For days we have been bounding along the rutted roads that cross the bumpy savanna, slowing crawling up mounds of volcanic rock, and crossing swampy laggas. All the travel in the Land Cruiser has shown us some of the truly beautiful sights of the Masai Mara. We longed to not be just observers but to be on the ground hiking through the grass under the Acacias and touching the shattered trees pushed over by elephants.
We scheduled a night at the tree house that is about three miles from our main camp and about two thirds of the way up the Serian Escarpment. The tree house is a basic sleeping deck with a small thatched roof and bedrolls on the deck. Certainly it is not roughing it, but it is much more basic than our home at Serian. The typical hour and a half guided walk, took us nearly 5 hours as we stopped and asked question, took photos, poked around and explored. First stop was another session of quality time with the hippos. The hippos greeted us again with wheeze honking, snorting, and huffing as they soaked in mid-river. Along the hippos’ trail that we were walking, we found some hippo scat (poop) that was evidence of their rather unique behavior known as dug showering. The bulls will back up to a bush and simultaneously urinate and defecate while rotating their short tail resulting into a 2 - 4 diameter circle of poop to mark their dominates. Remarkably I saw such a display.
We carefully watched the trail for animal tracks. Dixon patiently pointed out the tracks of Impala, zebra, and hippos with their four-toed print as big as a large saucer plate. The most impressive was the track of an elephant at 50 cm across it was as big as a dinner plate. Elephants use the area extensively. Just a couple of days ago a group from our camp were headed up to the tree house but were turned away by a group of elephants. There are many small trees in the area that have been pushed down by elephants as a way of preserving food. Once downed, the tree dies but grass and plants grow up through the dead branches being protected from the grazing of other herbivores. When times get tough the elephants return to the tree, they push the tree aside and graze on the lush vegetation that lay beneath it.
Elephants are our largest land animals. Smaller females at almost 8.5 feet can weigh up to 7700 pounds while the big bull elephants weigh over 13,000 pounds and stand 11 feet high.
We arrived at the tree house by noon and had a brief lunch before heading up to the top of the escarpment. From the top of the escarpment, we could see across the Great Rift Valley. The Valley is one of the most dramatic featured of the region. It was formed when the land split apart as tectonic plates diverged and the land between them dropped. Africa’s Great Rift Valley extends from the Dead Sea of Israel and Jordan south to Mozambique and will one day reach the Indian Ocean.
We turned back down the rocky escarpment to return to the tree house and a dinner that was roasted on the open fire by the Masai guides. We drank red wine at sunset and watched the sky change from azure to gold and fade to black for the shortest night of the year. Our Masai guides called it the New Year. The moon was not out yet so the stars were magnificent. Somewhere in the Great Rift Valley crickets began their hum and the leopards started to hunt while our Masai guides tended the fire and kept us safe through the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment