Dec. 31, 2021 - New Year’s Eve in the Masai Mara
The last day of the year 2021 began for us again early in the morning at 5:30am. In the night it had rained heavily, so that we did not make ourselves large hopes regarding the sunrise at first. Nevertheless, we met again as scheduled at 6:15 am with Caleb at the car and went in search of a motive.
Surprisingly, the morning sky still colored very nicely, so that a sunrise worth seeing was to be expected again. For lack of other available suitable foreground motifs, an acacia tree had to serve again. But this time at least with some wildlife: a bird sitting in the top of the tree. After Caleb had shuffled around with the LandCruiser at my request (“please 10m back, no, again 2m forward…”), I could then place it exactly in front of the solar disk.
Then we went on, first of all back to the lions. Initially, we observed a lioness with 2 cubs, which played extensively with each other. It was very nice to be able to follow the hustle and bustle of the three from a close distance. Finally real action scenes again 🙂 .
Later we heard that the leopardess from the previous day had been spotted again in the same place. We therefore drove there again and found her lying in the grass again:
Unfortunately, we had only a short opportunity to observe her. Already a few minutes after our arrival she got up, disappeared in the bushes and was not seen again. We also saw the reason why she had come back to the place: in the branches of a tree she had created a pantry, as leopards like to do. There we saw the remains of an antelope hanging. So high up in the branches, other predators like lions or hyenas can’t reach their prey. Apparently it had just had breakfast….
That was, as we then also thought, a really good idea. We therefore left the scene and looked for a shady place for our breakfast. After the rain of the night the ground was completely soaked, so that our LandCruiser looked accordingly muddy. But Caleb didn’t mind, he just covered the dirt on the hood with a blanket. A Massai couple passing by on a motorcycle watched us with interest:
Sated from breakfast, we continued our trip. There was again a lot to see from the bird world - a ground hornbill, a secretary bird as well as a large martial eagle:
Around noon we were back at the camp. Caleb left us now and drove up to Amboseli National Park with our LandCruiser. We will follow tomorrow at noon by plane. Caleb will then pick us up there for the rest of the trip. So this afternoon and tomorrow morning we will be accompanied by a guide from the camp: John, also called Charlie-Boy.
Afternoon program
After lunch we secured the pictures again and relaxed. At 4:00 pm we met Charlie-Boy at his vehicle.
First we went again to a large pride of lions. They had killed a buffalo. At the group we met again the one-eyed lioness and could observe from close up how she suckles her 4 cubs:
Later we also saw the relatively freshly killed buffalo. It was not a pretty sight: The left half of the head was already pitted, the skull was exposed, the left eye was missing. Apparently, from the lion’s point of view, these are the goodies.
I will spare us a picture of this here. But if you really want to see it, here it is.
The weather became increasingly worse again, the sky was gray and covered, so this time we returned to the camp without sunset photos. There was actually “business as usual” despite New Year’s Eve. We enjoyed our Gin-Tonic at the campfire, then we had a barbecue. Unfortunately indoors, as it looked like rain again. After dinner, we sat around the campfire with our first bottle of Moët Chandon. Later it started to rain and we moved into the bar tent.
All the other guests in the camp had already gone to bed early, so we toasted alone at midnight with our second bottle of Champagne. The Maasai in the camp then sang to it. That was really very nice - cheers to 2022!
At 0:50 we were finally in bed. But don’t pretend to be tired: tomorrow we’ll start again early anyway!