The road less travelled to the Serengeti

30.10.2023 - 20:56 / bbc.com

The road less travelled isn't always easy. First of all, you need a road – or at least a track. Then you need the weather to be on your side. And, third, the destination has to be worth it.

I was reminded of this as I rumbled over the rutted tracks, some barely visible amid baking-hot dust, that struggled north from the town of Mto wa Mbu in northern Tanzania. With a nervous eye on the horizon lest rain clouds appeared and turned these tracks into slick mud, I continued north along the road towards Lake Natron and beyond to the Serengeti. One out of three would have to do.

But the truth was, it wasn't that bad at all. The road was rocky to be sure, but it soon evened out under a sky of piercing blue. The Great Rift Escarpment rose above plains where Maasai herders draped in blood-red shukas (thin blankets) crossed the countryside with their cattle. And whenever I pulled to the side of the road and turned off the engine, silence settled upon the landscape.

At Mto wa Mbu, I had faced a choice. It was an intriguing town, whose population of barely 15,000 souls included each of Tanzania's 120 ethnic groups. But the town's name, which means "River of Mosquitoes" argued against staying too long. I could have joined the steady stream of safari vehicles west along the paved B144 road that passes some of East Africa's finest wildlife destinations – Lake Manyara National Park, with its tree-climbing lions, or Ngorongoro Crater where rhinos and lions roamed in a lost world all their own. That road, too, led to the Serengeti, a vast and magnificent place where zebra and wildebeest migrated in their millions.

Or I could take the back road. Of course, I took the back road.

An occasional safari 4x4 stirred the dust. But the few cars were mostly farm vehicles crammed with locals hitching a ride along a route devoid of public transport. Rolling, high hills rose into the ancient volcanoes of the Crater Highlands, each with their own halo of cloud. Amid such grandeur, concentrating on finding my way, it took a while for me to notice Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Mountain of God. And once I noticed it, I could barely take my eyes off it.

On the final approach to Lake Natron, Ol Doinyo Lengai took on flawless form, as if drawn from a child's imagination of how a volcano should look. Riven with the textured lines of lava flows from past eruptions – the most recent large-scale eruption was in 2017, the seventh in 100 years – Ol Doinyo Lengai's slopes rose steeply to form a near-perfect cone.

Where Ol Doinyo Lengai was immediately and utterly appealing, its near-neighbour, Lake Natron, was, at first, more compelling than beautiful. In blazing sunshine, this vast expanse of salt, water and algae extended deep into the north, all the