The Maasai Mara and More Surprises - Feb 5-6

Another relatively early morning, another flight. This time we were flying from the Mt. Kenya Safari Club to Mara Safari Club, another Fairmont safari lodge in a Twin Otter, like our previous flight. We had been up in the Highlands at Mt. Kenya, and now we were headed back to lower ground. As we flew over we could see the drop in elevation as we moved from escarpment to escarpment. And we could also see just how much agriculture goes on in this part of Kenya. Lots of tropical fruit, and especially tea, is grown here. In fact, Kenya is the second largest supplier of tea leaves to the British market after Sri Lanka. Here are a couple of shots from the plane.

On the way to the club, we made a stop at one of the Mara River hippo pools to see the hippos and the crocodiles:

Take a look to the right of that big rock. That large grey
thing is a very, very big crocodile!

As the Maasai Mara is owned by a number of Maasai families, we received another traditional greeting once we arrived at the Fairmont Mara Safari Club:

and then we got to see our accommodations – the luxury tents we had all been looking forward to. Boy, are they nice.

The main room

Bathroom - shower on this side, toilet on the other

Here’s the view of the Mara River from our porch. The river is quite brown and shallow so it attracts a lot of hippos, just like the pool we saw a few days ago. Not only are there hippos at the river bend we had stopped in on our way to the lodge, but they have favourite spots all along the river. Getting used to the odd hippo bellows was the second thing on the list, after getting used to the fact that the bathrooms in the tents had no doors!

View along the river toward the lodge

Larry beside the tent; they're really quite large

Back view, from the walkway to the lodge

And a few photos of the main lodge building:

 

 

A Maasai-style sculpture on the
wall at the bar

Once we unpacked, had lunch and some time to find our way around, we were off on our first Maasai Mara game drive. This time our drivers were the experienced guides from the club, and it is a good thing they knew their way around! This is a different experience than the national parks and the conservation areas, since the land is privately owned by Maasai families. The hotels, game drives and any other tourist activities are all concessions that the Maasai have granted – for a price, of course. They have not taken any of the money to improve the ‘roads’ on the plain so as a result they are not even decent ‘goat tracks’ for the most part, and the drivers are allowed to do a lot of off-roading, as long as they don’t harm the animals. Which also means, as you will see, that we got a LOT closer to the animals!

An Eagle atop a tree - it's a lot bigger than it looks in this closeup

Elands

Another posing giraffe

This guy is using a convenient acacia tree to
scratch behind his ear!

In our travels, Dona, who is an elephant lover, asked Kepha, our driver/guide, to see if he could find some elephants – and he didn’t let her down. We found two fairly young females in a small clearing and just sat and watched them. This one got a little curious, but walked around the truck and continued grazing. She came a little too close once or twice, so Kepha gunned the engine a little bit. She didn’t like the noise so she danced back a bit but didn’t go too far. After getting the photo op we wanted, we decided to leave her to eat, and went off to find something else.

Yes, she was pretty close!

During our drive, we had to cross through a steep and very uneven gully, once on the way in and once on the way out of the main plains area. We were about ten minutes past it when the other truck radioed back that they had spotted a lioness there. So we raced back, bumping our way along, to find when we got there that she had disappeared, sleeping in the grass under the bushes, just out of sight. So we traversed the gully again and did the rest of our drive.

As we were heading back and sitting in the deepest part of this ravine, we noticed a bit of movement and sat there, the top of the truck level with the top edge of the gully, and waited to see what she would do. She sat up, yawned, and stalked out (see the photos – and no, there was no telephoto needed, she was THAT close!) and plopped herself down in another spot, not even acknowledging that we were there.

 

Just before sunset on the way back. See the track in
the front? That's what all of our 'roads' looked like!

At dinner, we met Paka, the lodge’s cat. Paka means ‘cat’ in Maasai. He is actually Paka II (and a domestic cat), the first Paka having been an African wild cat that Rachel and her then boyfriend took care of when she lived on the lodge grounds a few years ago. This little guy was very friendly and always up for a chicken or beef handout.

The next morning after our exceptionally early wake-up call at 4:30, we headed out to the Maasai Mara about an hour before sunrise for our hot air ballooning adventure. It would have been impossible to capture just that driving experience on camera – coming upon two hippos ambling back toward the river after a night’s grazing, and seeing more stars in an absolutely crystal clear night sky than we had ever seen before – that was something so unique to Africa that it is a defining moment of the trip.

Once we arrived at the launch site we watched as the two balloons (ours and another group’s) were inflated. By the time we climbed into the baskets, the sun was not far from cresting a nearby hill, and we were able to watch the sunrise from high aloft.

Looking down as the other balloon takes off

Sunrise over the hills

The other balloon drifting low over the trees

Giraffes from above. They almost look like toys!

