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“I’M REALLY HERE—THIS IS THE MASAI MARA!”

Those were my thoughts as we drove along the edge of the riverine forest, looking for leopards…..and not finding any. But, it didn’t matter - after 50+ years of looking at coffee-table books, National Geographic specials, and all the rest, I was actually THERE…..in the northern extension of Tanzania’s Serengeti Plain. It was even better than I’d imagined…...
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We splurged on the Mara—Gail and I generally travel cheap, so we can travel longer. In Mombasa, we stayed in a $20.00 B&B (you’ll see that trip, later)....it was better than most of our South American digs, Vic and Lola…..we’re 60, now and not 30! But, for the Maasai Mara - it’s spelled both ways over here—we bought a package deal at one of the less expensive (and only one year old) luxury tented camps. We got a good deal (the truly cheap alternative is camping, and our friends with vehicle and experience are on annual leave in the States) that included round trip air flight from Nairobi, plus four days and three nights with meals and two game drives daily—all for about $2,000.00, in case you want to start saving up. It’s the MARA TIMBO CAMP, and we cannot possibly recommend it too highly. I’ll have a separate post about them a bit later. For now, I’m going to post photos from our game drives…..just enjoy.

Elephants are among our favorite animals, and they were THICK on the ground….we saw them every single drive:
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And they were CLOSE to us…...at times, we had to get out of THEIR way, and not the other way around…..
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Even though we saw no leopards (always the most difficult of the “Big Five” to spot), we were blessed with Rhinos, that are now rare in the Mara, due to poaching for their horn….seeing a baby is even more unusual, and these appeared within the first hour of getting off the airplane, during our very first drive….later in the week, we saw a young male, besides.
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Lions are a big hit with game viewers, and we saw more than our share, I suspect—this pair of males surprised us when they appeared RIGHT beside the grass track we were driving on:
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We were also blessed to see a family on their kill
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We all know that the lion is the King of the Beasts, and sometimes they live up to that title:
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But…..even Kings are informal at times…...
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Giraffes are among the most graceful (usually) and interesting of animals. We saw almost as many of them as we did elephants - every single drive we spotted them, both near and far, and sometimes in great numbers.
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Here we got to sit in on a “lesson” as a fully adult bull engaged in “necking” with a younger and smaller male - teaching him skills he’ll need when it comes to competing for a mate later on:
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Of course, there were loads of antelope - my favorite (so far) is probably the Waterbuck:
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They’re just so elegant….so refined. They tend to act the part, as well - the patricians of the plains, so to speak. In contrast, we have the gnus….or Wildebeest. Silly looking, and acting like clowns a good deal of the time…..lots of fun.
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Just a bit later this month, these funny “beests” are going to gather in their hundreds of thousands, along with lesser numbers of zebra, and move across the Mara River, braving the giant crocodiles who wait at the crossing points—we’ve all seen this in the wonderful films that National Geographic and others have made. We didn’t see such numbers, but we WERE privileged to watch wildebeest (and zebra) cross the river…..but at a shallow place, with no crocodiles whatever…...smarter than the average “gnu”!
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Among the smaller grazers that form the bottom of the food chain are found the Impala—that live in a polygynous society where a single male dominates and monopolizes a dozen or more females, leaving most males in bachelor groups, practicing their competitive arts in hopes of winning the next joust and getting their turn at being the reproductive male!
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A rival to the wildebeest for silliness has got to be the topi, with his purple patches, yellow socks, and ungainly-looking body. Despite their looks, they’re extremely fast…..
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.....the dominant Topi males spend their days on top of a termite mound, or other “commanding height”, watching for danger, posturing, and warning away other males.
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All day long on a termite mound can be tiring, as you can see from the sagging head…..a few minutes later, here is the “dominant male”!
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We’ll hope that no danger threatens THIS herd…...
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We saw lots of Cape Buffalo…other than that young one the lions had killed, of course - here is a replacement…...
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The Mara River is filled with Hippopotami, observing whom is a bit like watching paint dry, most of the time. Occasionally, however…..a bit of excitement breaks out:
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The guides said that crocodiles and hippos don’t mix….the crocs like to catch a baby hippo when the opportunity arises, and the hippos don’t forget…..so when a crocodile is moving up- or down-stream, and comes to a pool full of hippos, the croc gets out on the bank and WALKS around the “enemy territory”, entering the water on the other side, where it’s safe. We saw six or seven LARGE, and rather well-fed crocodiles at one of the major crossing points
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There were a number of the smaller kinds of mammals, along with what everyone thinks of. Jackals - very hard to photograph due to size and skittishness
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and Vervet Monkeys
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plus more, like lizards (Wow!)
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I saw another of these at our camp….so they’re apparently widespread….but this was the most brightly colored one.
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Birds were everywhere - in bewildering variety. Here are a few, starting with a pair of Secretary Birds perched on the top of a tree - the first time I’ve seen them anywhere but stalking along in the grass, hunting for anything that moves.
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We did watch three Ground Hornbills hunting…...
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Here’s a closeup of one of the group….
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LOTS of vultures - although no squirming mass on top of a kill….this is the closest we got….
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A nice Lappet-faced Vulture posed for me, though…..
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and here are three - at least two different kinds….the third one may be a young one
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I like the storks, better. The Marabou is seen in the Lake Nakuru post, so here is the Saddle-billed variety:
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Many of the birds I don’t have names for, like this “chickenish” thing we saw any number of times, sometimes running down the track ahead of the car:
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There are plovers of various kinds:
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but my favorite bird “capture” was this Hammerkop—I had a photo of one in Lake Nakuru - but he was a silhouette in a tree a long ways off. There was no question about the identification, as I had his head in profile, but this one is a LOT more satisfying….he cooperated fully, letting me get three good shots before taking off for parts unknown.
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I’ve got to stop and get out of our neighbor’s house - they’re about to eat lunch, and it’s not so nice to abuse their hospitality. Here’s the last photo of the day—our picnic site that the guides call “Out of Africa”. Get the movie and watch it again—it’s largely filmed in the Masai Mara, and we recognize a LOT of it from our three days of sightseeing here. If you can, come and see one of the natural wonders of the world…..
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