As we started to plan our Christmas vacation, I faced a travel-weary family. We've lived in Europe for a year and a half now and have seen so many cool things that we've kind of become accustomed to it. That sounds terrible but it is honestly much harder to impress and excite us now. The big vacation requests from everyone were WARM and LIGHT (spend some time in Sweden in winter and you'll understand). I started researching and found you have to go a long way to get to warm. We talked about the Canary Islands, but it wouldn't be really beach warm in December (at least not for us wimpy Americans) and we aren't really beach resort people anyway. We thought seriously of Egypt. We'd love to see the pyramids. But the political situation is awfully dicey right now and also both kids were tired of the long lines and big crowds of major tourist attractions. Then one evening my husband came home and asked, "How much would it cost to do an African Safari? You always said you wanted to do that."
He remembered right. Back when we were dating I'd told him that I'd love to do that someday-- though I can't say I was really serious. Yes, it sounded cool, but I didn't think it was something I'd ever really have a chance to do. And now I found myself scouring the web for information on planning a safari trip. And the more I looked, the more it seemed to be exactly what we were looking for--peaceful, out in nature away from the city, warm weather. But it was also unlike any other trip we've ever planned. We are not travel agent, tour guide people. We are transport ourselves, use lots of maps, fend for ourselves people and it was quickly apparent that wouldn't be a good idea in Africa.
Based on the weather in December and flight lengths/prices, we decided on a trip to the Masai Mara Preserve in southwestern Kenya. We got quotes for several safari options and decided to go with Oldarpoi Mara Camp based on very positive Trip Advisor reviews, relative price and a good feeling when I e-mailed them. And I liked that they are locally owned and invest in their local community. I have to admit that it was a bit scary to wire off a big deposit to Africa and hope that we weren't somehow being scammed. Going to the infection clinic for Yellow Fever shots and malaria medication prescriptions also made me a bit nervous. There were a few moments when I wondered if this was all a really bad idea.
We flew Emirate Air and would recommend them. They were much more service oriented then we are used to-- each flight was only 4-5 hours long (Copenhagen to Dubai, then Dubai to Nairobi) yet we got at least one full meal plus a snack or in one case two meals. They gave toys to the kids on the flight (choice of coloring book, furry blanket or backpack-- ours were both too old to get those. :-) Big 777 for all the flights with nice touch screens with lots of movies, TV and video games to pass the time. The stewardesses wear cool hats with veils hanging down. Important I know, but it added an exotic touch for us westerners. :-)
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| Emirates Air Stewardess uniforms |
We arrived in Dubai around 11:30 pm and stood in lines for a while to clear customs. First time we've ever gone through metal detectors and bag screeners leaving an airport. They also took pictures and fingerprints before they stamped your passport. Dubai is-- amazing. Even the airport. Everything is new and big and fancy-- and clean and orderly. Well, other than the airport traffic, but that's terrible everywhere. We went out front to try to find the shuttle bus to our hotel. It was supposed to come by every 30 minutes. The directions they'd given us were a little vague. We knew we were in the general right area--we were seeing lots of hotel shuttles-- but didn't know exactly where ours would stop. My husband walked up a little farther to look more and then waved us to him, laughing. He could see our hotel. We decided that it would be faster and easier to walk to it. Especially since if we did find the shuttle bus, it would be stuck in nearly dead stopped traffic for who knows how long. It was 80 F so it was lovely to be outside.
In the morning, we had a nice hotel breakfast and checked out, then walked a few blocks to a metro station. The metro, like most things in Dubai, is very new. It is automated-- it was a lot like the little trains at airports. One interesting thing-- each train has a women and children car that men can't ride in. (Women can also ride in the normal cars. It is up to them.) Dress in Dubai was extremely varied. There were people dressed in western clothing and men in traditional white robes and women in the full black with just slits to look out of. And everything in between. My daughter and I had decided to be very conservative. No sense causing anyone discomfort. So we both wore longer skirts-- cool but covered more than shorts.
