The Masai Mara

The Masai Mara is the most popular national park in Kenya - especially in July and August because thousands of wildebeest migrate from Tanzania to Kenya through the park. Molly and I left early Saturday morning from the city centre, boarded on a matatu, and left for the Mara. In our safari van we were with four girls from Denmark, one woman from Hong Kong, and one man from India. They all spoke english so communication wasn't too hard, although it made me feel pretty lame that most Americans only know english when outside of America most people know at least three languages. After a long and bumpy ride (they call it the SUPA highway - it gives you a free massage), we were in the park (which basically means you drive through a gate and they charge you a lot of money, everything else is completely natural). 

On our first game drive that night, we got to witness a mad chase after a leopard - one of the rarest seen animals in the park. When our driver heard over his radio that someone had spotted a leopard, he went off-road, VERY fast, over bumps and puddles, to see the leopard. We were all standing up (because the roof popped up), hanging on for dear life. It was a blast! We got to see the leopard sneak up on gazelles and zebras, although they noticed at the last minute and ran away, while the leopard walked away unhappy.

That night, we went back to our camp, had dinner, and slept wonderfully in our beds that were inside tents. Although our mosquito nets didn't really fit the beds…thank goodness for bug spray! 

The next day we went on a game drive all day and saw almost every animal we wanted to: giraffes, zebras, dik diks, topis, gazelles, jackals, impalas, elephants, warthogs (which run really fast by the way), birds, hippos, crocodiles, vultures, ostriches, and the wildebeest migration. It was truly amazing to see them all, and weird how comfortable all of the animals were with our car. There were tens of thousands of wildebeest, as far as the eye could see. The only thing we hadn't see was a lion - and I wasn't going to leave Kenya without seeing a lion first! Our driver kept promising us we would see one…but I was getting wary…

That night, we had a good dinner, and then sat by a small campfire and talked to 3 Masai guys. Learning about their culture was one of the coolest parts of the trip - more on that in a later post!

The next morning we woke up very early, before sunrise, and went on a game drive. We finally saw two lions! They were so beautiful, so awe-inspiring, so powerful looking, but they didn't really seem dangerous haha. Our car was a few feet from them and they didn't really care. It was a perfect end to our safari.