Peering Into Volcanoes at Tanzania’s Crater Highlands

“Is he dead?” I heard Kaixu exclaim.

We’d finally found a lion. But he was napping, his back to us about 20 yards away, his dark mane quivering in the wind.

We rumbled up out of the amphitheater just before sunset and pulled into a glade near a Maasai village. One of its warriors, Maleton Oleriro, tall and draped in a red blanket, would be our guide for the next two days. We talked as the fire of damp wood hissed and smoked.

Maleton told us how his late father had six wives, how his own arranged marriage three years ago included a dowry of 20 cows, and how he trained to be a Maasai warrior with other boys by practicing spear-throwing while herding cows.

The next morning, we rattled over to the rim of Empakaai Crater, an enchanting circular caldera about 4 miles wide and 1,000 feet deep, largely covered by a lake. The wind, sun and clouds created an impressionistic canvas on the gleaming surface.

We traipsed down a steep, dusty path, through a thick forest and onto a shoreline of stubby grass and sand. We were alone but for several thousand flamingos rimming the edge of a quarter of the deep lake in a pink arc.

I tasted the water (not too brackish) and asked Maleton if swimming was allowed. He didn’t know: “Maasai don’t swim,” he said. That ambiguity, and the fact that a stream fed into the lake, settled it. I stripped down in a warm breeze, squished into the muddy shallow and dove into the cool, rust-colored water. I closed my eyes and swam freestyle, feeling the soft, buoyant water and how the salinity stung my tongue.

Heading toward a flamboyance of flamingos on the right side of the shore, breast-stroking as stealthily as possible, I approached several large birds that paddled out close to me, but they suddenly lifted off. I put my head down and pulled toward the shore, and, when I looked up, several hundred were streaking across the sky. I swam backstroke, noticing how dark their wings were underneath and how their pink stick legs acted like tails.