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| View from the metro train |
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In the evening they do a big fountain/light show here. But
since we were only there in the day we didn't get a chance to see it. |
The metro was mostly elevated so we got to see a lot of the city from the train. It is very spread out and it feels weird because there are completely empty lots right in the middle of all this other stuff-- and they look so empty being just sand with NO vegatation on them. So many crazy tall skyscrapers. It reminded me of the cities in the newer Star Wars movies. Best we can describe it is that flying cars would not feel out of place. And very clean and orderly. There were lots of security people standing around everywhere-- not like soldier types with guns but the more discreet guys in suits. We passed a ton of street sweepers manually sweeping sidewalks. And there were as many mosques as there are LDS churches in Utah.
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| Burj Khalifa-- tallest building in the world |
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| The mall and new apartments being built next door |
We got off the metro and walked a few blocks to Dubai Mall-- by way of the Burj Khalifa-- the tallest building in the world. Like everything in Dubai, the mall was impressive. Over 1200 stores plus a multi-story aquarium, ice skating rink, huge fountain. It was just larger than life. We all enjoyed the aquarium-- sharks and all sorts of fish. There were even a few scuba divers in there. The mall stores ranged from typical chains like H&M (made us feel at home) to high end fashion we didn't dare step into.
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| Aquarium in the center of Dubai Mall |
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They were playing traditional Arab music over the speakers.
It was an interesting mix with the ice skating. |
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This is just a small portion of the huge fountain. several stories high
and at least three times this wide. |
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| This section was decorated like a tradional souk. |
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| Just outside the mall |
After our little shopping adventure it was back to the airport and onto another plane-- this time to Nairobi, Kenya. We got to Kenya around 7:30 pm. They gave us customs forms to fill out on the plane--2 for each of us. We got in line for our tourist visa and got to the front to find that we needed one more form for the actual visa. So back we went to fill out 4 more sheets with all the same questions. And then when we turned them all in I swear they didn't even look at them. Oh well, it didn't really matter because we still beat our luggage out. It came down the conveyor a few minutes after we cleared immigration. A friend of a friend and his brother were waiting for us. They'd brought a van and drove us and our luggage the 40 minutes to our hotel which was extremely nice of them. I hope they didn't find us too rude. We weren't super talkative because it had been a long day and quite frankly we were a little stunned by everything. Nairobi was a shock to our senses. Probably coming from Dubai made it even more that way. Everything in Nairobi feels chaotic. It didn't help that first night that I wasn't used to everyone driving on the wrong side of the road (those darn Brits spreading their craziness around the world). But even without that, driving in Kenya is like nothing we've ever seen. We were on this divided highway-- freeway size and going freeway speeds and there would be all these pedestrians along the side and randomly crossing the street. And then huge speed bumps to slow down for and so many cars broken down on the road. It was like a giant game of Frogger. Then we got close to the hotel and there were these ramshackle collections of buildings and shacks and people everywhere. We were honestly pretty freaked out.
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| Mirema Hotel, Nairobi-- notice the big wall out front |
The hotel itself was off on a little side street so calmer and like most things in Nairobi had a big wall and gate with a guard to let you in. The hotel actually looked quite nice from the outside and the garden was beautiful.
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| Front garden of the hotel. Gate and guardhouse to enter. |
The room was big-- we actually had two bedrooms and two bathrooms all connected together, but everything was just kind of grungy. There was a light switch looking thing on the wall outside the bathroom that turned on the heat for the shower water. We think the shower head itself heated it. Never seen that before. Mosquito netting on all the beds. We had some trouble paying for our room. They said they took Visa but couldn't make their Visa scanner work. So we tried cash. They could take US dollars but only really new stuff-- had to be a certain serial number or higher-- never ran into that before. Finally in the morning they managed to get the VISA machine to work. The one really good thing at the hotel was breakfast. Not a continental thing but actually a hot meal prepared for us-- sausages, omelette, pancakes and fruit. It was very good.
We'd gotten up early because our Safari camp was supposed to pick us up at 7. We finished breakfast and were all packed-- and then we waited... And as the minutes passed I began to worry. We'd wired several thousand dollars to these people and the rest of our trip depended on them--what if they just didn't show up? What would we do?? But at 7:30, just as I was going to try and call them, the safari van pulled in. They'd just had a little trouble finding the hotel. Nelson, who owns the camp and had been my correspondant, and one other driver were there and we immediately felt comfortable with them.
