The Mara

We returned last night from the Mara. Our 2 nights there were fantastic. Mark and I agreed that if we'd left Africa after our time at the Mara, we wouldn't be sad, as we'd have felt we had an awesome trip. Luckily, we're not leaving until Tuesday and we still have yet to travel to Zanzibar. And a correction on our itinerary: we stay 3 nights in Zanzibar, not 2. We are 2 nights on the beach and 1 night in Stone Town. We leave tomorrow for "Zan" as Kevin calls it. 

Kevin's cab driver, Donga, took us to Wilson airport on Tuesday a.m. for our flight to the Mara. We were on SafariLink airline. The Wilson airport is the smaller, commuter type airport. All the planes are tiny, as was ours. We were about 30 minutes late taking off, but 30 minutes late here isn't too bad. As I said, the plane was tiny. So tiny, that I couldn't even stand up straight to get to my seat. I think it held 12 passengers. We had 1 stop over and then we landed at our destination: Kichwa Tembo. It was literally a dirt airstrip and a hut for passengers to wait for their planes. 

Our hosts from Camp Maratimbo, Kinanta and James, were there to greet us and take us to our camp. Kinanta is a Masai and wears the traditional red "dress". However, he also wears a white baseball cap and has his cell phone at all times. James was our driver. He was quieter and more shy than Kinanta, but I think it was because his English wasn't as good as Kinanta's. 

The camp is only about 12km from the air strip. However, with the roads being the way they were, it took us about 45 minutes to get there. On the way, we saw a lot of animals and passed 2 Masai villages. We saw elephants, warthogs, baboons, and zebra. I wish I could post pictures now, but with the Internet connection, it takes a loooooong time to even upload one photo. I will try to post 1 for this entry later today and I have one from Nakuru as well. 

When we arrived at the camp, our butler, Francisa, was waiting for us with hot washcloths to wash our hands and face. Kinanta went over some basic camp amenities and the schedule for the next few days. The plan for Tuesday was to eat lunch and then go on the 3 p.m. safari drive. Wednesday's plan was a 5 a.m. wake up call to meet Kinanta and James for a 5:30 a.m. game drive. We opted out of the Wednesday afternoon game drive. The plan for Thursday: breakfast at 7 a.m. and then an all day game drive before heading back to the air strip for our 4 p.m. flight back to Nairobi.  

Before lunch, we were shown to our tent (#2) and given a tour of where the restaurants and bar were. Our tent was amazing- as big as our condo in DC! The outdoor space was huge and it had a bathtub. You could see the river from the outdoor verandah and hear the hippos in the water. We freshened up and went to lunch. Lunch was served outdoors, overlooking the river. The hippos were in there, putting on a show for us. They all popped up at once to say "hello." Kinanta told us that they can stay under water for as long as 5 minutes without taking a breath. As we were finishing lunch, we were given the menu for dinner so we could choose what entree we each wanted. Uncle John would love it; before you're finished one meal, you already know what you're having for your next one. All meals were 3 courses: soup/salad, entree and dessert. The camp was all inclusive so we only had to pay for drinks. 

After lunch, we met up again with Kinanta and James for our game drive. On our way to the reserve, we saw lots of animals again, including our first giraffes! They are such beautiful creatures and they look at you with their big, friendly eyes. We even saw some baby giraffe- so cute! Our safari car started to overheat on our way to the reserve. James and Kinanta were on it though, along with some Masai children. They helped Kinanta and James to draw water from the puddles to put in the radiator. There was one little boy who was obviously the braver of the bunch. He kept coming up to the car and waving and ran away squealing with laughter when we waved back. He climbed up onto the sideboard of the car and looked at himself in the rear view mirror on the outside of the car. He was so perplexed by the face staring back at him and kept looking behind the mirror to find the other boy. It was so sweet to see; he's clearly never seen his own reflection other than maybe in a puddle. 

After a delay of about 30 minutes, we were on our way again. In the reserve, we saw so many beautiful animals: male and female lions and lion cubs, more elephants, including baby ones, monkeys, and tons of birds. As we were headed out of the park, it began to rain. We had to wait it out a little bit, as the safari car's windshield wipers were not working. It rained really hard but not for very long. However, it was long enough to almost completely wash out the road to our camp. We came to a point where the road seemed completely impassable, due to the fact that it had a river running down from the top of the ridge. James turned the car off and we sat for a few minutes, just watching this newly formed river. After some debate (in Swahili) between Kinanta and James, somehow a decision was reached: go for it.  And so we did. We made it through the river, with just a small amount of water coming under the doors and onto the floor. Thank god, because we weren't too keen on the idea of sleeping in the car overnight. 

