Masai Mara Safari

“Look at all the animals! They’re so close!”

Yes, they really are! And if you are an animal lover this will be the trip of a lifetime!

Masai Mara National Park is a magical place that almost everyone has heard of. It is a refuge for wild animals to roam freely and be who and how they were designed to be without noticeable interference.

Though I am sure much could be said of Kenyan government policies and their motivation (be it for the sake of the animals or to protect the millions of yearly income) the country has consistently protected the animals and the ecosystem of their main wildlife parks.

The result is the pure and (mostly) unadulterated wildness of what is truly a world class attraction.

As most people do, we started our trip off in Nairobi by joining an organized tour which covered the Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha parks and our guide picked us up at 6.30 on the dot. In usual fashion we were late. Slightly…

We were part of a group of 4 with Explorers Wild Adventures (explorerswild.com) and as luck would have it, we were joined by Meredith from the US and Mo, a Sudanese doctor based in Ireland. Both really interesting people with their own stories to tell and a visible passion for travelling. In this we were definitely lucky.

With the crew gathered, after a morning struggle with Nairobi traffic (a show unto itself), we set off on the road to the park on our modified Toyota Hiace.

It takes over 5 hours to get to Masai Mara National Park from Nairobi, disregarding lunch and comfort breaks, and by the time we got there we were all equal parts exhausted from the long day on the road and excited to be at the gates of something so magical.

The tension as the roof of the car opened and we stood before the opening gates was unimaginable!

All the planning, all the travelling, the many hours of the road, the expectations… suddenly the reward is right there behind those doors.

Sure enough, a couple of minutes after driving into the park you start seeing all the wildlife around you. Everywhere wild animals running around that we only ever imagined seeing on TV or behind zoo bars.

Herds of zebras which seem to be copy and pastes of each other! Ever wonder what their dominant color is? Is it black or white?

Did you know that a group of giraffes is called a tower? Ever see how funny they look drinking water?

And gazelles! So many gazelles and wildbucks just jumping around and funnily shaking their tails to shoo the flies away!

For the first hour or so of the safari we were simply wowed by the amount and variety of the animals around us. We were like children in a candy shop not knowing where to look next.

Then, the first of the big 5 in Masai Mara appeared: the buffaloes.

The big 5 is a reference to the 5 formidable animals that hunters of old used to face and that tourists of today desire behind the sights of their cameras. As for the buffaloes, some were in family herds and some in bachelor herds but in all cases we stayed slightly away from them as these formidable beasts have been known to be extremely defensive and do attack if they feel threatened.

After some chatter on the radio, our guide drove us off to another spot where we saw the second one of the big five: the elephants!

Gigantic, graceful and peaceful. They were grouped together in small family groups with females and young cubs who sometimes were still only breastfeeding.

After all those hours of traveling, finding ourselves so incredibly close to these magnificent animals was a high which is hard to describe. For a moment the world was beautiful and watching these big beasts graze by grabbing grass with their trunk and kicking it to rip it from the ground was just amazing…

And just as we thought day one was ending on this amazing high, Joseph, our guide, drove us deeper into the park. “There could be lions” he said and we goaded him to try and find them despite the oncoming twilight.

Eventually this is what we found…

Majestically laying down and looking over the horizon, we found this extraordinary male who eventually strolled right past us.

It was tremendous to see how close he got to the truck. There he was, this wild lion who could tear us to pieces on a mere whim, metres away from us. We could see the color of his eyes as he walked by! Just magical!

And not far away, this family of big cats was waking up to prepare for the night time.

We simply could not believe our luck.

In about 2,5 hours of safari we had seen 3 of the big 5 and hundreds of other animals in the park. Yes, at this point we knew that regardless of what the next couple of days of safari brought to us, it had been worth every single cent we paid.

On the topic of prices, if you ever decide to embark on this adventure, know that prices vary considerably depending on the type of comfort you require. Three day budget safaris in groups and sleeping in a shared 2 person tent can cost around 350 USD whereas the luxury safaris can range up to 1500 USD and higher depending on personal needs.

As night fell, we headed back to our tents with a sensation of having filled our souls. There, we gathered by the campfire with all the other travelers and shared the stories of our day and of our trips. Another gratifying community experience before we finally let sleep set in…

Surprisingly the tents were not at all what we had expected. In practice the tents were more like fixed structures about as big as a mid-sized room big enough for 2 queen sized beds inside it and with a division onto the bathroom which included hot and cold showers. Jokes aside, these tents may have been the most comfortable place we slept in during our entire time in Kenya!

Day two started early and with the promise of more animals. It certainly did not disappoint.

Besides all of the animal species from the day before who gladly continued making their appearance, we were also introduced to the ugly 5. You know, the 5 animals with a face only a mother could love.

First the herbivores in the form the warthogs and the wildebeest:

Had we been here a few months before we could have seen the great migration where millions of wildebeest cross the Mara river but at this time they could only be seen in small groups hanging around. Maybe next time.

Later on we met the remaining 3 ugly 5, the hyenas, marabou stork and vultures hungrily feasting on the carcass of a baby elephant.

Even though we knew they were consuming a baby elephant much like the ones we saw the day before, we were simply transfixed with the voracity with which they attacked the animal leftovers. In the jungle nothing is wasted.

It was a glorious start to the day and the cherry on top was a group of 4 cheetahs which strolled along the park.

Though finally we did not get to see any leopards (which would have been the 4th animal of the big 5), I personally was far more excited to see what is in fact the fastest land animal on earth. 4 of them in fact!

The big cats were just wondering about and one of them literally laid down on the wheel of the truck in front of us. It was crazy!

Then again, even with the impact of corona decreasing tourism, there were a dozen trucks around the animals on this particular day so it only makes sense that the animals are used to the attention and simply no longer care. For us it was a surreal animal encounter but for the animals it was Tuesday morning I guess.

Lunch time came right after a quick stop at the bush toilet (you know you haven’t lived until you’ve pee’d in lion territory!).

Under a tree in the Masai Mara plains we were enthralled in the thought of all the beauty around us. On all the animals we were seeing. On the perseverance of the flies who simply refused to be shooed away from us while we ate!

You may or may not believe it but those are the most persistent flies in the world! They simply would not budge or be bullied away. I can only imagine what it is like during the great migration when millions of wildebeest and zebras are chased by millions more flies.

The Masai Mara is a very large park and at the edge, near the Tanzania border you will find the Mara river where the hippos and crocodiles cool down in the water.

This is where the dramatic images of wildebeest struggling to cross the waters are taken but during the rest of the year it is just a moderate stream of water. Even so, we wouldn’t dare come near the water as hippos are known to attack for no apparent reason. So much so that, behind the mosquitoes, they are the animal with the most human kills every year.

Unfortunately, much like your attention span reading this article, our capacity to continue appreciating the beauty of the park and the wilderness around us became less and less as we became desensitized from all the constant stimulation, the tiredness of having woken up early again and our full stomachs.

Here we became privy to one of the lesser known secrets of the Masai Mara safaris. Everybody ends up napping on the safari truck!

Yes, there are wild animals around you, other people taking pictures, and the road is beyond bumpy but at the end of the day everyone is so tired they end up passing out for at least a few minutes as the tour guides drive around.

After bumping my head 100 times on the window and struggling with my heavy eyes, I passed out for about 30m as well. No regrets!

Beauty sleep taken, the safari drive continues on and the animals just keep on delighting you with their tranquility

Eventually the night came once more and once more we were delighted to share stories by the campfire with the remaining groups.

Some had seen the elusive leopards, some had stories from other safaris in other countries. We all communed happily in the smoky air which warmed us during the night.

Morning of day 3 had us saying goodbye to the Mara and driving off to Lake Nakuru where we would eventually meet pelicans, flamingos and rhinos, the final element of the big 5.

With the exception of the leopards which we eventually never saw, the rhinoceros was definitely the hardest of all animals to find as the trails in Lake Nakuru do not get as close to the grazing animals but after a few hours of trying we eventually succeeded!

Though getting close wasn’t an option, even from a distance these animals are an amazing sight and look like armored vehicles filled with muscle.

Desensitized from 3 days of Safaris, I think we may have underappreciated the beauty of Nakuru and all of the animals there and at this point zebras and buffalo seemed to make no impact at all.

Africa had so much to show us and the animals are one of those memories that we will cherish for all of our lifetime.

As a child I used to watch the animals in the TV documentaries and never imagined one day I would make it there to see them. And now I have… and I hope you do too!