Ndutu is now well into the dry season. All the surrounding wildlife is starting to concentrate around the available water sources such as the Big and Small Marsh and Lake Masek, since nothing drinks from Lake Ndutu as it’s too alkaline.
Lake Masek is about two kilometres from Ndutu Lodge. It is long and thin, maybe some five kilometres in length, although it’s only half a kilometre wide. It is also quite a bit deeper than Lake Ndutu. Both lakes lie in a depression, which is actually the start of the world famous Oldupai Gorge. If you kept walking from the western end of Masek you would eventually arrive at the Oldupai visitor’s centre (though it would take about two days!) and the spot where Louis and Mary Leakey discovered some of our prehistoric hominid remains.
The water in Masek is still alkaline but not as concentrated as Ndutu. You don’t tend to see the large numbers of flamingos on Masek compared to Ndutu but there’s always a sprinkling of these pink birds at either end of the lake. There’s also a small school of hippo that can always be seen and often heard, snorting and grunting, on an evening game drive. I once witnessed hippos mating there and it’s the most bizarre thing, since they mate in the water. How the female doesn’t drown, I don’t know, since the only thing visible is the tip of her nose as she tries to breathe every so often. I tried to find out how long they can hold their breath underwater. Most guidebooks will tell you it’s about 4 – 5 minutes, but one book said that, as no one has ever tried to drown a hippo, no one really knows how long they can stay underwater!
There’s at least one crocodile in Lake Masek. Where it came from is bit of a mystery as no one has seen a crocodile there in many years until one day there he, or she, was. It can be seen quite often sunning itself on one of the little sand islands in the middle of the lake. We first started to see it just after the El Nino rainy season, three years ago. The nearest population of crocodile to Ndutu is in the Simiyu River in the neighbouring Maswa Game Reserve about forty miles away. There’s also crocodiles at Seronera, but that’s over fifty miles away, with grassy plains in between. I think it came from the Simiyu river. By looking at a map, we’ve worked out that it would be possible for a crocodile to follow little wet season gullies and valleys (especially during El Nino when everything was flooded) all the way to the Ndutu marshes. From there it just had to follow the river from the marsh that feeds Lake Ndutu and swim across the lake. The only tricky bit left would be the half a kilometre walk from Ndutu to Masek. By then it had made quite an epic journey and we’d gained a croc which, to tell the truth, we’re very pleased about.
I’ve no idea where the word Masek comes from or what it means but it could easily mean the place of elephants. Elephants love the open acacia woodlands and thick stands of commiphora which surround the lake. It’s by far the best place in the Ndutu area to watch elephants and, thinking about the hippos I mentioned earlier, I once came across a bull elephant in the lake chasing the hippos, lots water and hippos going everywhere followed by an ample supply of trumpeting from the elephant. Once the elephant had tired of this game, which I don’t suppose the hippos appreciated, he left the water and started to browse on the lakeshore. But unbeknown to him, he was followed out of the water by a tiny baby hippo that looked like a little pig. By this time the rest of the hippos were safely in the middle of the lake, the little hippo followed the elephant for about five minutes around the lakeshore with the elephant blissfully unaware. I started to get quite worried for the little chap, thinking that I was about to see him flattened. But not a bit of it, once the bull got wind of him he spun around with an almighty trumpet and charged. I closed my eyes, the elephant screamed, and baby hippo stood his ground. Once the bull realised this little thing wasn’t scared of him, he just hit the brakes turned on his heels and ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could with his tail in the air and disappeared over the hill. It took a little while before the little hippo realised that he’d lost his playmate and then slowly and, to my eyes, looking a little dejected, he walked back to the water and to his mother who was probably doing handstands.
At the end of the dry season, September – October, the Maasai, move into the Masek area with their cattle. The Maasai use Masek as a last resort when all other water sources dry up, as it’s probably not good for their livestock to drink this brackish water. And once the first rains arrive they leave as quickly as they came. The elephants seem to have perfected the art of avoiding them and carry on as usual, but the lions, which really don’t like them at all – and for good reason – virtually move into the lodge grounds at this time. In my opinion the best thing about Masek, apart from the lions, leopards, elephants and, in the wet season, wildebeest crossings is that there are a hundred and one places to have the perfect sundowner. It’s the most tranquil place I know (unless you’re being chased by an elephant) and watching hippos, or some of the many wading birds, which are abundant, while enjoying a sundowner, is one of the pleasures of life.
Around the campfire this month we’ve been treated to the planet Mars which is rising from the East. Of special note was a partial eclipse of the sun on the 21st June. Three o’clock that day saw us up on the hill over looking Lake Ndutu with chocolate cake and tea. Solar viewing glasses and welding goggles in hand, we had the most amazing tea party while the moon covered 60% of the sun. We also had a lunar eclipse this month and, of course without all the light pollution of town, the Serengeti is the perfect place to see the night sky.
I’ve seemed to have run out of space with this month’s newsletter without mentioning the huge male lion that sat next to the entrance road with an eland kill for four days, battling it out with the hyenas to keep it his kill. Or the very destructive giraffe that seems determined to wreak as much havoc to the lodge as is possible for a giraffe to do, but that’s just life in the bush.
We hope that you will be able to enjoy it with us some time.
