Categories
People Safari

Remembering Paul Oliver

Paul at Olivers Camp, Tarangire, 2012

This month, our old friend Paul Oliver departed on his final safari. He has been part of the Tanzania tourism scene for so long that it is hard to imagine him not being there.

Paul first came into our lives in March 1984 as a wandering Englishman, fascinated by nature and exploring Serengeti. I was at the University of Dar-es-Salaam organizing a field course for my students to visit Serengeti and Ngorongoro. Meanwhile Jeannette was acting as temporary lion biologist at Serengeti Research Institute.

One day Paul arrived at the Lion House in his overland van. He knocked on the door and was greeted by a 5-foot high woman in a kanga. He peered down at her and asked,

“Is there a scientist around here?”

Jeannette bristled somewhat, as she has a PhD, but said “I’m a scientist. How can I help you?” “Well, there’s a snake somewhere in my van, and I need some help to get it out!”

So Jeannette marched out in her flip-flops, armed with another kanga and a glass jar, and quickly found and captured the young spitting cobra. Thus began a beautiful friendship!

Paul soon found a niche as a driver-guide with Ngare Sero Safaris, based in Arusha. He was a quick study and became their head guide. He dreamed of having his own bush camp, and we accompanied him on exploratory trips looking for a suitable site on the border of Tarangire National Park. Eventually he established the first Oliver’s Camp at Kikoti, a beautiful location among giant rocks. From this luxurious base you could drive into the park for game-viewing, or take a walk on the wild side with Paul, or enjoy sundowners while watching baboons scale a sheer rock face to their sleeping roost. As Oliver’s Camp’s reputation grew, Tanzania National Parks encouraged Paul to move his camp to its present location within the Park. After a few years, he sold the business so that he could concentrate more on mobile camping and specialized birding tours.

Paul Oliver at Kikoti – Tarangire
Jim Howitt & Jeannette in lounge at Olivers camp, Kikoti, Tarangire 1992.
Baboons climbing sleeping rock, Kikoti

During the Ngare Sero years, I did some safaris with Paul, and this diary fragment preserves a flavour of that experience:

In May 1987 Paul and I were assigned to take a family on a camping tour through Ngorongoro and southern Serengeti. We drove two Land-Rovers to Kilimanjaro Airport to meet New York lawyer Mr Goldfisch (not his real name) and his wife and two teenage daughters. The eldest daughter, we noticed, wore a neck brace.

Mr Goldfisch told us, “I hope we won’t be driving on very rough roads, because my daughter recently broke her neck”.

Paul and I looked at each other, thinking of at least 200 miles of dirt-road driving that lay beyond the end of the tarmac at Makuyuni.

“Erm, we’ll do our best to smooth out the bumps!” said Paul brightly.

The trip started well. We saw the elephants of Manyara, and toured Ngorongoro Crater. My photos show that we visited Olduvai and drove cross-country to Shifting Sands, where Paul encouraged the girls to gallop down the sand dune. Then we continued, mostly cross-country, through the wildebeest herds towards Ndutu.

Paul playing with clients at Shifting Sands, NCA 1987

About 20 miles out from Ndutu, I was driving by a small waterhole when SQUELCH! Into the mud I went. It looked like ordinary plains grass, but rain had turned the soil to goo. Stuck fast, I leaped out and ran over the rise waving to Paul to come tow me out. (No radios in those days!) Although I had royally screwed up, Paul didn’t waste time chewing me out, he just got down to work trying to solve the problem. We roped the rear end of my car to the front of his, he pulled – VROOM! VROOM! – And he got stuck too. All of us, even the mother and the daughters, set to shoveling mud, jacking up Paul’s car and putting rocks under the wheels, and we managed to get Paul out. Next we worked on my Land-rover, which was much more stuck, for another hour or so – but the tow-rope kept getting shorter each time it broke! Finally Paul decided to take the clients to the Lodge, where we’d spend the night while camp was being set up.

“I’ll send our supply truck to pull you out. Here’s a beer to keep you going!” he grinned.

With the gnus for company, I worked on the car for about 90 minutes, managing to move about a foot backwards and 3 inches deeper.

