2017/09 Part 3 Ngorongoro - Wed am Oldupais Gorge |
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Wednesday September 20th
We had a lie-in, not up until 6. It was a foggy and wet but breezy morning, so perhaps we were just in the clouds. The resort has open walkways so everywhere was soaking wet, and, despite being almost on the Equator, it was cold!
We were off in the Landcruiser soon after dawn, around the crater rim. Our first surprise was this giraffe. We’d seen none on the crater floor but they love the dense forest around the crater rim. I never expected to be getting a picture of a giraffe in wet fog. We saw more giraffes along the road, including this mother and calf, still in the fog, but it was clearing.
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We were headed for the Serena lodge in Serengeti national park, a few hours away by road. Originally we were going there directly but I‘d noticed that our route passed quite close to Olduvai Gorge, so I’d asked Elvira if we could add it to our itinerary. She said that was no problem, with no extra charge, so that would be our first stop.
Along the way we passed a tourist-focused Masai village, an included stop for many tours, but I’d read reports of visitors being pressured to buy handicrafts at high prices. Understandable, given the disparity of wealth, but not an experience we wanted. I’d told Elvira we were mainly interested in animals, flowers, and scenery, so we passed it by. We also passed a couple of Masai men with camels; Ayoub said we should keep going as they were waiting for us to stop and then they’d charge us for taking photos. He did, however, stop for these kids; he said they were very well spoken and polite, so they got water bottles and some energy bars.
By the time we reached the gorge the weather was clear and windy. The sign proclaimed “Oldupai Gorge Reception”. The staff there are trying to 
correct the name. Over a hundred years ago a German scientist asked the Masai the name of the gorge. They thought he meant the wild sisal-like plants that grow there and said “oldupai”. He misheard or miswrote it as “olduvai” and a typo was born. I wish them luck; they are outnumbered ten to one on Google.
Oldupai Gorge was made famous by Louis and Mary Leakey, paleoanthropologists who discovered the fossil remains of Australopithecus, Homo Erectus, and Homo Habilis, all ancestors of today’s Homo Sapiens and all more than a million years old.
From up on the rim it looks more like volcanic chaos than a well-defined gorge. We were actually at the junction of two gorges, an easy place to get lost in, but it’s off-limits to tourists unless accompanied by an antiquaries guide.
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Oldupais Gorge (4.11) |
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There is, however, a small museum on the rim, telling the story of the Leakeys’ finds, and showing stone tools, replicas of early 
hominin skulls, and fossils of their contemporary animals.
The prize exhibit for me was this replica of the Trackway, sets of footprints left in volcanic ash by hominins over three million years ago. 
The big deal was that the footprints show foot arches and straight big toes, characteristics of humans rather than the other primates.
Lastly we had a talk from one of the scientists. He told us more about the Leakeys’ predecessors, the German scientists who were investigating hominin fossils in the gorge until their work was interrupted by the First World War and then terminated when Tanganyika came under British control. The Leakeys were sufficiently intrigued by their fossil finds to make their own trip to Oldupai.
After the talk, Ayoub set off across country, following rough tracks that threaded through the trees. He said it was a short cut towards the entrance to the 
Serengeti, quicker than going back to the road. The road had been mostly washboard so this was more comfortable for us as well as quicker.
Ayoub shot this picture of us at the Ngorongoro Crater lookout.
We were now leaving the Ngorongoro conservation area and heading into the Serengeti, so this is a good time to end part 3 of the journal.