Tanzanie: un safari épique après la grande migration du Serengeti

Souvent présentée comme l'ultime spectacle animalier au monde, la Grande migration des gnous et des zèbres a lieu chaque année dans les plaines de l'Afrique de l'Est; Amanda Canning se rend en Tanzanie pour essayer de rattraper les troupeaux.

Premier jour de safari: slow gnus day

Ce fut une excellente nuit pour les prédateurs du Serengeti. Alors que le soleil commence à pointer à l'horizon et à projeter une lumière pâle sur les plaines aux acacias, il révèle une scène de carnage nocturne. Il y a des os ici, des os là-bas, des os partout. Les os blancs étaient propres et éblouissants, comme s'ils étaient faits de porcelaine; des os sales et raclés, des morceaux de chair non identifiables qui s'accrochent encore à eux; des os qui conservent la forme de l'animal d'où ils viennent.

Par-dessus tout, les vautours volent dans le ciel ou s'asseyent en acacias, flottant parfois sur terre pour mieux inspecter une mise à mort, l'air aussi sinistre que l'on pourrait espérer de leur réputation de bande dessinée méchante. Un bon nombre de fêtards de la nuit sont toujours dehors, profitant des derniers morceaux de la fête avant de rentrer chez eux pour une sieste d'une journée.

Nous n’avons pas quitté notre camp dans les plaines de Namiri depuis longtemps avant que mon guide, Noel Akyoo, ne découvre une vague d’activités au loin et heurte le Land Cruiser dans sa direction. Une hyène trotte devant, les pattes arrières d’une gazelle de Thomson pendent de ses mâchoires. Au-delà de lui, un groupe d'une vingtaine de hyènes est rassemblé autour de la carcasse en train de se désagréger d'un gnou, certaines enduites de sang jusqu'aux épaules. Ils se disputent, se disputent un morceau de viande de choix, avant de continuer à nourrir une émeute de bavardages et de coqueluche. Une paire de chacals est assise à proximité avec impatience, pas assez courageuse pour emménager, trop faim pour avancer. Dans un arbre derrière eux, un aigle fauve tire sur une côte tenue dans ses serres jaunes.

Les prédateurs du Serengeti ne l’ont pas toujours aussi bien. J'ai programmé ma visite pour coïncider avec la Grande Migration, le voyage annuel de 1 200 milles de 1,5 million de gnous et 250 000 zèbres entre la Tanzanie et le Kenya, à la suite des pluies et des herbes qui poussent dans leur sillage. La saison est bonne pour toute créature qui les considère comme un dîner – pour les lions, les guépards, les léopards, les hyènes et les chiens sauvages ici, la chasse à cette époque de l'année nécessite autant d'efforts que la cueillette d'un plat sur le tapis roulant chez Yo! Sushi. Il doit être, je suppose, assez facile pour un humain de retrouver les migrants aussi.

Je me trompe. Il y a beaucoup de preuves de gnous décédés, et de petites touffes vivantes d'entre eux tournant au ralenti ou marchant vers une destination invisible à travers les plaines, mais je m'attendais à être submergé par des milliers et des milliers de bêtes, passant dans des nuages ​​de poussière.

Noel déplace le Land Cruiser et nous roulons sur des pistes défoncées. «Nous allons essayer de les trouver», dit-il, «mais la migration a eu lieu au début de cette année. Les troupeaux se déplacent déjà vers le sud pour accoucher dans les bois». Il rit. "C'est la beauté du Serengeti – vous ne savez jamais ce que vous allez rencontrer." Ce que nous rencontrons ce premier jour est assez extraordinaire. Il y a les merveilles des animaux qui ne figurent généralement pas sur les listes de contrôle de la faune: les éclairs lumineux de superbes étourneaux viennent enquêter sur ce que nous sommes; un longicorne qui mange lentement un arbre à fièvre jaune de l'intérieur vers l'extérieur; les oreilles pointues d'un caracal se cachant (mal) dans les hautes herbes. Et il y a aussi les gros frappeurs.

Les plaines de Namiri sont connues pour leurs guépards, interdits aux visiteurs depuis plus de 20 ans dans le but d'augmenter leur nombre, et nous en repérons plusieurs au cours de la journée, leurs corps longs et minces allongés dans la poussière ou tirés en position verticale. termitières, à l'affût de la proie. Il y a aussi un embarras de lions, qui se promènent dans l'herbe ou se refroidissent sur les rochers, de petits oursons qui dégringolent comme des ivrognes à fourrure alors que les mâles fiers consolident leur position en tant que rock stars de la savane, des crinières gonflées par le vent et rétro-éclairées par le soleil couchant.

