Best four days ever! Loved practically every second of the trip. Ok, from the beginning.
Up stupid early again (5:20am), taken into Nairobi by Joseph (saint of a man), met Katie at Java for early morning coffee and danish then picked up by rep from safari company we were going with. We headed into Right Choice Safaris’ office (http://rightchoicesafaris.net/index.html), left our bags, went to the supermarket for supplies/snacks and back to the office where we met our safari guide Opany. Now, just as a quick aside, Opany is THE MAN! Best safari guide in the world. Ok sure, I don’t have any others to compare him to but he was super fantastic. One of my favourite Kenyans for sure.
We headed down to the safari van and met the others on our tour, Moon and Aruje from Pakistan/England, Tushar from Kenya/Canada and Jadeep from India/Kenya (everyone was from somewhere and living somewhere else) and Kadoka our chef.
We stopped off at the gift shops, toilets, coffee shops overlooking the Rift Valley for a bit and had a look at some souvenirs. Now to say the sales people can be pushy is an understatement. They tell you everything is a very good price, practically free then when you ask how much for a couple of items they try to rip you off completely. 9500 ksh (about $100 AU) for two small items?! You’ve got to be kidding me! I tried to go down to 2000 ksh for both. No, he wasn’t having that. 3000 for the bead bracelet. Seriously?? What planet are you living on? He kept pushing even when I said I didn’t have that much on me and told me to ask my friend for money. Eventually I had to tell him to just stop. Needless to say I left without buying anything!
On we went through the Rift Valley (the birth place of human life). It was so relaxing in the van I may have fallen asleep but I can neither confirm nor deny.
We stopped for lunch then on to the Masai Mara. In total it took us about 5 hours to get there but it went quite quickly. We were met at the Enchoro Wildlife Camp (http://www.enchorowildlifecamp.com/) by a Maasai man named Daniel who explained the ins and outs of the camp then we were taken to our tents. Now these weren’t ordinary tents; they each had their own deck and an ensuite at the back with flushing toilet, sink and hot water shower. Very nice indeed! Ours had a double bed and a single bed in it with a little table and room for our things. Luxury.
We had a cuppa then were off for our first game drive. Cue excitement! As soon as we entered the reserve we saw zebras, buffalos, impala, mongoose (Mongeese? Mongooses?) and wildebeest. It was as if they had been placed there as a welcoming committee. Man wildebeest are weird looking creatures. Their heads just seem too big for their bodies like those cartoon animals you get on those bizarre greeting cards. Anyhoo… it was awesome to see so many animals straight away. Then came the giraffe, beautiful slender graceful creatures that they are. In the distance we heard the trumpeting of elephants so went off to find them. There were a couple of teenage boy ellies playing in the trees and some more mature female (isn’t that always the way?) ones further along with a couple of baby elephants. Super cute!
Opany headed purposefully in the opposite direction to where another safari van had stopped. I wonder what is there…wait…oooo…really??...LIONS! I was beyond excited, lions on our first day there! We drove right up to them, literally right beside them as they lounged in the sun, totally disinterested in all the humans and their little clicking contraptions. They occasionally looked up at us but really didn’t care. There were about 5 females and two males. One was the dominant and the other boy his brother who didn’t really have any privileges according to our guide. One of the females headed over to said brother and tried to ‘tempt’ him. He thought about it, got up, walked over to her, stretched and changed his mind. Yeah, nah. Clearly too much effort. I was completely flabbergasted at how close we were able to get and how unconcerned the lions were. They just got out of the way of the vans if necessary but mainly hung out in their group, rolling on their backs like regular kitties, yawned, stretched their paws out and lay their heads on them. If only they could be cuddled like house cats! Then again, I like my limbs so stayed in the van.
After copious photo and video taking we headed back to camp. Dinner time. Our chef – that sounds so good – made us a delicious dinner of spaghetti Bolognese and veges with fruit for dessert. We all sat around the bonfire for the rest of the evening, chatting away then it was time for bed before the generator was turned off at 10pm.
Lala Salama.
Day 2
With pancakes for breakfast you know it’s going to be a good day. We set off for our all-day game drive armed with our cameras, videos, snacks and sense of adventure. Oh wait, did I say camera? Hmm, don’t those need properly charged batteries? Ah yeah. Crap. Ah well, everyone else took mountains of pics; I’ll just ‘borrow’ those.
We saw loads of ellies and buffalo and giraffe and zebra. Even though I have now seen lots of them I just don’t get sick of it.
The Masai Mara Reserve is a huge expanse of land, 1612km2 to be precise. It is mainly all savannahs with some bushes and trees scattered around. It crosses the boarder with Tanzania and merges into the Serengeti. Absolutely beautiful and serene. We came across another pride of lions relaxing in the sun; now that will NEVER get old!
