Dec. 27, 2021 - Road trip to Masai Mara

After a short night and a good break­fast at the hotel, Caleb, our dri­ver and guide picked us up on time at 7:00 am and we board­ed our safari vehi­cle in which we will spend most of the com­ing days. It is again the proven and for pho­to safaris con­vert­ed Toy­ota Land­Cruis­er, which we already knew very well from our pre­vi­ous tours:

,Kenia
Our Toy­ota Land­Cruis­er con­vert­ed for safaris

Sun­word Safaris rebuilds the vehi­cles (based on the inde­struc­tible four-wheel dri­ve pick-up ver­sion of the Toy­ota Land­Cruis­er). Our Land­Cruis­er had been length­ened and there­fore had 3 rows of seats for the pas­sen­gers. The roof can be raised so that you have a clear view all around. In addi­tion, the side win­dows can be pushed halfway back. We quick­ly arranged the seat­ing as we had done on pre­vi­ous trips. Har­ry and Andrea sat in the front, Simone and I in the mid­dle and Luise had the back seat to her­self. The pho­to back­packs were lying ready to hand in the cen­ter aisle. The main pho­tog­ra­phers (Har­ry, Luise and me) could thus take pic­tures as need­ed on the left or right side.

We were very hap­py to meet Caleb again. We have already been trav­el­ing with him twice before. He is a very com­pe­tent and expe­ri­enced guide who always found opti­mal posi­tions with the car for us to watch the ani­mals. He is also very humor­ous and always in a good mood. We had a lot of fun together.

But now it was time for the long dri­ve to the Masai Mara. On the way to the Masai Mara we crossed the Great Rift Val­ley again, a deep cut in the African con­ti­nent that reach­es from Israel to Mozam­bique. Two con­ti­nen­tal plates are drift­ing apart here and will split Africa in some time. How­ev­er, we will cer­tain­ly not expe­ri­ence this in our lifetime.

Dur­ing a short stopover we already had our first wildlife sighting 🙂 :

The dri­ve was rel­a­tive­ly smooth. By now, the asphalt­ed road to the Masai Mara built by the Chi­nese is ready. On our first trip to the Mara in 2013, we still had to endure the extreme­ly bumpy ride over a dusty buck­le road for 3 hours.

On time for lunch we arrived at the Mara Bush Camp - Pri­vate Wing once again. It was now already our 5th stay here. The camp con­sists of a total of 12 tents for the guests and cen­tral tents for the bar, the restau­rant and a small store. Weath­er per­mit­ting, all meals are served out­side under the open sky.

The guest tents are very large and com­fort­able. They are ele­vat­ed on a wood­en base and have an en suite bath­room with sep­a­rate show­er and toi­let as well as a wide ter­race. From there we had an unob­struct­ed view of the riv­er course with many hip­pos in it. Mean­while, the tents all have elec­tric­i­ty as well and even a mini-bar. At our first stay there was elec­tric­i­ty only in the store tent and hot water for the show­er was only avail­able on order.

We were wel­comed by the camp man­ag­er Steve. Because of the still active Coro­na pan­dem­ic, camp nurse Helen first took our tem­per­a­ture. After­wards we had a refresh­ing Ice Tea and the usu­al camp instruc­tions (“You should not walk alone through the camp at night” etc.). Steve had just been in the camp for 2 weeks and we prob­a­bly knew our way around there bet­ter than he did 😁.

We moved into our beau­ti­ful spa­cious tent - the same as 3 years ago - and felt direct­ly at home again. Final­ly back in Africa, what have we missed this place!

Our tent at Mara Bush Camp - Pri­vate Wing

After we were just in the tent and had put down our lug­gage, we were already expect­ed at lunch. There you must absolute­ly be present in Africa, because oth­er­wise every­one believes that you are feel­ing bad! Our pre­vi­ous camp cook, Obi is not there any­more, but Den­nis and Joseph are. A ful­ly ade­quate replace­ment: The food was again as usu­al very tasty - “tamu sana”.

