Category: Tanzania

Time again to reflect on the country from behind the wheel. Note, these are not always observations from literally behind the wheel, but rather observations based on ponderings while driving – so, indirectly from behind the wheel.

In contrast to Zambia and, to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe, Tanzania seems like a more progressive country focused on growth and development – not that that is necessarily always a good thing, as the human propensity to always develop, develop, devolp is in fact the primary cause of so many of our global crises. Nevertheless, Tanzania seems to be working hard to improve the standard of living of their people. Here are some specific observations, not all of which are positive and some of which are common to other southern African countries. In addition, many of the previous comments I have made about other countries also apply to Tanzania, but I won’t repeat them here, so the comments below are largely ones that I haven’t commented on yet.

#1. Build, Baby, Build. The Tanzanian national highway system and even some of the major secondary roads are tarmaked and essentially pothole-free! Can you believe it? Even South Africa, a much more developed country, has far worse roads. I don’t believe I hit or even had to swerve past a single pothole while driving the highways of Tanzania. Moreover, the few sections of the highways system that are not tarmaked are under construction right now, including massive bridges over waterways. I am not sure how all this new highway construction is being funded, but one section had a sign saying “funded by the people of America”. I heard others say China and still others just said “the government”. In any event, when the rest of the highways are finished in the next couple of years, it will make getting from one part of the country to another (and from Park to Park) very easy. All I know is that my life would have been much more difficult if I had to drive all those miles on potholed highways or on gravel. Thank you Tanzania!

#2. Country Life. Here are some typical scenes traveling the roads of western Tanzania. Note the following. First, the entire area outside of established National Parks and Game Reserves is settled and developed, predominantly with rural small-scale mixed agriculture, but with some larger settlements mixed in. Lots of charcoal and thatch production, along with maize predominantly and a smattering of other crops such as sugar cane and bananas depending on the location – your basic subsistance land use with a little extra to sell to improve ones standard of living. Second, deforestation is a serious problem. Outside of the Parks and Reserves the forests are heavily cut over for fuel and building materials. Many of the tree species coppice or resprout, but they are cut again as soon as they reach any size. This land use activity, which is understandable given the living conditions, leaves the Parks and Reserves as “islands” for the remaining wildlife. Here’s a few photos of some typical scenes along the roads.

#3. Love Those Babies. Africa has the fastest growing human population in the world and is expected to contribute more to the global human population growth over the next half century than all the other continents combined. My observations of the population demographics would seem to support this claim. It seems like the youth make up the largest segment of the population followed by the child-bearing aged 20- and 30-year olds. Moreover, it is hard to find a young women – and too young at that – NOT carrying a baby on her back. I’m sure that 9 out of 10 young women in their child-bearing age were carrying babies on their backs as they went about their work. Indeed, I was surprised when I saw a young worman without a baby on her back or at her side. Given the poor economic state of at least the rural western part of the country, it makes me wonder how they are going to fare in the future. I am concerned about the welfare of this next generation of Africans.

#4. The Better Half. One of the things that is hard NOT to notice is that the women are almost always engaged in some kind of activity, whether it be getting water from the local bore hole, carrying produce on the head to market, hauling wood from the woodlands, tending the crops, washing clothes and a dozen other essential activities. In contrast, while there are cleary some ambitious, hard-working young men, a large portion of the young men in their teens and 20’s seem to be idle most of the time. It is common to see anywhere from a few to a dozen young men just sitting around doing nothing while the women all around them are working. It is as if the young men, after finishing secondary school, if they don’t find a real job they just sit around doing nothing while they wait for the gold to drop from the sky. It definitely seems to be a cultural norm that the men try to find work, but often fail, while the women take care of the children, household and farm, if they have one. And if the young men don’t find gainful employment, they don’t “lower” themselves to helping with the “women’s work”. I hate to say it, but a lot of the young men are not worthy of the family they have.

#5. Burn, Baby, Burn. Tanzania tops the list when it comes to the use of fire. While I have commented previously about the use of fire both inside and outstide of the Parks and Reserves to manage vegetation, Tanzania takes it to the next level. I estimate that 80-90% of the lands I passed through had been burned, or were still burning, this year. This 1-2 year fire return interval rivals that of the aboriginals in northern Australia. One of the many reasons they burn every acre they can each year is to produce a flush of nutritious new growth as seen in these photos:

#6. Karibu. I will end this on a high note. Karibu is a swahili word with multiple meanings, but is commonly used to say “welcome” when you are greeted, especially by service providers. Most Tanzanians appear to be genuinely pleased to welcome you to their country, and most are very proud and happy to be Tanzanians and share their country with you. Of course, some of this is business-motivated, but I get the distinct impression that most Tanzanians are truly happy to see you visiting their beloved country. It is the same welcoming atmoshpere that is prevalent in Botswana, but here it struck me as hallmark of the country, or rather the people.

