Lake Eyasi

From Karatu the drive leads off-road to Lake Eyasi, situated at the sOUTHERN Edge of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. After about two hours driving on rough road we reach Kisema Ngeto Tented Camp. It is rather new and nor quite completed, beautifully located on the shore of Lake Eyasi.
Lake Eyasi

 

The main building is built in the traditional way.

main building

There are six spacious safari tents for guests to make them feel comfortable.

 safar itent

The camp gets its water from a spring far away in the bush. It reaches the lake and the camp underground whereit is collected in several ponds.It is also possible to swim in the crystal clear water. Moreover, even the dinner is sometimes caught in these ponds: they are teeming with fish.

pondspool

In the evenings, there is a romantic campfire where people enjoy the beautiful sunset.

sunset

Over 100 ethnic groups live in Tanzania. Most of them are more or less "westernized", but a few still live in the traditional way like hundreds of years ago, e.g. the Barabaig and Hadzabe tribes. The Barabaig belong to the Nilotes like the Massai. Both own huge herds of cattle. When wandering in search of water and grass the warriors of the tribe protect the herds from lions and hyenas.

Massai men

The young Massai men are responsible for the cattle, from the birth of a calf to the slaughter of an animalfor food.

Every 7 to 10 years the circumcision ceremony takes place. The young men between 15 and 23 will become warriors. They move around in small groups and colour their faces with white paint as a sign of their new rank.

young MassaiMassai boy

Massai and Barabaig are hostile tribes even though they belong to the same ethnic group. The last big battle between them took place only 10 years ago.
Massai warrior Massai warrior

We drive through the bush, anxiously waiting for things to come. We intend to find the blacksmith of the Barabaig tribe but nobody knows exactly of his whereabouts. After some time back and forth through the bush, we hear a metallic "pling. pling". That must be him. Behind the bushes, from outside almost invisible, is the workshop of the blacksmith. The fire is kept going with a pair of bellows made of animal skins.

blacksmith campfireBlasebalg

The boss has heard about the visitors. First he entertains us with some music with a rather strange instrument, then he demonstrates his craft by making bracelets out of an old brass lock.
blacksmith bracelets
The visit of a Barabaig village is next on our schedule. On village consists of an extended family, i.e. a chief and allhis wives (in this case nine!) and the sons and daughters with their men and wives until the time they built their own boma. Right now, all the men are off with their cattle. The women enjoy our visit as a welcome change.
Barabaig village Barabaig family
The children look healthy and happy. They wear little bells around their ankles so that they can be located easily.
Barabaig children childmother and child

The faces of most of the women are decoratively scarred. But they don't want their daughters to have the same scars.

Barabaig  woman Barabaig woman Barabaig woman

Deeper in the bush live the Hadzabes, the last hunters and gatherers of East Africa. Here, at the edge of the Serengeti, approximately 800 of them can still be found. They live in small groups of 15-20 adults and their children. They don't have chiefs and they don't farm. They keep no animals and they sleep on the ground. They have neither words for 'past' nor for 'future'. Their language has click sound akin to the Khoisan from Southern Africa, but this is the onlt similarity between these languages.
Hadza house Hadza man
Even though they all welcome us with handshakes, they don't seem really interested in us. The women sit on the ground and make necklaces and bracelets.
Hadza woman Hadza jewellery Hadza woman

They have no own possessions except the bow and arrow they hunt with. They tie hairs from the hunted animals to the bow. The men construct their own arrows. The arrowheads, which are used for larger and more dangerous creatures, get prepared with a highly poisonous liquid prepared from a specific plant.

bow and arrowarrow head

The Hadzabes make fire by rubbing hard and soft wood together. Even small boys are able to do this. The men love to smoke and with the so-produced flame they light their pipe and hand it round. The best for them is when they have to start coughing really hard!
smoking

We like to accompany them on their search for honey. Normally,this means wandering around for hours. It takes some time to convince them to go by car for once. But than they all want to come and our car is hardly big enough. It takes quite a while until we find what we were lokking for, so we are quite happy that we did not have to walk this distance.
Ausfahrt

Eventually we stop. A tiny little something onj a tree tells them: There be honey! Immediatedly, on of them starts to chop the bark.
beehive beehive
They all can't wait to eat this delicacy. But tastes differ!
honey honey

Every once in while one of them digs out some roots or nibbles a few seeds. Here he chews the root of a particular bush.He assures us this helps and prevents problems with the heart.

roots

A break is obligatory. They chat along in their clicking language and it seems they have totally forgotten about us. Of course, they have a little smoke, too, and are very happy when this results in a lot of coughing.

smoking

The huge baobab trees mark the country side. Domy has to act as a scale to show the dimensions of these trees.

Baobab

Back at the camp, the men want to show their skills with bow and arrow. The bushmen draw their bow with muscels in the back not arm.
musclesmuscels
One of the best shots is this little boy, not more than ten years old.
Hadza boy
Mike gives his best. One of the men hands him his own bow and arrow as a show of his appreciation.
Mike appreciation
It is getting late. We can just see Lake Eyasi shimmering in the distance, it is where the camp is situated and where we have to go back to.
viewsunset