I’m going to condense the second two days of the safari trip on the Masai Mara into one post. The non-safari parts weren’t super memorable or important. The food was “meh” the accommodations were “adequate,” and the safari was “amazing“. So yea, here’s a quick story from those two days.
The days both started out with amazing sunrises. The drivers obviously know where to take the photographers and we got a great location with the trees in the foreground. Even though I knew I was getting the same photo as everyone else, I’m still pretty proud of the results.
The best part of the experience was watching the sun slowly paint the clouds as it came up. Little by little the edges of the clouds were tickled with little feathers of light until the morning light had fully engulfed us.
And then we headed off to see animals.
We came across two lions who were in mating season. Apparently this lasts seven days, in which time they don’t eat, and as a consequence were both thin and tired. The lioness really wasn’t into it and just laid there while the male prowled around, gave her a “hey baby, you wanna?” nudge, saw she was having no part of it and laid back down.
Of course, it might also ruin the mood when you have 4 vans full of humans circled around you staring at you. In the photo above, if you pull back a bit you’ll see what it really looked like.
Such is life when you’re the king of the jungle I guess…
We stopped for a quick leg stretch at a designated spot, as you’re not allowed out of the vehicles at all unless it’s a specific area. In this case it was right on the border of Kenya and Tanzania, marked by a stone obelisk.
We got lunch (more about that in a second) at the Mara River, another spot with a little shop, bathrooms, and a place to stretch our legs.
We got a guide assigned to us and got a walk down the river, seeing some crocodiles, and two different groups of hippos. Did you know that a group of hippos is called a “bloat”? I didn’t either, but it is. Each group had a really young one, one a two week old and one a three week old.
Honestly, out of the water hippos look like they’re deflated. But the babies are still super cute.
Lunch was… well, again, we chose the budget version. Lunch consisted of:
- A banana
- An apple
- A juice box
- A small bag of chips
- An over cooked, cold piece of chicken leg wrapped in tin foil
On the upside though, there were monkeys hanging around (they knew that that’s where the food scraps are).
I’m sure that the locals consider them pests like we in BC consider raccoons, but that the foreigners like them.
So probably the most memorable moment of the Masai Mara trip was a while after lunch when we stopped along the road to watch a couple of elephants walking nearby. Then there were more elephants. And more. And more.
Eventually there were about fifteen, including an adorable little baby, and they just wandered across the road we were on, coming by on either side of the van. Just an amazing sight.
As we were heading back towards camp my keen eyed wife spied a dik-dik, which is about the size of a small dog and possibly the most adorable thing ever, especially when you come almost face to face with it as you’re driving under some trees and it’s standing right across from you.
In an absolutely perfect end to our Masai Mara trip, as we were exiting the park through the gates, we came across a guard with a three day old zebra. It had been separated from it’s mom the night before in the rain, and they were taking it back to where they thought the herd was to get it back where it belonged.
It really was a spunky little guy, at one point bounding off, practically prancing, before the guard could run and grab him. Simply adorable.
That really was the perfect end-cap to the Masai Mara experience.
Next up, the last part of the safari, heading up to Lake Nakuru, which is famous for it’s huge flocks of flamingos. See you in the next entry.