There’s so much more that could be said, but I’ll save it for later. Cheers.

After traversing the Western Corridor of Serengeti National Park and then out of the Park through the Ikoma Gate, where I had my accident, I travelled north through Game Reserves and mostly tribal lands (i.e., settlements) to the west of the Park and reentered the Park at the very northwestern-most and litle used gate called Lamai, north of the great Mara River which drains a significant part of the Maasai Mara in Kenya (more on that later). This section of the Park is centered on the Mara River the grassland savannah’s on either side of the river. Here are a few photos to get you in the mood:

I was able to book a “special campsite” inside the Park along the Mara River at a place called Kogatende. This place is the major hub for Park acitivities in the northern section of the Park along the Mara River. There are many private lodges/camps in the vicinity and there is an airstrip to accommodate all the tourists that don’t want to make the painfully long drive to the area. Indeed, this place was an absolute zoo at times, with as many as 50-100 safari vehicles from the lodges/camps and mobile safari outfits concentrating at the airstrip to pick up and drop off guests. There were as many as 3 planes on the grass tarmak at times. Crazy busy! Needlesstosay, my time here was not private. However, this is the location of the famous migration crossing of the Mara River with the huge Nile crocs taking down wildebeest and zebra as they brave the crossing. And this area is where the Serengeti National Park of Tanzania extends into the Maasai Mara where most of the migratory herds are concentrated this time of year. SO, if you want to see the big migration, the Mara River crossing, or the herds out on the grassland plains of the Maasai Mara, and NOT have to go to Kenya, this is the place to go. Despite all this safari activity I had an amazing amount of privacy on my drives and wildlife observations. It is such a huge area and there are so many places to drive to see the wildlife that everyone disperses from the airstrip pretty quickly.

My “special campsite” wasn’t very special, unfortunately, and thus I didn’t even remember to take a photo, but it did not matter too much because I spent almost no time at my campsite other than to sleep. I won’t describe the landscape or my wildlife observations here as the video does the talking for me. I will say, however, that my time on the Mara plains was, well, how can I describe it, SUBLIME! The wildebeest herds on the grassland savannah was a wildlife spectacle unmatched, at least in my experiences. Although the video doesn’t capture the multi-sensory “gestalt” of the experience, it is the best I can offer.

Serengeti Maasai Mara composite video (30 minutes)

OK, I’m off to the Maasai Mara on the Kenya side of the border and to hook back up with brother Mark and Kirsten. See you there.

Photo Gallery:

My final destination in Tanzania is Serengeti National Park, located in the far northwestern corner of the country on the border with Kenya. Note, I showed the map above in my last post, but I am repeating it here so that you can reacquaint yourself with the Park’s location and shape. Serengeti NP (5,700 sq. mi.), first established as a park in 1940, almost needs no introduction as it is one of the world’s most famous parks – featured in numerous nature programs and documentaries. The Park was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. The Park is actually just the central part of the much Greater Serengeti Ecosystem which includes several surrounding game reserves and conservation areas (e.g., Ngorongoro Conservation Area) and extends into the Maasai Mara of Kenya (more on that later).

The Serengeti (which means “endless plains” in the native language) is most famous because it hosts the world’s largest and longest overland migration of large mammals – primarily common wildebeest, plains zebra and Thompson’s gazelle (a.k.a. “Tommies”). As many as 2 million of these animals, and at times even more, undergo a 500-mile annual migration, moving in clockwise fashion around the Serengeti to capitalize on shifting forage resources over the course of the year. During the wet season of December-February the herds are in the southern part of the Serengeti giving birth and feasting on the fresh growth of grasses stimulated by the rains. At the beginning of the dry season in March-April, with their young in tow, the herds start moving into the western part of the Serengeti (i.e., the Western Corridor where I am now) and then start moving north following the moisture as the dry season progresses. During the peak of the dry season between July-October, the migrating herds make their way farther north across the great Mara River, where huge Nile crocodiles lie in wait to take individuals in dramatic fashion and many more drown while trying to make the crossing, to get to the Maasai Mara in Kenya where the grasslands offer an abundance of dry-season forage. As the rains return in late October, the herds begin their southward journey back to the birthing grounds, and the cycle repeats. It’s important to realize that not all the wildebeest, zebra and Tommies in the Serengeti ecosystem take part in this annual mass migration. Significant numbers of all 3 species remain in smaller resident herds cattered throughout the Serengeti. Why and how individuals choose between these two dramatically differnt life histories is a mystery, but the vast majority have chosen the migratory lifestyle.