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Our Toyota safari van. We spent about 30 hours in this vehicle
over the next few days. |
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| The suburbs of Nairobi. The pictures really can't capture it. |
The drive out to the camp took 5-6 hours, including a couple stops for bathroom and gas. One stop was really cool-- an overlook on the rim of the Great Rift Valley. Lovely view.
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| Great Rift valley-- you can see the road we'd just driven on. |
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| More of the road |
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The lookout was a very popular stop for Safari groups.
Check out all the vans. |
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| Cool paintings of animals and scenery all over the buildings |
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| It was a bit hazy but still an incredible view |
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| The Great Rift Valley |
They had a big tourist shop and we bought a few things-- some hand-carved ebony animals. Although they had some really neat stuff, we didn't enjoy Kenya shopping-- they don't put prices on things. It's all about bartering and we just aren't good at that. It makes it very hard to comparison shop. They basically wanted you to put everything you liked into a shopping basket and then they'd tell you how much for the whole pile. It really bothered our daughter that they would push her to pick things up-- thinking she could make her parents buy them. We'd prefer to at least have a starting price to begin with.
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| Example of a souveneir shop |
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This tiny church was built by Italian prisoners of war. The prisoners
of war also built the road up the mountain. They said only 6 people fit inside. |
Though long, the drive was very interesting. The Rift Valley had lots of small farms. You'd see people selling fruits and vegetables along the road. As you moved out of the city you saw more and more people in traditional clothing. Since it was Christmas Eve, there were lots of people waiting on the roadside for buses to go visit family out in villages. Those buses looked pretty scary.
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| Locals traveling for Christmas |
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| A roadside market |
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| A typical small town |
Then we moved into the grazing areas-- cow herds, sheep herds, goat herds, lots of donkeys and dogs and chickens and children-- all right along the road. It's interesting because we're used to free-roaming livestock (rural U.S.) and there they actually keep them together and herd them (because of the predators) and put them away at night. The buildings were all pretty crazy-- some concrete stuff but lots of metal just kind of thrown together. Markets with tons of tables of produce and people everywhere. The road kept getting smaller and smaller and then turned to bumpy dirt.
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| Mule-drawn carts were very popular for transporting all sorts of things. |
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| And the road gets rougher... |
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| A Maasai village-- they really blend in with the surroundings |
When we got to the camp, we were welcomed by the whole camp staff. They gave us drinks of cold pineapple juice and washcloths to "wipe off the dust", introduced us to everyone and then the Maasai warriors did a welcome dance for us. Pretty fun entry. The staff helped us take our luggage to our tents. We had two next to each other-- but they were spaced well apart. The tents were standard canvas tents but were on a concrete slab and had a permanent roof built over them. Each had two beds (with mosquito netting of course). Attached to the back of each tent was a little simple bathroom with toilet, sink and shower. We learned that the showers (solar heated) worked best mid-day. So it was camping but pretty posh camping. There were electric lights but they only worked in the evening when the generator was on. In the morning, we relied on flashlights.
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Oldarpoi Mara Camp-- the larger buildings are the dining hall/kitchen.
You can barely make out some of the tents out through the trees. |
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| One of our tents |
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| Inside-- you can see the bathroom through the zipper in the back. |
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| A sausage tree in camp |
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The acacia bushes that are used for fencing-- check out
those thorns! |
We were the only real "guests" for the first two days we were there. A family had left just as we arrived (we passed them at one of the stops on the drive). The other tents were occupied by family and friends of the owner who'd come out to spend Christmas there. So even though everyone ate together and such it was kind of funny to see the differentiation the staff would make-- they always had a table set up just for us, came and got us for meals first, etc. We'd been a bit concerned about the food-- my crew are fairly picky eaters and they're used to eating whenever (we have a teenage boy who is ALWAYS hungry). We'd packed lots of snacks in our suitcases just in case. We only ate a little of those snacks-- and that was just because meal times tended to be later than we were used to. The food was very good-- big full meals, 3 meals a day-- everyone liked it and there was also tons of it-- they were always trying to coax us to eat more. Like dinner was typically a soup and bread, rice, some sort of pasta or potato dish, a lamb dish, a chicken dish and some sort of vegetables. And there was always a plate of fruit. The staff were very friendly and we felt very safe and comfortable. The other thing we'd wondered is if we'd get bored during down time, but there was never really much downtime. We just had time to unpack and rest a bit that first afternoon before we headed out for the afternoon game drive in the Masai Mara Reserve. It was sunny and warm and the scenery was beautiful and we saw lions, zebras, giraffes, tons of different antelopes and gazelles. It was stunning. And we took so many pictures, it is hard to know what to post. Here's just a little sample of the types of things we saw.
