Masai Mara

International borders have made a flying safari a little more than a quick hop between two places even though the distances are short.  Today we flew from the Serengeti in Tanzania to the Masai Mara in Kenya.  The great migration is between these two parks, which are really part of the same animal system, but animals do not need passports.  If they did, the great migration would take years, not months.

We flew from an airstrip in the Serengeti to Musoma, Tanzania, so we could have our passports stamped with our exit from Tanzania.  From Musoma we flew to Kisumu, Kenya, so we could have our passports stamped with our entry to Kenya.  At each two-room airport, we went through security upon arrival, went through passport control, and then went through security again before departure.

Boarding our charter plane

Finally our third short hop was to the Ngerende airport in the Masai Mara.  As you can see, all of the airstrips are dirt, but the landings are surprisingly smooth.  Agriculture is the major industry in Kenya.  As I was in Ethiopia, I am surprised at how green and perfectly laid out is the view from my window.  We also fly over surprisingly large villages and cities.  Kisumu, where we landed second, has a skyline.

 We had time for an afternoon game drive and a visit to a rhino sanctuary to see the white rhino up close and personal.  We were no more than twenty feet away from this one.

Could the Masai Mara be even more endless than the Serengeti?  Unlike the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti, the Masai Mara has lots of water and is green.  Again, it is ringed with small hills far in the distance and you can see forever.  Again, the overriding feeling is peacefulness.  Different types of animals graze side by side.  Picture the largest lawn that you can imagine manicured perfectly each day by thousands of grazing animals.  That is the Masai Mara.

A kopi antelope standing guard

Acacia trees dot the landscape and are flat on the top - naturally.  But the desert date trees are flat on the bottom of their foliage for the giraffes eat as far as they can reach.  Elephants, on the other hand, do not eat trees; they demolish them.  They are quite destructive to the landscape and you can see the broken trees they leave behind.

Elephants attacking a poor tree.  The two large elephants on the left are nursing their babies.

We never tired of seeing the zebras, giraffes, and antelopes that predominate the landscape, but the lions are always special.  One afternoon, we saw a male lion by himself and went to look at him.  Then we saw a lioness approaching him.  They played together for a few minutes, and then she walked off.  He followed discreetly about fifty yards behind her, and we stalked them both.  In the Masai Mara, unlike the last two parks, our vehicles can go off the roads, so we approach very close to get a good look at the animals.  We followed the lioness for over a mile, hoping she would lead us to her den, and maybe she did, but when she turned off into the brush, we lost her.

A pride of lions

 Later we saw these two male lions.  As we were observing them, we noticed a lioness in the thicket behind them.  We drove around for a closer look and found a den with a lioness and her three cubs who were no more than a month old.  She licked each one for five minutes and we saw them standing on their wobbly legs.  No pictures, unfortunately since they were in a dense thicket, but we were able to watch them with our binoculars for half an hour.

Our hotel has a electrified fence around it to protect us from the animals.  We each have a private" tent"; it does have canvas sides, but inside is a floor, real furniture, and a full bath with a shower.  And of course a porch on the outside with a table and chairs.  The tents have zip up doors that you must velcro at the bottom or the monkeys will get in.  My neighbors apparently left a gap and were surprised in the middle of the night by visitors.  And each tent looks over the river with a view of the hippos.  Hippos sleep in the river all day.  At night they walk a few miles to the grasslands to graze, returning early in the mornings.  They make a lot of loud grunting noises.

My tent

My view of the hippos in the river

In the morning we had a triple treat:  a balloon ride over the Masai Mara with an early morning game drive on the way and an al fresco champagne breakfast afterwards to celebrate.  We left the hotel at 5am so it was still dark out.  On the way, we saw a leopard crouched and ready to spring on an unsuspecting antelope, but when the leopard was caught in our headlights, he slowly rose and walked away in the other direction.  We saved the life of an antelope, at least for another day.  Later we saw a pack of hyenas devouring their night's kill.  It looked like a wildebeest.  The hyenas didn't even move when we saw them in the headlights; they just kept on eating.

We thought the balloon would be standing there ready for us to just step inside.  It turns out that you sit on your back in one of the four compartments until they inflate the balloon with cold air and then heat the air.  Slowly the balloon takes off, tilting you upright.  The balloon gave us an even more incredible view of the Masai Mara.  We went faster than I would have imagined, and not very high, so it felt like we were just floating over the animals.

Of course, our breakfast was an incredible spread with fruit, fresh bread, bacon, sausage, and made to order eggs.

Another game drive afterward.  More zebras, giraffes, elephants, gazelles, wildebeests, cape buffalo, and the occasional, totally incongruous, ostrich.  For all my friends who asked me how many days you can look at animals ... it is shocking how this never gets old.  It is so beautiful and peaceful.  Sometimes you get sucked into thinking about your "list."  OK, I've seen enough zebras and giraffes; I'm only looking for cheetahs and leopards.  But I live in Sacramento.  Every one of these animals is exotic and incredible.  How could you possible go for a drive and think, ho-hum, it's just another zebra.  Just another zebra?  Like that is a normal thing?  I don't know why but zebras remind me of unicorns.  No, they don't have a horn, but they seem magical to me.

You can't see it, but a zebra has a thick black line on its belly from its rump to its neck as if a surgeon sutured the stripes together there.  Another quick animal fact:  Antelopes have horns, not antlers.  Deer shed their antlers every year and grow new ones, but if you cut off an antelope horn, it does not grow back.

We went for one last game drive together on our last evening.  We thought we were looking for cheetahs and leopards at dusk when they start coming out, but our guides had a surprise for us.  They had prepared a bonfire for us complete with a bar, appetizers, and of course, our private bathroom.  This is an incredible way to travel.

On our last morning in the Masai Mara, the rest of the group had an early flight, but I had time for one more game drive, so off I went at 6:30 am to watch animals graze.  One might say that is as exciting as watching grass grow, but I think not.  I saw a few lions.  Then I saw something really special.  There were two lions and a lioness in the middle of a field with the other animals grazing in the distance.  Apparently the two lions fought before I got there, but I'm not sure if it was an actual fight or they flipped a coin.  One won and went off with the lioness across the field where he mounted her every fifteen minutes for six seconds.  Lion sex is really fast.  The other lion stayed behind and breakfasted on a freshly killed wildebeest.

The vultures and pied crows watched the lion eat and fed on the leftovers.  So I ask:  which lion won the fight?  The one who had six second sex or the one who feasted?

And then it was back to the Ngerende Airport.  Here is the passenger lounge, with the bathroom behind it, and the runway.

This time, however, we did not take a charter flight.  It was a regularly scheduled Air Kenya flight on a plane with four engines, three more than the charters.  We stopped at two other tiny airstrips before arriving back in Nairobi.  We were supposed to visit a charitable foundation this afternoon, but apparently there are demonstrations going on because the Supreme Court just annulled the recent presidential election outcome.  So I have a quiet day in the hotel before flying to Capetown, South Africa tomorrow morning.