Opany looked off into the distance and said ‘cheetah’. Really? Where? They were so far away but, before the video died, I was able to zoom in on them and take a couple of pics. No need to zoom as it turns out. Lets just drive right up to them, yeah, ok, why not. It was a mama cheetah with her grown cub. Perfect specimens they were. Sleek, healthy and mind-blowingly beautiful.
Ok, off again, bye puss-cats.
There was a huge group of birds on the ground pecking away at something. Yep, they were vultures eating the scraps of a dead buffalo. Glad it wasn’t lunchtime, smelt revolting! There was also a couple of jackal that had feasted then wandered off to find some water.
Hey look, there’s an ostrich. Cool.
Opany saw another couple of lions resting in the shade of some bushes so we went to say hi. They were near a huge group of buffalo that kept their distance but didn’t seem too worried. Buffalo are rather large, too big for one lion. Even if a lion or two did attack, the rest of the herd would come to its rescue and defend against the lions. Clearly this is known by all lion-kind as they just sat watching. Opany had an inkling so we drove around to the other side and felt like we were watching Animal Planet and here’s why:
We saw a young buffalo wandering off on its own. The mama buffalo trotted up to it trying to get it to come back and join the herd. Did baby buffalo listen? No sir. Mum tried, she really did but I guess buffalo are stubborn. She went back to the group and baby wandered further away. We could see what was going to happen, the lions just needed to notice now…
He saw it and so did his brother. They came out of the bushes, stealthily, crouched low and practically crawling in the grass. Baby buffalo was nonchalantly munching away and was only distracted by us when we drove closer (ok, so maybe we feel a little guilty). The boys (no, not the Canadians, the lion brothers) crept closer and closer and were eventually right on the other side of the bushes to baby buffalo who must have had a cold as he didn’t seem to smell them at all. The wait was excruciating! Come on, pounce, do it!! They were like statues, waiting for I don’t know what.
Suddenly they attacked. Baby buffalo hardly moved, clearly taken completely by surprise. Lead brother lion took it by the throat and other brother leapt on its hindquarters.
****Parental advisory…it may get a little gory now so if you wish to skip this next bit, miss the next paragraph ****
Lions are killing machines and instinctively knew what to do. Lead lion kept crushing the buffalo’s throat as the other one lay on it so it couldn’t struggle out of the grip. It was a bit sad but at the time we were all so amazed by what was happening right in front of us that we couldn’t help watching it all. Buffalo did try to get away but there was no chance. Another two brother lions noticed what was happening and made their way over from the bushes, purposely trotting along to the kill site. They were clearly quite high on the hierarchy (first born down apparently) so were allowed to get in and start eating. Opany said they really like the intestines, as they are soft so that’s what we saw next. Ewww. One more brother lion came over but wasn’t allowed to get in amongst the group so licked the blood off the face of another lion instead. They didn’t care that we were right there, about 6 metres away; they had food and weren’t going to let any humans stop them. Baby buffalo was well and truly gone by then.
Moral of the story: listen to your mother!!
We left them to feast and drove off in stunned silence. We had actually seen a kill in the wild! A couple of the guys had said they would love to see one but no one really thought it would happen. Unbelievable. Hearts still racing we drove to the Mara River for lunch. Yep we could still get the food down.
One of the rangers took us on a short walk around the river after lunch. The smell was not great. The river was littered with the carcasses of wildebeest that had not made it across the then raging river during migration. There were literally hundreds of carnivorous birds (not vultures, secretary birds I think) pecking away. Gross. The ranger pointed down to river, sorry, what’s that? Oh! You mean that giant prehistoric-looking crocodile? Oh right. It was huge!! We were much higher up, nowhere near it so not in any danger (just thought I’d add that for mum:-). And what are those little things poking out of the water? Hippo ears? Well of course they are. The hippos didn’t feel like getting out of the river so we made do with seeing the tops of their heads and their tiny wee ears. Kinda cute really.
Moon asked the ranger how far away from the boarder we were. Not far at all, let’s go there. So, off we went to Tanzania! All that marked the boarder was an upturned slab of concrete with K/T on it to signify the two countries. We all had the obligatory pictures on the other side of the boarder, did a few little jumps either side; “Kenya, Tanzania, Kenya, Tanzania”, then wandered back to Opany and the van. Time to go back to camp.
I had a little snooze in our tent, charged everything up in the dining hall – properly this time – and it was time for dinner. Once again we were in bed by 10pm ready for our 6am start tomorrow. Wow, what a day!
Lala Salama
