Masai Mara Safari

So, we finally got on… I am hoping to upload some pics as soon as possible but the connection is slow. Wendy wrote the entry for the blog for the Masai Mara… truly one of the most incredible 3 days of my life. Enjoy, nikki ☺

So we are back from the Masai Mara and all I can say is WOW! This place blows my mind; it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen!

So Tuesday morning Teeku who is our own personal safari guide and driver picked us up at 6:30 am. Teeku is a good friend of Sachen's so we were in good hands. Teeku arrived with his 4x4 land cruiser (Nikki says it’s hot she loves boys in jeeps) and we were off on the adventure of a lifetime.

Our drive up to the Masai Mara was about 4 and half hour, driving through Kenya is crazy! The traffic is nuts and there is so much exhaust and black smoke from the cars. (They obviously don’t do emission testing) The drivers are also pretty crazy they race down these dirt roads with massive potholes and huge rocks. Driving on some of these roads are like ATVing the back roads at the cottage, but in a SUV. The local buses (called matatu) are also suicidal, they are loaded with people and mattresses, boxes, crates, water jugs and even LIVE chickens piled at least 6 feet high on top of the bus and they speed past you on the road. We dropped into the one side of The Great Rift Valley, which was breath taking and drove through a variety of little villages. As we all know there is a lack of available water in Africa. Many Kenyan’s don’t even have water, while others are spending 60% of their day collecting water. Presently there is a drought here they haven’t had rain in months, and yet Kenyan’s love to wash their cars, there are car wash kiosks set up on the road sides, with people splashing water on these cars, that will soon drive along dusty roads. It makes no sense but is considered a luxury!
Teeku, is a wonderful guide, he is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about the Kenyan culture & wildlife. Because he grew up in the Mara with his family he has a excellent sense for understanding the mood across the Mara and eagle eyes for spotting the animals.
The moment we passed through the gates to the Masai Mara, we began to spot the game. We first spotted a group of Zebra, then a small herd of Wildebeest. It was as if these animals had been planted right there to greet us. We drove through the park, making our way to our JK Mara Tented Camp where we would be staying the next 3 nights. The camp is run by a group of Masai men, when we arrived they all greeted us by saying Jambo, Karibu which means hello and welcome! The camp is very simple and an eco friendly place; they use solar power and LED lights. The food at the camp was great, in the evenings they had to fix us showers, which consisted of a canvas bucket with water that would be hoisted up the side of your tent and you would pull a cord and there is your shower. At night we could hear the lions and hyenas.

Safari’s are awesome, the first day we did a late afternoon to early evening game drive, the next day we packed a picnic breakfast and headed out around 6:30 and ate breakfast on top of a hill that overlooked the Serengeti as we watched for herds coming in. On the other side of the breakfast spot there were wildebeest and zebra grazing, talk about paradise! On the third day we packed both a picnic breakfast and lunch so we could stay out from 6:30 am till 7pm. We ate breakfast under a tree in the middle of the Mara surrounded by wildebeest and zebra grazing again. This is the migration. It’s hard to explain the beauty of our surroundings, no wonder this is one of the seven wonders of the world. We also had a huge vulture swoop down towards us as we nibbled away on fresh pineapple. Later that day we enjoyed our lunch on the roof of the land cruiser along the Mara river as we watched two small herds of zebra contemplate whether to take a drink down below among the hippos and giant fresh water crocs (these crocs are at least a meter wide and 4 meters long) I think this was the best meal out I have ever had!
As for what we saw over these days:
We had a hippo charge the Land Cruiser, we were driving along and saw a massive hippo walking along out of the water, we began to drive down in it’s direction, I was standing up out the top of the land cruiser video taping and all of a sudden the hippo turned and started charging towards us at full speed and making loud grunting noises, I jumped it scared the crap out of me!
We followed a mama cheetah and her cub, for a couple of days and watched as she slowly and carefully stalked her prey, unfortunately for the hungry mama and cub she was spotted by her prey both times and walked awake still hungry.
We saw a pride of 10 lions feeding on a Wildebeest, this was quite a sight, the lions would be devouring this wildebeest and every so often come up and look around with blood stained faces.
A family of giraffe hanging out directly in front of our car.
A mating Lion and lioness, taking a nap in the long grass. The lion eventually got up for a stroll and walked right in front of the car, man they are big!
A dying zebra, which we later went back to see and was lunch for the hyenas and vultures. The hyenas have to be one of the gross animals to watch eat, they eat all the bones so you can hear all the crunching and their scat is bright white due to the high intake of calcium in the bones.
Tons of zebra, wildebeest, grants gazelles, Thompson gazelles, topis, mongoose, warthogs, hartebeest, impala, elands, waterbuck, dikdiks, ground squirrels, baboons, velvet monkey, fresh water crocs, many different types of birds.

On our last day, today we went on a bush walk with the Masai guys at the camp. As we walked along with them they sang and danced. We saw two elephants, a warthogs and some gazelles. They were quizzing us on the different types of scat we came across and they were very impressed with our knowledge, all thanks to Teeku.

After our bush walk we headed over to a local Masai Manyatta (their houses) for a visit. When we arrived the men danced and sang for us and then the women had us dance with them as they sang. We had a chance to experience how the Masai live, they live in houses that are made of mud and cow dung (which take four months to build ad they last up to nine years). They used to live quite a simple way of life and now they are more technologically advanced and modern, they still dress in traditional Masai attire which is a Shukra, beading, belts, a spear, and a club, but now their belts are equipped with designer cell phone pouches that say Guess or Nike!

We are back in Nairobi for 2 days then off to the Samburu for safari for another 4 days.

Hope you all are well, because we sure are!


Love you and miss you

Wendy

XOXO