Safari Day 1 - Heading Outback

Ok, so it's not THE outback, but the Masai Mara is Kenya's version of it. The Masai Mara Reserve is in the south western corner of the country. The park borders Tanzania's Serengetti planes. The park is nestled in on the western side of the Great Rift Valley (dig for your high school geography book for that on) and is famous as the backdrop for the final stages of the annual wildebeest migration.

The park is about 5 hours drive from Nairobi. I was picked up by the driver/guide, or in the local lingo drivaguide at about 7am so that we could arrive for lunch. The road out was pretty good, though in places there were more patches than original tarmac and the last 50km was dirt - no big deal. Apparently, the whole thing was supposed to be paved in the good old days, but the last 50km worth went kick backs. Things are better these days, and the road is being slowly improved. We passed though a variety of landscapes on the way. Firstly, there was the mist of the range west of Nairobi, before dropping down the dramatic escarpment to the floor of the Rift Valley. After, of course the obligatory stop at a lookout and trip through an overpriced souvenir shop.

On the way, we passed through Narok, the main Masai town and the last major outpost before the park. The town has a frontier town feel about it. This was aided by the fact that the main street is under repair and, as such, it is currently a heavily pocked dirt road, spewing dust on the ramshackle collection of shops, cars and mini mini-van taxis (they look like a mini-van but smaller!). The only things to remain clean seemed to be the chrome encrusted motorbike taxis that congregated in the shade of the few available trees, and many of the people, who remained immaculately dressed in a mix of modern and traditional Masai costume. It seems like a place with big plans that just don't quite come off. Like the grandly named Narok Stadium which is no more than a decrepit wooden shack of a stand with a slight southerly lean, overlooking a bare dirt football (soccer) pitch with rough cut tree branches passing for goals.

After arriving at our camp there was time to eat lunch and have a quick kip before it was off to the park for a late afternoon game drive for a couple of hours. It was worth the trip even after just these few hours. We saw a lioness resting after a kill. Unfortunately, she had killed a cow, so she will be in trouble with the local Masai herdsmen and will have to watch her back. This, despite the fact that the Masai are not supposed to be grazing their stock in the park. I think the local rangers turn a blind eye to this, especially at the moment as there is a drought on and everything outside the park has been grazed to a dust bowl. We also saw elephants and giraffe grazing, and even a cheater family lazing around. That's not to mention zebra, wildebeest, and countless gazelle, impala and other grazing animals. And all this within 5km of the gate.

The other beast that seemed to be thriving in the area was the tourist hauling minibus - me included of course. I found myself often watching this peculiar herd so that I think I could now put together a short David Attenborough style doco on it's habits (read the following in your best impersonation). The herd starts by dispersing widely across the valley in search of "prey", stopping often for it's belly full of camera toting tourists to gorge on the sight of different animals. This continues until one of the herd lets out a "big cat call" (ie the two way radio starts buzzing about the sighting of a lion, leopard, or cheater). The herd then stampedes to the the sighting like vultures descending on a fresh carcass, and crowd around the hapless creatures with a whir of cameras and excited exclamations. The cats usually resign them selves to laying down and hoping the herd will move on, because there's no chance of catching game when shadowed by twenty minivans.

Here are the safari pics - I've tried to cut them down!