Lions on the Mara

The plan For Wednesday was fairly simple.  A full-day game drive throughout the Maasai Mara. We started our day with breakfast at the restaurant.  Halfway through breakfast I suddenly heard a rapid thudding commotion behind me, and then saw Aimee start quickly, and simultaneously saw the waitress rush towards me.  In that split second I had no idea what happened, but then I saw a black/gray flash to my right, and looked up in the tree, and a small monkey of some sort (it was not a baboon, but beyond that I’m not sure) had run down the rail of the porch of the restaurant where we were sitting and attempted to steal something from our table.  Aimee and the waitress together were able to thwart its plans.  I however was useless in the situation.  Aimee noted that as he darted down the railing he had locked eyes with her and was clearly intent on mischief. 

Maasai Giraffe Outside Our Camp

After a more exciting breakfast than anticipated, we headed out to meet Stephen.  The day started with
about a dozen Maasai giraffe directly outside the grounds of our lodge.  Note, the Maasai giraffe in this area have markings all the way down their legs, unlike the Rothschild giraffe we saw earlier in the week which have white legs.

As we entered deeper into the Mara, we also came across our first group of elephants since we had been here.  After spending some time watching these massive creatures, we continued to drive around.  The Mara was filled with lots of activity, mostly the various types of antelope: hundreds of  gazelles, impalas, eland, and topi, with the occasional wart hog trotting around and a few other species here and there.

Impala

At one point as we continued to drive, we saw several safari trucks circled around a small tree.  This is

always a sign that there is something exciting, so we headed over there as well.  Once we got close, we were amazed to see a massive pride of lions snuggling together in a pile of fluff under a tree.  There were at least fifteen.  While we sat there, one by one three lion got up and very slowly walked away.  They walked in and between the safari cars without a care in the world, occasionally looking up at all the humans taking their pictures with the absolute least bit of interest they could have.  These three walked off to some other shaded areas away from us, leaving about 12.  We remained in the area quite some time watching them occasionally shift, get up, turn around, plop back down.  This happened over and over.  Right as we were about to leave, the male leader of the pride got up, stretched, and found a new spot to lie in.  The rising of the sun had caused his shade to move, so he repositioned under the tree where he was back fully shaded, and went back to sleep.

After this, we drove a bit further, and once again found a bunch of vehicles together.  When we pulled up, Stephen asked one of the drivers what they were looking at (since there was nothing obvious in front of the group) and the other safari guide told him there was a black rhino that had just walked into the woods.  Stephen shared with us that the black rhino is endangered, and that there are only black rhino, not white rhino in the Maasai Mara. (also note, the differentiation of black vs. white rhino have nothing to do with their color.  I’ll leave it to the internet to explain that though.)

We pulled in amongst the group and looked out in the distance.  A few times Stephen and Aimee both thought they saw something moving in the bush along the creek far in the distance, however, after thirty minutes or so, we never did see a clear shot of anything that could confirm it was still there. 

After this minor disappointment we drove further in and looked at more wildlife.

Around noon, we came to a restroom in the middle of the Maasai Mara.  It was strangely clean, and

Carcas in a Tree

nicely designed with ceramic tile throughout on the floor and walls.  As we stood for a bit and stretched our legs, Stephen showed us that there was some sort of meat (we think the remains of a gazelle) that either a leopard or a cheetah killed and pulled into the tree, waiting for a better time to eat it.

While we were standing there we heard the rare sound of American voices behind us.  We turned around

and asked where they were from, and they replied “Detroit.”  We talked to them for a bit.  The guy, who was in his thirties, was wearing a safari shirt, and complemented me on mine.  I exclaimed how amazingly practical I’ve found them to be, with just about a pocket or a loop for everything and anything you could ever need.  I demonstrated with my sunglasses, by quickly slipping these in the loop provided.  He excitedly agreed.  We compared some notes about our travels, and then ultimately piled back into our van and headed to a spot for lunch. 

