The Best of Wanderlust (A GeoEx eBook)

The Best of Wanderlust

Where the World Began: Ngorongoro, Tanzania

Eden, when dinosaurs still roamed this country, and when the world was still young, long before man was born.

a burning building to rescue the family cat. The tribe remain unconvinced of the merits of windows and chimneys, and their small, low houses are dark and filled with thick smoke from the cooking fire. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I could just make out my hostess, a baby at her breast. The bowl of milk that was proffered had a curious metallic taste. When I tipped it towards the light of the fire to have a look, I could see the milk was pink—they had added fresh cow’s blood as a special treat. Several warriors had turned up while I had been drinking blood. The pride of Maasai society, the warriors, or moran , are admired for their courage, stoicism, and fancy hair. They were dancing in a semi-circle, accompanying themselves with breathy chants. One by one the warriors stepped into the center of the circle to jump straight into the air. The most accomplished, who seemed to hang for a moment at the peak of the jump, performed a nifty shoulder shimmy. Like pop stars, Maasai warriors are relieved of the bother of chasing women because the women chase them. A gang of young girls had now gathered, their shaved heads shining. Sidling up to the moran , they shook their shoulders, which set their wide necklace collars vibrating flirtatiously. The air was rich with the aroma of Africa—a mixture of wood smoke, cow dung, and dust. The men chanted and leapt higher and higher, the girls shimmied closer and closer, while a new moon hung over the rim of Ngorongoro. A royal ball would not have been this glamorous. The following morning, I went to look at the tree where the woman had paused with her offering. Twisted with age, it was sacred to the local Maasai. The trunk was embedded with personal tokens—metal rings, bits of jewelry, scraps of cloth— left here over the course of generations. As I studied the gnarled branches, I remembered that the fig, as a species, is one of the oldest in Africa. It grew in these parts some 80 million years ago, when God presided over a pristine

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Stanley Stewart is the author of three award-winning travel books— Old Serpent Nile , Frontiers of Heaven , and In the Empire of Genghis Khan —and many thousands of miles of travel articles. The Times Literary Supplement has declared him “among the very first rank of contemporary travel writers,” while the Washington Post says “a Stewart travel story about a walk to the nearest corner would be a page-turner.” He is currently working on a book about Rome.

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