About 6pm, Paul drove back followed by Ben in his big truck, with a vast steel hawser wrapped around its front. Ben roared up behind my car and the ground trembled like jelly.

“He’ll get stuck!” I said.

“Oh no, he’s far too experienced for that!” said Paul

We hitched up the cable, Ben revved up the truck….and sank six inches into the mud!

We spent the next half hour helping Ben lengthen and deepen the ruts he was stuck in. Finally we quit and left poor Ben with the remains of our picnic lunch, to guard the two vehicles for the night. After dinner I flouted the law by driving at night from the lodge to Ben to take him some dinner in his lonely plains vigil. Springhares hopped like miniature kangaroos and ghostly freight-trains of wildebeest thundered across the road, only their eyes reflecting my lights.

Came the dawn – I was left to babysit the clients while Paul went back to the mud-wallow. He was back very quickly. Ben had woken to find about 6 lions and 30 hyenas around him! He had chased them away and unstuck the 10-ton truck all by himself and had almost got my Rover out too, which they quickly finished together.

Then Paul returned and we went game-viewing our way to camp – found a wonderful tame cheetah and followed it hunting for an hour or so. Back at camp for lunch – no truck! Paul rushed off again to search and found that the truck had died after a few miles – ruptured the water hose and bust the water pump.

Built into the truck, of course, was our camp’s water supply….

The repercussions continued. In the afternoon, while we were out for a game drive, rangers turned up festooned with AK-47s and bandoliers and pistols and demanded to search the camp, convinced that someone there had been out poaching wildlife at night! I was ordered to go straightway to the ranger post near the Lodge and explain, but it was all OK – as soon as they realized it was just me fooling around out there. I got back to camp and I told Paul with a grave face:

“It’s really bad. They’ve banned me from the Park, effective from today, and we have 24 hours to get out of here”.

He went pale with shock, until I grinned – “Just kidding!”

The safari ended well. A rescue mechanic came with the spare pump for the truck, and news that the charter to fly out the Goldfisches would shortly be coming. They were relieved to be heading back to civilization, but they were pleased with all the animals they had seen. Broken-neck Girl was no worse and seemed enlivened by her adventures, and they had enough stories, no doubt, to last for the next few decades.

After they departed, Paul and I returned to camp. We screamed and hugged each other and danced around the kitchen area, to the amusement of our staff! He broke out drinks for all, and later we drove leisurely back to Arusha.

We’ll miss you, mate.

Categories
Safari

Eclipse

Crowd at eclipse viewing site

We never expected so many people!

Wrenched from our beds at Utengule Coffee Lodge before dawn, we boarded a bus and drove three hours east along the main highway from Mbeya, Tanzania. Turning north, we had continued several miles to Rujewa. This remote little village had been chosen for viewing the Annular Solar Eclipse on 1st September 2016.

A total eclipse of the sun happens when the moon passes in front of the sun, completely obscuring it for a few minutes. An annular eclipse means that a ring of sunlight would be visible surrounding the Moon’s disc. This happens when the Moon’s elliptical orbit takes it so far from Earth that its disc looks smaller than that of the Sun. There are slightly more annular than total eclipses because, on average, the Moon lies too far from Earth to cover the Sun completely. Total and annular eclipses are visible somewhere on Earth about 3 times every 2 years, but at any given spot you would only see one every 400 years. To see an annular eclipse was a very big deal for the people of Rujewa. Their village lay on the median of the path of totality, a strip 100km wide running across northern Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania, DRC and Gabon, within which viewers would see the sun and moon perfectly aligned.

The eclipse had been publicized in the national media, with reassurances that this was a natural phenomenon and the world would not end nor the Sun fall from the sky. Tanzania Tourist Board had also promoted it as a tourist attraction. So people came not only from Mbeya region but from far away to see this rare event, including 16 of us all the way from USA.

Merchants spread out curios for sale at eclipse viewing site

Cultural dancers

As the moon began to eat away at the sun, the murmur of the crowd swelled. Arms rose above the heads, shielding eyes, aiming cellphones or tablets or cameras at the sun. My group had brought tripods and filters and long lenses. Each photographer attracted a ring of spectators, eager to look at the image on the back of a digital camera, trying to photograph that with their phones, or merely taking selfies next to the aliens. A roving reporter interviewed some of us for the BBC World Service.

