After 9 months in Kenya, we finally scheduled a safari. Our destination? Maasai Mara, the most famous, awesome reserve in the middle of the Serengeti, and known for the annual wildebeest migration from Kenya to Tanzania.
We first had to fly to Nairobi and then drive 6 hours to our camp. 6 hours turned into 9 when we hit major traffic in Nairobi, and had to wait for a tipped over truck to be moved from the road which led out of the city. Then a piki piki driver who had crashed and was sitting on the side of the road with his also injured passenger somehow turned the tables on us after we stopped to help and decided to accuse us of hitting them, so we had to wait over an hour for police to show up to the middle of nowhere so our driver could file a report. By then the piki piki driver had driven off, apparently well enough to move on. Ridiculous delays.
By the time we reached the Mara, we had only an hour or so before they closed the park. We decided to go for it and try our luck.
I don't know what I was expecting, but I don't think I was expecting to see the animals so close up and so immediately! In the first 5 minutes, we already saw small herds of gazelles, zebras, and a fox chasing a hare. The hare got away. It was awesome!
Massai mara national reserve, by the way, is 1650 square kilometers of wild land. The landscape changes as you drive into it. The first part is rolling green hills. Then you see tall grasses where you might expect lions to be hunting.
This tree looked like a normal tree on bottom, but the top was like a huge cactus.
Then you get more mountainous hills and vast plains with sparse trees. It's just so big, you keep driving and driving, and you never see any buildings on the horizon. As far as you can see is all wild protected land.
The animals are plenteous, and just doing their thing--the same kinds of things you see on TV. There are no paved roads. Just dirt paths/ruts where safari vehicles have passed through. I do think the animals must be a bit used to the safari vehicles, though, because we didn't seem to phase them. The vehicles are the cool pop-up vans so you can see out the top without any window in the way.
A little down the road, we saw a pair of warthogs trotting along with their tails straight up. For some reason the sight of he warthogs always made the other girls in our van laugh. They were cool, for sure.
Then within the first half hour, we're driving slowly along this path, and we see a team of about 5 female lions, maybe about ten feet away, all walking the same direction as we're driving.
Then we see not far ahead a mother buffalo with a small baby trailing closely behind her. I could not believe it! I did not expect to see that! The mother buffalo kept turning around and "threatening" the lions and was able to hold the lions off for a really long time. We finally decided to move on, but it looked like the lions were getting pretty tired of following her. We returned to our camp.
The second day of our safari was a little slower, but Hunter would see something off in the distance, and we'd go after it. After a lot of driving, our guide ventured off the dirt path and started circling this random big bush. After we got around it, a male lion emerged and plopped himself perfectly on this little grass hill. We were seriously like five feet away from this teenage simba-like lion with a little mohawk! It was awesome to hear him do his low dull roar. It sounded so hollow. I don't know how to explain it. That was probably the coolest part of the second day.
Unfortunately we didn't see the wildebeest migration, but we did see the river that divides the two countries, and the spot where the migration happens. We saw a ton of hippos lazing around in the river and an enormous crocodile or two. We did see a large herd of wildebeest. Some were trying to mate. The boys laughed and pointed saying "Hey! They're fighting!" I smiled and left it at that.
When we stopped for lunch, we sat by a tree on my lesso and to the right in the distance, we could see a herd of buffalo, and then to the left across the river, we saw a herd of zebras walking by, followed by a whole family of giraffes. It was so amazing! We felt so grateful to have had this opportunity to see something so rarely seen and so beautiful.
The thing I wanted to see most was a herd of elephants. Unfortunately, our guide said the elephants had headed over the hills because they didn't want to compete with the wildebeest for food in the plains. We did see some, but they were pretty far away.
At then end of the second day, we stopped by a Maasai village.
This, by far, was our favorite part of the safari. The villagers were used to tourists coming through and had made a business of giving people tours and dancing for them. Our tour guide was the chief's son. He spoke very good English. Here he is jumping.
The men performed a traditional dance for us. I just love watching people dance. I love love love it.
I liked this guy in particular, because he smiled really big while dancing. Hunter said, "Who, Denzel?" I thought, "Oh, is that why I like that guy--because he smiles like Denzel?" What do you think?
Then they showed us their cool stables where they keep the animals at night to protect them from lions. They showed us the short swords they use to kill the lions when they do come into the village. They showed us how they make fire using tools made from the local woods.
The kids were cute, of course.
At one point we got to branch off into small groups and visit individuals' homes to see what they live like. Below is the outside of a home we visited. The walls are made from clay and cow dung. The dung in the walls doesn't smell strong, by the way, but there is fresh dung all over the ground, so we had to watch our step.
Cows are very important to the Maasai culture. They use everything from the cow. They drink the milk and the blood, they eat the meat, they use the leather for beds, they use the dung for building, they are used in wedding dowry negotiations. To be a shepherd is a very important position.
This is the guy whose home we visited. His mother is the witch doctor / midwife for the village.
When we entered the home it was quite dark. But he invited us to sit down on a small bench and the edge of the bed, and he blew on the coals of the fire in the very center of the house and it lit the room a little. We talked to the man--I wish I remembered his name--about their customs and beliefs about God. They do believe in a god and pray to him in the morning and at night. They also have a tradition where the men at age 15 leave the home and are trained to be warriors for at least two years. When they come home, they able to marry at 19. They have a jumping contest in one of their ceremonies, and whoever can jump the highest gets the prettiest wife. We really really enjoyed sitting in this man's home.
Afterward, I bought some bracelets from the women of the village. This nice mama gave Reyna a bracelet as a present. So generous!
The third day, we had just a couple hours to spend before heading back to Nairobi. We were so lucky--we saw a small herd of elephants probably 30 feet away. And then when our driver started to turn the van, he got stuck, so Hunter got to help push the car on the same land where the elephants were eating. Pretty awesome!!!!
It was a memorable and wonderful experience that I hope I will always remember. I think the photos will help me when I have Alzheimer's one day.
On the way home, we had plenty of opportunities to buy souvenirs.
Paulo impressed the Chinese Harvard student in our car with his ability to solve the Rubik's cube and do some magic tricks. It was funny.
Wonderful memory.
