So Saturday night Alix and I went to an Ethiopian restaurant that was really good. We had a really fun time, just talking and swapping stories. It's really awesome that we just met and got along so well and had such a good time. She's been an incredible host for me.
Sunday morning my safari picked me up around 9 (about an hour late). The driver is Issac (who after his impressive feats today, I am very impressed with!). There are 4 of us in the van - Kate, who is Australian and working in Ethiopia, and is my roommate in my tent. Then there is David who is from Singapore, and then a younger guy from Korea whose name Kate and I both can't remember (it is Huk Jin). Maybe I'll ask him again tomorrow, or maybe he'll introduce himself to someone else at dinner.
We drove out of Nairobi, and then stopped at an overlook of the Rift Valley. We got out to take some pictures there and then continued on.
Drove for about 2 hours until we got to .... And stopped there for lunch. After that the driving was pretty treacherous. The dirt roads leading to the Masai Mara were NOT in very good shape. Our van (allegedly) had 4 wheel drive, and still in the mud we were skidding quite a bit. One point was particularly bad, where a bridge had Allen down, and we just had to drive through the creek bed. Issac had us get out and then he drove through and we walked around. 3 other fans ended up there at the same time as us, and Issac was like the one in charge, telling them how to deal with it and helping other drivers when they had car trouble. I was kind of terrified on this part of the trip, skidding cars are NOT my thing (as anyone who's ever ridden in a car with me in snow can attest to). We finally got out to our camp where Kate and I took one tent and the guys too, another. 2 beds per tent. Amazingly, they have power from 5:30-7 in the morning, and 6:30-10 at night, and there are even hot showers and toilets in the tents! The tents are pretty decent, but the mosquito nets had quite a few holes... Awesome.
After arriving at camp, we set out on our first game drive. Wow. I wasn't expecting to see everything since its not the great migration or even high season. But on the first game drive, we saw zebra, giraffe, thompsons gazelle, impala, haltbeest, wildebeest, lion, elephant, hippo, helmeted guinea fowl, and African buffalo. There may be more even. The roads in the Masai Mara are significantly better than on the way here. It's amazing all the dirt roads running through the park. Our driver knew just where to go, despite the sheer number of roads (glorified dirt paths) that were there. Isaac has a radio in the van, so he communicates with other drivers about animals to see. He stops whenever he wants us to see stuff and take pictures and so he can tell us about the Masai Mara or the animals themselves. When we saw other vans stopped to see the lions, we stopped too and Issac pulled off the road and got us up super close to the lions. My pictures are just incredible. He really did a good job of tracking and following animals so we could get good pictures.
The game drive was from about 4:30-6:30. We came back to camp and had a hot shower, then went to diner we had fried tilapia, with potatoes, pasta, cabbage, and maybe something else too, I forget. We sat by the fire pit for a while after and talked with Katana, a Masai man who works at our campsite as well. went to bed about 9, so we could get up early!
Day 2 began at about 6:30 when we woke up. Breakfast was at 7, then we left for our game drive at 7:30. The second day was even more incredible than the first. We had three different lion sightings, and a few of the times it was multiple lions! Two cheetah sightings and got to see a leopard as well. Our trip took us to the Kenya/Tanzania border! In Kenya the area is called Masai Mara, in Tanzania it is the Serengeti. I had "Africa" by Toto stuck in my head most of the day after this point haha. They have markers along the border so we stopped at one to take pictures. After that, we went to the Mara river, where there are a TON of hippos, and we had a guide (a Kenyan military guy named Jeff with a huge rifle) take us to where you could see a crocodile. He told us that the hippos sleep all day and laze about in the water, then they go on land at night for food. They're not dangerous if they're staying in the water, but once he had to shoot a hippo that was on land when it tried to attack someone. He said you have to shoot to kill and hat he did so successfully. I was shocked that it is even possible to kill a hippo with one bullet, but Jeff said he did, so i guess I'll believe him. We also saw Egyptian geese in the river.
We stopped for lunch, and there were mongoose and monkeys all around. A monkey stole David's banana and my juice box. They are very aggressive and the guides said absolutely NOT to feed them. We didn't try to feed them but I guess ended up doing so inadvertently, which ends up perpetuating the problem. Oh well.
After lunch we saw baboons, which we hadn't seen yet. The drive back had fewer animals in general, since the sun was high and when it's that hot out they all take cover as much as they can. But we still saw a ton of zebras, giraffes, and the various antelope, as well as elephants, and a lion sighting.
Overall summary of animals: (ignore the numbers, they are for my reference in the approximately 1000 photos I took over the three days!)
