Safari Part 4b

September 1, 2009 (Serengeti Day 1)

Continued...

Our next stop is about halfway to the Serengeti. Oldupai Gorge.

Digression on the Oldupai Gorge:

The name normally applied to the gorge is the Olduvai Gorge. This is because the first European to discover the gorge, Wilhelm Kattwinkel, mispronounced or misheard the Maasai word oldupai (meaning wild sisal—a plant much used by the Maasai) when he asked for the name of the gorge. And people have been mispronouncing it for the last hundred years. Olduvai means nothing. Well done white man.

Kattwinkel was a German entomologist chasing a butterfly when he literally fell into the gorge. He then stumbled on some human remains that looked quite old. They were. He took them back to Germany and some years later and archeologist spotted them in a museum and started to ask questions. Excavations began in earnest.

The Oldupai Gorge is called the ‘Cradle of Mankind’. Since the 60s, when Louis and Mary Leakey started major excavations in the gorge, they have found countless tools and artifacts of early hominids, and more importantly the skeletons of Homo Habilis and Australopithecus Boisei that were living at the same area at the same time.

This was a huge discovery and the only one of its kind to date. There were two distinct hominids of differing genus co-habitating. This essentially proves the theory of evolution. Here are two different types of early man, one line that died out, Australopithecus, and one that didn’t, Homo (later becoming Homo Sapien--us).

Oldupai Gorge is also the place where they discovered footprints of a family like the famous Lucy.

End of Digression.

All in all, a pretty awesome place. We listened to an excellent lecture from someone in the park service and wandered the museum before heading on our way.

The next few hours were spent driving on a dusty, unpaved, bumpy road to the gates of the Serengeti. It is now flat (Serengeti means endless plain—an apt description) and, because of the drought, very very dry. We see herds of Maasai cattle and goats, all looking fairly emaciated, and very little green. This is the last we will see of the Maasai. Once through the gates, no people are allowed to live in or herd on the Serengeti.

This is the Africa I expected to see.

To be Continued...

Photos: Oldupai Gorge. Entrance to Serengeti National Park. A view of the endless plain. A lizard that was there to greet us at lunch.