we went to the museum, which tells the story of the discovery of the earliest human skulls by the Leakeys - Zinjanthropus and later, Homo Habilis; and all the research they did about the tools etc. There is a replica of a series of footprints as well as a great selection of fossilised skulls. The footprints were formed by a fortunate combination of events. The ground in the area where the footprints were found was occasionally covered with ash from nearby volcanoes, much like how ground is covered with snow during a snowfall. On the day the three beings took their stroll, rain had turned the fallen ash into a fine mud that captured the footprints like a plaster casting. Before the prints were lost, they were buried beneath another heavy fall of ash. The layers of ash hardened, preserving the footprints.
Outside, again, we sat under a straw roof and had a talk from one of the guides. When this was over Kim took us down into the gorge in the van. He drove us to the place where the Zinjanthropus skull was found and we saw the memorial. Time to drive out of the gorge and after more, rough road we found a shady tree and had lunch. Everywhere was very quiet, we thought nothing was around in the heat of the day, but then spotted a dark chanting goshawk in a nearby tree. He just sat there ignoring us. When we began again we were on our way to the shifting sand. Storm clouds had gathered over the mountains and it looked as if they were getting quite a lot of rain over there.
The Shifting Sand is a unique crescent shaped dune made from carborundum, ejected during an eruption of Ol Doinyo Lengai some million and a half years ago. Enough magnetic material landed in one area to form the dune, which has been travelling across the plain ever since, under the influence of the prevailing wind. We walked up on to it and could see its self correcting qualities as our disturbance was already being eradicated as we stood there. Soon after we left the dune, we found a very young Maasai goat herder who was pleased to take our leftovers from lunch.
And now we had to drive out of Ngorongoro into the Serengeti. At the gate there was a big queue, so Kim suggested that we stroll up to view point. Near the summit we found a fabulous purple/blue lizard and some buffalo weaver birds. We could see and hear a storm coming – thunder and lightning; but no rain until w got into the Serengeti high grass. On our way to our camp we saw lots of gazelle, then 2 cheetah on mound; ostrich herd, topi, wildebeest, zebra, secretary birds and vulture. Then in the poring rain we discovered a warthog giving birth in a gully/ drain going under the road. The babies were all shivering and soaking wet as the gully had filled with water from the storm. Kim held little hope for their survival, but the mother warthog couldn’t move as she was giving birth. It was terribly sad to see, as the huge thunderstorm raged on. Our arrival at Ronjo was at the end of one storm only to be followed by several more. Becky, one of the guests from last night, had already arrived. We were shown to our tent using large umbrellas; and there was hot water and a cosy feeling under canvas. Dinner at 19.30 - tom soup, chicken with rice, honey pancakes; Serengeti beer and chat with Becky about her anthropology and archaeology. I was able to plug in the Palm and with the keyboard attached I typed up the days excitement. Then bed at nine.