Better than Animal Planet

We managed to arrange a safari on Friday afternoon at about 3pm to leave the next morning, paying the price we had hoped to and had heard was the cheapest possible ($85/day). On Saturday morning, our guide Simon and cook Joseph picked us up for a 3 days & 2 nights trip. An hour outside of Nairobi and we’d already seen wild zebras and gazelle-y type animals (not to mention plenty of free range cows, sheep and goats). Occasionally the wind would kick up dust tornado columns. Think Wild West when the villain comes sauntering into town, twirling his moustache.

It took us about 5 hours to get to the Masai Mara. We had a game drive when we arrived in the late afternoon, spotting (HAHA) a sleeping leopard (led to the location by the ridiculous number of white Land Rovers hovering there, since ours was without radio), 2 sleeping cheetahs, giraffes, water buffalo, a hippo’s eyes and nostrils, plenty of other hoofed animals (hartbeast, dik dik, 3 sizes of gazelle), a giraffe baby nursing. Simon was ruthless in maneuvering our minibus into the best spot. We named our Toyota “Tusker,” after a local beer and appropriately animal-y.

On day two, we had a full day game drive from about 8am-3pm. It started out with a cheetah’s early morning walk (aren’t cheetahs supposed to RUN!?). We saw 4 groups of lions throughout the day (the first batch lounging in a shrubby area so we could hardly seem them, another pair of sisters catching a cat nap (HAHA), another couple nearly mate in front of a herd of elephants, and then two brothers napping later in the afternoon). We saw more hippo heads, mongoose, warthogs (which have such a bad memory that if they are being chased, they will run for a bit but then forget why there were running), baboons, and a black rhino. We saw wildebeests, which are technically supposed to be in the Serengeti (Tanzania) right now. The Great Migration should bring them here in a couple of months, but a severe drought has their pattern confused. We actually saw the border demarcation (an unmanned stone marker) and drove a few meters into the Serengeti.

On our third day, we went for a 6:30 am drive. I’d been hoping for birthing, mating, or killing, but had to settle for feasting. The first pair of adult lions with their 2 little Simbas in tow snacked on a cow. Then we really hit the jackpot: 8 lions and the aftermath of a zebra. A jackal skirted the edges, trying to scavenge before the lions were done breakfasting. He was kept at a distance by some of the teenaged lions.