Engaruka and Engaresero

The night of my village tour in Mto wa Mbu, I arranged to visit the village of Engaruka next. Rather than wait til the morning for a bus, the son of my guide-to-be in Engaruka offered me a ride in the back of his big truck. I figured to save time, I would accept. There were maybe 15-20 of us total riding in the back of the truck - I was lucky and got a decent spot on a bag of rice. Other people were sitting up in the metal framework above the truck bed, and some people managed to lay down and sleep, despite the very bumpy dirt road.

It ended up being about a four hour ride, due to several stops along the way to drop off various cargo from the back. When we finally arrived in Engaruka, it was late and I was pretty exhausted from the ride. I camped in the yard of my guide and arranged to sort out the details of my visit the next morning. I originally wanted to visit Engaruka to climb the active volcano, Ol Doinyo Lengai (The Mountain of God,) and see the lava from the top. But due to some miscommunication, it turned out to be more expensive than I anticipated and I didn't have enough money on me to climb it. By the time we realized this, my guide and I had already moved on to the closer village of Engaresero. Luckily, there were still things to do instead of climbing Ol Doinyo Lengai.

Engaresero

I first visited Lake Natron, which was maybe a 15 minute drive from Engaresero. It is a big alkaline lake that is home to tons of flamingos, similar to Lake Manyara. I had no idea before, but found out that East Africa is home to 80% of the world's flamingo population. Lake Natron was really nice and very picturesque. I saw lots of flamingos and the scenery was beautiful. Very close by, I also went to see a set of early human footprints, which are some of the oldest in existence - 120,000 years old!

Lake Natron and Ol Doinyo Lengai

Very old footprints

Later that day, I also hiked to a set of nearby waterfalls. Two local boys and I walked along and in a river within a small canyon to reach them. My decision to bring along my new DSLR camera made the trip more interesting while wading through the river and jumping across boulders.

On the way back from the waterfalls

After two nights in Engaresero, I arranged to ride back to Arusha with a very nice Australian lady who had her own private car. I kind of lucked out - the ride to Engaresero was a long, dusty one standing in the doorway of a packed daladala.

A crater on the way back to Arusha