Last year on our Tanzania journey (Nancy, Phil, Mary, Bill, Rick and I) in July we were fortunate to time it perfectly to see the mass migration at its greatest concentration – the crossing of the Mara River. It was a wildlife spectacle that can’t be adequately described in words and was reminiscent of what it must have been like to witness the great bison herds on the plains of North America before they were just about exterminated by commercial game hunters during the late 1800s.

My visit to the Serengeti this year comes in late August when the herds have already crossed into the Maasai Mara of Kenya – so no mass Mara River crossing for me this year. Although, I should note that sometimes smaller herds will move back and forth across the Mara River during this time of year, depending on the rains and the forage quality. The forage opportunities must be really rewarding to risk multiple crossings of the Mara River. So, when I am in the northern Serengeti before crossing into Kenya, I may yet witness some river crossings on a modest scale. In the meantime, there is much to see and enjoy in the beautiful Serengeti savannah.

It behooves me to point out that the awesomeness of Serengeti NP does come at the cost of disrupting and displacing the native Maasai people. Much of the area now protected within Serengeti NP was formerly populated by the Maasai, who grazed their cattle on the eastern plains, but had a more sporadic presence in the west because of the seasonal profusion of tsetse flies, which carry a parasite responsible for a disease that can be fatal to cows. The Maasai are relatively recent arrivals to the region, having migrated there from the north in the 17th century, when they forcefully displaced their native Datoga predecessors. Nevertheless, the creation of the Park has not been without contention among the locals. It is understandably hard, as a government, to weigh the costs and benefits of creating a park such as this.

My visit to the Serengeti this year began in the Western Corridor (the rectangular appendage of the Park extending west almost to Lake Victoria), as I approached the Park from Lake Victoria to the west. The Western Corridor is centered on the Grumeti and Mbalageti Rivers which drain most of the central and southern portions of the Park and empty into Lake Victoria. The Grumeti is the second largest river in the Serengeti (after the Mara), but even so, it runs dry during this time of year, sustaining only scattered pools along its course. Besides the narrow strip of dense riparian vegetation along the river course, the bulk of the corridor is comprised of classic Serengeti plains – grassland savannah consisting of extensive open grasslands and varying but low densities of scattered trees (most acacia) – in addition to the hills between the two river drainages. Here are a few photos to put you in the mood:

There are no public campsites in the western corridor so I opted for what they call “special campsites”, rather than pay the exorbitant fees to stay at one of the private camps. Would you be surprised if I told you that none of the Park staff at the entrace gate could tell me which special campsites actually existed (since they change over the years) or where they were located. Indeed, nobody any any helpful information. The staff were just as much “in the dark” as I. Anyways, the computer said there were 3 sites in the western corridor and I could choose whichever one I wanted. So I picked one at random since there was no other information to help guide my decision. It turns out that these “special campsites” are, in fact, truly “special” because they don’t really exist. There is no designated site, just a general area. Apparently you just pick on spot and camp – there are no facilities! For my first night I picked a spot next to one of the scattered pools on the Grumeti River and on the edge of the grassland savannah under a shade tree. Here is a photo of my site and another African sunset from my site:

For my second night in the Western Corridor I decided to move my campsite to a location near where I was spending most of my time observing wildlife. There was a hill in the middle of these vast plains that thankfully had a track up to the top, undoubtedly for “sundowners” for the nearby private camp, with spectacular views over the plains. I was well away from the general area of my “special campsite”, but because there were no signs for the special site and no one I asked knew anything, and I even went by the Ranger post but there was nobody around, I decided to “wild camp” on the hilltop with the classic “out of Africa” scene laid out below. Indeed, this might have been one of my favorite campsites on the entire trip. Here’s a couple of photos:

For my third night I drove through the Western Corridor to the central part of the Park called Seronera and then exited north through the Ikoma Gate and stayed at a private lodge/camp. Nothing noteworthy to report about my campsite. However, in the spirit of full disclosure I will share a very unfortunate accident I had leaving the Park. I missed a turn and was initiating a U-turn when a safari vehicle came screeming up from behind me going like a bat out of hell with dust flying everywhere. Apparently he didn’t see me in time, slammed on his breaks and slid into the back right corner of the Green Dragon, smashing the corner and bending the heavy steel bumper of my vehicle. His front end was significantly damaged. No one was hurt, other than my pride. I was mostly at fault doing a U-turn on this narrow gravel road so I assumed responsibility. Of course, he shouldn’t have been driving so fast but there was no speed limit on this road so technically he wasn’t doing anything illegal. I ended up towing his vehicle the few kilometers to town to the local police station – don’t think real police station like in the state, here it was a one-room concrete block with a chair and desk for the one police officer. Turns out in Africa accidents are generally handled between the two parties without getting the police really involved or insurance companies for that matter. The parties just agree on a settlement, money changes hands and you go your separate ways. The police officer was merely a bystander. I can see how this system might create some real hostile conflicts when the two parties disagree on responsibility, but it worked in our case because I assumed repsponsibility. So, the Green Dragon has her first battle scar and wil require some body work when she gets to Nairobi. Moral of this story is don’t ever do a U-turn without first looking behind to see if it is all clear.

