The saga of Thursday November 7, 2024 in Arusha, Tanzania
About a year ago, while driving the boys home from school, I asked them how many days of safari they thought they could handle. In my heart, I would happily go on safari for several weeks, especially now that I’ve experienced a small taste of what it could be. I wasn’t sure our children could handle that many days of driving around looking at animals. After a few minutes of careful consideration, Eitan said he thought he could handle three days. Amichai quickly agreed. The twins had no idea what I was asking and went along with their brothers. In one of my better parenting moments I listened closely and only signed us up for three safari days. This turned out to be wise. Our children loved every moment of their three safari experiences. However, by the end of the third drive, the twins were sleeping in the back of the jeep while Amichai and Eitan were switching between reading on their Kindles, journaling, and looking out their window. Chaim and I were still enjoying ourselves. However, the morning of our third Safari, Chaim pulled his back sneezing.
With an elevation of 6000 meters, the top of Ngorongoro Crater offers stunning views of the 250km2 basin below and the city beyond. As we descended 4600 meters down the switchbacks into the basin, I marveled at how the climate and therefore environment changed from a dense, lush, and vibrant jungle to dry plains replete with tall grasses as far as the eye could see. Along the road we could see different kinds of animal droppings, making it clear that elephants ventured far up into the jungle and down again. I learned from The Magnificent Migration that the entire safari ecosystem is based on the wildebeest migration. Hundreds of thousands of wildebeests migrate from the Serengeti north to Kenya and then back again. It was hard to imagine hundreds of thousands of wildebeests, until we saw just how many were in the basin.
Driving into the basin, we saw baboon, hyenas, a young serval camouflaged carefully inside the grass, gazelle, thousands of zebras and wildebeests, beautiful and diverse birdlife, buffalo, gazelle, and warthogs. A few minutes later, our guide, Hosea, stopped the jeep and turned off the engine. On our right we could see hippos sunbathing in their mud pools, barely moving. They looked like lazy lumps of log. On our left, far in the distance and barely recognizable to the naked eye, Hosea spotted a Black African Rhino. There are fewer than one hundred Black African Rhinos in all of Ngorongoro Crater. A sighting is about as rare as our leopard sighting in Tarangire National Park. Thanks to my father, I had LASIK surgery done twenty years ago and still have 20/15 vision. Even with my excellent eyesight, the rhino was so far away that it looked like a giant black dot. Well, that black dot was a BIG DEAL. Hosea’s excitement was contagious. Silently while grinning from ear to ear, we jumped on our seats and began high fiving about this black dot. Hosea lent us his binoculars so that we could have a better look. It was incredible. Happily munching on some grass, minding its own business, the Black African Rhino dwarfed everything around it.
Fifteen minutes later, Hosea drove across the basin to where the buffalo were gathered. Jeeps began to gather. A pride of five lionesses were on the hunt. A team of lionesses can take down a buffalo. One or two cannot. A younger buffalo had separated from its pack to graze in the grass near the border of the plains. Two other buffalos grazed nearby, each about 150 meters away. The lionesses looked hungry. Hosea explained that they eat about once a week. When their skin looks thin and you can see the outline of their ribcage, it is a sign that they are in dire need of eating. The lionesses focused their attention on the single buffalo. Three of them spread out, the leader approached slowly, creeping as low in the grass as possible, the other two following behind. Alas, the nearby buffalos recognized the threat and came over to defend their kin. At one point a larger buffalo charged at the lead lion and scared the pride away.
Still hungry, they spotted a warthog. Alone and far from any potential defenders, the pride turned their attention to it. Again, the pride set up its formation. Leader in front followed by the second and third in command with a few yards in between each lion. They waited patiently for the warthog to get closer. The warthog realized the threat in the nick of time and dashed away toward the buffalo just as the lions were sprinting toward it. The boys were impressed by the warthog’s speed, amazed by the lionesses’ focus, patience, and persistence, relieved the warthog escaped unscathed, and sad for the lions who were obviously starving. I am certain that all of the jeeps and prattling people nearby did not help the lions’ cause.
Before exiting the park we stopped to use the toilets. Hosea warned us to keep our windows and doors closed. If we didn’t, there would be a good chance of a baboon entering our jeep. The boys had been snacking inside the jeep the whole safari. Uninvited guests? No, thank you. We took Hosea’s warning seriously and kept everything as closed as possible. Chaim, Shai, and Matanel got out quickly to go to the toilets. Hosea went to finish any required paperwork. I stayed behind in the jeep with Eitan and Amichai who were lagging. A minute or two later, Amichai left the jeep to use the toilet. Just as he began walking around the jeep next to us, our jaws dropped as we witnessed a huge baboon jump into that same jeep through the driver’s open door. The baboon looked bewildered, like it was unsure of what it had just done. Behind the driver’s and front passenger’s seats there were three bench rows. There was no middle aisle like our jeep had. The first row was empty. Amichai stopped in his tracks. Eitan and I were shocked into silence. The mama bear in me wanted to leap out of the jeep and stand in front of Amichai, but the sensible person in me thought that could draw the baboon’s attention to us. Nope. Not a good idea.
Suddenly, the baboon pressed his butt up against the window facing us. Its bright pink and orange backside was all Eitan and I could see for a moment. We cracked up but quickly stopped laughing. The baboon was clearly deciding if it was going to jump in the second row where there were three people sitting. The woman directly behind the baboon had thrown up a newspaper or pamphlet in front of her face and looked terrified. She kept peeking over the edge of her paper, unsure of what to do. The baboon began pacing along the first row, staring at the six people in the other rows. My heart was racing, my mouth agape. Amichai was still glued to the sidewalk in front of the jeep watching. What was going to happen? Every passing second felt like an eternity. Finally, the jeep’s driver threw open the passenger door and started yelling and beating his chest at the baboon. He continued until the baboon jumped out of the jeep and chased after him. A moment later, the driver came back laughing, got into the jeep, and they drove away.
Out of all the experiences we had on our journey thus far, this was by far the most terrifying. Even now, several months later, my heart is racing as I described the encounter.
