OK…..so we've been home for four months and, during that time, I’ve been to New Orleans to meet my new granddaughter, we’ve hosted two yoga retreats for which we did all the cooking and schlepping here and there, have had friends and family visiting and countless other things. And, Bill continues to ask me every few days if I’ve worked on the Blog. In addition, we’ve had numerous friends wanting to know when they’re going to see the photos of the animals. So, I’m back in Blog mode, even if it’s just for today, and have completed the first two days of our first safari in Kenya and have added a ton of photos. For those of you who actually read these lengthy blogs, I hope you enjoy this one and, hopefully, I’ll keep at it until I’ve finished the trip…..so Bill will leave me alone!!

October 3 – We’re off to Africa!

That morning, we bade farewell to Ann and Mauve and hopped in Frank’s trusty pickup to go to the airport for our flight to Nairobi . The departure was delayed so, by the time we arrived, it was 1 o’clock in the afternoon. We hailed a taxi then inched our way through the unbelievable traffic to our hotel where we had arranged to be picked up the next morning to depart on our first safari. The hotel was modest but comfortable with a great breakfast, that was served on the rooftop dining area.We ventured out into the immediate neighborhood for a bite to eat for dinner then packed what we would be needing for the next few days. Since we would be spending two days at this hotel, on the back end of the safari, when we would be able to experience more of Nairobi, the hotel agreed to store our luggage while we were gone.

The van arrived bright and early and, after picking up a few more passengers, we were off to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The Reserve is named in honor of the Maasai people who are the ancestral inhabitants of the area. "Mara", is the word for “spotted” in the Maasai language and is an apt description of the area with its circles of trees, scrub, savanna, and cloud shadows that appear throughout the day . The Reserve covers some 583 sq. miles in south-western Kenya and is the northern-most section of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, which covers some 9,700 sq. miles in Tanzania and Kenya.

Our goal, the same for all those who go on safaris, was to see the “Big Five” which is comprised of the lion, leopard, African elephant, cape buffalo, and black rhinoceros, all found in the Maasai Mara. Bill was most excited about seeing one of the endangered black rhinos whose population was severely depleted by poaching in the 1970’s and early 1980’s to an all-time low of 15 individuals. Although the numbers have been slowly increasing, today, there are still only an estimated 26 black rhinos in the Maasai Mara.

There is a huge range of prices for safaris in Africa and Bill found two, on the low end, that sounded pretty good. The one we were embarking on was the cheaper of the two so, we really didn’t know what to expect. After about a six-hour drive, we finally arrived at our campsite and were pleasantly surprised to find that it was a little cabin rather than the crude tent we were expecting . We quickly put our bags in the room and headed out to the Maasai Mara for a short safari before it got dark. As we entered the reserve, we were greeted by a group of colorfully clad Maasai women who were selling their wares. These few hours were a great introduction to what we would see during the all-day safari scheduled for the next day. In that short first run, we saw herds of eland, the largest of the antelope family, and the incredibly graceful gazelles and impalas, in addition to hundreds of my favorite…the.zebra. We saw elephants of all sizes and ages and learned that they consume 200 – 300 kilos of grass a day, drink 70 liters of water a day and have a 2 year gestation period. We even saw herds of the massive cape buffalos and were amazed by several sightings of lions that were lying in the grass, peacefully, as close as a few yards from our parked van, as we observed them in awe from the pop-up roof of the vehicle.

Thrilled at having seem so many of these amazing creatures, we returned to our campsite, ate our barely edible dinner in the mess hall (this is probably why the price was so low, but we weren’t complaining) and retired to our cabin to take advantage of the three hours of electricity before it went off at 10 p.m.   The next morning, we ate an early breakfast and headed back out at 7:30 for a full day of tracking the “Big Five.”

It had rained heavily the night before and many of the bumpy roads in the Maasai Mara were wet and muddy .   Martin, our driver and guide, was a wild man and I was intrigued by the constant chatter of communication that the drivers seemed to have with each other on their two-way radios. There were countless times, during the course of the day, when, after a particularly excited interaction on the radio, Martin would veer off the established pathways into the grass in chase of something big and, nine times out of ten, it was, indeed, something big! It was a fabulous day of excitement, including coming to the aid of several vans that had gotten stuck in the mud. We were thankful that Martin was such an expert driver and there many sighs of relief throughout the day when we all held our breath when he would make one of his crazy maneuvers to avoid getting stuck in the mud.

Except for the leopard, we saw all the “Big Five” and much more. Huge herds of migrating Wildebeests were everywhere and it was a delight to see so many giraffes who towered above the trees with their incredibly elongated necks and tiny little heads . There were pools filled with hippos and sightings of the massive maribou stork, ranked as having the largest wing-spread of any living bird, with a wingspan of 3.7 m. We spent about twenty minutes watching two huge lions, a male and female, lying in the grass, yawning, and enjoying the day, totally oblivious to the fact that there were about six vans within spitting distance of them.   We watched a magnificent cheetah perched on a rock, erect and looking so very noble before he wandered off into the brush. We spotted a hyena lurking in the bushes but, the highlight of the day was when Martin got the call of a rhinoceros sighting. Martin got us there in record time and there he was, a black rhino, so close to the van that you could almost reach out and touch him. Bill was in heaven having this prehistoric looking beast so close to us and, the only thing that would have made it perfect, according to Bill, would have been if the rhino had charged the van.

This all-day safari had exceeded our expectations and we felt very lucky to have seen such a variety and so many of the magnificent beasts of the African Maasai Mara. We were so pumped up that we weren’t even dismayed by the mystery meat we were served for dinner. That night we slept soundly in preparation for our wakeup call at 5:30, breakfast at 5:50 and a departure at 6:30 for our continued safari.