More on Tanzania

Thundering herds of exotic animals, the greatest wildlife migration on earth, strange-looking trees dotting the plains. Names that evoke vastness, diversity, mystery, legend and richness: Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Kilimanjaro, Olduvai Gorge. Add to this two million years of human history layered on top of its natural history. Only superlatives seem fitting to describe Tanzania. Both the numbers and the sheer variety are staggering. Wildness in Tanzania has been preserved, so that nature runs free. Because of this, life is intimately tied to the cycles and the rhythm of nature, rhythms that hold us in awe, perhaps because we’ve removed them from our own lives. Yet here the legendary Maasai people do live in complete harmony with the land, its cycles of dearth and abundance, birth and death, ebb and flow. Rich beyond measure with tradition and meaning in life, their presence is, like all of Tanzania, a feast for the senses. My Experience of Tanzania Forthcoming from DeeAnn Pederson The Nature of Tanzania By Bradford Glass Although many places can be viewed as lands of superlatives, Tanzania is without a doubt high on the list. With Africa’s highest peak (Mt. Kilimanjaro), its lowest point (the floor of Lake Tanganyika), its largest lake (Lake Victoria), the greatest wildlife herds on the continent (Serengeti), home of the world’s oldest humans (Olduvai Gorge), and some unique topographical features such as the Great Rift Valley (global plate tectonics in action), Tanzania is a jewel of diversity and beauty. Although the attraction for most visitors is the sheer number of mammals, Tanzania’s rich ecological diversity is its true treasure. And with about one quarter of its land protected in the form of natural reserves, mammals, birds, insects, forests and flowering plants have a nearly-stable home, despite the ease of accessibility to visitors. Two distinct rainy seasons, one in the fall and one in the spring, create the rhythm of the place, and literally define the pulse of life. While humans move resources to wherever they are needed, the rest of nature work the other way around: life must find, or adapt to, available resources -- joining the flow of life, becoming one with its cycles. (Wouldn’t our own lives be different if we could adopt the natural flow rhythm of nature?)

Pride of Place Tuff Stuff

Ngorngoro, now peacefully quiet after a long and fiery history of volcanism and plate tectonics, is home to elephants, lions, cheetah, buffalo, rhinoceros and leopard; it is estimated that on the crater floor alone, some 25,000 animals make Ngorongoro (more precisely, a caldera, for it was formed with the collapse of a volcano) the most dense wildlife-viewing spot on earth. Maasai natives, inhabitants of this land for hundreds of years, still retain their nomadic ways, subsistence lifestyle and age-old traditions. With little influence from the outside word, they offer a glimpse into native lifestyles "before civilization." And not far from here, Olduvai Gorge, part of the Great Rift Valley, is the site of the oldest known human beings on earth. The Leakey family, synonymous with early hominid research, have been "home" here for years.

As if Ngorongoro weren’t "enough," it is situated at the southern edge of the Serengeti, the vast plains that are home to the largest wildlife migration on earth. Some 1.5 million animals travel over 2000 miles each year in the annual cycle of searching for food. As sight to behold in any season. 2500 lions alone find ample food supply in the nearly one million wildebeests. The cycle continues. Chaotic beyond belief, yet with an underlying order that only nature can offer, the pieces fit together like a finely-tuned machine.

Brilliant red sunset; acacia trees in silhouette; zebras, calming for the evening. Another day.