We made it back safely to the camp and showered and changed for dinner. Waiting outside our tent to take us to dinner was a Masai. One was there every time we left our tent to protect us, should we need it. The camp isn't fenced, so it's possible the animals could wander close to your tent. One of the Masai carried a bow and arrow. Dinner was another fabulous meal of course. We went to bed early as our wake up call for Wednesday was 5 a.m. 

Our wake up call came, along with a pot of coffee and some snacks. They had turned the generators on early for us (normally they turn them on at 6 a.m. and then off and on during different times of the day) since they knew we'd be up early. The power lasted until about 5:20 a.m., when the generator abruptly shut off. Luckily we were almost dressed and were able to grab the flashlight before we were in total darkness. Five minutes later, one of the staff arrived to give us 2 lanterns for our room to use while we finished getting ready. He apologized about the generator. We found out later that the rain had damaged one of the power lines,  but it was replaced and the power was up when we returned from the game drive. 

The plan was to make it back in time for breakfast at the camp, which started at 9:30 a.m. We met Kinanta and James at 5:30 a.m. and we were on our way again! On the way, we saw many animals, including a mama giraffe and her baby. Mom was sleeping (I'd never seen a giraffe lying down) and seemed kind of irked at us for waking her up. We had another great day at the reserve and took tons of photos. I will upload when we return to DC.  We got back to the reserve just before our 9:30 a.m. breakfast. We watched the hippos again, as our table was outside again. Weather permitting, you eat all your meals outside, overlooking the river. 

Wednesday was our rest day, so we took a nap after breakfast and then it was time for lunch. We had lunch and just lounged the rest of the day in our tent until it was time for dinner. I took a bath in the outside tub. I didn't see any hippos, but I could see the river. We had to eat dinner that night inside one of the restaurants since it was raining. We met up with Kinanta that night at the bar and had a drink. We talked for a little while with him, Oscar the bartender and a German woman traveling on her own. Again, we didn't stay up too late since our wake up call was at 7 a.m.

Thursday morning we had our breakfast and then went on the all day game drive. The German woman, Astrid, joined us for part of it. We had to drop her after lunch at the air strip to catch her 1:40 p.m. flight. Lunch was awesome: a picnic inside the game reserve. We spread out a few blankets and ate the boxed lunches from the camp. I've never had a better picnic! We had an amazing game drive that day: we saw 7 cheetahs! We first saw 2 males, maybe brothers, on the hunt. They attempted to take down an impala, but Kinanta laughed and said no way could they catch that. And he was right. It was so cool to see the stalking and the chase though. A little while later we saw a mom cheetah and her 3 young cubs. She was teaching them how to hunt. We didn't see her catch anything either, though. Mark was very disappointed. :) The only 2 things we didn't see over our 3 days of game driving were the black rhino and the leopard. But, we were extremely lucky to have seen the cheetah, especially so many of them. They really are beautiful. 

We went on a small game drive around the air strip, while killing time before our flight. We got to the air strip at about 3:15 p.m. Our flight was at 4 p.m. We waited and waited and finally at 4:30 p.m., our plane arrived. However, there was also a storm forming in the direction we were headed. There's no air traffic control tower, so the pilot made a few phone calls asking what the weather was in different parts of the Mara. This heightened my fear of flying into a storm on a tiny plane. Oh and I heard him say that the plane we were on was not equipped with windshield wipers. Great. After a 30 minute wait, we took off into the storm. It was bumpy, but not as bumpy as I'd expected. Mark and I weren't seated together but we both admitted later that we were scared s***less. We flew for about 10 minutes to the first and only stop over. After that, we were seated together, as some people got off there. The 45 minute flight was fine since the storm had passed. We hit a little more rain, but nothing serious. 

Overall, our trip to the Mara was amazing! We had such great guides, Kinanta and James, who seemed to enjoy the game drives as much as we did. They'd often argue in Swahili about which direction to go, how to drive, etc. It was never heated, but you could tell that Kinanta was calling the shots. And James was great; so quiet and soft spoken. But you could tell he loved driving around in the mud by the huge grin he'd get on his face when we went through a particularly muddy trail.  I highly recommend going on safari in the Mara and staying at Camp Maratimbo.