I won’t describe my wildlife observations here since my narration in the composite video will serve that purpose. Suffice it to say that the Serengeti is a wildlife haven so I had lots and lots of cool wildlife observations. I posted my longest video yet for this section on the Serengeti Western Corridor – I am sorry but I just couldn’t bring myself to cutting anything out as it is all so interesting to me.

Serengeti Western Corridor composite video (45 minutes)

OK, I’m off to the northern Serengeti and the Maasai Mara. See you there!

Photo Gallery:

First order of business: The mystery structure in the rocks of saanane island was, I believe, the home of a rock hyrax. Now, I must disclose that I can’t say for certain that this was a rock hyrax den because I didn’t actually see a rock hyrax at the entrance. However, I did see rock hyrax all over these and all the other rocks on the island, so I am pretty sure of its occupant. You may recall that the hyrax is also called rock rabbit or dassie, and it is a small furry mammal that looks like an oversized guinea pig and its closest living relative is the elephant.

After leaving Mwanza, my destination was the famous Serengeti National Park, but rather than pay $300/day (all fees included) for a partial day in the Park, I opted to stay outside the Park for a night on the shores of Lake Victoria near the Ndabaka Gate (the western gate into the “western corridor” of the Park where it almost touches Lake Victoria on the map above).

My campsite was at Nyatwali Beach Lodge and Campsite. Once again, I was the only guest at this lodge and campsite. This time, however, I had a wonderful site literally on the lakeshore with yet another spectacular sunset, but this time over Lake Victoria. Check out this camping spot:

In addition, I had the pleasure to give away some crayons and coloring books to three grateful young pre-school aged children of the native host, and later to the older school-aged “sister” once she returned from school and heard of the gift-giving mzungu (swahili for white man) in camp. Here are some photos:

I am going to submit this astonishingly short post because tomorrow I head into the western corridor of Serengeti National Park and will be camping at an exclusive site for a few nights almost certainly without cell service or wifi. See you in a few days, I hope.

First order of business: the answer to the mystery structure in the tree is an arboreal-nesting ant. Most of you guessed termites or wasps, both of which are good guesses. Ants and termites are very similar but termites don’t have the narrow waist and have straight antenae. These ant colonies are abundant throughout the forest and woodlands here in Africa. The structure is made from masticated leaves, soil and some kind of saliva-like substance that acts as a glue. These ants are the arboreal counterparts to the ground-dwelling termites.

En route to the Serengeti from Kigoma and the chimps, I decided to make a brief visit to Saanane Island National Park located in Lake Victoria near the town of Mwanza.

Let’s begin with a satellite view of East Africa that puts Lake Victoria in perspective relative to the Rift Valley lakes such as Tanganyika. Here’s an image borrowed from the internet:

Lake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes. It is not actually in the Rift Valley, instead occupying a depression between the eastern and western rifts formed by the uplift of the rifts to either side. With a surface area of approximately 23,146 sq mi, Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake by area, the world’s largest tropical lake, and the world’s second-largest fresh water lake by surface area (Tanganyika is by volume) after Lake Superior in North America. Lake Victoria is drained solely by the Nile River. What is most phenomenal about Lake Victoria is its fish diversity. Unfortunately, a large number of endemic fish species have become extinct since the 1940s for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the lake’s eutrophication caused by pollution from the shoreline development, but also due to the introduction of non-native Nile tilapia and perch. The complete disappearance of many endemic cichlid species has been called the “most dramatic example of human-caused extinctions within an ecosystem”. Despite this decline, the lake hosts more than 500 species of fish mostly belonging to a group known as haplochromine cichlids (note, I put this factoid in for Caitlin), which is far more species of fish than any other lake in the world, except Lake Malawi. Lake Victoria supports a huge commercial fishery, which initially was based on the native species but over the last several decades has switched to the non-native Nile tilapia and perch, although even these fisheries have been in decline over recent years due to the ecosystem’s rapid collapse.