Apparently there was an area of the Maasai Mara that must not be frequented often by animals, as there were several trees, and each of them had a group sitting under it eating lunch.  We found one that was unoccupied, and Stephen handed out our box lunches.  Aimee suggested eating in the car to minimize having to compete with the bugs outside for our food.

While we ate our sandwiches, we got to know a bit more about Stephen’s background and shared ours also.  He has five children that are a bit younger than ours, and he lamented the fickleness of children’s life decisions, the damaging impact of the COVID lockdowns on his children’s schooling, the cost of trying to raise children, and just the day-to-day challenges that children bring.  We shared some of our own similar stories.  This had been our first real chance to get to know Stephen, and I’m glad we were finally able to.

After lunch, we headed to a cliff side along a river (similar to what we had been to yesterday).  When

we got close enough to the cliff to see the river below, we saw several dozen hippo.  We counted over thirty, and there may have been quite a bit more than that.  Most of them were deep enough in the water that they looked like large rocks, but a few had ventured out onto land so we could get a good view of them. 

We continued a bit further down the river and came to another lookout point, and again there was a

massive herd of hippo down in the water.  These were much more vocal than the previous group whichhad been fairly quiet,  One of them made a loud noise which sounded like a motorcycle with a starter issue.  This was immediately followed by about 10 others that whined and moaned loudly in response as if to tell him to keep it to himself.  As we were focused on the hippos, Stephen pointed out that there was a Nile Crocodile basking in the sun on a small sandbar further down the river.

After this stop, Stephen took us to an interesting point in the Mara.  The Maasai Mara is a large

Standing in Kenya and Tanzania

grassland on the southwestern border of Kenya.  It runs to the border of Kenya and Tanzania.  While the country changes, the grassland continues.  In Tanzania, instead of referring to it as the Maasai Mara, it is called the Serengeti.  There is one point on the border, where a marker has been placed. (It’s actually a bit of a tiny enclave of Tanazania that is created by a loop in the river which exits Kenya and comes back to Kenya only a few hundred feet downstream.)  So while this small piece of land is in Tanzania, it is entirely separated from the rest of the country by the river. 

We took some obligatory photos straddling the marker, and then continued on.

Not long after this, as we were going down a narrow path in our vehicle, we came up behind a single

vehicle that had stopped.  The driver motioned for us to come up along side him.  When we did, the obvious reason was directly in front of us—a female lion was walking away from us down the path. As we followed her a bit further, a second lion showed up and began walking along side her.  They wandered together off into the distance. When they got about 50-100 feet away, another lion showed up that appeared to be looking for the other two.  All of them appeared to be on the prowl for food.  We stayed awhile, but they continued to wander out to an area that wasn’t easily accessible, so we carried on down the road.

After some meandering, we once again came upon several vehicles gathered around a tree.  As we got closer, Aimee’s face lit up with glee as she realized there were a bunch of lion cubs along with their parents..  The parents appeared sound asleep, and the cubs were probably supposed to be as well.  The parents had somewhat blocked them into a natural playpen under the tree.  The several cubs (we think there were around 5, in two different age groups) were fighting sleep as much as they could while they either laid under the tree, or in the crook of the tree. We spent several minutes viewing this family from about 4 different directions, and then moved on.

At this point we were very far from camp, and needed to begin to head back that way.  We trekked onward occasionally stopping if we saw some animals, though for much of the rest of the drive there were not many, with the exception of a couple places.

Jackal

We were on fairly lightly used trails, not on a main road in the park by any means.  In the distance was a creek that we needed to get around, and we were trying to make our way up creek to a place that would

Passable Road?

be passable.  As we were driving however, long before getting to the creek we reached a very muddy spot, where clearly many vehicles had struggled to get through.  There were many rows of trenches dug by tires trying to get through, and even though we had about 8 car widths of areas to try, all of them looked really bad.  The very edge of this area looked like it may be ok, but it was difficult to ascertain the condition of the trail beyond. 

