Ate In July, Good For The Year

I just sat down to write today’s post when my friend knocked on my door to deliver me a bucket of water to shower with. We are in a village called Bariadi, southwest of the Serengeti Park, at the ‘upscale’ motel. So upscale that they don’t provide bednets in the room because it would make them look unsophisticated. What I would suggest to make this place more sophisticated would be if the water taps on the sink were actually positioned OVER the sink instead of one up against the wall and the other off to the side over the floor.

Also, I’ve dubbed my bathroom the Death Bathroom because in order to get in and out of it you have to leap over the shower depression. The door doesn’t open all the way because the sink with the lopsided faucets is there, so there is no way around the depression. Good thing I don’t usually get up in the middle of the night -- walking into the Death Bathroom all groggy and in the dark could yield dire results. Anyway, my friend predicted when we walked in that we would not have any water by the end of the day. The bucket she just dropped by proved her right.

It was a five hour drive out here, three hours of it through the western corridor of the Serengeti. We made a couple stops on the way. One for a swim at one of the fancy resorts in the park. Another to watch some lions lounge around in the sun. There was one female and two full grown males so my friends thought that the female was likely in estrous so males are hanging around. She’s done well for herself, apparently.

We stopped at the famous river where the wildebeests come through during the migration north to Kenya in the early summer. This is the river where all the footage of the crocodiles taking down wildebeests is filmed. The crocodiles ate in July, so they are good for the rest of the year. Since this is the very end of the dry season, the river is very low and just riddled with crocodiles, concentrated in the few remaining deeper pools. In fact, this concentration effect is true of most of the animals at the end of the dry season which is why, I’m told, this is a good time to be here. The few areas that have turned green from the rare raindrops that have fallen are packed full of animals -- truly an amazing site. Also, the wildebeest migration has started which we saw from the plane on Thursday. They are starting to come back down to the Serengeti from Kenya in huge hordes now that the rain is coming.

I’ve learned a lot about the Serengeti in the last few days – the benefit of traveling with insiders! Anyway, most interesting was how the modern Serengeti was shaped by the introduction the rinderpest virus from Italy. It caused huge famines in northeast Africa, such as in Ethiopia, and it also decimated the wildebeest population which, in turn, significantly affected populations of carnivores that relied on the wildebeest. It was during this time that lions started stalking and preying on humans that were building a railway in east Africa. Once a vaccine was introduced, the wildebeests made a remarkable recovery, increasing their population fivefold. The lion population in the Serengeti has also recovered and is apparently doing quite well.

So, 5 hours and one flat tire later we arrive in Bariadi, where we had dinner and drinks with the vaccination team that has been working in this area. They are a lively bunch and it sounds as if we are going to a pretty large village with lots of dogs that will need to be vaccinated. Should be an interesting day!

[caption id="attachment_632" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Lioness and her suitors"][/caption]