Just returned from a 3-day safari on the Maasai Mara. So amazing! Cannot even express it in words, but I shall try.
Day 1:
Picked up around 11am for a LONG drive out to the national park. We stopped and had a traditional Kenyan lunch in Narok. Should also mention this: the 'road' was HORRENDOUS. Leslie took a video of a part of the drive down there to show how ridiculously bad it was. I will never, never, never complain about potholes in the US. Americans don't know the meaning of 'pothole.' Anyways, we got to the park gates around 4pm and began our first game drive! Within 30 seconds of entering the park we saw gazelles, zebrahs, and wildebeast. -Sidenote: This is the best time to go to the Maasai Mara because of the great migration. The wildebeast come down through the Great Rift Valley of Kenya into Tanzania. Millions of wildebeast moving.- If you are having trouble picturing a wildebeast either Google it or think of Mufasa's death in The Lion King. Mufasa was trampled by the wildebeast migration. Knowing that I was already prone to not liking wildebeast, but I ended up liking them a bit.
Picked up around 11am for a LONG drive out to the national park. We stopped and had a traditional Kenyan lunch in Narok. Should also mention this: the 'road' was HORRENDOUS. Leslie took a video of a part of the drive down there to show how ridiculously bad it was. I will never, never, never complain about potholes in the US. Americans don't know the meaning of 'pothole.' Anyways, we got to the park gates around 4pm and began our first game drive! Within 30 seconds of entering the park we saw gazelles, zebrahs, and wildebeast. -Sidenote: This is the best time to go to the Maasai Mara because of the great migration. The wildebeast come down through the Great Rift Valley of Kenya into Tanzania. Millions of wildebeast moving.- If you are having trouble picturing a wildebeast either Google it or think of Mufasa's death in The Lion King. Mufasa was trampled by the wildebeast migration. Knowing that I was already prone to not liking wildebeast, but I ended up liking them a bit.
After driving through zebrah and wildebeast for awhile we saw a bunch of tourist white vans clumped around a rock formation. Of course we drove over there to see what they saw and it was a lioness! She was up on this rock right next to the sunset and I got some amazing pictures. It was amazing. I thought this might be the crowning moment of the trip, but alas it was not. The park closes at 6:30pm so we exited and made our way to our tented camp. Roomed with Leslie and Emily in a 3-bed tent thingy. Hard to describe- the 'tent' part is where the beds are and then the back is the shower, sink, and toilet, which is stone. We discovered that we had a 4th roommate when we went into the bathroom. A HUGE spider. Not joking. I have never seen a spider this big. It was tarantula size. About the size of my fist. Big. I tried to squash it but it saw me coming and moved into a position I could not get to. Smart spider. Thankfully, we had mosquito nets above our beds so we tucked into those at night and hoped the spider wouldn't come crawling over.
Day 2:
Next morning, spider was gone. Not knowing where it was made me even more nervous. Left the our tented around 7:30am for our second game drive. We were told that we were going all the way to the Tanzanian border, which is a good 5-6 hour drive, without stopping and taking pictures. We saw a ton of gazelles, zebrahs, and wildebeast. We saw some elephants and giraffes. But on to a GREAT story about cheetahs: We were drive 'off road' and saw a couple lime green jeeps parked in the middle of nowhere. We drove up to them and realized that they were looking at two cheetahs lounging around. Jill, one of the girls in our car, was talking about how whenever something goes bad on a trip it always happens to people around her. Very comforting to here. All of a sudden the cheetahs start to get up and start walking towards us. One jeep ahead of us starting moving to get a better view. One cheetah had the same idea. The cheetah jumped on top of the jeep in front of us! (Picture this: these jeeps have a moveable ceiling so that you can stand up and put your head and shoulder outside to get better pictures. All safari jeeps/vans have them and they are ALWAYS up.) The cheetah was sitting on the back of the jeep about a foot away from these people. We heard a bunch of screams for about .5 seconds and then shushed so that the cheetah wouldn't jump down INTO the jeep. The other cheetah decided that this was a great idea and jumped on top with the other one. Our van started to move closer to get a better view, which our view was great anyways. Jill almost shit a brick because we were all terrified that the cheetah would decide that our van looked better and move over. They finally got off after the driver of the jeep starting to inch slowly away. Pretty awesome, but no danger :) Some amazing pictures!