Two photographers point cameras at sky  Woman photographing with mobile phone  BBC reporter interviewing tourists Boy views eclipse through special glasses  Man photographs image of eclipse from camera display with his phone

At least half the viewers were crisply uniformed school groups, whose teachers herded them into lines. Each student in turn had a few seconds of wonderment, viewing the sun through the communal eclipse specs. I wandered among the less organized school groups distributing spare eclipse viewers and anarchy.

Several people asked if I could pose for a photo with them. A raucous quartet of party girls sharing a beer can called, “Hey mzungu! Take our picture!” before trooping off in search of fresh excitement.

Party girls pose for photo

A young couple approached me, husband dragging pretty wife by her hand.

“My wife has a question for you, sir, but she is too shy to speak to a Mzungu!”

A small crowd gathered. I took her hand and said in Swahili,

“Hello, don’t be afraid. I’m just a human being, like you. What would you like to know?”

She giggled and looked embarrassed but eventually said,

“What is the cause of this thing, this eclipse?”

So I explained how the sun is far away, and how the moon was passing between us and the sun. She seemed to get it, and thanked me.

“You’re very welcome. And beautiful too!”

She dissolved into more giggles and was dragged away.

At 11:53 the eclipse reached its maximum. The day became a little darker and definitely colder, but even 95% obscured, the tropical midday sun was still too bright for us to see the ‘ring of fire’ with the naked eye or an unfiltered camera. I held my eclipse specs over my lens and got an image.

After three minutes the shadow passed. The sky brightened, the warmth returned. An eclipse is so transient, a brief crossing of heavenly bodies. I captured a bright ring in my photo but it could be anything, anywhere.

What I will remember more is the delight on the faces of children and adults alike, whether brown or pink, all united in our excitement and awe at this natural wonder.

Children excited about viewing eclipse Girl wearing white hijab

Categories
Safari

Where there is no Dentist

So gappy to meet you!
So gappy to meet you!

Crack! As I bite down on some tough meat, I feel an expensive crunch and something hard rattles against my teeth. Damn, there goes that front crown! It’s the eve of a new safari and I must go to the airport to meet a new group. I only get this one chance to make a good first impression. “Hi, I’m Zavid your zure-leazer. Welcome to Zanzania!” – Wanna come with this gap-toothed lisping troll into darkest Africa? No, I need a quick fix. The crown is intact and hollow. It fits over a peg anchored in the tooth’s root. I just need some dental cement, but I won’t find it in Arusha on a Sunday night, and tomorrow I have to brief the group after breakfast, then we hit the road to adventure. So, what have I got that’s sticky and indestructible and kind to the mouth? Chewing gum! Well, it won’t set hard, but its stickiness is legendary, and I have plenty. I start chewing and pack the crown with gum and push it into place. It sits well and feels good. This can work – as long as I don’t bite hard on it.

And it does work. For almost a week, I confidently grin and eat, and begin to take my flexible tooth for granted. Mistake. Nibbling some meat off a bone, I feel the loose crown roll to the back of my throat, then it’s GONE. I could bolt out of the dining-tent into the Serengeti night and throw up – but why waste such a good dinner? There’s another alternative, but it’s not pleasant. It involves some waiting,  a can of water, a stick, a flat rock, and a hole in the ground.

Gynanisa moth on my hand
The emperor moth at my lamp (Gynanisa sp.)

24 hours later, preparing to “go through the motions” for the third time, I step out of my tent into the moonlight. By my outside lamp, a giant emperor moth flutters. So does my heart, as I sense a large presence.

Buffalo. He stands on my path, ruminating. Two more chomp at grass ten yards from the tent. To hell with buffalos – I have a mission. I stay close to the tent, and they don’t care. This time, I hit pay-dirt, a little white tooth amid the brown. I boil and disinfect it, then chew up some gum and presto! I have my smile again. Maybe next week, I’ll get some dental cement.

Buffalo at night on path to my tent
Buffalo on path to my tent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The phrase “sh*t-eating grin” has a totally new meaning for me now.