En route to Saanane Island National Park, I had an unrewarding night stopover in a town I already forget the name of and in a lodge that I don’t want to remember, so we’ll leave it at that. Before heading to Saanane for the day, I ended up spending the night at the Rock Bay Resort and Campsite situated on a rocky bay (dah) of Lake Victoria. This place felt more like a country club than a campground on the shores of Lake Victoria. The landscape was extremely well-manicured, with golf-green like sculptured lawns built into a rocky hillside. It was actually quite a stunning setting if it weren’t so artificial looking. In any event, it served me well enough for my purpose. Here’s a photo of my “campsite”:

On a positive note, there were dozens of Mwanza flat-headed rock agama lizards (or just Mwanza agama) running all over the rocks, and the males have a brilliant mixture of pink and blue, as seen in this borrowed internet photo:

While at my stopover in Mwanza en route to the Serengeti, I opted to take a brief day excursion out to Saanane Island National Park, located a short distance offshore from Mwanze (5 minute boat ride). I camped next to the boat launch at the Mwanze Yacht Club – but don’t think of Atlantic Coast Yacht Clubs. This place was essentially a fenced-in patch of lawn with ablutions (dirty, but at least they had them) and a few boats tied up to the shoreline. Not surprisingly, I had this place to myself. While not the spectacular setting for a Lake Victoria shoreline campsite, it served my purposes. Here’s a photo:

Saanane Island NP (<1 sq. mi.) was established as Tanzania’s first zoo in 1964, eventually designated as a game reserve in 1991, and finally became a national park in 2013. This tiny little park – Tanzania’s smallest – is situated on a small island in the Gulf of Lake Victoria. Many of the large mammals in the Park were brought here when it was a zoo (or “animal garden”). But I am not visiting to see large herds of mammals, but rather to stretch my legs on the hiking trails, enjoy the lakeside scenery and see a few birds. As it turns out, this Park receives very few visitors (<50/year) and nobody spends the night in the nice campsite or the awesome bedded tented camps overlooking the Bay, so I had the entire island Park to myself, except for the overabundant Park staff. In fact, the Park is appears to be desparate for visitors as the tourism manager for the Park whatsapp chatted me after I returned from the Park begging me to spread the word on how nice the Park was. There were a few kilometers of mostly stone pathways snaking up and down and around the few rocky hills – it was actually quite nice the way they cut the trails into the stones in a very natural way. I did see the few large mammals they have on the island- very tame zebra, blue wildebeest and impala, and let’s not forget the lions (male, female, and cub) in the much-too-small enclosure – and picked up several new bird species and watched what I think was a black mamba (snake) speed away from me on the trial (yikes!), but the highlight for me was finding and watching a rather large (~16×12 inch) leopard tortoise (photo below). Here are some photos of my visit to the Park:

And let’s finish this post with another mystery structure for the few of you that like to test your identification skills. This structure was on Saanane Island. Answer will come with the next post:

First things first: The answer to the mystery burrow. Several of you submitted guesses and except for our family clown – you know who you are – all guessed honey badger. That would be a very logical choice and one I might have even made had I not seen a warthog sitting in the entrance of the burrow when I approached. New mystery image at the end of this post.

After leaving Katavi National Park, I headed north to the town of Kigoma on the shores of Lake Tanganyika and my jump off point for a boat ride to Gombe National Park and the site of Jane Goodall’s pioneering work on chimpanzees.

First, Lake Tanganyika is notable for being the second-oldest freshwater lake in the world, the second-largest by volume, and the second-deepest. It is also the world’s longest freshwater lake at 421 miles (and averaging 31 miles in width). The lake is shared among four countries—Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, and Zambia, with Tanzania (46%) and DRC (40%) possessing the majority of the lake. It drains into the Congo River system and ultimately into the Atlantic Ocean. And for you fish folk (i.e., Caitlin), this lake has at least 250 different species of cichlids – wow – and 98% are endemic (i.e., found nowhere else) – double wow! And there is a thriving fishery focused on the non-cichlid “tanganyika sardines”, which make up 25-40% of the protein in the local diet – wow again. Here’s a satellite view of this impressive lake that I borrowed from the internet:

My journey to “trek with the chimps” began in the town of Kigoma where I spent the night camping at Jacobsons Beach Lodge. Nothing too remarkable about this campsite except for the very tame zebra in my campsite that apparently escaped (and nobody cares) from an adjacent wildlife sanctuary. The site normally has a nice beach but apparently the lake level has risen in the past few years (presumably due to global warming?) and the beaches are now inundated, leaving a mostly rocky and rugged shoreline. Here are a couple of photos:

Oh, and did I mention that I met a really nice young Maasai man who hails from Lake Manyara region (folks from our Tanzania trip last year will remember this locale) but lives and works most of the time in Zanzibar running a small shop selling Maasai paraphernalia that he makes (mostly), but also serves as guide for an Italian couple (who he is with right now) that come back to Tanzania each year. His goal is to earn enough to return to his beloved homeland of Manyara. Here he is:

Kigoma was the jump-off port for a boat ride up the lake to the relatively small, but incredibly important, Gombe National Park and Jane Goodall’s chimps. The journey started with an attempt to get to the boat launch for the Park on the crowded portside streets. Turns out the street to the launch was blocked due to a washed out culvert that was under repair and the only other way to get there was on a side road that had a heavy hauler broken down in the one and only critical turn, making that route impassable. Did I ever meantion TIA before! Well, this was another classic TIA (This is Africa, in case you forgot). Fortunately, I was following a guide with a very nice German family that I met via the Parks office so I was not in charge of navigation – if I was, I would have never gotten there. To make a long story short, after much pondering and discussions with many street people offering advice, we inched our way through a small market lane not meant for landcruisers and then along the side of a drainage ditch not meant for vehicles at all that gave about 2 inches of space between the vehicle and either the metal sign post on one side and the 5-foot drop into the ditch on the other side. Well, we made it of course, and started our 1.5 hour boat ride up the lake to the Park. Here are a few photos of this auspicious start:

My destination of course was Gombe National Park, established in 1968 and one of the smallest parks in Tanzania at 13.5 square miles. This park is where Jane Goodall did her pioneering research on chimps for 60 years begining in 1960. Her work helped awaken the world to the plight of chimps and to their incredible social structure and human-like behavior. Chimp populations have declined dramatically over the past century from over 2 million to around 200,000, mainly due to habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching for the meat market (yes, native Africans eath chimps and other monkeys if given the opportunity), and the live animal (pet) trade (yes, people still think they can raise a chimp to be a household pet). Gombe used to be part of an extensive and contiuous forested habitat for chimps that extended the length of Lake Tanganyika and connected Gombe with the extensive Congo basin. Today, the only habitat remaining in Tanzania is in Gombe and her big sister Park, Mahale, located some distance down the lake. But Gombe is essentially an isolated island population now and likely to remain so. Fortunately, the 100 or so chimps in Gombe have maintained a relatively stable population for the past few decades since their isolation, but genetics over the long term could be the cause of their ultimate demise – only time will tell.

Here is the Gombe rest house (where I stayed) and adjacent research offices:

There is a rather large primate research station here at Gombe, including some 50-60 folks studying/monitoring chimps and another 20-30 studying/monitoring olive baboons and the red colobus and blue monkeys. It appears that is being run under the auspices of the Jane Goodall Institute and funded primarily by the US National Science Foundation. It turns out that I just missed meeting Jane Goodall herself by 2 days – bummer! Apparently, even at the age of 89 she still manages to come to Gombe for at least a week each year to check up on the chimp research. After considerable discussion with a couple of research assistants in the field, I must report that from what I understand the large team of researchers aren’t really doing much actual science anymore. The teams of assistants are simply watching the chimps and recording their behavior, for example, what they eat, how often and for how long, how much they play, clean each other, etc.. But they didn’t seem to know the overall purpose or objective of the behavioral observations. In otherwords, I gather there isn’t a big research question being addressed, but rather just behavioral monitoring. That’s OK, in part because it is employing a lot of people and maintaining enthusiasm for the Gombe chimps, but I don’t think they are trying to answer any big questions.

Our chimp trek on my first afternoon was unsuccessful as the chimps were not to be found nearby. However, on the morning of day 2, our trek took us into the hills of Gombe to cross paths with a small family of chimps. In the first half of the video below, you will meet Tanga, a 33 year old female, her 6.5 year old daughter Turwa, and her 2 year old son Temeke. We begin with them foraging on fruits in the tree canopy (at this point there are just a few of us with the chimps), then follow them overland to another foraging stop where they again go into the canopy (at this point we are joined by 3 other parties so our numbers baloon to like 25 – yuk!), and then follow them until they stop on a trail for some grooming. Temeke is quite a little character and loves to play and do somersaults and mess with his big sister. On the morning of day 3, our trek took us on an adventurous climb halfway up the mountain and several kilometers from camp, partly on human trails and partly on chimp trails requiring a fair amount of hands and knees to get through the tangle vines. In the second half of the video you will join Hippo and her offspring and her sister and her offspring as they trek along the trails for quite some time, eventually, thank goodness, stopping a couple of times on the trail so that we could catch our breadth and watch them. At the end along the creek they meet up with the alpha male of the entire community of about 60 chimps. His name is Fudge. Hope you enjoy watching this and although the video quality sucks at times and it doesn’t give you the full sensory experience, hopefully it will give you a partial experience a chimp trek.