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Just outside the gates to the reserve. Women would come
try to sell jewelry to you through the windows. The yellow tree in the
background is called a "Fever Tree." They grow in wet spots so
colonizers linked them with malaria. |
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| This is what we looked like-- driving around with our roof popped up. |
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| Impalas-- there were SO many of these |
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| Topi |
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| Thompson Gazelle |
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Zebra-- I found it interesting that the grazing animals would
all hang out together-- lots of different species |
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| Bush Buffalo-- apparently they are the most dangerous animals out there |
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| Elephant dinner |
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| A tower of giraffes |
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| Tons of odd birds whose names I can't remember |
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| Elephants at the end of the day |
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Being so close to massive animals that were roaming free
was amazing. |
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The baby elephants' ears flapped around when they'd run.
It's Dumbo! |
There were a lot of other safari vehicles out and the drivers all talk on CB radio and tip each other as to where interesting things are going on. So there is usually a crowd of vans around the more exciting animals, but that was actually not a problem and it didn't seem to bother the animals. They seriously paid no more attention to the vehicles than if we were a bunch of gnats. Since the drivers talk to each other in Swahili, we couldn't understand any of it, but we could usually sense when we were headed towards something interesting. The speed would pick up and we'd notice other vans all heading in the same direction.
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| The paparazzi descend on some lions |
We stayed in the reserve until the gates closed at 6:30-- right as the sun was just starting to set (it was so nice to not have it dark at 3:30 pm!!!) After the evening ride it was dinner at around 7:30 or 8 and then we were ready to crash in our tents.
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| Rain and rainbow at sunset |
Christmas morning they woke us up around 6 am. We had hot cocoa and then were off for a morning game ride. It had rained all night so the trails were pretty wet and muddy, but that didn't stop us from seeing many beautiful animals. We only got stuck once during our rides. A fellow safari van had to pull us out of one slippery spot.
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The neighborhood cattle being herded out in the morning. First
time we came across a big line like this we thought it would take
a while to get through it. |
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We underestimated the power of a honking horn and a persistent
vehicle-- they just drive right through. |
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| Big group of elephants. The babies were so fun to watch. |
That morning we got a quick look at a cheetah and also saw warthogs for the first time. They really do look just like the guy in the Lion King. We loved watching the giraffes and elephants-- just how they move and eat is amazing. The giraffes look like they are slow when they walk. They look so unhurried, but then you watch how fast they cover the ground and you realize what a long stride can do. Dinosaurs seem much more believable after watching elephants and giraffes in the wild.
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| A jackal |
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A typical trail in the reserve. We stood up for most of the ride,
in spite of all the ruts, bumps and puddles. |
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We got to see this cheetah for just a second as she ran off
into the bushes. |
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| Beautiful giraffe |
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Secretary Bird-- they look pretty intense. We were told
they eat lizards and snakes. |
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| Gray Crowned Crane |
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| The warthogs usually have big families |
After the morning drive, we had breakfast outside at the camp-- crepes, scones, eggs, sausage, fruit and juice. We had a few minutes when we gave the kids their Christmas stockings and the few gifts we'd brought and then we were off again. This time on a walk with one of the Maasai warriors for a tour of the neighboring village. It was a fun walk (even though we all were unprepared and got sunburned). Our son had been a little disappointed that we weren't camped IN the nature reserve (our camp was a 5 minute drive from the gate) but David, our guide, pointed out elephant dung, zebra footprints, and hyena tracks (we'd heard the hyena during the night)--all just barely outside our camp. And on the walk back they pointed out giraffes up on the hill--in the opposite direction of the reserve. We also saw a gecko and some mongoose. The animals don't pay attention to boundaries like humans do. After the walk, my son was satisfied that we were IN the savannah.
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| The Maasai village |
The village itself was the typical Maasai arrangement-- big circular fence of thorn bush branches with a small collection of houses inside. We were introduced to the chief (and payed him our entrance "donation").
