The Maasai Mara

The Wizard of Oz ruined it for me! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! – That’s what I sang as we made our long drive to the Maasai Mara. But where in the world does one find lions, tigers, and bears in one place!? Certainly not here, so my song made little sense, but got me excited nonetheless!

After waiting around Kikuyu for 1 ½ hours (Kenyan time = be there whenever) we were picked up by Mike, our safari guy and 8 other volunteers. When we finally arrived to the Maasai Mara in the early evening we checked in to these beautiful ‘permanent tent’ accommodations which were rumored to have hot water (yay!) and went off into the game reserve. From the outside, Mike’s van looks like a ratty old truck that’s about to fall apart at any moment. But in fact, it is an incredible, durable, 4-wheeling machine! The van seats 9 people and has a semi-detachable roof that can be raised 3 feet. Therefore, most of our time (8 hours straight) was spent standing up in the van, searching for wildlife.

Within minutes of entering the reserve, there were exclamations of excitement and laughter as we drove by our first herd of zebra! They are simply incredible – although I could say that about everything I’ve seen! We all expressed wonder about how it is possible that nature and evolution has produced an animal with black and white stripes!? But zebras are creative enough to use their stripes as a form of protection – when attacked; a large herd will run in varying directions in an attempt to make the predator dizzy from the moving stripes! As exciting as they are though, by the end of the weekend, no one batted an eye when a zebra was seen as they are one of the more populous animals in the region.

Over the 2 days, we saw… (Drum roll please!) …zebra, warthog, water buffalo, stork, ostrich, leopard, hyena, gazelle, impala, wildebeast, baboon, elephant, giraffe, hippo, crocodile, and last but not least the lion! Our first night we found a female lion feeding on a water buffalo. It was so incredible. Although illegal to go off track in the reserve, Mike got us within 10 feet of the lion so that we were able to hear the flesh as it was ripped from the water buffalo’s body. It was not until day three, though, that we saw a male lion feeding. Somehow there is something far more powerful when a male lion feeds. I believe that is in part because our ‘image’ of a lion is the male – like Simon says – the one with the beard! For me, I struggled to be convinced that I was actually seeing these animals in their natural habitat and not just in a big zoo. You’d be surprised how long it takes for that to truly sink in.

Following our second day in the reserve, we visited a Maasai village. This also, was quite impressive. The Maasai are the traditional, nomadic African people. They wear red blankets for clothing, as they believe the lion is fearful of the color. The lion is their greatest predator and also represents their greatest victories. A young boy, as a rite of passage to enter manhood is required to kill a lion. They do this with a handmade spear. Thereafter, they are considered a man, circumcized and ‘given’ a ‘girlfriend’ until it is their time to marry. When we arrived, the Maasai men danced a traditional dance – used to celebrate the kill of a lion. One attribute that represents a man’s ability is the height at which he can jump. At the end of the dance, the men stood in a line and began hopping up and down. The seemed to be on invisible pogo sticks, based on the height and speed at which they jumped. We were all invited to join, so within minutes, I see this funny looking white boy hopping all over the place, wrapped in a red blanket! There was my Simon! As the men jumped straight up and down, Si often landed 2 feet from where he took off, which made it all the more entertaining! The women then danced a welcome dance before we entered the compound. Once within, we were shown how the Maasai make fire with nothing but sticks and grass, and then given a tour of their huts. The huts are made entirely of dirt, cow dung, and urine. Inside, it is broiling hot, as the cooking fire is kept lit inside the tiny hut for many hours of the day. They also sleep on tough, hard, cow skins that are rumored to all but break a muzungu’s (white person) back after one night of sleeping.


We spent 2 nights in the Maasai Mara and after getting up early to watch the sunrise on Sunday (breathtaking), we set off for Lake Nakuru, one of the Rift Valley Lakes, for a night. Among other things, Lake Nakuru is known for its flamingos. I’m talking thousands of pink flamingos wading on the shore of the lake. Apparently the flamingos are attracted to the abundance of algae found in the lake. The only animal we failed to see in the Maasai Mara was the rhino, but we successfully saw both the white and black rhino at the lake. Lake Nakuru is in a very beautiful and lush part of the country, where they still get rain showers daily. And what a difference it makes – there were rolling hills with green grasses, healthy livestock and fields of beautiful crops! Here at Maddison, the grasses are dried out and dead, the cows are dying of starvation, and the crops have missed harvest time and are dead as well. The disparity was so great that we were certain we had left Kenya and arrived in a tropical and lush new country!

The drive to Lake Nakuru had its own excitement, though. Forty minutes outside of the town, Mike suddenly came to a screeching halt in the middle of the road. In a fury, everyone who had seen why Mike had stopped, jumped out of the van and ran over to the side of the road, where a man, probably in his late 20s, was lying in a ditch, unconscious, bleeding from the mouth, and eyes, with his motorcycle lying in the road. Luckily, one of the volunteers traveling with us is a paramedic, so she took the lead and was able to bring him back to semi-consciousness (after 15mins). We attempted to call the police many times, but the rural parts of the country have no efficient system and the phone just rang and rang. We stopped cars as they were driving by, asking them to go to the nearest hospital for an ambulance, and to our great shock, many declined, stating the hospital was too far. In the end, we worked as a group, found an old broken tire to use as a bed, rolled him unto it (still coming in and out of consciousness), stuck him in a car and took him to the nearby hospital. We have no idea what ultimately happened to him but when we left him he had regained semi-consciousness. This spooked everyone out and we were so thankful that we had a paramedic with us. Based on the reaction of those driving by, we can only imagine what would have happened had we not been passing by.

We got back on Monday evening tired, but happy to see the children after 4 days away. All in all, the weekend was great – there was never a dull moment! We were glad to get out and see a bit more of Kenya, and the safari itself was far better than we could have imagined.