The Cradle of Human Evolution

Dec. 29: Day 14

We had another fabulous breakfast. Today, they made our lunch boxes as opposed to yesterday when we made our own. Come to think of it, maybe it the 3 turkey sandwiches I made for myself that led to the switch! :^D

Dinner was included in these two nights and both were more than satisfactory. Again, we had the monkeys on our roof; we must be in their nightly path.

After all the gin and tonics, our bill was only $28 and they threw in a bag of coffee! Alles gut!

We headed back the same way as yesterday, passing the same baboons at the entrance. Today, a heavy mist hung in the air though, and when we arrived at the crater overlook, all one could see was a wall of white. Glad we saw it yesterday.

Our first stop was Olduvai Gorge, site of the famous Leaky finds. This is the so called “cradle of human evolution” where one can trace the rise of hominids from more than 3.6 million years ago.

This place was fascinating and I am sure to do heavy research on the topic. I plan on buying Mary Leaky’s autobiography – Discovering the past.

Here we found the nutcracker skull, a hominid that was almost a gorilla, complete with a ridged skull and a wide jaw. In the same layer of sediment – suggesting co-habitation – was a much more advanced species with an opposable thumb and a brain size that suggests it may have been the species that created the stone tools discovered at the gorge.

In two subsequent layers, two other hominoids were discovered, creating a virtually unbroken chain of human evolution.

But the most amazing thing to me were human footprints, fossilized in the volcanic dust, from 3 upright hominoids dating 3.6 million years ago. The big toe was directly in line with the foot, and the prints are virtually indistinguishable from a modern foot. Did you know the human being is the only creature on earth to have an arch in their foot? This is to support the tremendous pressure of having the entire body supported on only one limb at a time.

The museum featured a cast of the “foot print trail” – the actual site is 45 miles away and has been reburied to preserve it until the government can afford to build a museum around the site and protect the prints from erosion.

They displayed lots of stone tools and extinct animal carcasses, including an elephant-like creature with tusks curving downward out of its lower jaw. Also a mammoth ancestor of the buffalo whose skull and curving horns were about 3 times larger than its modern cousin.

Next, we headed to the Serengeti. Serengeti comes from a Maasai word meaning “land of endless space” and it certainly lives up to the name. It stretches as far as the eye can see in all directions. The savannah makes up 50% of the Serengeti, and yet the animals don’t actually LIVE here. They use it as a crossing ground from the woodlands to the grasslands as dictated by the rains.

For some place that animals don’t abide – the place is crowded with life. Wildebeests and Zebra stretch in vast herds that boggle the imagination. Some 3.5 million wildebeest cross the savannah during the bi-annual migration and I swear I think we saw them all!

It’s hard to describe unless you’ve seen it – the horizon is endless, like being at sea – it’s just flat and goes on forever in all directions. And everywhere you look, as far as you can see – till they become just sand-sized specks in the distance – Wildebeest abound.

We came across more hyenas in one spot than we’ve seen yet. About 5 lay about dozing or sitting up to spy upon the jeeps. Beyond them, another 3 feasted on the carcass of something. Around them, the Thompson gazelles grazed unconcerned, secure in the knowledge that the hyenas were fed and happy. In the distance, another hyena loped along after a young wildebeest.

We stopped for lunch at Naabi hill, the unofficial marker to the “middle Serengeti”.












Here we ate our lunch while a half dozen gerbils raced back and forth between our feet, snatching up crumbs. We took a walk to the top of the rocks and gazed out over the endless grasslands, now strangely empty. We spotted a large black and red lizard, but some kids with sticks chased it off before we got a good look at it.

Color plays an important role in the animal kingdom. Red is bad, and serves as a warning to predators not to eat it. For instance, there is a poisonous plant whose leaves exude a milky substance that will strike a man blind. Insects that eat from its pollen turn red, indicating to birds that they are now toxic. However, said lizard can devour those insects, becoming toxic in turn, and turning red as well, warning the larger birds of prey not to eat him.

The bizarre rock formations that dot this section of the Serengeti like stone islands in the sea of grass were formed by expanding bubbles of molten lava millions of years ago.

After lunch, Samson got a tip on some leopards, and we sped off down kilometers of trail till we spotted a large female sitting on a grassy knoll surveying the countryside.

Just as we approached, an elephant came thudding by, and I captured one of my favorite images of the entire trip.

We were some distance off, but Samson, a guide for 17 years said he’s only been this close 2 times. (I don’t know if you can trust these guides though – later on in the trip we get much closer and he did not seem overly excited.) We watched her for some time, a truly beautiful beast – one could see why their coats were coveted. Then she slunk into the high grass and we followed her path as best we could.

When we lost sight of her, we drove on about half a kilometer and spotted another sleeping in a tree. Samson said he knew this family and this was the male offspring of that female we had just seen, and the boy was not quite a year old. He said there was a brother as well, but we never saw him. This cat never stirred, but we watched him through the field glasses for some time, marveling at his majestic beauty.

We turned back and spotted the mother again, now high in another tree. They are much more heavily muscled than the cheetah.

Now, we headed back to our camp. We stumbled upon 10 elephants close to the road, three of them halfway up a wooded kopie; very picturesque.

 

About half a mile from our camp we encountered a pride of young lions, ages varying from 3 months to 1.5 years, not stirring much and regarding the vehicles with bored disdain.
 

 When we arrived at our camp, the first thing we noticed were the HUGE nests in all the trees. Then, just back of the nearest tent, we saw at least a dozen Maribu storks, huge birds more than 4 feet tall with gargantuan wingspans. In fact, the camp is crawling with birds and we must have seen 8 different species while drinking a beer outside our tent.

This camp site is much more primitive than Entim. It’s more like real camping, although we still have a toilet and shower in the tent, and a sink with running water.

But here, if you want a shower you have to tell them ahead of time and they’ll boil some water and bring it to your tent and fill up a big bucket outside. Then you turn on your shower and the water runs down.

While in the shower, I spotted a palm sized spider scuttle under the toilet, and later we caught a 2 inch long beatle trying to crawl into the door.

This is a mobile camp, which moves periodically with the migration. One of the workers told me it took 4 days to set up the camp.

There’s maybe 20 people in the camp, and we all gathered around the campfire and had drinks and freshly roasted cashews – still hot!

Supper was good and plentiful. They escort you everywhere after dark as there is nothing between us and the animals. Walking back to our tent after supper, our flashlights illuminated a dozen Thompson gazelle just off the trail.

 

Can the lions we viewed earlier be far behind? ;^)