Walking with the Maasai and other adventures
As they stumbled along the road towards the Maasai Mara, they heard a low-flying helicopter. This was the first day of Di and Leonie’s safari and a Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) helicopter was taking an elephant back to the park. What an exciting way to start your week in Kenya! This post talks about his June safari through the Maasai Mara, Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivasha and Amboseli.
Upon arrival, they spent the first night at Wildebeest Eco Camp, located in the quiet and green suburb of Karen, south-west Nairobi. Rested and refreshed, they headed for the Maasai Mara the next day. It was on this trip to Kenya’s main game reserve that they saw the KWS helicopter leading a stray elephant back to the park boundaries. Human-wildlife conflict is a constant challenge for conservationists in Kenya and elephants can be particularly destructive in a crop field, which can result in retaliation from the community whose crops have been destroyed. So it is imperative to keep the elephants in the safety of the park to avoid such a conflict.
They entered the park and enjoyed a game drive as they made their way to the Aruba camp, where they would spend the next two nights. During their time in the Maasai Mara game reserve, they saw a leopard with its dinner, a Thomson’s gazelle, which it had dragged up the tree. They also saw a leopard tortoise, a marshall eagle, herds of buffalo, black-throated rollers (Kenya’s national bird), giraffes, elephants, topis, hyenas, lions, ostrich and a viper. On their full day safari, they enjoyed a picnic lunch in the middle of the savannah. Before leaving the Maasai Mara, they visited a Maasai village, which was a longer walk than planned, showing that the Maasai definition of “not far” might be a bit different than the Australian definition.
Lake Nakuru National Park
The next stop was Lake Nakuru National Park. They spent two nights a few kilometers from the park in a camp called Punda Milias (“Zebra” in Kiswahili). More buffaloes here and rhinos too! Makalia Falls, at the southern end of the park, gushed down as June ended the rainy season.
A short drive brought them to Lake Naivasha, where they spent a night at Camp Carnelleys. The excitement here was a break! The monkeys entered her room while they were out.
Finally, they went to Kibo Camp, for two nights in the Amboseli National Park. Flamingos were in abundance at Lake Amboseli, which doesn’t look much like a lake in the dry season, so seeing flamingos here is quite special.
Being the admin girl, I don’t often meet our guests, even though I usually spend many months emailing us planning their safari. So if there is an excuse to pick up or drop off at the airport or something similar, I don’t care. This time it was a camera case and battery left in the vehicle. Di and Leonie had gone to Tanzania and were flying back to Nairobi and then home. So during their transit, I went to the airport to try to deliver the items. It was a bit like a mission and it was nice that they had several hours to kill. I was passed from one pillar to another until an immigration officer told me that Di and Leonie would have to talk nicely to the immigration officers inside to allow them to come out to meet me. I almost gave up hope, but then Leonie found me wandering outside the terminal! Surprisingly it had worked. With the battery delivered, we headed home… a journey significantly different from the other, no doubt reflecting the significant differences in the adventure each had just experienced.