The Maasai Land Rover

After meeting a friend who had suffered a stroke, paralysing half of his body, I decided there was little point in putting my own distant travels off, when you never know what tomorrow will bring; so, after climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, I opted to stay a few more days for relaxation, courtesy of the local Maasai.

I was the only guest in the village, so after eating alone, I determined to have an early night, but as my meal ended, my appointed guide Lankenua (meaning ‘lucky’), a thin twenty-something Maasai, appeared and asked me to confirm if a walking safari the following day would be suitable. We agreed through debate that ten kilometres would suit us both, which, having walked the mountain, was not a challenging distance. His grin made me doubt my decision.

Expecting my guide at 8:40 the following morning, I was unfazed when he eventually arrived at 9:30; time doesn’t mean a lot in Tanzania.

Dressed in standard Maasai dress, Lankenua offered me, in clear English, a small bottle of water, but having explained the principle of the camelback I carried, he slipped the bottle into the folds of his red chequered shaku. As well as a spear, made from a steel reinforcing bar hammered to a point at one end, he carried a gaily coloured umbrella, which he assured me was for my comfort and shade, and a mobile phone. On his feet, as with all other camp staff, he wore cut pieces of motorcycle tyre held on by beaded thongs. The tyres, he joked, allowed him to steal cattle and not leave footprints.

Setting off at a brisk pace, which, fit as I am, I struggled to maintain, we dropped down the two hundred or so metres to the valley floor, before setting off through the low-level and sharply pointed acacia bushes and numerous goats and cows.

For more than an hour, we walked onto the plain in the morning sun with no real sign of wildlife when his phone rang. Moving the brolly to his spear-carrying hand, he continued walking as he conversed with his superior back at the Lodge. It was a surreal moment. His supervisor’s call confirmed that no lions had been seen nearby. Oh good.

We came upon many carcasses of animals killed by the drought of the previous year, their bodies dotting the landscape where life had left them but given other starving animals a bony meal.

I spotted a gazelle some 500 metres away, and as it sped off across our front, some wildebeests came into view and we watched them grazing, ever watchful for predators, which might have made a good photograph.

Five kilometres out, with the temperature in the seventies, we sat to rest close to a six-foot high termite mound, whilst we scanned the horizon in all directions. I felt energised, especially when my companion spotted ostriches.

In view of the snow on Kilimanjaro, we talked of global warming, his up-and-coming marriage, and his first lion hunt, before eventually setting off to circle back towards our camp. Some zebras allowed us to walk amongst them, before finally we spied a lone giraffe.

There were no other animals on our return route until we encountered some seven-year-old herding boys with their cattle, goats and donkeys; the Maasai land rover.

Lankenua suggested a ‘5 star’ rating on TripAdvisor.

Frank Connelly is a Nomadic Spirit reader in the Scottish Borders. He spent 23 years in the Royal Marines, and since Tanzania has spent a month in the United States and Canada, a month touring the Stans, and a month in South America.