MAISAI MARA

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.

The Maisai Mara is at the top and the Serengeti below

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.

AFRICA – AUGUST 2015

This was a trip of a lifetime. Nancy and I had talked of going to Africa on a Safari like trip for years … now we went. As I discussed earlier, we are not into big tours or big cities so we wanted to do this, more or less on our own, but with help. We booked our trip through Kensington Tours (you can find them on the internet) with the help of a couple of their travel experts.

Where We Wanted to Go

Rather than load all the pictures and narrative into one post I am going to split this trip up into several portions. I think that will allow them to load easier and faster and be easier to read. There will be pictures and more narrative in each of the subsections. It is difficult to comprehend how big Africa really is so I present this map, in which everything is to the same scale, as an aid to help understand.

Africa on Scale … Big as The U.S., China, India, and Most of Europe all Put Together!!

Our trip took us from our home in Florida to Nairobi, Kenya via France. From Nairobi we traveled by a Safari Vehicle out into the Maisai Mara which can best be described as a huge grassland area somewhat like our Great Plains in the Western U.S.

From the Maisai Mara in Kenya we crossed into Tanzania which hosts the Serengeti (which more people are familiar with). After saying Good-Bye to our Guide from Kenya, we processed through the border and entered Tanzania we met our Serengeti Guide. Each country licenses its own guides and to keep their people employed, they do not allow guides from other countries to work in theirs. Consequently, even with the same company, we switched guides. This was not bad thing and both guides were excellent. They did offer different ideas, opinions, beliefs, and stories so we enjoyed them all.

From Tanzania we flew, over Mount Kilimanjaro, to Zimbabwe where checked into the Royal Livingstone Hotel by Victoria Falls. We spent two days in Zimbabwe and Zambia touring the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls and traveled down river to Botswana and spent several days touring the Chobe National Reserve. While there we also crossed briefly into Namibia.

The Maisai Mara, The Serengeti, and The Chobe all were incredibly populated with animals. No cages, no bars, no barriers, they were just there, right in front of you … living, hunting, playing, killing, sleeping … it was incredible. From Botswana we flew to Cape Town, South Africa to end our Safari trip to Africa. We spent several days in Cape town and then flew out to Johannesburg and connected to a direct flight to Atlanta and home.

Where We Went

So now you have the outline of our trip. Please select Nairobi, The Maisai Mara, The Serengeti, Victoria Falls, Chobe National Reserve, and Cape Town posts to get the details and see the pictures. Thanks.