A zebra with his long morning shadow

And of course, no balloon flight is complete without a champagne breakfast in the middle of the plain. J.P., our (Canadian) balloon pilot, told us the story of why you always have champagne after a flight. It dates back to 1783 when the Montgolfier brothers who first developed hot air ballooning took that first flight. The story goes that word got around Paris that they were going to try this, and the king of France gave them a bottle of champagne to anticipate celebrating their successful flight. Well, they were successful and managed to fly out into the countryside, far enough away that the local farmers had not heard about the endeavour and were very suspicious of this thing that fell from the sky and covered their fields. The two brothers were also covered in soot from the burners in their balloon so they just looked more demonic and dangerous. So the farmers came after them, pitchforks at the ready, and attacked the balloon. They were about to go after the men as well, but for some reason the Montgolfiers decided to open the king’s bottle of champagne. As soon as the farmers saw that, they stopped immediately and the brothers were safe. Why? Because at that time only royalty drank champagne, and the villagers believed the men were French royals. So now champagne is served after a balloon flight so the fliers will be recognized as the royalty they are!

JP popping the first cork

This was no 'picnic breakfast'! Cereal, fruit,
and eggs made to order. These guys
know how to do it up right!

Once we had finished breakfast and were just watching as the wildebeest and topi strolled by at a safe distance, one of our drivers mentioned to Rachel that he had seen a cheetah a little distance away. As it is always better to check any possible animal sighting when you get the chance, we loaded up in the trucks and left the lodge staff to pack up the breakfast things (quickly). There were a couple of other safari vehicles out in the field, obviously looking at something, and while the other of our trucks went that way, our driver Kepha took us in the other direction. He must have known something we didn’t, and this is what it was:

Two cheetahs, mother and juvenile. They apparently like to hang out on this little mound since they get a good view of the surrounding area. Kepha told us that the young will stay with their mother for about 18 months. After that the females will go off on their own, being very solitary animals. The males, however, will get kicked out when mom is ready to mate again. The new male will literally chase the young guys away, and even if they should meet their mother again later, she would not recognize them. If there are two males from a single litter, though, they may stick together for most of their lives since it is likely that mom’s new beau would chase both of them off at the same time.

At one point Kepha got us close enough to these two that we could hear them purr!!

 

We left these two to see what the other truck had been looking at. It was another cheetah who was just finishing a snack that may have been something the size of a hare. The other guys got a better view of her actually chowing down, but we rather like this photo of her after she walked right by the truck, heading out to look for her next meal.

In the afternoon it was time to pack up the duffels again for tomorrow’s flight to Nairobi. We took a little time to do another blog post and relax for a bit. We were meeting Rachel for our last game drive that included a surprise as well as a planned farewell cocktail party on the top of the escarpment so we could overlook the whole Maasai Mara plain.

It was looking a little overcast by the time we left, and we had heard some rumblings of thunder overhead, but the weather in East Africa is unpredictable. One never knows just which way the clouds are going to go. This time, however, our predominantly good luck had run out. We managed to see the ‘surprise’ though, before the weather got the better of us.

These are two of the last few remaining white rhinos in Kenya. There has been such an increase in poaching in the last five years that they are in extreme danger of extinction. In fact, last year poachers managed to kill a male and a pregnant female - and for what? Rhino horn is thought to be an aphrodesiac in some far east countries which will remain nameless. Now the few that Kenya has left are literally under 24 hour guard by the Kenya Wildlife Service. These two will actually move into a pen overnight where guards can keep a really close eye on them. It's a pretty sad state of affairs; at the current death rate, we might only have these beasts around for another couple of years...

Looking out over the Mara, just before the
rain started.

But by the time we got back into the trucks, it was starting to rain. And by the time we got back down the hill onto the plain the track was already starting to get slippery. So it was no go for the escarpment – our cocktail party ended up being inside the lodge. We had a great couple of hours there and then went for dinner.

Later on, a few of us retreated, some with a glass of Amarula liqueur, to the porch and listened to the night sounds – birds and monkeys - and the hippos as they headed off to graze. The sky was still cloud-covered so we couldn’t get a last chance at stargazing, but we all sat and just absorbed the feel of Africa. We had been to so many different parts of Tanzania and Kenya, each with its own distinct environment, but in the end they all combined to show us something that can’t be found anywhere else in the world.

Thursday morning we flew out to Nairobi (in a Dash 7 – very comfortable) where we had day rooms at the Serena Hotel until it was time to go to the airport. All except Jose and Silvia were leaving on the same flight, so we repacked our luggage and had a last dinner with Rachel before heading off. Although we joked with her as we waved goodbye, we (at least) would miss her. Her enthusiasm for every day’s activities, her knowledge of the countries, the people and the history that she had amassed over 13 years of living in Africa and directing these tours really helped make our whole trip a more lasting and memorable experience. Thanks, Rachel!

So we’re sitting on the plane on the way to Toronto as we prepare this last blog entry. We’ll post it this evening when we’re home. We hope that we’ve given you at least a small taste of our safari experience and that you’ve enjoyed following along.