Next morning, spider was gone. Not knowing where it was made me even more nervous. Left the our tented around 7:30am for our second game drive. We were told that we were going all the way to the Tanzanian border, which is a good 5-6 hour drive, without stopping and taking pictures. We saw a ton of gazelles, zebrahs, and wildebeast. We saw some elephants and giraffes. But on to a GREAT story about cheetahs: We were drive 'off road' and saw a couple lime green jeeps parked in the middle of nowhere. We drove up to them and realized that they were looking at two cheetahs lounging around. Jill, one of the girls in our car, was talking about how whenever something goes bad on a trip it always happens to people around her. Very comforting to here. All of a sudden the cheetahs start to get up and start walking towards us. One jeep ahead of us starting moving to get a better view. One cheetah had the same idea. The cheetah jumped on top of the jeep in front of us! (Picture this: these jeeps have a moveable ceiling so that you can stand up and put your head and shoulder outside to get better pictures. All safari jeeps/vans have them and they are ALWAYS up.) The cheetah was sitting on the back of the jeep about a foot away from these people. We heard a bunch of screams for about .5 seconds and then shushed so that the cheetah wouldn't jump down INTO the jeep. The other cheetah decided that this was a great idea and jumped on top with the other one. Our van started to move closer to get a better view, which our view was great anyways. Jill almost shit a brick because we were all terrified that the cheetah would decide that our van looked better and move over. They finally got off after the driver of the jeep starting to inch slowly away. Pretty awesome, but no danger :) Some amazing pictures!
We finally made it to the end of the Kenyan border and had lunch. As soon as we sit down we are surrounded my monkeys. One stole my apple out of my lunch box!! They were so brave. They even tried to get into our van to get to our food in there. After lunch we followed a park ranger (with a rifle) to go see some crocadiles and hippos on the river. FYI hippos are mean and will kill you if you get too close. Thankfully we were on the other side of the river.
Day 3:
We woke up at 5:30am to be gone by 6am so that we could see the sunrise in the park. Did not quite work out since the park doesn't open until 6:30am. But still pretty great. The only animal we had not seen was a leopard and a rhino. The guide said that we would probably not see any rhinos since they are very endangered and the park is very big. We went on a leopard hunt 'off road' because we saw a carcass in a tree. (Leopards are nocturnal. They hunt at night and sleep all day) We did not see a leopard but others did so it is safe to say that we were in the vicinity of a leopard. I was completely ok with that since they are ferocious.
We woke up at 5:30am to be gone by 6am so that we could see the sunrise in the park. Did not quite work out since the park doesn't open until 6:30am. But still pretty great. The only animal we had not seen was a leopard and a rhino. The guide said that we would probably not see any rhinos since they are very endangered and the park is very big. We went on a leopard hunt 'off road' because we saw a carcass in a tree. (Leopards are nocturnal. They hunt at night and sleep all day) We did not see a leopard but others did so it is safe to say that we were in the vicinity of a leopard. I was completely ok with that since they are ferocious.
On our way we stopped by the place we saw some lions on Day 2. The lions were still there and this time they had dinner! The pups were nawing on a carcass while the mama slept near them. We drove a little bit and discovered the whole pride! Two male lions were napping in some trees with their lionesses and pups. Got some amazing pictures.
The second most amazing thing (cheetahs were first) is the rhino!! We were driving down a dirt road with nothing of interest on it when our driver spoke to another driver. Totally speaking swahili so no one had any idea what was happening. We came upon another jeep with tourists snapping pictures off to the left. We stop behind then and see a RHINO! No way. We are there for about 5 seconds when the rhino starts to CHARGE our JEEP. No kidding. Our driver heard our screams/saw the rhino and hit the gas. When the rhino stopped, we stopped and starting taking pictures again and laughing about how we almost died. Then the rhino started charging AGAIN. No way. The driver hits the gas again until the rhino stops. He finally loses interest in us so we back up and start snapping pictures again. Not sure how wise that situation was, but it was pretty epic.
We started back to Nairobi around 11am and made it home around 4pm. Pretty amazing weekend. Lots of great videos and pictures to be shared on Facebook!
Until next time...
It sounds great! I loved all the pictures!
ReplyDelete✰Becca
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