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| Maasai warriors welcome us to their village |
The young men of the village did a bunch of dancing for us-- first getting our son to join in and then pulling us all in. The songs are all done with one person leading and then the others answering or echoing (don't know what they were saying so hard to tell which). The dancing was lots of step hop around in circles with some yelling thrown in. It was quite fun. Then the men show off how high they can jump. They definitely out jumped our men. Then we went inside. The center of the village was frankly a mucky mess because they bring all their livestock in there at night for protection.
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| A Maasai home |
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Another house. You can also see some thorn fence in the
background. |
The houses are tiny-- framework made from sticks and then coated with a mixture of ashes and cow dung that makes them water tight. Women make the houses; men make the fences. It kind of makes sense because they are polygamists so the houses are more the womens with the man bouncing between them. They really do buy wives with cows. Once kids are about 10, they move into their grandparent's house-- boys with grandpa, girls with grandma. They said it takes 2 months to build a house and they last for 6 years-- at which point the termites had eaten all the wood making them unsound (termite mounds EVERYWHERE). They took us into one of the houses and it was so dark-- one tiny little slot of a window. A bed for the adults along one wall. A bed for the kids on the other (they said the kids sleep in a pile), a cooking fire and a few shelves hooked to the wall. It reminded me very much of the reproductions of Native American dwellings we've seen in Virginia, but this was actually someone's current home. No electricity or running water of course. Oh, and they bring their baby cows and goats into the house with them at night. That way they are protected, plus then in the morning the mothers with milk come to the house looking for the babies, making milking them convenient. These tribes don't farm at all. They say its a waste of time with so many animals around to devour everything. So their diet consists of milk, blood and meat.
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Inside the house (lit up with the camera flash)-- gives you an idea of
how the walls are constructed. |
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| One of the beds |
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The kitchen and window. We are
sitting on one of the beds |
We'd noticed that you always saw tons of people outside and it made sense after being in the houses. You would not go in to just "hang out." Outside is much more comfortable. You would only go in to sleep and in really bad weather.
The warriors showed us how they make fire without matches and had our men try to help them do it. We brought home the two pieces of wood they used-- the soft wood stick to spin and the hard wood slab to rub it against. They set it on their machete (they all carried one and usually a little club too) to do it and once they'd produced enough ash they would light some elephant dung with it and then they'd have fire. Then they had some girls come sing for us. They were much more shy then the boys and ran off the second they were allowed to. Then my daughter and I did a little shopping at their market-- they had jewelry and carvings and stuff just spread around a corral type area-- made me think of a garage sale-- each person's stuff set separately. We bought a few bracelets and a necklace and some carved keychains for the boys. Once again, no prices which made it hard to know how much we dared to pick out. Meanwhile, they introduced the boys to the tribal elders and to some of the kids. Then they took us to see their school and church buildings. School was out for winter break and we asked what they do for the holiday-- meaning how do they celebrate Christmas. Our guide thought he meant "what do the kids do when they're on break from school?" His answer was, "They get to help herd the animals. They love it." And you know what, I believe him. I was afraid that Africa would be depressing and if we spent much time in the suburbs or the towns I think it might be. Those seemed uncomfortably chaotic and run down. But out in the country like this, the people seemed very happy, very content with their way of life. And it really made me wonder what "help" they need. Would they really gain anything that matters by modernizing?
One other interesting thing, they have these huge cactus trees around and there were a couple giant ones at the edge of the village. We were told those had been transplanted there on purpose to keep elephants out of the village. I asked what happened if an elephant came in anyway. They said they all go inside their houses and stay very still and quiet until it leaves. Different life, isn't it? Oh, and if you're wondering, they didn't get all dressed up for us tourist's sake. That really is what a lot of the people wear. As you drive through the area most of the people out herding the animals look just like the people in our pictures. And on this little village tour, it was just our family and the locals.
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The village school-- built by the safari camp we stayed at for
the village |
After our village visit, we had lunch and took quick showers, and we were off on another game drive until dinner. All in all we figured we spent about 30 hours in that van. 20 of them with the top up on safari. The pop-up tops gave great views and it was just fun riding in the open-air. We were laughing that it was like a reverse zoo. The animals were outside and the people were in the cages, because that was the one big rule--guests were never allowed out of the vehicles. They were also not supposed to go off the existing trails, but sometimes (very rarely) that rule got broken when there was something too interesting to look at.
