We flew from New York to Nairobi with a change of planes in between. Our night in Nairobi was in a beautiful hotel with a lovely restaurant.
The next morning we headed to the local airport for the first of many short flights. I’m not a great flyer and was very nervous about the 12 seat, single engine planes we were about to take. The first flight involved a few tears but soon became an interesting, almost pleasurable experience.
The flight to the Masai Mara was short and interesting – we were less than 7000 feet above the earth and could see the animals below.
Landing was another new experience: there is a gravel landing strip with no fencing or security. The animals wander freely from one side to the other…this is their home, not mine.
Our first lodge, The Saruni Mara, was beautiful. Each “tented cabin” is an individual cottage with canvas walls that can be unzipped during the day and rezipped at dusk, especially when there are baboons nearby. They have a reputation for being inquisitive and destructive if they get inside. There was a troop that lived near our tent and watching them go from left to right in the morning and then right to left at dusk was like watching baboon commuters during rush hour. There was a resident Eland who wandered the camp munching on the shrubs as he went.
We walked out of our tent one morning and found ourselves nose to nose with him…good thing he’s comfortable with humans.
We stayed in one of the conservancy areas owned by the Masai instead of staying in the national park – this meant that our guides could take us out both during the day and after sunset and they could drive almost anywhere they chose rather than on the roads as required in the park. When in a park you can’t drive to where the animals are – you have to hope they choose to be near the roads. Our guide had the most amazing ability to spot animals and then drive directly to where they were patiently waiting to pose for us as seen below:
Cheetah
Elephants
Giraffes
Cape Buffalo
Lioness/Cubs
Three wonderful days in the Mara and then on to the Serengeti.
Tip: 1: Stay in a conservancy instead of a national park and take a camera with a good zoom and quick action so you don’t miss any photo opportunities.
so…