This February we had a special guest at Ndutu Lodge. Jerry Rilling from the US. He had been the manager at Ndutu lodge many years ago. It was his first time to be back after all these years, so there were lots of stories to tell about the good old days …..
Jambo Wote,
It has now been nearly four months since my trip to Ndutu. For over a month of that I spent several hours a day learning to edit my trip photographs – ah the age of digital photography. As Aadje, Marleen, and the staff are aware, it was my first trip back to East Africa, let alone Ndutu, in over 20 years. And a couple more years since I was the manager of Ndutu during the start of the border closing problems with Kenya. I have emailed Aadje from time to time, but seeing Thomas who was on the staff in my day still there to bring my morning tea, etc. was fantastic. It says something about the lodge that it is able to keep the same staff for so many years. I just wish I had been able to make a trip earlier to see the cook Little John and others that retired recently. I even found the old picture of George Dove and Grub – Jane Goodall & Hugo van Lawick’s son in the office. I was able to keep it in my room during my stay. It was behind the table where I ate whenever I was at Ndutu. I probably didn’t show it much, but it was an emotional trip and very enjoyable.
The old saying, ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same.’ comes to mind. The new rooms are nicer than the old, with more privacy, etc. but the old feel is there. Tourists run on their stomachs as much as armies, and it was good to see the redone dining room and nice new dishes after our years of struggling with the same limited supply. The same is true of other areas of the lodge (except the restrooms are much improved). The staff was friendly & helpful as in my day and the food equally excellent. The only thing that I missed was the lunch spaghetti – an Ndutu staple in my day
One thing I was very please to see was that the redone dining/bar area retained access for the offspring of my Genet friends. I must include here a story that will be in my book. When the Kenya border closed, there were great shortages of some items. At Ndutu at that time we were down to one large box of toilet paper. Fortunately it was a fairly quiet time of year for tourists. I had taken a few rolls of paper out of the box. When one day I was opening the flaps of the box, I heard a low growl. I stopped for a while and started talking softly to whatever was there – certainly not a poisonous snake or a Lion. After a short while I carefully lifted the last flap slightly & peered underneath. It was one of the lodge Genets and she had had kittens on the top of the stack of paper rolls. I gently took the couple of rolls of paper I needed from the far side and closed the flaps again. From then on I talked quietly to the Genet mother whenever I entered the storeroom and particularly when I had to take out paper. She never growled again and I even invited a few people and staff in to look at her and the kittens. After a number of days, I had gotten down to the bottom of the box on the half away from the Genets. We were beginning to have more tourists and I had been saying to the mother, that I would like her to move as I would have to take paper from her side of the box very soon. The morning when I really had to have paper from underneath her, I opened the box to find that she had moved the kittens during the night. This brings back a flood of memories of Ndutu; but Aadje, Colin, Marleen and the staff all have their own memories and each tourist should have great memories of their own of the wildlife and the lodge.
I had heard of some of the changes in the area around Ndutu, but the one that I had not really thought about was the growth of vegetation in front of the lodge. In my day it was all mature trees and short grass with very little ‘brush’. The increased growth changes the view, but with that also comes the animals that now inhabit the area. I saw one of the Dik Dik now living close to the lodge ‘mark’ one of the Aloes now growing in front of the rooms and was able to point it out to several visitors. There were never elephants in the area in my day, leave alone in front of the lodge.
Game drives were great as there had been/was rain and the grass was green. Visibility had changed as there was a lot of grown up ‘bush’. I saw a decrease in a couple of animal species. That was either due to decreased visibility or increased numbers of Leopards eating the Impala, Steinbok, & Jackels. The growth of small bushes into medium trees certainly increased the amount of very suitable Leopard habitat.
The migration was as always and it was great to be able to get out to see it. As migration time is busy time for Ndutu, staff does not get much chance to get out and see it. I saw one thing that I hadn’t thought about. On the edge of the plains one morning there were vultures & Marabou Storks scattered about a good sized area. We drove by one spot where they were & I realized they were eating afterbirth. Apparently there had been a good sized herd in the area overnight. The mothers, by choice, give birth very early in the morning and the calves are able to move in a very few minutes. Apparently they all calved and then the whole herd moved away to let the scavengers eat the afterbirths without bothering/endangering the calves. We later saw the herd with calves not far from the birth spot. A very interesting piece of animal behavior that one can see at Ndutu and few other places.
As the pictures I will include show, we saw almost all the common diurnal animals of the Ndutu area. And every game drive we saw Wildebeest making Ndutu during the migration probably the best place in Africa to visit to observe wildlife. A leopard was the one animal we struggled unsuccessfully to find. When I was a tour guide, I always told my clients that “We may not see a Leopard, but I will guarantee that a Leopard has seen us.” One afternoon we were just a few minutes late to see a Leopard, and I am sure it was still in the area and saw us. There was only one wildlife thing I missed – the ‘a au, a au’ call of the Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse on the way to the water hole for their morning drink. Maybe on another trip in less than another twenty years. It is easy to see why people come back to Ndutu time after time and increase the length of their stay.
Jerry
P.S. The picture below of the curled up bat-eared fox is a favourite of Nancy Stout, who came out with me on this trip.
Thanks Gerry, we hope it will be less than twenty years before you come back for your next visit. And thanks also for the photos.
