Exploring Tanzania’s hidden gems
A WHOOPING call echoed across the caldera. It was a fittingly eerie sound, given that we were hiking to a “ghost village”.
However, it wasn’t ghosts out on the grasslands but hyenas, most likely with a fresh kill.
“They’ve caught something,” said Maasai warrior Peter Mwasini.
“They’re calling the others to tell them to come, eat.”
We were inside Olmoti volcano, within Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania.
While many come here to see the rich wildlife down in the “crater” ,I was hiking into the lesser-explored calderas of Olmoti and Empakai, before trekking to the flamingofilled shores of Lake Natron and Oldoinyo Lengai – the “Mountain of God”, Tanzania’s third-highest peak and its only active volcano.
Coming over the 3 000m ridge into Olmoti, we disturbed some bushbuck which quickly disappeared.
There were hyena tracks on the dusty trail. “Very fresh. Big. Not far from here,” surmised Goodluck Silas, our guide.
I’d been broken into the trip gently, arriving at The Highlands, a lodge deep inside the conservation area. On my first evening I walked downhill with Peter to the Maasai village of Olchaniomelock (“Sweet Tree”).
Peter talked about life in this volcanic region: “Around eight years ago, Lengai erupted. Ash covered this area. I saw the fire coming up. Before it erupts, the animals know; you see zebra and antelope running.”
I was shown animal enclosures with high fences to keep out leopards and other predators. We went inside one of the homes, smoky from the fire where a little goat and a dog had gathered. Nongera, the owner, had built the mud-andthatch house herself. It will get more full with time.
“Maasai don’t measure being rich by money, but by having a lot of cattle and a lot of children,” she told me. “I have two children. I want 10.” There were salmon-pink skies next morning as we drove down into Ngorongoro. “It’s actually a caldera, not a crater,” Goodluck corrected me, as we drove past acacia trees into the vast remains of the volcano.
Extinct for 2.5 million years, it could once have stood taller than Kilimanjaro, scientists believe.
The deep caldera covers 259km², measuring nearly 20km from side to side, and the grasslands, swamps, forests and lakes inside are home to one of Africa’s densest concentrations of wildlife, including the big five. Later, we saw two lionesses cracking open a warthog.
Perhaps the spot of the day was one of Tanzania’s endangered black rhinos, viewed through binoculars, a tonne of thick body and prized horn ambling through sage brush.
“The Ngorongoro crater and the Serengeti are the only places in Tanzania where you can see black rhino,” said Goodluck, visibly excited. “Sightings are rare.”
We parked near Lake Magadi, its shallow waters crammed with lesser flamingos.
Goodluck said there were up to 8 000, but the lake sometimes gets busier.
“It’s a seasonal lake,” he explained.
The view from the crater rim was blocked by cloud the next morning, but after a quick, steep descent through the forest, we soon saw the shape of the crater walls and the edges of Empakai Lake crusted with salt. Blacksmith lapwings joined small clusters of flamingos along the shore.
Birdsong rose from the forest, including the chiming of the tropical boubou, but by the lake it was still and calm.
“Few people come here,” Goodluck said. “Of the hundred or so who see Ngorongoro, maybe five people go to Olmoti and Empakai.”
In the afternoon, we made our way over to Olmoti.
We climbed up to the higher plains, where zebra and wildebeest grazed in the distance as we walked through the long grass to a cluster of houses.
“They call it a ‘ghost village’ because it’s empty most of the year,” Goodluck said.
“The Maasai come up at the start of the dry season. They bring cows up here to pasture. They use this place for four months, then when it rains they go back down.”
In the morning, I was back at Empakai to meet hiking guide Joseph Kumbau, Maasai guide Alex Sabaya and a ranger.
The road we walked along had views out over fertile green countryside to the extinct Kerimasi volcano and the 3 200m high cone of Oldoinyo Lengai.
“In Maasai the name means ‘Mountain of God’,” Alex explained, “because people heard the trembling sound and thought God was inside.” . –