The next day we were picked up by our Safari Guide in Nairobi, we left town and drove out to the Maisai Mara. As I mentioned earlier, the Maisai Mara is a huge grassland that is home to millions of animals. Many of them come and go with the rains as they drift between the Maisai Mara in Kenya and the Serengeti in Tanzania. They follow the rains because the rains make the grass grow and they have food to eat. Not all of them eat grass; the Gnus or Wildebeasts, the Zebras, the elephants, and the Cape Buffalo all eat the grass but the Lions, Leopards, Cheetahs eat the afore mentioned grass eaters … everyone moves in what is called the Great Migration. Here is a map showing the movement.
We were fortunate as the migration was just arriving in the North. It is amazing to see them all moving … millions of Wildebeasts and Zebras moving in lines, groups, and herds. I felt like I was seeing what the great Bison herds in America’s West must of looked like before we killed them all. Anyhow, our guide drove most of the day to get us to our first camp. Interesting drive with the city, road, and landscape going from modern, to rugged, to natural. Here’s the trip:
Along the way we crossed a ridge and there was this huge valley that stretched out in front of us. Our guide said it was the Great Rift which extends from Africa all the way up into Turkey.
FROM WIKIPEDIA: The Great Rift Valley is a series of contiguous geographic trenches, approximately 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) in total length, that runs from the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon in Asia to Mozambique in southeastern Africa.[1] While the name continues in some usages, it is rarely used in geology as it is considered an imprecise merging of separate though related rift and fault systems. Today, the term is most often used to refer to the valley of the East African Rift, the divergent plate boundary which extends from the Afar Triple Junction southward across eastern Africa, and is in the process of splitting the African Plate into two new separate plates. Geologists generally refer to these incipient plates as the Nubian Plate and the Somali Plate.
Here’s what it looks like:
The road got worse, we started seeing “African Animals” and we finally arrived at our camp. A cabin that was part wall and part tent surrounded by roaming wild game, and, because it was located on top of a small mountain, hosted tremendous views.
We stayed there several days and made trips out into the Maisai Mara looking for game and whatever. Our Guide was excellent and taught us a great deal. His goal was to show us “The Big Five” (Lions, Leopards, Elephants, Rhinoceros, and Cape Buffalo). These five are what all the big game hunters want … we just took pictures and by the second day we had seen all five, plus millions more. In the camp you were not allowed to walk alone at night. Wild animals roamed freely and you could easily bump into an elephant or a Lion. If you needed to go to another location you called the main office and they sent a Maisai Warrior to escort you. The Masai are the last of the original Warrior tribes in this region and are famous for their bravery.
A Couple comments about the Migration, The Crossings, the Croc’s and the trip. I described the migration earlier. It is frequently featured on TV explorer shows. The crossings are interesting as the animals (Wildebeasts and Zebras) will cross a river and go right back across a couple ours later. They know the Crocs are there cuz you can see them watching for them. It’s kind of like a “Double Dog Dare Ya’ game … and the losers really lose bad. The croc’s are huge, getting up to between 15 and 20 feet long. They grab one of the animals and drag them under and hold them there till they drown. Then they pile them up out of the current to be consumed later. They just keep grabbing one animal at a time and going back for more. The trip was vastly interesting. As the migration was in Kenya we saw the most animals there. As I mentioned, our guide was wonderful and had all kinds of stories and experiences he shared with us. We booked this tour as a tour for two. Just Nancy and I and the guide … no pesky questions by people who weren’t listening, no wait for a rude group member who can’t tell time, no chatter. It was great and the only way to go.