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Published: September 14th 2007
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juvenile males eating a wildebeest
this is another favorite of the juveniles eating since you can see the actual prey Throughout my weekend safari to the Masai Mara a few words of wisdom “you get what you pay for” kept running through my head. Two of my roommates (Annabel and Sophie) and I took an organized safari to Masai Mara, through a company that we knew precious little about ahead of time… The trip was two fold, on the one hand the park itself was amazing, the landscapes, the wildlife, everything… but the people we travelled with is another story all together and if I called them “less than amazing” it would be a massive overstatement.
First off I would like to state for the record that I really am not a fan of organized touristy trips especially with people you don’t know. But there are some things that you must suck up and be a tourist in order to do - such as a safari to Masai Mara. Annabel, Sophie and I signed up for a weekend safari through a tour company in Nairobi, it was terribly affordable and included two days of game drives so we figured why not? Hahaha - little did we know…
On Friday morning Annabel and I woke up early, packed my car
cheetah
what was so amazing was that despite the crowd of vehicles to one side the cheetah was sitting so serene on this rock as if it could not be bothered and drove to pick up Sophie in Kisii (about a 2 hour drive) from there we picked up a driver who then drove us to meet our tour group in Narok (another 2 hour drive). At 1:00pm we met the safari company and realized we were packed onto on overland bus (there were 2 buses in the trip) with 60 other people!! At this point we started doubting we would enjoy a relaxing weekend- doubts which were only confirmed when we realized about half of the people were already drunk and some of the remaining half were well on there way. After a loud, bumpy and semi-frustrating day we finally arrived at our campsite about 6:00pm after pitching our tents we avoided the crowd, kept to ourselves, waited for dinner before going to sleep for Saturday’s 6:00am game drive.
One thing I can say about the tour is that the food was consistently good all weekend so nothing to complain about there. But the crowd, ugh the crowd they continued their drinking and revelling into the wee hours of the morning so needless to say it was noisy at the campsite and we did not sleep as soundly as
you would imagine considering we were in the middle of no where - kilometres away from civilization. To top it off when I woke up to use the bathroom at about midnight I was attacked by safari ants outside my tent and spent about 30 minutes in the bathroom pulling the little buggers out of my skin and clothes so I could safely walk back to the tent and get into my sleeping bag without bringing them in to the tent with me. It was an exhausting first day...
Saturday morning we were supposed to leave at 6:00am for a game drive so when we pulled out of camp at 6:30am we were not surprised we got a late start - and also not surprised that most of the people on our trip did not join us for the morning game drive, surely they were sleeping off the previous days activities.
The game drive was incredible though, as we drove into the park we saw herds and herds of wildebeest as well as zebras, gazelles, giraffes and some elephants, The elephants were all too far in the distance to actually get a picture of them but the rest
mara river
this is part of the mara river, which we were hoping to see some wildebeest corssing but alas we only saw some dead ones who did not quite make it of the animals are so accustomed to safari vehicles that they were not too bothered (or at least did not seem to be) as we drove through so you could get some nice pictures. That morning we also saw some lions, adult male and female. Best way to locate lions and other cats is to follow the safari vehicles because the Mara is full of safari vehicles and any time you see three to ten parked in one location you can only assume there is something there worth looking at. It does kind of take some of the “I am convening with nature” feeling out of the safari though when you are constantly seeing other vehicles and tourists everywhere you look. But evidently that’s just what it’s like in the Mara.
After the game drive we returned to camp, had a nice breakfast, rallied the troops who missed the morning drive and set out for another afternoon drive. Because of the heat we did not see as many animals in the afternoon and although we drove around trying to locate some wildebeests crossing the river we could not find any. However we did cross over a bridge and the
river below was scattered with a few wildebeest carcasses indicating they fell prey to the crocodiles ad they tried crossing the river.
We probably returned to camp about 7:00pm where the guides informed the group some people were too noisy the night before and there had been complaints so they were asked to keep it down - not sure it worked though because when I woke up to use the bathroom at 3:00am I could still hear people up drinking (luckily for me I was not attacked by safari ants that night so just ignored the noise and went back to sleep).
Only about 15 people were interested in a Sunday morning game drive so about 6:15am we drove out. Surprisingly the drunkest guy on the trip was with us… which no one was too pleased about but lucky for us he sat in the front of the cab - whew we would not have to hear him! Unluckily he decided he would try and drive the safari vehicle - but we noticed, everyone complained and kicked him out of the drivers seat (this incident is just indicative of what a mess the organization of this trip was).
But that morning was the best drive after about an hour where we only saw wildebeest, zebras, giraffes and gazelles we looked to the horizon and herds of wildebeests were running away - figured they must be running from something so we drove in that direction only to come upon about 10 safari vehicles watching four juveniles male lions feeding on a wildebeest. Evidently we missed the kill but lucky for us we could sit there for about 30 minutes watching them eat - it was truly a sight. After snapping photos and watching nature in action we drove off and came across some vultures enjoying the remains of someone else’s kill. As we drove back to camp we saw another group of safari vehicles posted up - curiosity got the best of our group so as we drove up we were lucky enough to see a cheetah just sitting (almost posing) on a rock with the morning sun hitting him.
The most impressive parts of the Mara next to see lions and a cheetah in the wild was the landscape. It looks like what you imagine Africa to look like, golden grass, scattered short trees and only
baby monkey nursing
pretty amazing how they're looking at each other a few patches of green here and there, something from a national geographic video. The millions and millions of wildebeest were also impressive, since we are in the wildebeest migration season they are present in the millions all over the Mara in about every direction you look.
Despite the other people on our trip, attacks by insects in the middle of the night and a tour operator who just could not keep time - looking back on it was a nice albeit eventful weekend. The game drives made all of the other frustrations worth it (not worth it enough I would ever take this type of tour again - but worth it nonetheless)
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