Today is July 26th, the day we entered Maasai Mara game park. Yes, I spelled Maasai differently than before, because I've now seen it spelled that way as well. I don't know which way is correct.
The road from Tenwek/Bomet was paved for about an hour, and was increasingly worse for the last two hours. The game van we've had for the whole trip from Nairobi thus far served us well, however. It's a 4x4 all the time. I think our 4x4 experience rivaled many Colorado 4x4 road conditions I've seen except maybe for the sheer faces on one side and the sheer drop on the other side that you often see in the Rockies.
On the way to the park we saw lots of cattle, sheep and goats. And lots of Maasai herdsmen, children, women. We were informed that there is a Kenyan law against taking photos of the Maasi without their approval, so we minded that. Later we were able to catch a photo with permission.
We checked into a place called Fig Tree Camp Masai Mara. Maybe they have a web site. Very swanky cabana rooms and tent rooms. Sam and I are sharing a tent room, which is a permanently located drop wall tent on a platform overlooking a river that supposedly has crocs in it. The tents are connected to a permanent bathroom building with a shower, toilet, sink. The tent is electrified, but the power is out from midnight to noon. No wifi unless you want to pay in the main lodge area. I would recommend the Fig Tree Camp if you plan to visit this Mara area.
After an afternoon rest for me and exploring the place for Sam, we met at 3pm for an afternoon game drive. The top was popped up on our van so that we could actually ride standing up with an unobstructed view. Pretty cool. It started out with zebras, gazelles, and warthogs. Yawn. We'd seen those on the way in. Hee hee. As someone said (I can't recall who), "I'll never get tired of seeing zebras". I kind of agree. But once you see one herd, you do tend to mentally cross them off your list and begin looking for an animal you've not yet seen. We called it playing "mara bingo".
Next was the hippo spot, a bend in the river where probably as many as 20 hippos were chilling out playing submarine. Sam thought it looked like "whack a hippo", since one would surface just as another would submerge. They stared at us with watchful eyes and we kept our distance.
Back on the drive, we eventually saw some birds I can't identify (sorry, Ron, if you're reading), and eventually spotted the giraffes. We were amazingly close when we saw a group of four. Those animals are so graceful, especially given their design. I can imagine that if God had a prototype beta version it would have been funny to watch until it was perfected. Of course he didn't, but with those lanky legs, tall torso, and that crazy neck and horns, you have to wonder if there's even more about that animal that we don't yet get!
Amy was on the hunt for a lion. After moving through herds and herds of zebra, wildebeast, and a few more giraffe, she spotted the lion at 200 yards. What an eye! Our driver Elijah (/ah-lee'-jah/) maneuvered the vehicle very close. That was the highlight of the whole drive. We stopped for perhaps 10 minutes as the mother with tag-along cub barked for the daddy to get over here. We were just about to leave (in fact we were rolling) when again Amy spotted first: the male causually sauntering up to the group from behind. I bet our team took over 200 photographs with 7 or 8 cameras.
We were very close! I was ready to duck if they charged us.
The final big animals we saw were hyenas (where is spell check when you need it), and Cape buffalo. Just about then, the rain picked up and we had to close the top of the rig. Trying to get back to the main gravel road before the water made too much mud, Elijah was motoring along at a good clip--maybe 45mph, driving rain, and scads of wildebeest scrambling out of our way. A couple of times we lost control and did a 180--I thought we were going to roll it. Others had more faith than I. Smile. Sorry no photos or video of that.
The Upham tent enjoyed a rousing game of 5-crowns and some silliness.
Dinner at the lodge was like the lunch, buffet style with good conversation and discussion of our plans and schedule for tomorrow.
This was a fun day, and we look forward to progressing eventually to Nairobi tomorrow evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment