Maasai Mara Safari

Danny:

On Tuesday evening we got back from our 3 day Safari to Maasai Mara. It was incredible! We were picked up at the orphanage by our guide and went to the park, which is about 4 hours from here (much do to the fact that there are many stretches of dirt road). We met our friends Angie and Ashley (other volunteers) who had gone on a trip to Lake Victoria. There they were able to meet Barack Obama’s grandmother. Needless to say, I was a bit jealous. Evidently, she still lives in the small farming village that she always has (which the girls described as being similar to Makuyu where we are), but her house has been built up a bit and there is a security guard there for obvious reasons. However, they met Barack’s aunt and grandmother, staying there for a couple hours, enjoying conversation and food.

Anyways, we then went on to Maasai Mara to check into our camp. The Maasai people (more later) are a tribe of animal herders, famous for their colorful garments and strong warrior tradition. They operate the camp we stayed at. The accommodations were tents on a concrete platform, with flushing toilets and hot showers (except for the second night when an elephant kicked our water hose). The camp was just outside the gates of the park, so it was an easy drive each day to the park. The four of us and our driver would basically drive around the park in a van with an open top looking for wildlife. And we could get very close. I’ll let the pictures tell the story of our 2 day game drive (and we have much more where this came from, including videos)…

Here we came across 4 cheetahs off a fresh catch. One of the hardest to find in the park, we were fortunate to find this group because of some circling vultures. 2 would enjoy the feast while the other 2 kept watch for other predators. At one point, 2 of the cheetahs went over to another safari van and lay down to get some shade.

On the Kenya-Tanzania (Serengeti) border

The site of the Wildebeast migration, if you look closely there's a 20 foot crocodile in the background

Colobus monkeys that joined us for lunch. The little punks will steal your food if you aren't careful
Tanzania burns fires at the border to try to prevent the Wildebeasts from migrating into Kenya. Makes no sense to me - 7th natural wonder of the world, fires in your national park, it hasn't been successful in stopping the migration for 50 years, polution, etc. etc.
The start of the migration

This is one of the groups of lions we came across. Here is the king of the jungle and his mate. There were also 3 younger lions in the same area (2 with developing manes). You can only imagine all the lion king references over the trip. Simba= lion in Swahili.

On our way out of the park, we stopped at a Maasai village. Granted, much of the Maasai tradition is focused on tourism now, but many still keep their old ways of life. This Maasai village still supports itself by cattle grazing, but has a nice tourist income on the side. We stopped here to experience one of their traditions (that John was especially fond of). As they are nomadic, this isn’t much of an herbivore population. To eat in between cattle slaughters, they mix blood and milk of the cattle for meals. There is much ritual and tradition surrounding this practice – though they were willing to recreate for $20. And let us try…They grabbed a cow, put a belt around its neck and found a strong vein. Then, with a small arrow, they started shooting around the vein. This took a few tries (by few, I mean 20), as they couldn’t get the vein. At this point, the ritual wasn’t all that glamorous – more resembling animal cruelty. Angie and Ashley almost fainted and decided they had enough. After having no success with that cow, they got another one and hit a vein on the 3^rd try. A steady stream of red blood flowed out, which they caught in a canteen like thing. Then, yes, believe it or not, John and I both tried a sip (sorry mom). John had more of a chug and actually burped afterwards (see pic of his blood stained teeth). Overall, pretty gross, but we noted that it resembled a rare steak. We had to try though, right?