Hi -- has anyone visited Lake Eyasi or interacted with the Hadzabe people? Can it be done as a day trip from the Crater or do you need to add a day or two in the region? Any comments on this? Thanks.

It is too far for a day trip from the crater unless you just want a very quick and unsatisfying glance at a family.

If you look at this image you can see what the drive entails. You have to drice to Karata (a good 90 minutes) then go south on a very dusty road for 2 hours.

Then you still have to team up with a local guide and track down a Hadzabe family - another hour at least. You can see a little blue dot right at the botom edge of the image below Tindiga where we found some families in the past.

The hunting/bush walks start early am so it is better to overnight at Kisima or nearby lodges & camps.

http://www.go-safari.com/images/NCA.jpg

My wife and I combined a bush walk with the Hadzabe with an overnight at Kisema Ngeda. We left the Crater at 7:30 and did a two-hour walk with the Hadzabe around lunch-time, then a delightful late lunch a K. Ngeda -- followed by a delightful swim in the fish pond pool. It is a wonderful way to wind down a safari, as Kisema Ngeda is an oasis of peace, quiet and beauty.

We enjoyed the walk very much, albeit having gone on it with some trepidation. I really enjoyed trudging along in the bush following the "hunt" and it was good exercise.

As far as interaction goes with the Hadzabe, you meet up with them on their terms -- i.e. where they are "camping out." Thus, it felt a lot more natural to me -- certainly more natural than going to a Masaai boma wih loads of cameras and trinkets.

Daniel

Thanks Eben and Daniel. The map is great and very helpful. Daniel, your trip sounds amazing. If we can add a day on, this seems like the perfect thing to do. If not, I will wait until our next trip and not cheat myself out of a satisfying experience. Thanks.

As above, it's best to do as an overnight, departing for your next destination after morning activities with the Hadzabe.

Hi Lolaz,
The ride to see one of the sub tribes of Hadzabwes is quite a distance from Karatu down very bad roads which are made worse during/after rain.

Generally, once you find a place to park, you'll have to do some hiking to get to them. You'll need a good guide (see my report) to interpret and extra time to really get them to warm up to you to really get a sense of what these facinating people are about.

We stayed 2 nights at Kisema Ngeda and took our time hunting, hiking and hanging with the Hadzabwes. We also spent lots of time with the Datogas. Kisema N. is located in a stunning and surprisingly tropical oasis (Palm trees, monkeys) situated next to Lake Eyasi. You can see the outer rim of the crater from there - breathtaking view. I would suggest staying at least 1 night.

Going to this area was one of the highlights of our stay in Tanzania.
If interested, you can get some further info. and pics. of the area in my report in the E. Africa index.
Good luck!
Sherry

Sherry -- you paint a fantastic picture. I will read your report and see if we can make this work. I can see that an extra night or two is in order. I will report what we end up doing. Thanks.

we went to kisima ngeda and the hadzabe as well in our june 2006 trip...same for me, these days were among the many highlights of our trip.. i remember the long drive to kisima ngeda, passing a lot of dust and with a little bit of fear what the camp would be like (our only previous experience was ikoma bush camp, and to say the least it was a little too 'primitive' for us.. eg the toilet was made out of wood and rotten).. and then we turned into the 'oasis'.... what a relief, what a welcome, and what a pleasure....my dissapointment about a dried up lake was quickly gone as i was lying in a sort of bed in front of my (beautiful) tent, looking through the green and staring at the dried lake in the distance with a masai warrior and his herd walking over it and the dust sweeping up behind him... my magical moment.... then going for dinner, following a trail of petroleum lamps and enjoying a fantastic dinner... which somehow was a surreal experience, with even heated plates and people sweeping the crumbs of your table between dishes....in the middle of nowhere.... leaving there was the most difficult goodbye, with the entire staff waving us out... from there we went to the hadzabe, but i think my guide got the hiking thing wrong he sort of drove us far out, asking the local guide to chop away branches so he could drive on...to a moment we even nearly got stuck driving over dried river rocks... and finally we found them, only had to walk like 5, 10 minutes... the hadzabe men relaxing under a large rock and smoking... while you could see they had seen tourists before, there was something still very authentical about them...we tried communicating with them with hands and anything in view had some good laughs as the leader asked my hubbie to come sit next to him and seemed to want to tell him all sorts of stories... too bad we didn't have time to go hunting with them, but we did do some bow and shooting practice... if ever i'm going to tanzania again, this is certainly a part of my trip i'll do over, except with the difference of giving it more time than i had you really don't want to miss out !! it's well wort the detour

I certainly agree with the previous posts. Kisima Ngeda is one of those little camps that gets consistent good reviews.

I love the place.

Some of my pics are here: http://www.go-safari.com/Manyara/Kisimangeda.htm

Some Hadzabe walks are not for the feint of heart! You can arrange different kinds of visits but if you go on a hunting walk you may see small animals (dik-dik, baboons, birds, etc) taken by arrow. In this case death is not clinical.