2 days in Maasai Mara National Reserve, Part II

PART I

Second day in Maasai Mara National Reserve and the full day safari is starting now, with lots of magical scenes of the savanna and many pleasant surprises. During the early morning departure the temperature is still low, as the park is located at an elevation of about 1500-2100m above sea level. Our aim today is to meet as many animals as possible, hoping mainly for the “Big Five” (lion, leopard, African elephant, African buffalo and black rhinoceros), as well as witnessing the great migration of animals from Tanzania to Kenya via the Mara river. 

Leaving our lodge behind, we are passing by small villages of the Maasai tribe and witnessing the everyday life of the locals: women doing the laundry in small creeks and their cattle eating in nearby areas full of trash. Unfortunately, in rural Kenya, the words cleanliness and recycling do not exist. We are leaving the inhabited areas, entering deeper and deeper into the vast savanna! Uncountable gnus, antelopes of all kinds, ostriches, zebras and carcasses are our first sights of this spectacular landscape. An African buffalo drinking water from a small creek, and then, a herd!

There we go, checked the first of the Big 5!!

The next encounter is even better!

Checking the 2nd of the Big 5!! A herd of lazy lions sleeping under the shadow of some of the few savanna trees while we are slowly approaching them with our van. The big one is just watching for a while, and then is falling asleep again: “do not disturb the King!”. A younger one nearby, is staring a bit, giving us the time to shoot a couple of photos.

Next stop, the Mara river. Amongst the animals we came across our tour, 3 beautiful cheetahs hiding inside the dense bushes. Warthogs, gazelles, antelopes, ostriches, weird birds, huge baboons, beautiful giraffes, and the list is endless. We finally reached the famous Mara river hoping to witness the amazing animal crossing. However, the animals did not do us the favor (more here).

The African savanna, however, surprised us once more, probably so as to compensate for the previous disappointing experience at the Mara river. A lonesome cheetah was lazily wandering around a herd of gnus, getting ready for the attack. But as more and more vans approached (the drivers communicate via wireless transceivers when they spot a predator), our friend went off and, to our big surprise, approached us even more with no fear. At first, he lied down under the shadow of the one and only tree in the whole area, and then he climbed to observe the surroundings. It didn’t look very motivated to hunt at the moment, even though there were lots of gnus and zebras nearby. When it decided to move again, it walked in front of us without even caring about our presence, and left towards the opposite direction to the zebras. We were waiting for his attack, but as it was too lazy and finally fell asleep, we had to move on. 

Unfortunately, you need a lot of time and patience to witness a cheetah hunting scene. But even if we didn’t come across such an action, our photos and videos were still magnificent:

While continuing our safari in the vast savanna, we encountered even more animals:

– Checked the next of the Big 5: the enormous African elephants.  Countless families with their young ones were found everywhere. 

– a hidden leopard, which I hardly saw with the binoculars through some trees, but I was not able to take a photo

– families of warthogs (this specific species of pigs eats in a unique manner: as their necks are too short, they have to bend their front legs to reach the grasses on the ground, which are the main ingredient of their diet)

– families of huge baboons, hippos, zebras, antelopes and impalas (a species of African antelope), along with numerous different species of birds

Unfortunately, we were not able to watch the sunset today, as it was a bit cloudy. So we returned to our lodge tired but also happy for a full day adventure in the African savanna! We spent the night relaxing and having fun with the Maasai warriors’ dance.