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| Erin's Journal for Masai Mara (10-18-02 to 10-21-02) Early the next morning we were downstairs ready to find breakfast by 8am. Our safari group was to pick us up at 8:30, but when we got downstairs the driver was already there, so we grabbed our things and left with him for the group's main office. As we were leaving, the lady from last night at the airport was just arriving, also a half hour early, and was very displeased to see us leaving with another group! Oh well! We arrived at Savuca's office (slightly less impressive than I'd expected) and put our stuff down, then went down the street to find lots of water at the grocery store and get cash for our trip while we waited for the other safari-goers to arrive. After a lot of waiting around, we had 5 of us in the car and were waiting for 1 more, whom we ended up picking up along the way as she was coming from one of the distant Nairobi suburbs. The drive out of town passed many horrifying slums, and lots of people herding various animals around, primarily goats, donkeys and cattle. Finally after about 2 hours, we arrived at the top of a cliff looking down to the Rift Valley. This was a spectacular view, and we took a few minutes to look while we noticed some distant Masai villages and a closer-up monkey sneaking a look at us from a nearby tree. As we drove on down into the valley, I saw 2 other species of monkeys, including a troop of baboons walking along the road. So cool! We drove most of the day to get to Masai Mara, stopping for lunch in a village where we were hassled for souvenirs. This was only the first instance of this - it occurred every day at every stop for the rest of our safari! Gets kinda old... Finally we arrived after much bumping along the increasingly poor roads at the Masai Mara game reserve. The sun sets in Kenya at 6pm and rises at 6am, and all those hours of darkness are forbidden to tourists in the park. So when we arrived at the park at 4pm, we had very little time for our first game drive, as our camp was apparently a little ways out from the park. We saw a lot on that first drive though, including some gorgeous lions and giraffes, as well as innumerable antelope and wildebeest. We headed back toward the camp around quarter to 6, which was a little too late - the camp was VERY far out in the hills and across some horrible dirt roads, so we got there after dark. The 'tents' were actually old army tents inside wooden huts, with concrete-floored toilet and shower in the back. There was no hot water (just freezing cold!) and the toilet only flushed once in a while. We were lucky enough to have brought our own toilet paper at least. Over the next few days in the Masai Mara, we went on 2 full day game drives (lots of great animals but exhausting with all the bumping) and were shuffled to a couple of different drivers, as some members of our group left before we did. The food in camp and the lack of electricity or hot water was very disappointing, but we knew we'd be getting better accommodations soon. We saw all kinds of animals (hippo, lions, cheetahs, giraffes, elephants, many more) and were very pleased with that, but were less than impressed with how often the company's vehicles broke down. Each day we'd have at least an hour and usually more of time stalled as either our van or someone else's was fixed while we sat around in or near the van. (continues) |
| A magnificent male lion was the first one we saw of the 'Big Five' |