At the Edge of the Earth
The second thing that hits you is the hugeness of the landscape. And how strange and beautiful it is. At Natron, less is more. Towering on the near horizon is the Maasai\'s sacred cone volcano, Oldoinyo Lengai, the Mountain of God. At night nearby villagers see the glow of molten rocks tossed above its crater. The lunar landscape surrounding the lake shimmers in the heat, its shores are a deceptively unsolid crust of caked and cracked minerals. Near the distant water\'s edge a pink haze slowly distinguishes itself as countless thousands of flamingos. The honking slow moving mass, all necks and knee joints, wades through the shallows, filtering the rich waters for diatoms and algae. Lake Natron, near the Tanzanian - Kenyan border, is 56-kilometres long, its waters an undrinkable soda soup. Few trees grow here and the local Maasai walk far to water their cattle. One of the few oases of shade is a permanent tented camp run by Debbie and Glyn Lewis of Swala Safaris. Not many people make it this far north in Tanzania. Arusha\'s bustling tour operators funnel people onto a well-beaten route through Ngorogoro Crater and the southern Serengeti. There, packed vans jostle for pole position next to the inert and basking lion pride, before racing their cargo to the next reported sighting of a fierce predator. By contrast, Natron and the Lewis\'s camp is far from the maddening crowd, the perfect destination for the adventurous spirit who prefers the road less travelled. Any harassing that takes place is of tourists - local Maasai women work hard to sell their bead jewellery, their only source of independent income. Maasai men have cattle, children and wives, in that order, to proclaim their wealth and status but their women have only their self-made trinkets to sell to the occasional traveller. The beads come from what was Czechoslovakia and the mind stretches to imagine how these tiny ceramic spheres found their way to this remote and unsophisticated place. Getting to Natron is an adventure in itself. The camp sits on a rugged road running between Loliondo, near the Kenyan border, and Arusha. The road was built as part of a drought relief effort in the early 1980s to bring water to the Maasai and their cattle. With an eye to opportunity, Glyn Lewis saw an opening to also bring travellers to the remote region and set up his Natron camp in 1981. But as is often the way in Tanzania, the road was never fully developed or maintained, and by 1985 was almost impassable again. Almost, but not quite. We approached Natron from the south, along the 120 km route from Lake Manyara National Park. The journey is a dust and dirt off-the-map ride, passing through vast golden grasslands surrounded by evidence of the earth\'s power - calderas, cones and huge volcanic mountains stand softly blue in the distance, and the Rift Valley wall grows on the left. While at first the land seems empty of all but grass and the odd acacia, travel is slow and there is plenty of time to spy out hidden creatures. Especially with Debbie Lewis as our guide. You get the feeling that taking clients out is a fine excuse to get in amongst the animals, plants and landscapes she loves. And she is generous with her knowledge. With her help we spy two secretary birds stalking prey on their long pantalooned legs. When one finds a small snake, it slurps it down whole, spaghetti-like. Bustards and buzzards rise and fall among the tall grasses, and everywhere, seemingly from nowhere, appear young Maasai men, herding livestock. Their mud and dung villages are well camouflaged against the baking landscape. Sometimes the animals come to you; a troop of wildebeest thunder across the path, all hooves and horns and nervous energy. While further on, zebra graze alongside a solo giraffe, and herds of Grants and Thompson gazelle move past, tails flicking like windscreen wipers on speed. Our lunch stop halfway to Natron comes with a view of seven giraffes swaying their stately way along a distant rise. Within minutes, from nowhere, we are joined by a young moran, a Maasai warrior, whose spear and cattle prodding sticks reinforce his insistence to be photographed. About 500 Tanzanian shillings buys an obliging model. Our young moran drives off three younger goatherds who want a part of the action and profits, but suffers the arrival of a more senior warrior. Together our two lean companions, their brown skin decoratively scarred and draped with the iconic red cloth of the Maasai, watch us eat and drink with piercing eyes. Water they accept, food grown in the ground is spat out with contempt. Maasai are pastoralists, their wealth is in the cattle whose meat, blood and milk they eat and drink. We later learn Maasai believer it is a curse to till the earth for food for the Earth is Mother, who feeds their cattle, and her fruits are not to be eaten by man. Natron can also be reached from the north, along the road from Loliondo near the northern entrance of Serengeti National Park. The road winds over passes, through patches of euphorbia trees standing tall like giant candelabra, and cycads, an ancient palm tree. Nearer Natron it winds down through the \'badlands,\' a barren region of solidified volcanic ash, the dun yellow and brown broken occasionally by the soft pink of a briar rose. The land here is eroded into valleys that twist and turn and occasionally shelter Somali bandits. An escort of two friendly local policemen, armed with kalashnikovs and big smiles, served as an effective deterrent for our journey. We reached Loliondo unchallenged. For those more adventurous and with some extra time up their sleeves, an alternate route to Natron camp is to hike two days along the Rift Valley wall from a nearby crater, called Empakaai. Food and tents are provided, the locomotion is your own, and your reward is the views over one of Africa\'s strangest and most beautiful regions. Glyn says half the visitors to Swala\'s Natron camp come to climb the sacred volcano, Oldoinyo Lengai. It takes a day, with an early morning start to beat the baking heat. We have the inclination, but not the time. So instead we take a 45 minute walk with 22-year-old Lemura, a local Maasai and one of 36 children to his father\'s five wives. He leads us up a nearby gorge into the side of the Rift Valley, its walls a mosaic of green and pink rock and mudstone. The prize is a salty waterfall and naturally warm jacuzzi. Ironically, the strangely abundant water so vital in this dry hard landscape is mineral rich; the soda making it undrinkable for people and stock. Other visitors come to photograph the wildlife, like the lake\'s prolific flamingos. Foreign film crews seem regular visitors - documentaries of nature red in tooth and claw are popular fare with concrete jungle dwellers in America and Europe. Also available are mountain bikes. Lightweight, they can traverse the lake\'s soda crust, going where vehicles get swallowed and stuck. And when the day\'s activity is finished, there\'s time to sit on your verandah in the shade of the camp\'s trees and admire the sun setting over old volcanoes; to enjoy the chatter of vervet monkeys and the tiny squirrel frenetically hopping on the thatched roof overhead. As the thankful cool of darkness descends, a kerosene lamp walks toward you until the white smile of its Maasai bearer is caught in the light. It\'s a great place to sit and read naturalist and African explorer, Peter Matthiessen, whose observations of the wildlife and people of East Africa, adds to the magic. It truly seems the remotest place on Earth, but not so remote that you can\'t get a cool Safari beer. ends © Marieke Hilhorst/ORIGIN NATURAL HISTORY MEDIA |