Thompsons gazelle: small, males have horns, females have little horns. Bold black stripe on their side
Impala: males with horns, often in bachelor groups. Also find harem groups with one dominant male (7,8,9)
Wildebeest/gnu: very dumb! Get eaten fast, poor instincts. travel with zebra, because zebra has good inst cts. Eaten by lions
Topi: males and females similar, both have horns, brown (22,24)
Jackals: scavengers
Cheetah: 15 years lifespan, pregnant 3.5 months, 3-4 babies, fastest on earth. Have small muscles so they don't tire easily, head is smaller for good wind resistance/streamlined, big tail is good for balance, claws are always out to grip onto things. Good dew claw to drag animals. "tear marks" on face - leopard doesn't have them. Very good eye sight and hearing. Longer/slimmer body than leopard.
Giraffe: keep their babies up the mountain so predators don't get them. Lions won't go up the mountain
Grant gazelle: (58,59,60) bigger than Thompson, lighter black on flank
Lions: only social cat
Elephant: life to 60 years. 2 year pregnancy. 6 sets of teeth in their lifetime, 1 set of tusks.
Masai giraffe: different coloring, lions will kill when they bend down to drink water. Usually lions eat wildebeest or buffalo, 4-5 lions to take down 1 buffalo
Leopard: 50 km/hr. live to 15 years
Eland: bigger antelope family
Water buck: (300,301) the common Water buck are the ons with the white ring, these are different.
Haltbeest: like topi (399,400)
Crowned crane
When we returned, Kate, David, and I went to the Masai village. You pay $20 and they take you around. Our guide was Kamwana, also known as Peter. They tell you a lot about the village. There are ten families, but more than ten houses since men have multiple wives. There are about 160 people in the village. Houses are made of mud and sticks and every 9 years they move the village to a new site. Now that they have a school built by this site, in 4 years when it is time to move, Kamwana said they won't go far. Boys are circumcised at 15, and at 20 they spend 5 years in the bus all together where they learn to make knives, spears, shoes (out of tires), and how to be a warrior/hunter. At the end they have to kill a lion. Then at 25 they get married to a girl who is 17, chosen by the parents and paid for with 10 cows. However, if you can jump very high, you may pay fewer cows. If you are horrible at jumping, you might have to pay more. They showed us the jumping dance that the do, which involves wearing a lion's skin/headdress on your head. I got to wear it, and it was from the lion that Kamwana had killed. The men also showed us how they make fire (with sticks, and they are super good at it - they are also really good at jumping!). They let us try to make fire, and of course, we failed. We got to go inside a house, where they tried to sell us stuff. I liked one of the bracelets, and they told me 3000 Kenya shillings (about $35 dollars). I ended up getting it for 1000 shillings (like $12.50, expensive, but still reasonable), but then Kamwana wanted me to swap for my watch... Which I refused to do, on the premise that I need it for taking pulse and respiratory rates! Really because it's my tide watch and it's waterproof and I need that for the beach in the summer... Sorry Kamwana.
They took us down the the school next, and then that was the end of the tour, and Katana walked with us back to the campsite. Took a hot shower and then went to dinner - vegetable soup and bread to start, then ground meat (beef?), rice, some kind of lentil thing (I think?), potatoes, and greens (which I skipped, I still hate greens!). Good overall. I wanted a soda, but I forgot money and then it was pouring rain so I skipped it, figuring the with leaving for our day 3 early morning game drive at 6AM, and early night would be best!
So on Tuesday morning, we woke up at 5:45 and left just after 6 on our final game drive. We saw the usual suspects (zebra, antelope varieties, wildebeest, elephant), and also saw lions. This time it was a whole pride of lions, with a few males mixed in as well. For a total of 13 lions! It was just incredible. I also got some nice shots of the sun rising over the Masai Mara. Stunning. We also saw a pair of cheetahs, which is unusual since as I noted above, the lions are the only social cat, so usually cheetahs are by themselves. After we returned from the game drive, we ate breakfast and hit the road. The road out of the area was much better and drier the it had been on the way in. I never felt like we were going to die, which was a definite plus! We got out to the main road much faster, and stopped at a tourist trap/curio shop, where they tried to sell us beaded flip flops for approximately $55 USD. No chance!
Then Issac told us there was a problem. Apparently the first day we had crossed some body of water to se a lion that he wasn't supposed to cross. Two other vans had done it too, and they had already crossed out of the area and been questioned about it since someone had reported it (what idiots!). So the other vans said it wasn't them, that they had just arrived in the park yesterday and had only spent one night. Issac told us to do the same. So when we stopped at the gate and they asked us, we just said yup, we came in yesterday, aww it was way too short a trip, but what can you do? And we got right through. Stopped for lunch along the road, and then continued on back to Nairobi. I got dropped off at the Junction Mall by Alix's place, and she met me here a little bit later, so I'm still here now, at an Internet cafe that is really nice and has pretty amazing food. Case in point is the chocolate lava cake (with white chocolate and dark chocolate) that I had earlier.... Mmmmmmm.
So my safari on the whole was awesome. Next up is flying to rwanda tomorrow morning, and then meeting up with Sam Thursday night!!
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I posted a comment, but I don't know where it went. So here goes again -- These pictures are BREATHTAKING!! I loved them all, especially the lion on his back. Now you know why a safari in Kenya is on my bucket list!
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