Stephen was not immediately confident about this section of road.  He told us he needed to get out and take a look.  This left us a bit nervous as the grass around the area was about 2-3 feet tall.  Definitely tall enough for lion or hyena to be hiding.  He checked the area thoroughly and Aimee and I kept watch out of the top of the car.  He seemed to be comfortable with the firmness around the fringe of the mud, but continued walking further to see what was around the corner after this mud.  Once he walked over that way and could see (about 75 feet from the vehicle), he turned around and came straight back.  We asked what his report was, and he said it’s a mess over there.  Far too muddy even if we get past this first part.  We’ll need to find another way.

We backtracked quite a bit and found another trail going off of the larger trail that led us here.  This one was even fainter. Stephen turned down this trail and started driving.  5 minutes later we came upon another impassible section of mud.  We turned around went back and found the next path.  This one was so faint, that a couple times Stephen lost the trail, had to back up a bit, and find it.  Unfortunately, it too led to a mud pit.  It took 2 or 3 more attempts until we finally found a dry road that made an extremely large circle around the other paths to get us back to a main road and around the creek. 

Now we were travelling on one of the main gravel paths.  Stephen picked up speed to gain ground.  Note, that even the main paths here are exceptionally rocky and bumpy, so travelling down these at high speeds is very jarring.  After another 30-45 minutes of driving, we came upon a small bridge over a river that was under construction.  This had happened at a few places previously, but the workers were able to step aside and let us through.

As we pulled up to the bridge, one of the workers held up his arms in an “X”, and then did a “u turn”

Bridge Work

motion with his hand.  Stephen had actually missed this as he was looking to the side to see what all was going on.  He continued to pull up, and one of the workers came up and reinforced (in Swahili of course) that we couldn’t cross.  At this point we could see that part of the entry to the tiny one car bridge was blocked by some building materials, and the other half had about 10 feet of large boulders in front of the bridge that we could not drive over.  The worker directed us to go around to another section of the river 50 feet down. 

Stephen backed up and went around where they directed us.  As he pulled closer to the riverbank, there was a steep slope, and then about 20 feet wide of water, where we saw no sign of bottom, and it was flowing at a moderate pace.  This did not look passable in my amateur opinion.  Stephen quickly voiced his own opinion: “We can’t go through that”.

He drove back to the bridge and got out of the car.  It looked like he was talking to the 5 workers, but I also noticed none of them seemed to want to make eye contact, and didn’t seem too interested in what he had to say.  Incidentally at this point, I realized that these workers were either building or demolishing (not sure which) a cement bridge with hands and hand tools, in the mid-80 degree heat, under the hot sun--and of course surrounded by animals that could kill them.  They were all exceptionally skinny and I’m not sure how their bodies were able to survive these conditions of incredibly hard labor all day.

After several minutes had gone by with him talking to them, we noticed a backhoe with a front loader

Building a Path For Our Van

that had been on the other side of the river came across in the section they had directed us to when we first arrived (this much larger vehicle was able to do it with ease as it of course had far larger wheels and more clearance than our van had).  The workers began moving the materials and medium sized boulders by hand, and the backhoe came over and started clearing the larger boulders.  The operator then used it to, very roughly, smooth out the ground in front of the bridge. After about 10 minutes of work, it was cleared just enough that we could barely squeeze through and across the bridge. 

We thanked all the workers for their efforts (especially after a long day already) and we proceeded.  After we crossed, Stephen told us that they originally told him he needed to go the other way out.  Stephen said “that is the difference between a 2.5 hour drive and a 20 minute drive to exit.  I told him we are not going the other way.”  We proceeded the 20 minutes to the gate of the park, and headed back to our lodge.

After a very long day with bodies that had been tenderized from the bouncing around in the safari van, we went to our room, cleaned up, and came back to the restaurant at our lodge for dinner.  Aside from the power going out a couple times briefly, the rest of the evening was quiet and we went to bed early.

Path to Our Cabin

Sunset From Our Cabin