The Serengeti, Tanazania
“Let me know if you need to check a tire,” our safari guide asked, as we jostled over dirt roads in Tanzania’s northern Serengeti.
“Road” is too kind of a description. With me were my wife Debb and our two close friends, Jamie and Todd – enjoying one of those bucket-list trips that seem to grow in number as you enter your mid 50s. We were traveling in an Army-green Land Rover over slivers of land with little or no vegetation but chock-full of potholes, divots and ruts. It felt more like driving across the back of a massive crocodile writhing from indigestion.
“Check a tire” is safari code for alerting our guide that someone needs to exit the truck to use the bathroom. Toilet facilities were hard to come by. We were limited to maybe a couple of wilderness camps or a sketchy concrete structure disguised as a bathroom next to a dirt-packed runway some thirty bumpy miles away. When you have to go, you pretty much have to expose yourself to God and country and any creatures crouched in the nearby grass. It does make you think twice about going number one.
At 12,000 square miles, Serengeti National Park is about the size of Maryland. It aptly got its name from the Maasai word “Siringitu,” which means “the place where the land moves on forever.”
And that it does.
The landscape is pancake flat. Most of the park lies in Tanzania, but a thumb of it crosses over into Kenya to the North, where it’s called the Masai Mari. The Serengeti is perhaps best known for The Great Migration during which some 750,000 zebras, 1.2 million wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of other animals make their annual trek around the Serengeti in search of lush grasslands upon which to feed. As result, thousands of predators feed upon them, creating the “circle of life” thing Elton John crooned about.
Our guide for this adventure into the Serengeti was forty-two-year-old Adam Stephen Meshallu, proud owner of Proud African Safaris, an Arusha, Tanzania-based safari guide service. He’s strong and compact like a Division III football fullback. His waist-length dreads, often crammed under a mustard or Rastafarian-colored beanie, make him appear to be six inches taller than he actually is. He has a quiet laugh and an infectious smile, though I do wish he’d smile more. When chatting with him over a cup of coffee or in a safari truck in the African bush, he speaks softly, as if he doesn't want to scare any animals away.
“Adam, I need to check a tire,” my wife, Debb, whispered. This trip was her idea, a result of her wanting to do something out of her comfort zone. I don’t think she anticipated it would involve making comfort stops in the middle of Lord-knows-where – make that Lord-and-Adam-know where – here in the northern Serengeti.
As Debb got back in the truck after making sure “the tires were properly inflated,”Adam politely asked, “Proceed?” and with a collective, “Yes,” we continued our game drive toward the Mara River, near the Kenyan border.
One of the big draws of a safari trip like ours – other than the opportunity to pee outside – is the chance to search for the coveted “Big Five,” comprised of the African elephant, black rhinoceros, Cape Buffalo, lion, and the leopard. The “Big Five” designation was originally used by big game hunters to describe the most difficult animals to hunt on foot and was later adopted by non-gun-wielding tour operators as a way to market wildlife safaris. Adam told us, however, that in an effort to bring attention to smaller, less-noticed creatures of the savannah, there’s now also the “little five,” each sharing the first name of more sought-after Big Five. “There is the elephant shrew, the rhino beetle, the buffalo weaver (a bird), a leopard tortoise and the antlion.” We wanted to see the Big Five, the Little Five and all the Fives in between.
To help, we brought along Zeiss binoculars, Canon and Nikon cameras and Todd’s hefty black zoom lens, as big as my thigh, which we named “Jethro.” Jethro allowed us to turn tiny specs in the distance into toothy predators up close and snap pictures that gave the illusion that we were much closer to the beasts than we really were. In many instances, however, the animals were almost close enough for us to pet, but such behavior is frowned upon – less you be munched upon.
The sheer number of animals we were surrounded by at times was mind-numbing. They dotted the landscape like manicured shrubs. It was soothing to watch them tend to calves, twitch a shoulder to shake off a bug, or quietly munch on a tuft of grass. There we were – clearly far removed physically and emotionally from our world of distractions, predictability and annoying headlines and deadlines – in this place, an ethereal place, savage but at times kind, a place of no rules and endless horizons, a place where one feels insignificant yet abundantly blessed.
Wildebeests and Zebra crossing the Mara River near the Kenyan border
It wasn’t out of the ordinary to see thousands of zebra sauntering in a single file toward a mystery spot on the horizon or hundreds of pencil-thin Thompson Gazelles jittering about as if over-caffeinated, their small black tails swishing back and forth incessantly. By far, wildebeest were the most prominent species. They’re an ugly lot — half horse, half goat, with a face only a mother could love. I wondered, if a calf were presented with mirror upon birth, would its immediate reaction be, “WTF?” But, it turns out, ugly wildebeests can make good friends, and in the easy-to-identify zebra they find a trusty traveling companion.
Adam explained that wildebeest are besties with zebra because, for starters, their striped friends are smarter. They have better memories for recalling past migratory routes and know which areas are safe and which are dangerous. In other words, wildebeest are not only homely, they aren’t terribly bright. Adam explained that “wildebeests can be spooked by a predator, start to flee and in a matter of seconds, totally forget where they were running in the first place.”
Intelligence aside, their eating habits complement one another’s. Zebra have long front teeth, making it easier for them to munch on taller grasses, whereas the wildebeest graze primary on shorter grass because their mouths are uniquely shaped in a way that makes feeding on roots easier for them. As a result, the zebra and wildebeest don’t compete for food. That’s probably enough on the unique relationship between the wildebeest and zebra, but it does help communicate an important point. With Adam as our guide, I learned more in ten days than I had in the past year. I now know the gestation period of female lions and can recreate the mating dance of male ostriches – if the mood is right. I know giraffes, although herbivores, gnaw on the bones of carcasses to get the phosphorous and calcium their bodies require. I learned cheetah moms chirp at their kittens rather than meow.
Regardless of the animal, whether it be the smallest insect, the most colorful bird, the most dangerous snake, or the most graceful cat, Adam possessed a deep knowledge about whatever it is we saw — or didn’t see. On rare occasions, he’d refer to one of the many field guides he kept on the dashboard of the Land Rover, in the event that a random question should arise. For instance, our travel companion and part-time birder Jamie asked about the Latin name for the Secretary Bird – a rather tall, leggy creature that looks like it’s wearing bike shorts and has haphazardly applied orange and red mascara. Black quill-like feathers explode from the backs of their heads. A few flips through a field guide and Adam told us it was Sagittarius Serpentarius.
Our guide, Adam on the right along with me and camp staff
Because we got to spend more than a week with Adam in the Serengeti, we learned that to be an extraordinary safari guide, it takes more than just book knowledge, the ability to locate elusive animals in the bush or the agility to safely ford a stream in a Land Cruiser. That’s just the price of entry for carting around wide-eyed tourists decked in crisp, fresh-off-the-REI-rack safari clothing. Adam’s goal for all the safaris he leads is for it to be the most memorable, can’t-wait-to-post-on Instagram, make-your-neighbors-envious-at-cookouts kind of trip that’s sure to be a truly life-changing experience. Adam confesses, “I just want to do the best for my clients. My goal every time I take them into the bush is to offer a unique, fantastica and amazing time no one else can offer. And I truly believe how I was raised, the people I met, and the things I went through to get where I am today is what makes Proud African Safaris special.”
Excerpt from my first book “Drive. One Man’s Road to Owning a Safari Business”, available on Amazon