Nous avons aussi le rare privilège de repérer un léopard, une élégante femelle nichée dans le creux d'un arbre, sa longue queue se contractant contre le tronc. En rentrant au camp, cependant, je ne peux pas m'empêcher d'être harcelé par la pensée quelque peu ingrate que le voyage représente la seule chance de ma vie de découvrir l'un des plus grands spectacles de la faune du monde, et cela se passe ailleurs. Noel n'est pas concerné. "Chaque jour est différent", dit-il en grimpant hors du véhicule. "Il y a toujours demain."

Second day on safari: hot-air balloon over the Serengeti

The day starts beneath a billion stars. I am standing outside my tent, watching as two shoot across the inky sky when the deep guttural rumble of a lion reverberates through the darkness. It is likely some way off, down by the river bordering the camp, but it is a sound of such primordial resonance, my entire body seems to vibrate to it.

With dawn approaching, the lion’s time to hunt is over: it’s my turn to take on a shift. The day has brought a change in tack: if we can’t find the migration from the ground, perhaps we’ll have better luck from the sky.

The last stars are fading as our hot-air balloon slides into the sky. For the first few minutes, we skim across the ground, past trotting warthogs and strutting ostrich, then suddenly we are a hundred metres up, with all of the Serengeti stretched out beneath us. It is a vast beige sea, dotted with acacias and granite outcrops. The Seronera River wiggles through it, the shiny lumps of a hippo pod visible in its shallows.

Pulling on the burner, captain Mohamed Masud studies the ground beneath us. "You can see how busy this area gets in migration time," he says. "There are so many trails." The earth looks scratched, there are countless pale lines cut into it, rift into the ground by millions of hooves passing this way for a million years. There is little sign of the herds this morning though. "We don’t really know where they are now," continues Mohamed. "The rain has not come so the migration is really spread out. Maybe if it rains, it will come."

The grazing animals that live in this patch of the Serengeti year-round are out in force. Giraffes bob across the savannah, galloping for cover on gangly legs as we sail overhead, their unexpected arrival into woodland marked by the alarmed calls of ibis and morning doves. As I peer after them, I spy several groups of animals standing unmoving among the trees: wildebeest. Not thousands, not thundering past in clouds of dust – but wildebeest all the same.

Back on the ground, we head towards the woods, and almost immediately catch up with our target. A long line of several hundred wildebeest is plodding towards the river. They need to cross a road to join the huddles I’d seen from the balloon, but none seems willing to make the first move. "The thing about wildebeest," says Noel, "is that they don’t have a leader. If the one in front changes direction, they all follow." We watch as they make slow comedic progress towards their goal. One animal bolts, and a hundred animals bolt. One stops, and they all stop. One starts heading back the way it came, and within minutes, the entire herd has spun round. It takes a good two hours of confused milling before they finally muster up the courage to cross.

As we lurch back to camp, triumphant after the first, small taste of the migration, I turn and take a last look at the herd: behind them, fat, dark clouds are starting to bubble on the horizon. The rains are coming.

Third day on safari: cheetahs hunting on the Serengeti plains

If the migration is heading south, then so must we. It’s a short bounce in a light aircraft to the next camp in the southern Serengeti. From the air, it’s clear we’re catching up with the wildebeest: far below, innumerable black dots are moving steadily in the same direction as we are.

From the airstrip, my guide Charles Joseph takes us straight off to a herd he’s been following for a few days. Many thousand wildebeest, the odd zebra mingled among them, are ploughing across the plains, a huge billowing cloud of dust rising overhead. The line is so long we can’t see the front or end of it. "This group has been moving back and forth for nearly a week," says Charles. "They’re looking for water."

We are not the only ones watching. All around them, predators lurk, waiting for night. There is one creature that needs not the cover of darkness to mount an attack. Across the plains, Charles spies a cheetah and her cub sheltering behind a whistling thorn acacia. The mother is restless and apparently hungry. "Cheetahs are right down the pecking order of predators," says Charles, as large globs of rain start to splatter into the dust around us. "They can’t compete with a lion or a wild dog, so their only advantage is to hunt in daytime."

We spend the next few hours tracking the mother as she locks sight on her prey, readies to attack, and is then spotted and her plan thwarted. Soon the savannah is a vast soggy field, and the cheetah is perfectly camouflaged within it. Still, every gazelle seems wise to her approach. She has travelled several miles before she gets her chance. Hunkering down in long grass, she waits for two gazelles to approach. They walk past her, oblivious, and she does not move. Just as I imagine she’s missed her chance , she is off and after them in an explosion of force. Within 20 seconds, one gazelle is down. The mother and cub take it in turns to feed, one constantly watching out for scavengers. "You can’t relax for a second out here," says Charles as three vultures land nearby. "The hyenas won’t be long. They’ll have seen the vultures circling and will follow."