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| Sekenani Gate--the entrance to the Masai Mara that we used |
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This big, old bull elephant had a radio tracking collar on. Only one we ever saw.
We were given two different theories for this. #1) So rangers could keep an
eye on him to protect his very large tusks. #2) So rangers could keep an eye on
him because he'd been moved into the reserve because of past problems with people. |
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More lions. During the day they would mostly be sleeping.
You had to get out early in the morning to catch them
eating their kill. |
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| Baby giraffe--still so tall |
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| So ugly that they're cute. |
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| Baby zebra |
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| Waterbuck |
Christmas evening they had a little celebration of sorts. A bunch of the Maasai warriors came up and roasted a goat on the fire and sang and danced while they cooked. In truth we didn't really enjoy the goat and were happy when we finally got on to normal dinner. The liver tasted like liver. The ribs tasted good but were really hard to eat--very fatty and then you could chew and chew and chew and it just wouldn't break apart.
The next day we got to sleep in. We didn't leave camp until after breakfast-- around 10 am-- and then it was for an all-day game drive. We drove deep into the Reserve to see the Mara River. On the way, we stopped by a little dirt airstrip to "refresh ourselves." A plane was coming in just then and we were stunned at the size of it (for landing on such a small dirt strip). We'd looked into flying out from Nairobi but it was quite expensive so we'd decided to be driven instead.
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Check out the coordinates. This trip was our first
time in the southern hemisphere |
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Plane didn't turn off its engines to unload the passengers. We
imagine it didn't want to take a chance on them not starting again.
Nothing at this airport but a bathroom. |
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| A large pride of lions |
We saw a whole pile of lions: males, females, cubs all sleeping in a clump of brush. We saw a herd of wildebeast. Most of the wildebeast are down south in Tanzania at this time of year. These are the ones that don't like to travel I guess.
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These guys weren't far from the huge lion pride-- maybe why
they were grouped in a very tight circle. |
We had lunch at the river (there was a spot where you were allowed to get out of the car) and then a ranger (with a gun) took us on a walk up the river to see the hippos and crocodiles. We expected to see a few hippos-- there were TONS of them. They sleep submerged in the river and just pop there heads up now and then to breathe and there were so many of them it seemed like you could walk across the river by walking on their heads.
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| The Mara River |
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| Hippo comes up for air |
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Hard to capture how many there were but they were
just popping up all over the river |
The crocodiles were a little harder to spot. They also mainly stay in the water. But we did see a few.
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| Crocodile |
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| Monitor Lizard |
Another crazy thing was all the bones along the shore. Most rivers have deadwood all along the banks. This river had bones. Every year there is a huge migration of wildebeast from the Mara south to the Serengeti where they mate. A lot of them don't make it through the river crossing. After the river, we went just a little further south and stood in Tanzania and the Serengeti for a few minutes. Add another country to the list.
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| Wildebeast bones |
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| Another shot of the river |
Every time we went out on a game ride, we felt like we'd already seen so much, what more could there be--and then there would be something new. On our way back from the river we saw two lions sitting right near the road-- a male and a female off by themselves to mate. They were not shy. We got to see an up close and personal example of lion mating. Then not much later, we suddenly had another lioness cross the road right in front of our van.
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| A lion couple away from the pride on their honeymoon |
Lioness crosses the road feet from our van
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| Mongoose |
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| A pair of Black Rhinos |
We also saw a huge colony of mongoose which were really cute and then our guides found a pair of black rhinos. Rhinos are very endangered and I think they said there are only 8 in that reserve. And the only time you get two together is when they are mating-- they are very solitary. So it was a cool thing to see. Our guides spotted them from way far away-- they were on the edge of a herd of bush buffalo and I would have never in a million years realized that they were anything special from that distance. We also saw a pair of ostriches.
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| Ostriches |
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You'd often see animals standing on top of termite
mounds for a better view |
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This little bird was pretty enough sitting still, and then it flew--
bright blew wings! It was stunning. |
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When we saw this tree, we wondered why it was fenced off.
