The call of the Serengeti single, zebra, entering, position, capable

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The call of the Serengeti
It does not take long to find death in the Serengeti. Only 10 minutes after entering Tanzania's legendary game park, we come upon a lioness standing guard over the eviscerated remains of a zebra. She snarls at us and shifts her position beneath a thorn tree, but does not retreat. "She will eat the softest parts first; the intestines, the pancreas and the liver," explains our guide, adding that lions are capable of consuming 35 kilograms of meat in a single sitting. With the image of the zebra kill fresh in our minds, we drive deeper into the park across an endless stretch of sunburned savannah, its haunting emptiness broken only by solitary acacias that sprout from the horizon like spindly parasols. To the Maasai, who grazed their cattle on these vast grassy plains for millennia this was Siringitu - "the place where the land moves on forever."
Serengeti National Park encompasses 14,763 square kilometres, an area about the size of Northern Ireland. The flagship of Tanzania's tourism industry, the park boasts the world's greatest concentration of large mammals and the most complex and least disturbed ecosystem on earth. We have come to the Serengeti to witness the Great Migration: a travelling circus of two million wildebeest, 500,000 gazelles, 300,000 zebras, 65,000 impalas and other species, that surges across the plains each summer, headed north in search of fresh grazing. The annual cavalcade attracts more than tourists- lions, leopards and cheetahs all dine on the herds as they pass through their territories. The greatest carnage typically occurs at the river crossings, otherwise known as the "crocodiles buffet." Wildebeest, which are not known for their intelligence, sometimes try to cross at suicidal junctures, plunging over cliffs and drowning by the hundreds beneath walls of mud. Yesterday, on a stretch of the Mara River, we saw dozens of their carcasses strewn on the rocks, surrounded by stuffed crocodiles.
Motoring across the parched terrain, we add new animals to our checklists: Grazing topis, a mahogany-skinned antelope with lyre-shaped horns and denim-blue patches on its flanks; high-stepping secretary birds, so-named because their crest of long black feathers was thought to resemble the quill pens that 19th-century bank clerks stuck in their wigs; and black-faced vervet monkeys - the males easily recognizable because of their bright blue testicles.
Hopeful of witnessing a river crossing, we spend an hour shadowing the wildebeest as they march single file across the grassland. Called "the clowns of the savannah" because they appear to have been assembled from spare parts - the head of a buffalo, mane of a horse, legs of an antelope - these awkward, top-heavy creatures are prone to unpredictable behaviour, suddenly springing like jack-in-the-boxes or sprinting off for no apparent reason.
We park and wait among the herd of grunting, white-bearded clowns, as shafts of ethereal sunlight pierce the clouds. The scene looks ripe for drama, but the wildebeest never cross. It is the lone disappointment in a day of wonders. Driving back to our lodge, we stop near the gates to watch the sunset. Dusks are often spectacular in East Africa, and this one is truly breathtaking: a boiling orange ball sinking through a violet curtain of distant rain.
The next morning we head eastward to Olduvai Gorge, a 50-kilometre-long ravine where paleontologists have found fossilized remains of the earliest human beings.
Due to its unique geology, in which layer upon layer of volcanic deposits were laid down in orderly sequence over a period of almost two million years, this site offers remarkable documentation of ancient life. Excavation work pioneered by Louis and Mary Leakey began in the 1930s, and in 1959 Mary discovered the first hominid skull at Olduvai Gorge. Her find, dubbed "Dear Boy" (Paranthropus boisei) and dated at 1.75 million years old, electrified the world of anthropology and established Africa as the site of human origins. In short order, the Leakeys also discovered Homo habilis and Homo erectus fossils at Olduvai, providing key links in the evolutionary sequence from apes to humans.
The ravine's rugged terrain, unchanged for millennia, certainly looks primordial enough to be "the cradle of mankind." After exploring the site's small but fascinating museum, we drive 130 kilometres through desolate scrubland to Ngorongoro Crater, an amazing UNESCO site that was unknown to the outside world until 1892.

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Ngorongoro was once a huge volcano that collapsed inward millions of years ago, leaving a 600-metre-deep, 20-kilometre-wide caldera. Its unique biosphere of grassy plains, alkaline lakes and forests, virtually unchanged since the dawn of time, is home to almost every species of animal in East Africa, and some 30,000 large mammals, including about 100 large black-maned lions. The density of wildlife in is so great here that is possible to manage the rare feat of viewing all of the "Big Five" (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and Cape buffalo) in a single day.

Near the entrance to Ngorongoro, we pass a trio of red-robed Maasai tribesmen, braided hair dyed with ochre, carrying spears in hand. More than any other African tribe, the Maa-sai have stubbornly resisted modernization, maintaining the traditions and pastoralist livelihoods they have practised for hundreds of years. In 1951, when the site was first incorporated into Serengeti National Park about 12,000 Maasai lived in the crater. A deal was later struck that turned Ngorongoro into a conservation area rather than a national park, allowing the tribe to continue watering live-stock on the crater floor while removing settlements and receiving a cut of the profits from tourism.

The reserve is stunningly beautiful and its landscape dreamlike: As we drive through, herds of zebra, buffalo and wildebeest part before our Land Cruiser like waves breaking off the prow of a boat. In the crater's centre sits Lake Magadi, its shallow alkaline waters covered by a pink blanket of flamingos. The afternoon passes bliss-fully as we sit inside the walled amphitheatre, watching one of the planet's last surviving black rhinos amble across the plain. "You should come in June during the rainy season," says our guide. "The crater floor is covered in yellow flowers."

It is difficult to leave, but the day is dying. A scary, cliff-hanging drive up a twisting dirt road takes us to the rim of the crater and our hotel, the Ngorongoro Serena Crater Lodge, where a troupe of whooping Maasai dancers are performing in the lounge. Built from river stone and camouflaged with indigenous vines, the lodge is designed to blend seamlessly into the landscape. Its décor is suitably pre-historic, the various wings linked by arched stone passages and timbered decks, and its walls decorated with stylized prehistoric cave paintings and lit by torches. Each room has a rock-enclosed balcony that overlooks the chasm and I spend the early evening sitting outside on mine, contentedly sipping a Serengeti Lager as the sun burn downs over Africa's Eden.

A trio of zebra marches across the great plains of the Serengeti at Singita Grumeti Reserve

Zebra and Wildebeest migration in the Serengeti.