In the after­noon we went for a first gamedrive. First we found some ele­phants, one posed very nice­ly for a half por­trait, note the long eyelashes:

,Kenia
Ele­phant, Masai Mara, Kenya

An ele­phant cow had a still very small young calf with her, which delight­ed the ladies of the tour group very much:

,Kenia
Baby ele­phant, Masai Mara, Kenya

In very nice light a giraffe and some water­bucks posed for us:

At the end we dis­cov­ered two chee­tahs that actu­al­ly want­ed to hunt. But there were way too many cars around and they did­n’t dare. Caleb said that the two were “migrants” from anoth­er park and not as used to cars as the oth­er chee­tahs in the Mara. They are part­ly so famil­iar with them, that they lie down on the roof of the car, like the famous and unfor­tu­nate­ly already deceased chee­tah Malei­ka, which even made it to movie fame in the meantime.

But even with­out hunt­ing, the beau­ti­ful light of the approach­ing sun­set again result­ed in plen­ty of pho­to­genic scenes:

In all the scram­ble of the many cars around, one hit a sharp branch with the rear tire while dri­ving back­wards. All that could be heard was a loud whoosh and the tire was flat. A cou­ple of guides (Caleb too) then got out in the pres­ence of the two chee­tahs, which ini­tial­ly watched the scene with inter­est, and helped to change the tire. Final­ly, how­ev­er, the chee­tahs walked away and every­one was watch­ing the tire change.

On the oth­er side, the great­est spec­ta­cle could have been, we all would have been com­plete­ly unaware of it. At least we still dis­cov­ered a hye­na, which also want­ed to take a clos­er look at the hus­tle and bus­tle of the bipeds around the tin cans:

Tüpfelhyäne
Spot­ted hye­na, Masai Mara, Kenya

This showed us once again why it is nec­es­sary (and manda­to­ry) to always have spare wheels in the parks. When the change of tires was final­ly fin­ished, the sun had already set, so we made our way back home to the camp in rapid­ly increas­ing darkness.

Always be prepared

Fol­low­ing the safari prin­ci­ple: “always be pre­pared”, I had not yet packed my pho­to equip­ment in the back­packs on the way back, when we noticed anoth­er move­ment in the semi-dark­ness. Short­ly before reach­ing the camp, we actu­al­ly spot­ted a ser­val roam­ing the steppe in search of food. It was already so dark, that we could see the small cat only dim­ly with the naked eye. How­ev­er, I was still able to take some photos.

It’s very amaz­ing to see what cur­rent­ly is still pos­si­ble with a high-sen­si­tiv­i­ty cam­era / lens com­bi­na­tion, even in such low light:

Serval
Ser­val at dusk, Masai Mara, Kenya

Such a pho­to would have been unthink­able just a few years ago. I have once cal­cu­lat­ed the shoot­ing data: The bright­ness cor­re­spond­ed to about 2.5 lux, which is com­pa­ra­ble to the light of 2-3 can­dles from 1m distance!

All in all, I am very sat­is­fied with the yield of our first safari day. That real­ly start­ed off well already!

Evening ritual

The first evening in the Mara end­ed again like almost all evenings in Africa with us: after a Gin-Ton­ic at the camp­fire reflect­ing the events of the day, we enjoyed the excel­lent din­ner with the oblig­a­tory Tusker lager beer and then fell into bed death­ly tired.

Since the nights in the Masai Mara can get very chilly, we were hap­py to find pleas­ant­ly warm hot-water bot­tles in our beds. We slept deeply, it was a real­ly long day!

The alarm clock was set, as always on the fol­low­ing days, at 5:30am, so that we could start after a cof­fee and some cook­ies at 6:15 before sun­rise with Caleb to a first ear­ly morn­ing gamedrive.

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