Our guide explained that it was very rare and endangered--it took
a minute for us to realize he was joking. It is a cell tower--
disguised to match its surroundings. |
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A DikDik-- the smallest antelope. Hard to see just how tiny it is but
it was the size of a small dog. |
The official policy for the safari camp is that they take no more than 6 people at a time on a game drive. So in theory we could have had two more people thrown in with us. But we never did. It was always just the four of us, our driver, Timpati, and a guide, Jackson. Jackson was a very traditional Maasai guy-- always wore his traditional clothing and blanket and had his machete in his belt-- but then he had a cell phone and digital watch (on a band made out of the traditional beadwork). Such a mix of old and new. Our driver was from a different Maasai area a little farther north and his family lives there and in Nairobi. He dressed more western-- t-shirt and jeans-- but still had a Masaii blanket that he'd use rather than a jacket or coat when it was chilly. Those blankets are seriously multi-use. We saw them used as coats, to carry things (including babies), sun hats, shade tents and picnic blankets.
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| Late afternoon |
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| Sunset |
Our last morning, we went for one more early game ride. Just a few minutes inside the gate, we were the first van to come across a mother lion and her cub. They were sitting just a little off the trail. We sat and watched them for about 45 minutes as they wandered around and interacted with each other. It seemed like the mother was looking for something or someone-- kept calling out and looking around. The cub would follow her around and also talk to her. It was very fun to watch-- a little weird to think about how close we were with no fences or anything between us and them. I think we sat there watching them for 45 minutes.
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Sometimes when they'd walk, the cub would get under
the lioness or in front of her feet. |
That morning we also saw a big pride of lions that were just finishing up their morning meal-- one of the males had a huge antelope head lying in the bush with him-- and the jackals cleaning up the leftovers. Jackals are much smaller than I'd pictured by the way.
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| I so want to touch a lion's mane |
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| The jackals |
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| These weren't vultures-- but I can't remember what they were. |
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| Classic African view |
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| We'd just been discussing whether giraffes ever sit or lie down... |
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| Elands-- the biggest antelope and kind of shy |
All in all, we had seen over 40 different types of animals during our drives. Amazing!
Then it was back for breakfast, showers, pack-- we left around 11 am to be driven back to Nairobi.Just before we left, we spotted one more new animal just outside the camp fence-- a big group of baboons. It was funny because that was the first we'd seen any and then on the drive back there were tons of them in one stretch sitting right along the road. Don't know why we hadn't seen any on our way out to the camp.
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| Baboons just outside our camp |
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| One of many baboons along the road |
My husband describes the drives between the camp and Nairobi as "the most dangerous thing we've ever done." Narrow roads with huge potholes. Pedestrians and animals everywhere. No guard rails. Crazy passing.
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| Some sense of the craziness of the roads |
We were very thankful to arrive safely back at the airport. We had lots of time to kill-- we came back when the camp could take us, so we got to the airport at 4 pm. Our flight didn't leave until 11:30 pm. But we didn't want to endure more Nairobi driving to do any touristing there. I think it was a matter of-- we have done this whole crazy trip and everyone is still safe and well. Let's not push our luck! Everyone was content to just relax, play cards, etc. at the airport. In fairness, we did drive right through the center of downtown on our drive back and it looked pretty nice. That section looked more like a standard big city-- still lots of traffic but modern. There was a big park in the center that looked quite beautiful. But once you got away from the center, the chaos began.
The flight home was pretty unevenful. We got to Dubai around 5 am and everyone but my husband slept through most of our 3 hour layover. Then it was on to home. Scandanavia was kind enough to be sunny when we arrived. No rain for once and the snow had pretty much all melted. But it still seemed very dark and dreary after the sun and color of Africa. One funny thing, we showed pictures of Sweden that we had on our Ipad to our Kenyan driver and guide-- of our car and yard all buried in snow. They asked, "Can any animals live there?"
We took over a thousand pictures and even if I posted them all and wrote all day, I still don't feel like I can really do the trip justice. It was such an amazing experience. It lived up to all our expectations and we feel so amazed and blessed that we got a chance to experience it. It really was unlike anything we've ever experienced before and was just what we needed. The time we spent in the Masai Mara was relaxing and rejuvenating and something we'll remember forever. I like my daughter's summary, "Best trip ever!"