Gombe Chimps video (21 minutes)

OK, I am off north to the shores of Lake Victoria, although it will take me a couple of days to get there. See you there.

Mystery image:

OK, for you people that like quizes and games, here’s another mystery organism picture for you to ponder. What kind of species made this structure? Answer come with next post:

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My first destination in Tanzania is Katavi National Park, located in the far western reaches of the country. Note, my inland journey through Tanzania this year focuses on the western-most section of the country because last year Nancy and I and friends spent 1 month overlanding in the eastern and central part of Tanzania, where we visited some amazing National Parks.

Katavi NP (1,726 sq. mi.), established in 1974, is a very remote and thus rarely visited Park (I read that they have fewer than 500 guests a year, and I am told by one of the rangers almost never a self-drive camper like me) – making it extremely attractive to me. The Park is situated within a truncated arm of the Rift Valley (the Rukwa Riff basin) that terminates in the shallow, brooding expanse of Lake Rukwa just outside the Park.

Most of Katavi NP supports a rather homogeneous cover of tangled Miombo woodlands (discussed previously) in the uplands, home to substantial but elusive populations of eland, sable and roan antelopes. However, the main focus of the Park is the Katuma and Kavuu Rivers and associated floodplains, along which are found some extensive grasslands such as the Katisunga Plain and the seasonal Lakes Katavi and Chada. I spent almost all of my time driving along the Katuma River and the immediately adjacent floodplains, and along the edge of Katisunga Plain, since that is where most of the wildlife concentrate during this time of year. Here are some photos the landscape I visited, beginning with an aerial view of Katisunga Plain that I borrowed from the internet to give you a better perspective on this awesome natural setting:

My first two nights in the Park I camped at the one interior public campsite, called Ikuu, which was only set up for a single party – in part because they almost never get any campers and, if they do, it is a single party. It’s only redeeming feature was that it was close to the Katuma River and my wildlife drives along it. On the downside, the site itself was rather bland. First of all, it was about 100 meters from the river, so there was no river view – although there could have been had they sited the campsite closer to the river! Second, there was only a single “shade” tree, but it was deciduous and had lost most of its leaves, so I had to “chase” the shade of the tree trunk on one of my siestas. On the second day, I had learned my lesson and spent the midday along the river watching the “circle-of-life” scene play out, as shown the video. Lastly, there was trash everywhere left over from the last camper and NOT picked up by the Park staff, but rather left for the monkeys to scatter it everywhere. I picked up most of the trash and bagged it and delivered to the Park headquarters and let them know of my disappointment. This combined with the fact that the water tank ran dry after the first day allowed me to successfully argue for not paying for a night of camping. Here is a photo of my not-so-spectacular campsite:

After realizing that the water tank was dry and that after 2 days I had done all the local wildlife drives at Ikuu, rather than retread those same tracks, I decided to head to the Park headquarters where there was the only other public campsite in the Park and tour the area around Lake Katavi. Well, when I got there I learned from the head ranger that the public campground “was not working”, basically because they could not get the toilets to work. So, instead of a campsite, they put me in a “banda”; essentially, a small 2-room concrete hut, but for the same price of $30. So here I sit for my midday siesta. Here’s a photo of my banda, in case you were wondering:

I visited Lake Katavi on my last evening and I found it quite interesting. I describe the interesting dynamic of this seasonal lake in the video below, but the upshot is that this lake goes from being a huge but relatively shallow water body in the wet season to a mostly dried up basin with small channels and remnant pools of various sizes during the dry season when I visited. Here’s a photo of some of what I saw:

For those of you interested in local culture, I also learned that the Lake was named after a spirit that inhabits the Lake called Katabi, after which the Lake and the Park were named. Apparently, this spirit has the power to grant myriad fortunes to the natives, or so some believe, as described in the sign fronting the spirit tree shown here:

The most noteworthy things about this Park are: 1) the remoteness and rarely visited atmosphere – as one site put it, it’s “far-flung and off-the-map quality” being the most impressive drawcard – I believe I saw a couple of other vehicles on my two days of wildlife drives, and thus all of my wildlife viewing was private; and 2) the high densities of hippos and crocs. In fact, Katavi has the highest densities of these two species in all of Tanzania, and I can verify this to be true as the rivers were crowded with both species. Indeed, hippos are to Katavi as elephants are to Hwange in Zimbabwe. I did see quite a few other mammal pecies, including elephants, giraffe, defassa waterbuck, common bushbuck, impala, topi, zebra, cape buffalo, banded mongoose, and two new mammal species for me: the large grey mongoose and the bohor reedbuck. Unfortunately, I did not see any of the big cats or wild dogs, all of which are reported to be here. However, the highlight for me was all the wading birds, including storks, herons, egrets, ibises, pelicans, and plovers. They were everywhere along the rivers and kept my binoculars very busy – Phil, you would have loved it!

