A Year Teaching in Kenya: Masai Mara

The four of us had a quiet morning and headed off at two thirty p.m. to the Masai Mara game reserve. I was excited, but expecting a similar experience to Amboseli. Even though Masai Mara is world-famous, I had my expectations set too low. Masai Mara is awesome!

Within five minutes of entering the park we had seen elephant, giraffe, zebra, gazelle and wildebeest. And the wildebeest! Present in the hundreds of thousands dotted all over the landscape.

And the landscape has more hills and valleys than Amboseli. It also seemed greener, but that is probably due to the time of the year. It was classic African savanna, and we were all very impressed. The vistas down the valley, with animals in abundance, really took our breath away.

We had Moses with us, a Masai guide who knew the park like the back of his hand. After all, it was his home. Moses explained after about an hour that the hardest animal to spot was a rhino, because they were extremely shy (believe it or not). Two minutes later, as we rounded a bend, we spotted two rhinos about 50 metres away. Moses could not stop telling us how lucky we were.

So, within an hour we had seen three of the “big five” – elephant, buffalo and rhino. We only had lion and leopard to go, and there was still 90 minutes left in our afternoon safari. To this list you can add topi, eland, eagle, vulture, ostrich, mongoose, impala, buffalo (pronounced Boofalo by Moses) and warthog. However, the cats proved elusive. We drove to all the places where Moses assured us lions lived, with no success. He showed us a tree where he said he had seen a leopard on five recent occasions. Still no success.

As we were heading out of the park we noticed an unusually large number of safari vehicles gathering around a certain spot on the creek. Moses was sure that it must be lion. He was right!

We had to cross the creek bed first, and thanks to Des’ good driving it was accomplished with minimal damage. On a rock 50 metres from the others was a young male lion, sitting alone. Then, closer to the creek was another three lions resting in the long grass. It was my first close encounter with the king of the beasts, spoiled slightly by the crush of vehicles and the fact that we had (illegally, we later learned) left the gravel road to get closer to the lions.

After taking our 60 second turn, we started heading back to camp. A torrential afternoon downpour began not two minutes after seeing the lions. The sky went dark and the rain came pouring down. Thunder echoed across the valley and it was our second awesome display of nature for the afternoon.

Three hours in Masai Mara and we had seen so much. Can’t wait for tomorrow, we still have to find that leopard.

Day Three

We have now left the park, but what an experience. Seeing the Mara River, where the wildebeest cross is amazing, even though none were crossing. The river was littered with the carcasses of wildebeest that had not survived the crossing.

Driving along we also came across hyenas and vultures arguing over a fresh kill. They took no notice of us and we managed to take some good photos.

Over the three days we also spotted three separate prides of lions, managing to get very close on one occasion - as the photos suggest. They are amazing beasts who know that nothing can intimidate them - they watch calmly as twenty vehicles gather around their hiding place.

Leaving the park yesterday we had a stroke of good luck, spotting a cheetah sitting beside a mound of dirt not 20 metres from our car.

We also had a stroke of bad luck - two actually. Two flat tyres, one completely ripped and the spare which did not last three kilometres. It is interesting changing a tyre with the fear of being eaten!

If you ever get a chance to visit Masai Mara, do it!

Here is my photo essay. Enjoy.