I have returned from the Mara, alive and with all limbs intact.
As you will see in the pictures below, I saw Lions, Elephants, Zebras, Buffaloes, a number of the deer family (Gazelle, Thompson, Impala, etc.), Giraffes, Hippos, Rhinos, Crocodiles, Baboons, Ostriches, Wildebeest, Warthogs, Hyenas, Flamingos, and millions of other birds. It was a good trip.
We left Sunday morning at 8am. Bought food for the next couple days (there's no shopping malls in the bush), and were on our way to the Masai Mara.
Along for the journey was our trusty guide and driver, Simon, and two residents of Calgary, Canada, Oz and Nakura. Simon was an old Kenyan, a "mzee," as he would be called in Swahili. He had been giving tours of the Mara for over 40 years and it showed. Suffice to say he had driven the same bumpy, uneven roads one to many times. However, what he lacked in enthusiasm and charm, he more than made up for in experience and he found us many animals. In the end I grew to like his dry, ineffectual demeanor, and he was nice enough. Oz was a Mexican-Canadian. Born in Mexico he moved to Calgary after high school. Once out of college he spent a year in Japan. During his tenure there he met Nakura, a young girl who, as his time in Japan was running out, was to go to Australia to learn English. He convinced her to try Canada instead, and they were married a year later. They had come to Kenya from Madagascar, and would continue on to Dubai, and Egypt before returning to the U.S.'s Northern neighbor.
Our first stop was at an over look that offered an amazing view of the Rift Valley. This segment of the Great Rift Valley (which, in its entirety, runs from Syria to Mozambique!), is a perfect representation of a divergent plate boundary, which, as I learned in GEO 001, means the tectonic plates are moving away from one another, thus causing the huge valley.
The Canadian Couple checking out some skins at the over look.
At the over look we also picked up two new passengers. Though the three of us were quite comfortable with our excess space, another van had been over booked, and we agreed to take on a British couple. I was officially the 5th wheel. The British couple were a little older, perhaps late 30's, and were both architects living in London. We chatted a little about London, and I told them of the semester I had spent on the Eastside of the city, before I learned that the gentleman, Chris, had been traveling for the past year; through Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, South America, and the bottom half of Africa. His girlfriend, Amy, had joined him sporadically from place to place during that course of time and all they have left is summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro, and relaxing on the Zanzibar coast before returning to foggy ol' London town.
We then continued on to the small dusty town of Narok, were we stopped to take our lunch. Passing between two giant, plastic tusks we took part in a buffet of chapti, chicken, beans, rice, and spaghetti.
We made it to the gate of the Masai Mara, and subsequently our camp, around 4:30pm. The two couples went to visit the Masai village outside the camp, but I opted out to settle into my tent, hearing the village to be a bit of a tourist trap.
Masai.
The camp in which we were staying was a compound of around 30 tents that seemed to be used by a number of Safari outfitters. Each tent was attached to its own cement bathroom with running water.
My tent, trusty No. 4.
Nothing like running water in the wilderness...
As I was traveling on my own, I was to share with another loner. A Frenchman by the name of Tony, who had evidently traveled the greater portion of the world, was literally a ninja (trained in Japan), and who was spending the next 6 months in Africa to fulfill his dream of coming face to face with a full grown male lion was my roommate. As I was unpacking he was called out of the tent to train with one of the Masai warriors, themselves known to be impressive fighters...
It was quite an eclectic group already, and would only become more so over the days to come.
When the two couples returned we did an evening game drive. On our first drive we saw thousands (at least hundreds...) of Zebra, Thompson, Impala, a family of Giraffes, and herds of Cape Buffalo and Wildebeests.
After the drive we returned to the camp around 6:30pm to shower and then got dinner around 7. Reaching the main central tent in which the meals were served, we were met by a group of 14 Canadian students that had spent the previous month volunteering at an AIDS clinic in the Western Province of Kenya. Two of the students were film majors and were going to Nairobi after the Safari to make a documentary. We spent a good portion of the night talking about the shoots that I had and have been working on, and about some good subjects for their project.
I went to bed early, around 9-9:30, and awoke at 7am to catch breakfast before the big day. This day, Monday, was our main day on the Mara; a solid 10 hours. The trip started off with a bang, spotting two male lions after only 10min in the park, but I believe the pictures will tell a better tale of the rest of the day than I ever could. There are over 750, but for the sake of both of our time these are the selected few.
A lioness basking in the sun.
A very blue bird.
The aptly titled Sand River
The Boarder of Tanzania and Kenya, and subsequently
the Serengeti and the Masai Mara.
The world famous Mara River, site of the migrating wildebeests'
river crossing, and subsequently the crocodile feeding fest.
Hippos in the Mara River.
Me with some traces of Hippos in the water.
A crocodile coming out of a tributary into the Mara River.
Tons (literally) of Hippos.
Our armed guide, should the Hippos get a little excited...
A Cape Buffalo skull and I.
The same monkeys that had terrorized us last weekend on
the camp trip stole one of the tourists bananas.
Hippo tracks.
Hippo skull.
The heads of the British couple, and some elephants.
Mother & child
Buffalo being stalked by whats below...
Two lions.
When we got back from the Safari, we again showered before eating, but this time found that the group of Canadians (as well as my interesting French tentmate Tony) had moved on. In their place was a Norwegian woman and her Ethiopian husband, a Dutch couple (I think next time I will have to bring Maria to the Mara), and an Australian mother-daughter duo. The Australian daughter has been in Africa for 6 months working as a nurse in Ethiopia, and will spend the next six months in Kampala, Uganda doing the same work, and her mother had come to visit during the halfway mark to do some touristy activities. We again ate, and talked into the evening, and I went back to my tent around the same time as before, this time having the dark green tarp to myself.
On Tuesday morning we awoke at 6am to do an early morning game drive, but unfortunately the animals, this day, were difficult to find. We mainly drove around in vain for a couple of hours before returning to the camp to eat a big breakfast and head out for Lake Nakuru.
Along the way we made two stops. First, in Narok, again for lunch, and secondly at Lake Naivasha to drop off the Canadian couple. They had planned to see the fresh water lake known for its nearby volcanically bubbling rivers, endearingly called, "Hell's Gate."
Again having the safari van just to the three of us (though, this time it was I and the British couple), we continued on our way to Lake Nakuru.
The town of Nakuru is much more developed than the area surrounding the Mara, and is in fact the capital city of the Rift Valley Province. We pulled into Hotel Genevieve around 6:30, and I was glad to have my own hotel room complete with TV and bathroom.
After settling into the room, I went down for supper in the hotel's dinning room, this time joining an Israeli couple (about my age), and two British women a couple years older than me. The food was again good, and the conversation was better. Indeed, one of my highlights from the whole trip was just talking with all the different people. There was quite a spectrum of personalities...
After dinner and the converstating, I went to my room and slept. I was up at 6am on the final day. I ate breakfast with the same group I had shared dinner with, and then joined up with Simon and the British couple in the van. Simon informed us the Safari van was having some problems with the clutch. Two hours of sitting at the mechanic's garage later, we were inside the park. Greeted instantly by fearless (relatively) smaller monkeys freely entering through windows and searching the van for food. We were originally entertained, but then as they became more daring, we scared them away; a foreshadowing of events to come.
Monkey in the car.
There's a lion in there somewhere...
Cape Buffalo & millions of Flamingos
All along the shore.
Englishman, Chris snapping some shots of the flamingos
Hyena.
Black Rhino with a Baboon.
Cat in a tree.
Again.
After driving around the park and seeing a number of wonderful animals (as pictured), we drove up to a look out, ominously titled, "Baboon Cliff." If you haven't noticed yet in the background of any of the photos the safari vans' roofs lift up in order to give its passengers 360 degree visibility. As we parked at the top of the mountain over looking the large lake, a huge male Baboon came sprinting on all fours towards our vehicle. Simon yelled for me to close the roof. I tried, but the lever was stuck and I had my camera in my left hand. I quickly set the camera down and turned to start afresh when I was eye to eye with the large hairy monkey. I instantly jumped back into my seat and the Baboon followed. Landing an inch or two from on top of me, he sat in the seat next to me and starred at me momentarily. Unsure that if I tried to scare him away he would attack, and at a complete loss for how to react, I sat frozen. He looked around for food, jumped over the seat to the next row across from the British man, and directly in front of his girlfriend. Chris, the Brit, had his leg prepped at chest level ready to kick and the camera in his hands at his eye. The Baboon picked up a guide book to East Africa that was lying on the floor and checked it for edibility. The hairy primate then noticed a ranger running over. It threw the book down and in one fluid motion was off the seat, out the roof, and running towards the woods. The ranger whipped a couple of rocks at the terrorizing beast, which it easily dodged, nonchalantly jumping numerous feet in the air. Chris was upset he neither kicked nor took a picture in his fright, we all began laughing, and Amy (Chris's girlfriend) refused to leave the car (roof now closed).
Big baboon...
Baboon looking out over Baboon Cliff.
On Baboon Cliff.
Millions of flamingos looking like waves along the shoreline.
After pictures and the Baboon scare we returned to our hotel for lunch and began the journey back to Nairobi.
The trip was an amazing experience, I saw so many creatures, took many many pictures, and perhaps best of all got to meet quite an array of interesting people.
When I returned to my room, I was amazed to realize I had exactly 2 weeks left in Nairobi. The time, it seems, has simply evaporated.
