Tanzania’s circle of life

Serengeti plays out the life and death dance, with delightful light and sound shows

Serengeti plays out the life and death dance, with delightful light and sound shows

As dawn breaks on the endless plains of Serengeti, every lion there wakes up knowing well that it has to run faster than the slowest antelope in sight; and every antelope wakes up knowing that it has to run faster than the fastest lion on the horizon.

The drama of life and death unfolds on the stage of survival, every day and every night, nay every moment; and you realise that the end of a life is the beginning of another.

As you gaze around the landscape, covering all of 360 degrees, you become conscious of thousands and thousands of zebras and wildebeest slowly closing in on you. You feel as insignificant as a speck in the dust storm created by their gathering hooves! For a moment, you feel the same fear that ran through the veins of the pre-historic man till he discovered the cold comfort of a stone-age weapon.

Yes, in Serengeti, where we witnessed some of nature's finest spectacles, the land is so flat and endless that Galileo would have thought twice before declaring that the earth is round!

The reason why this landscape is flat goes back a few millennia. A volcanic eruption flattened Serengeti and covered it with ashes so thick that only grass could survive there for centuries on end. And the massive boulders spewed by the volcano landed thousands of miles away and became what's called the kopjes, where the lions and lionesses rear their family in quiet privacy.

One of the first sights in our journey was a hyena's kill. The gazelle was brought down by the lone hyena; and as it was preparing for a sumptuous lunch, the hovering vultures got wind of the happening and started descending on the scene, one by one. Within moments, there were over 30 of them, and the hyena withdrew valiantly from the scene. For the first time ever, I saw a hyena with a sheepish grin!

As I saw the starlings flitting by, the secretary bird strutting along, and the white-necked ravens creating a racket, I remembered the pied-crested cuckoo that had flown from Africa all the way to Mumbai to herald the monsoon. The common crows had piled on the poor guest and in a moment of spontaneous action, I had 'interfered' with nature's course, saved the cuckoo, and took it to the BNHS office in town. I handed it over to the caring hands of Isaac Kehimkar, who later released it in the BNHS land at Borivli National Park. How I wish I had ringed that bird to trace its safe journey back to its homeland in Africa. Till date I don't know whether it did. I don't want to know, because I want to believe it did.

Then we visited Oldupai, where the remains of earliest man ever to walk the earth was excavated. At that place I felt thirsty. Later I realised that a river ran along there, till its course was altered forever by volcanic eruptions. No wonder the recorded memory of thousands of years was transmitted in an instant to my parched throat!

The next day was what I call 'National Geographic Live!' We had booked ourselves for a ride in the hot air balloon. But before that, we were to witness Tanzania by night.

As our trip to Masai Kopjes, the site of our balloon take off, started at 5 am, we saw glistening eyes lit up by the headlights of our Land Rover. Piercing eyes without accompanying bodies staring straight at us...
As the balloon manoeuvred by a team of master fliers soared above Serengeti, we witnessed the aerial view of the most awesome spectacle on earth the Great Migration.

In May, thousands of zebras and wildebeest were congregating into groups of twenty thousand and odd, building up their cadres which eventually touches 20 lakh animals setting off on a single trail crossing two violent rivers on the way: the Grumeti and the Mara. And coming all the way back to where they started.
Like in case of the migration of the Snow Geese and the Siberian Cranes and scores of other birds, no clear explanations have come forth except that they go looking for greener and warmer pastures.

I would surmise it's nature's own wanderlust, or a journey in which life searches for itself.

Stranger than this masochistic ordeal where they face certain death from the feline predators lying in ambush in the grasslands, and the alligators waiting patiently in the swirling rivers, is another tale. The tale of a species of butterflies that migrates all the way from Africa to far-away Canada and comes all the way back. But the twist in the tale is that butterflies being as short-lived as three months, it's the third generation that reaches Canada and the sixth that reaches back in Africa!

We celebrated our survival and safe landing with a typical champagne breakfast under a flat-top acacia that stood lonely and tall in the grassland.

There we saw, and tried to make friends with, the calf of a wildebeest that was lost and lonely. Apparently, the motherly instincts of wildebeest is the least developed. This, in spite of the fact that the instinct of survival teaches the calf to run even before it learns to walk.

When one of the tourists asked whether we could carry it to the safety of civilisation where it could be reared in captivity, our guide Mtaki said sternly: 'Don't interfere with nature!' And the import of that statement sunk into our souls like a prehistoric rock.

The Great Migration also results in the Reducing Height of the Grass. First, the tall zebras and wildebeest eat the tall grass thereby reducing its height. Following them are the shorter antelopes like bush bucks that feed on the grass and further reduce the height. Last come the tiny gazelles who find the grass perfectly cut to suit their height!

Yes, nature has worked it all out. Only one out of 20 attempts by a predator is successful. Which means 19 times the prey gets a chance to live another day. No wonder we saw a cheetah teaching her two grown up calves the fine art of hunting in open plains.

Also, the god who camouflaged the predator also camouflaged the prey in various shades of the Serengeti brown. Which is probably the reason why we saw leopards take vantage points on top of bare acacia trees to spot the distant movement of preys.

At Lake Manyara, we saw lions that climb trees. In fact, it's the only place in the world where these special lions are found. Their favourite perches were Sausage Trees that have the branches starting as low as four feet from the ground, enabling an easy climb.

Every day, as we crossed a particular patch in the jungle, we had to close the hood of our Land Rover, and pull up all the window panes, as a swarm of 'tse tse' flies would invade the vehicle, and inflict really painful bites on our bodies. The yellow fever vaccination that's mandatory for every tourist is to prevent a deadly fever caused by these 'tse tse' flies.

Then we moved on to Ngorongoro, the largest crater on earth, formed as the volcanic mountains moved away in one giant seismic movement a few millennia ago. Measuring 20 kms in diametre, it's a whole ecosystem that survives inside. It's a mini Tanzania in there: elephants, lions, leopards, hyenas, zebras, sweet water hippos, salt water flamingos, a whole plethora of varied species.

The wildlife that exist inside never really venture out. So it's almost as if they are marooned in the crater. Only the female elephants move around on the rim of the crater as it's rich in grasslands, and the male elephants with tusks almost touching the ground, come to visit them during the mating season. In the middle of the crater, we witnessed an entire entourage of lions lazing around yawning and stretching their legs may be recharging after a hard night's work in the wilderness.

As we were driving back to the forest lodge, we saw a double rainbow in the sky spanning the entire crater. Maybe to remind us that we were witness to a double delight in Tanzania the endless plains of Serengeti, and the marooned mysticism of Ngorongoro!