Their luck holds, however; the only creatures come to join the party are dung beetles, which whirr in from all directions and have a marvellous time in the gazelle’s bowel. The cheetahs leave only the head and bladder intact. "The hyenas will have that," says Charles. "They don’t really care what they eat." I’ve been so transfixed that it’s only when the pair drop full-bellied into the grass that I become aware of the life now brimming on the plains: there are thousands upon thousands of wildebeest, behind, in front, to the side, trudging ever on.

Fourth day on safari: wild dogs and death on the Great Migration

Overnight, our camp has become a motorway for the migration. I could spend the day in bed and watch it pass metres away, but we decide to head further south, where they’ve had more rain, to try to catch the rest of the herds.

We drive for a few hours, crest the Maru Hills – and there before us is the Promised Land for grazing creatures. There is not an inch of earth not occupied by one. Gnus and zebra stand grunting, resting in the shade of trees or splashing about in rivers. Baboons sit and pick at each other’s fur. Elephants roam, hosing their hides with water from their trunks. The grass is green and long, the fruit on the trees plentiful and ripe. If I were a wildebeest, I’d walk a thousand miles for this too.

Returning home in the warm glow of the setting sun and the satisfaction of a mission accomplished, we’re drawn to a commotion close to camp. Thousands of wildebeest are stampeding, and we soon see why: wild dogs. A pack is herding the animals into groups, assessing which to target. It’s a world of confusion: dust flying, legs kicking, prey grunting, predators barking, and the rumble of hooves like a drum beat to it all.

And then the Serengeti pulls off the world’s greatest magic trick, and makes the entire scene disappear. We sit in silence in the murk, the dust slowly settling around us. A bark comes in from the left, and off we go. When we rejoin the hunt, it’s apparent the pack has marked its prey: a juvenile is being forced out of the herd. "They’re super hunters, one of the best predators in the world," says Charles. "Once they have made a decision to hunt, they do not stop until they have their kill."

The wildebeest is done for. A dog gets hold of its leg and pulls it down. The pack is upon it in a frenzy, wary that a lion might turn up and make off with the spoils. It takes an excruciatingly long time for the animal to die. It’s still alive and trying to get up as one dog runs off with its liver and another its intestines.

I return, queasily, to camp to find the wildebeest and zebra still passing through. It is a steadying sight, the timelessness of the endeavour brought into sharper focus after the macabre events of the last hour. Naturally, the animals are marching solemnly in the opposite direction they had been that morning. They may know where they’re going, but they’re not going to get there any time soon.

When to go on Great Migration safari in the Serengeti

The animals follow the same path each year, traipsing back and forth between the Serengeti in Tanzania and the Masai Mara in Kenya. The migration does not follow a strict schedule, however, and its precise location in any one month cannot be guaranteed. Factors such as an early or late rainy season will affect when the 1.5 million wildebeest and 250,000 zebra start to move. If you’re booking well ahead, it’s wise to go with a tour operator or camp who are able to change your itinerary depending on the herds’ progress. The below is a rough guide only.

January to March:
Grazing and calving in the southern Serengeti
April to May:
Herds start to move north, passing through the central Serengeti
June to August:
Cross the crocodile- and hippo-infested Mara River and head into the Masai Mara
September to October:
Grazing in the Masai Mara
November to December:
Return south, and the cycle begins again

Need to know

– You’ll need an up-to-date yellow fever vaccination to enter Tanzania. Don’t forget to bring your certificate – you’ll need to show it at the airport on arrival.
– You’ll want a course of anti-malarial drugs to cover your stay, and to bring mosquito repellent. If you don’t like DEET-based or other chemical repellents, we’ve found the natural, citronella versions effective (and considerably less stinky).
– The plains can be dusty, particularly on windy days. Bring a light scarf or Buff to cover your face. You’ll want a jumper or jacket for cooler morning game drives.
– Your guide will have a pair of binoculars they’ll likely let you borrow, but it’s worth bringing your own. A pair with 8x or 10x magnification will do the trick.
– Don’t bring bright or patterned clothing that will make you stand out to all animals within a mile radius; plain grey, green or beige clothes are best.

Getting to the Serengeti

It’s a two-stop hop to the Serengeti; you’ll likely fly via Nairobi or Amsterdam on your way to Kilimanjaro International Airport in Tanzania; from there, catch a light aircraft to one of the region’s airstrips. Your lodge will advise which one is most convenient.

Getting around the Serengeti

Light aircraft act as buses in the Serengeti, picking people up from one part of the park and depositing them elsewhere, likely with stops on the way for other passengers. Lodges will arrange to collect you from the airstrip

Amanda Canning travelled to Tanzania with support from Audley Travel. Lonely Planet contributors do not accept freebies in exchange for positive coverage.

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