Blood for Breakfast

After leaving Ngorongoro, we traveled across the Serengeti planes to our next camp site. And damn, that was fucking cool. Being in the wake of some serious volcanic activity, the soil in the planes only reaches a few inches deep at max before meeting a huge chunk of limestone. From this, deep-rooted plants are non existent and the planes go on and on and on for as long as the eye can see. Meanwhile, as these infinite planes passed by (we were following tire tracks through the planes probably from this same trucks previous excursion in the area) we witnessed literally thousands of thomson gazelles, grants gazelles, zebra, and wildebeest. All at the head of part of the great migration that sadly we don't have the time to see.

That drive in itself was cool, but one of the most spectacular sights we saw were what is known as “the shifting sands” This is simply a crescent shaped black sand dune, probably 20 m long, 10 m wide, and 5 m high that just moves across the planes. Every year it moves about 100 m and no one know where it came from, or how it moves without being damaged or swept away in the high winds. It simply just slowly creeps across the planes. A pretty surreal thing to think about as I was standing right on top of it. On the drive, I read a fair amount of some of the articles we are supposed to be reading for this “class” I guess we're taking (our test are usually identifying birds, ungulates, tracks, and poop) and this quote by Grzimek in “Serengeti Shall Not Die” really stuck out in my mind.

“Men are easily inspired by human ideas, but they forget them again just as quickly. Only Nature is eternal, unless we senselessly destroy it. In fifty years time nobody will be interested in the results of the conferences which fill today's headlines.

But when, fifty years from now, a lion walks into the red dawn and roars resoundingly, it will mean something to people and quicken their hearts whether they are bolsheviks or democrats, or whether they speak English, German, Russian, or Swahili. They will stand in quiet awe as, for the first time in their lives, they watch twenty thousand zebras wander across the endless plains.”

That's kinda how things are going...

The cradle of mankind...

Anyway, that drive was also Halloween, so we obviously kept with the American spirit and celebrated. I was a typical Portland hipster with a gross mustache, glasses with no lenses, flannel, and obvious beer for breakfast. Others included a Maasai and his cow, a few of the guys around camp, a flower child (Devin...), the sun, a Thomson Gazelle, a dinosaur, a caveman, and a few other creative ones for the limited resources we had avaliable. The best though, had to be Hannah's tourist costume, that she was wearing in full as we stopped at “the cradle of life”. The Oldupai Gorge is home to some of the oldest hominoid fossils ever found as well as the most diverse amount of ancient hominoid fossil discoveries. Somewhat of a touristy destination for our taste, but still a cool place to go, especially since Hannah looked EXACTLY like some of the actual tourists there with her sun hat, money belt, binoculars, camera, and more. Hilarious.

As we got to camp, we had by far THE best scary story campfire session any of us had ever been to. Absolutely awesome. And the rest of our time here until now has been, sadly, spent studying for our bio final. mehhh

Today though...Was strange. This morning was our Bio 115 final, which was low stress and fairly easy. So, stoked on that. Mean while I've been learning to play bridge. Also not all that exciting. Was was exciting, was the Maasai goat slaughter. Being after our final, the rest of today has been designated as a free day so most of our group went on a walk to go boulder and do some rock climbing on nearby cliffs. I decided to stick around and play bridge and relax for the rest of the day. Soon we were then invited to help with dinner. ie. Slaughter a goat. After strangulation and some contemplation of becoming a vegetarian, it was time to cut open the goat. I don't think I'll ever be able to get some of the blood and hair off of my knife, but at least now I know how to skin an animal without losing any of the blood. Next, came the precious blood that we've been diligantly saving. As the four of us involved were scooping out handfuls of coagulated blood (feels like jello that hasn't fullied solidified yet and tastes like...blood, obviously), the phone of one of the Maasai started ringing (literally everyone in the world has a cell phone these days). Anyway, this turned out to be one of the strangest single moments of my entire life. As we're huddled over drinking blood straight out of an animal we watch die moments earlier, we're greeted with one of the happiest, goofiest, little stupid ringtones. Just an absolutely absurd situation. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good picture of me with a fair bit of blood dripping down my face when I get this posted. Also, on a related side note, you can eat kidney straight out of a recently deceased animal as well. Chewy, but I haven't thrown up...yet.

Tomorrow beings our journey to the Maasai village we'll be living in for a few days, and I'm sure I'll have tons of stories to write once I get back... Some probably similar to the one above.