Here is another long (sorry, I can’t help as it is all so interesting to me) composite video of my observations at Katavi for the most dedicated among you, including some landscape scenes and descriptions, lots of hippos, a “circle-of-life” sequence involving a dead hippo and a bunch of scavenger birds, a couple of cool bird species snippits, and even a “dragon”. Hope you enjoy:

Katavi National Park composite video (39 minutes)

It’s been a long time since I gave you a mystery quiz, either auditory or visual, so I am going to throw one in here for good luck. What creature do you think made this burrow? Hints: it is about 1 foot in diameter and the creature is one of Sherry and Kirsten’s favorites:

If you think you know, submit your entry. The first to get it wins the prize of pride.

Cheers!

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My 5^th country on this overland trip is Tanzania, and once again, it is worth sharing a few factoids about this country to put things in better context and to educate myself (and you, if needed) a little about this corner of the world.

• As you can see in the map above, Tanzania is on the east coast of Africa bordering the Indian Ocean and abutting 8 countries, including Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya, and it is located just south of the equator between the latitudes 2-6 degrees south.
• It is part of what is commonly referred to as “East Africa”, along with Kenya and Uganda (although there are many other recognized delineations).
• The official name of Tanzania is the United Republic of Tanzania.
• Roughly 1.4 times the size as Texas or twice the size of California.
• Roughly 64 million people, compared to ~332 million in the U.S..
• 3 official languages: Swahili and English everywhere and Arabic only in Zanzibar. However, over 100 different languages are spoken in Tanzania, making it the most linguistically diverse country in East Africa. Swahili is used in parliamentary debate, in the lower courts, and as a medium of instruction in primary school. English is used in foreign trade, in diplomacy, in higher courts, and as a medium of instruction in secondary and higher education.
• Government is a democratic republic, which includes independent executive, legislative and judicial branches with a structure similar to the US, except that the legislature is unicameral and thus contains only a single national assembly.
• Official currency is the Tanzanian Shilling, but many tourist places (e.g., hotels, lodges, etc.) accept US Dollars.
• Major exports include Gold, copper, diamonds, and other minerals, in addition to coffee, tobacco, cotton, coconuts, Brazil nuts and cashews.
• Although the government does not recognize indigenous peoples, roughly 1% self-identify as indigenous, including the Hadzabe, Akie and Maasai peoples. However, there are some 120 self-recognized tribes.
• Maasai are the most recognizeable tribe due to their distinctive bright red-patterned robe, or “Shuka”, wrapped around their bodies.
• Often referred to as the “Cradle of Humanity” because the earliest known hominids and the oldest remains of genus Homo are found here and elsewhere in East Africa.
• Tanzania’s colonization history is very similar to much of eastern Africa, with a few twists. The indigenous hunter-gatherers began to be displaced by Bantu peoples some two thousand years ago, and the influx of various Bantu peoples continued through the 19th century. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to sway influence over the region during the 16^th and 17^th centuries but never assumed any real colonial control over the native peoples and never reached too far from the coast. During the second half of the 17^th century the Portuguese were slowly driven from the coast by Arabs from Oman, and from the end of the 17^th century the Arabs were the dominant power in the region. The Arabs became slave traders and took huge numbers of slaves from the region during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, exporting slaves mostly to Arab or European colonies in the Indian Ocean. Eventually, the Germans arrived in the mid 1800’s and by 1885 had started ruthlessly taking over the region under the banners of the German East Africa Company. Meanwhile, the British invaded from the North in modern-day Kenya and from the coast during the first world war and fought the Germans for control of the region. After the war the Germans surrendered to the British and in 1918 the mainland area was named “Tanganyika” and fell under British territorial control. British colonial rule of Tanganyika ended in 1961. After the Zanzibar Revolution overthrew the Arab dynasty in Zanzibar, it too became independent in 1963, and then in 1964 merged with mainland Tanganyika in 1964 to become the United Republic of Tanzania.
• Has the tallest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, at 19,340 feet!
• Has the world’s largest intact caldera (collapsed volcano), Ngorongoro Crater.
• Has the world’s second largest lake, Lake Tanganyika, although the Lake falls on the international border and thus is shares this distinction with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi.
• Has ~38% of its total land area devoted to national parks, reserves and wildlife management areas – impressive accomplishment and second only to Zambia in all of Africa!