The alarm goes off at 5:30am and it's beginning to get light outside. We leave the room around 6:15am, after locking our bags and moving them away from all windows. After a quick cup of coffee we hop in the van with the Australian couple. (Bobbi and Aziz decided to skip this game drive and sleep in) It's a brisk morning and I have on my fleece and safari pants. We enter the Mara as the sun is rising.
Not long after entering the Mara, we come across 3 lionesses and 3 cubs lying in the short grass. This has got to be the best thing we've seen in the Mara. It's amazing to see these animals interact with each other. The cubs bite each other’s tails and cuddle with their mothers.
Then they all get up and start to walk away. George says they're hungry and looking for food. As they walk, one cub lays down in the grass and as one of the lionesses approaches, George says “watch it’s going to surprise its mom!” And sure enough, as soon as the lioness gets close the cub jumps up and pounces on her. They play fight and roll around in the grass for a while. It's amazing to watch this live! Lions living their everyday lives. I take hundreds of photos and Rich gets most of the interactions on video. We follow the lions for a while and even see a cub attempt to attack a secretary bird, which is probably bigger then it is. Of course the bird just flies away, but it was a good effort by the cub.
We drive around for another hour and see lots of zebras, elephants, buffalo and giraffes. We leave the Masai Mara for the last time around 10am and head back to the lodge.
Masai Cops
If you’ve never had to deal with Masai police then consider yourselves lucky. We spend the rest of the morning trying to get the lodge manager, who said he’s 99% sure our stuff was stolen by one of his staff members, to help us find the thieves or give us some kind of compensation. All we get are excuses and unconvincing apologies. Then we are sent to the Masai village to find the police chief so we can get our police report. Unlike usual robberies, where the police come to the crime scene, we have to go to them. After waiting in the village, under the rays of the boiling sun, someone finds the police chief (the only person who can help us) leaving church. We fill out all the necessary paperwork and the chief promises to look into the theft, these things can take weeks he says. Something tells me justice will not be served.
After that interesting experience we pack up and leave the lodge, a 5 hour bumpy ride back to Nairobi awaits…
