Masai Mara Safari

Ok ok... so everyone be prewarned that this is going to be like a novel... i tried to cut it down but then figured that those who want to read it will, and those who do not want to sit down for this wont. :)

I am trying to think of where to pick up but I think I’ll just highlight the good parts, like the incredible trip to the Masai Mara (which is essentially the Kenyan part of the Serengeti which stretches within Tanzania). This place deserves to be one of the wonders of the world as it is absolutely breathtaking.

We left Nyeri on Saturday morning to all meet up in Nairobi where the tour leaves from on Sunday morning. By all of us I mean all 10 Canadian Interns from College of the Rockies. Most of us (8) are based in Nyeri, one in Nairobi and the last guy, Graham was based around Kisumu for the first couple months so we hadn’t seen him since arriving in Kenya. So we all got a chance to hang out on Saturday night, have some drinks and just relax out of any work environment which was awesome. Then bright and early Sunday morning, we jumped into our 2 Safari Vans and embarked on an 8 hour drive to the masai mara on some of the worst roads I have ever driven on J think camping and dirt roads with huge gaping holes and ruts because of the rains… that’s what the majority of Kenya’s roads are. Apparently only something like 12% of their roads are paved… most of that 12% would be better off not paved because the road maintenance has been so minimal that the potholes are gynormous and they are worse than the non-paved roads. Needless to say, I will no longer complain about road quality in Canada or the maintenance done to keep them in good shape. We have wonderful roads in Canada so everyone be thankful J Needless to say, the drive was beautiful. The landscape changes so much as you drive. We first passed lovely lush green forested areas, went into the Great Rift Valley, and drove thru semi arid land, mud, clay, you name it. We also saw tons of animals like cattle and goat herds belonging to the masai people, baboons, zebras, all kinds of stuff. In that way it reminds me of Canada that they have such varied landscapes. Finally at around 5pm, we arrived at our camp which was actually more luxury than any of us anticipated. It had semi-permanent tented lodges with cots, mattresses, nets, running hot water, flush toilets, electricity and a bar J We all settled in and went out then on our first game drive…

Driving into the masai mara park is like driving into any other national park in Canada or Kenya. But as soon as we entered, you realized you were in Kenya. So the reason that we went to the Mara at the end of August is because we wanted to catch the wilda beast migration. The wildabeast migrate from Tanzania to Kenya across the Mara river and back each year for water and food. At this point they anticipate that there are around 2 million in the park and I don’t doubt it. THEY WERE EVERYWHERE! As far as you could see, there were tiny little black dots on the hills the valleys everywhere…actually after a while you get a bit sick of seeing them because you see so many. Some of the other cool animals we saw were a cheetah, zebras, giraffes, a cape buffalo, a couple lionesses on the prowl… and this was within 3 hours on the first night of being in the park! We then went back to our camp, hung out, slept and were up and out for our big safari day by 8am.

Day 2 was a beautiful day too! This day started with more wildebeest, zebras, ostriches and many groups of vultures feeding on the leftovers from the lions the night before, mainly of wildebeest… Gross. We also saw a bunch of little deer like animals… wapiti maybe? And some antelopes and that kind of thing. The scenery was incredible thought. I took so many pictures of landscapes and the trees and the sky. It was a bright blue sky all day as a beautiful background. We also saw this adorable baby cheetah with his mum! The baby cheetah was so fuzzy he looked like he had an aura around him but it was just the baby fuzz. I felt really bad for them though because there were so many vans surrounding them to try to get pictures that they must have felt really threatened and scared so as soon as we all got a picture we just left them alone. We crossed the Mara river where there were a bunch of dead, rank wildebeest bloated as hell in the river. While we were there, a vulture was pecking away at one of the corpses and a crocodile chowing down on another. Seriously nasty but really the circle of life.

The most amazing part of my day took about an hour and a half of patience… We arrived at this spot overlooking the Mara river where the wildebeest all gather to cross. There were probably about 30 safari vans there waiting as well. So we hung out there, at our lunch and watched thousands of wildebeest gather onto this little peninsula type area. You could see them coming from every corner on the other side of the river and collecting in this little area. Some of the brave ones would scope out the slope that goes down to the river but they would go back up and reconvene with the rest of the group. Our guide Howard anticipated that there were over 100 thousand wildebeest there at the time and that in his 16 years as a guide this was the largest group he has seen attempt to cross. So we started getting really impatient as an hour and a half rolled around and decided we would wait for 10 more minutes… 5 minutes later it began. Thousands of wildebeest started to pour down towards the river, swimming across from it and emerging on our side. As soon as this crossing began all of the safari vans are allowed to come close up to the bed of the river to get pictures. So there was this mad dash of all the vans to get the best spot. Park officials were there to make sure we did not get in the way of the wildebeest as they came up on the the other side. The pictures are the only way that I can show how incredible this was because words do it no justice. For at least a half hour, probably more, these thousands of wildebeest poured down one side of the gorge, swam across and tried to make it up the other side. We saw a lot of them unable to get up the other side as a result of falling, broken legs and such… those ones were often picked off by the hippo and crocodile which were waiting for the weak ones. A lot of the time they would take the ones already hurt but every once in a while , the hippo would disappear under the water and then you would notice one of the guys swimming across being dragged under, fighting like hell, but eventually end up floating downstream for dinner later. The croc did the same thing. It was an incredible thing to see, something that I will never forget in my life. Its unbelievable that these animals make this journey every year and then they turn around and head back to Tanzania…Needless to say, after this I had more respect for the wildebeest I saw during the rest of the trip. On our way out of the park, we stopped at the stone that separates Tanzania and Kenya… so I guess I can now technically say that I have been to Tanzania J

The next day was short as we only had a morning tour and then had to embark on the 8 hour drive from hell again J The morning started off well as within the first half hour, we stumbled across a HUGE lion! He crossed by our van within like maybe 7 feet of us…He looked so mean and definetly like the king of the land. Up until then we had seen several lionesses which were beautiful and sleek, but this guy was raw strength… he looked severe… It was so cool to just see him wandering around. I’m sure he had a great night’s dinner and was heading to bed when we ran into him. We also saw some timon and pumbas… for those who are unfamiliar with the lion king, warthogs and ?meercat?. (we were actually referring to most of the animals based on their lion king names because it was entertaining). The last animals we saw were elephants from a huge distance. I didn’t see any close up while I was there because they made themselves pretty scarce so that is actually my goal in the next 5 months.

The drive back was bumpy as hell and just as dirty. We were following the other van and there hadn’t been any rain in the area, so it was incredibly dusty. We were coated in dirt… it was actually disgusting by the end…all of us looked either more tanned or just plain dirty…I think I posted some of the dirty pics of Team Filth (that’s us) on face book.. white shirts were brown in the end… nasty…and memorable. Overall it was an incredible trip and I think we all had a great time. I know this entry became an epic and I hope it was worthwhile for you to read. I look forward to showing you all my pics when I get back, but until then, most of the good ones are on facebook if you get a chance to take a look at them! Hope everyone is going to enjoy their long weekend… I’ll be thinking of you all when I am at work on Monday!

Cheers!

Paula