Safari to Africa Part II - Kenya

The Masai Mara is actually the Kenyan portion of what is traditionally considered the Serengeti plains. Only the National Park in Tanzania retains the Serengeti name. If you've seen "Out of Africa" then you're familiar with the Masai Mara. Most of it was filmed there. It is primarily open country with occasional hills and small groupings of trees and bushes. It has permanent springs that support a vast array of animas year-round including thousands of gazelle, topi, impala, zebra and cape buffalo. The resident population is invaded once a year by hundreds of thousands of animals who are seeking green grass and water during the dry season.

Fortunately, we visited the Masai Mara when the vast herds were arriving. We missed the big herds by two weeks when we stayed in the Seronera portion of the Serengeti. The sight was absolutely incredible once you realized what it was. From a distance the terrain just appeared to be fairly rocky. As you approached the area you realized that the "rocks" were moving. It was actually thousands and thousands of wildebeest and zebra migrating northward from Tanzania. In the Masai Mara you definitely get the feeling that the place is a circus. There are too many minivans with too many tourists. When a lion or cheetah could be found there would invariably be ten or more minivans around them. When looking towards the horizon you can usually see a number of minivans kicking up dust as they race across the plains in search of game. If you wanted to find the animals all you had to do is look for the concentration of minivans. At one point there was a group of ten to fifteen vans around two poor cheetahs that were trying to take their afternoon nap in the grass.

We saw our third set of mating lions in the Masai Mara. These two were right out in the middle of a field. They did it with fifty plus people watching from a slew of minivans. After they did their thing we went in search of other game. They were at it again when we passed by them later. In the late afternoon we spotted the lioness dragging dinner, a dead Thompson gazelle, back to the male lion who was taking a nap in the bushes.

Balloon Safari

One of the highlights of the trip was my sunrise hot air balloon safari over the Masai Mara. I had been considering it for quite some time but ended up deciding at the last minute. It cost $250 for a 55 minute ride. It was worth it for a once in a lifetime opportunity to float over the mass migration of wildebeests and zebras.

We arrived, just before sunrise, at a clearing about a mile from the lodge to find two balloons being prepared for flight. The ground crew had already laid out the balloons in the field and had started to fill them. The show started when they lit the burner for the flame blower. It was as if a flame thrower was attached to a jet engine. The balloon started to rise very quickly as the hot air was blown in. Prior to lift off we were given general instructions on what we could and couldn't do while airborne. We also practiced a landing routing for the anticipated rough landing. The basked itself was rather big. It could accommodate twelve people plus the pilot. The pilots of both balloons were Americans from Texas. They worked as contractors for the Kenyan balloon company. While airborne we could see the large herds of wildebeests and zebras to either side of us. It was interesting to observe that they migrate in fairly straight lines following the leader. We didn't pass directly over them but we didn't need to. Floating at 100 to 300 feet provided a good vantage point for game viewing. From the air we saw elephant, buffalo, giraffe, lion, zebra, topi, wildebeest, hartebeest, gazelle, impala and ostrich. At a small watering hole we saw three adult female lions along with two your cubs. There was a bit of haze caused by smoke in the air that reduced our long range viewing. The smoke is due to the burning of grass in Tanzania which is done to encourage fresh growth during the rainy season.

The ride was very smooth and generally quiet except for when the burner was fired up. The landing was slightly rough (a crash) as the basket touched down while we were still moving. The basket almost tipped over a couple of times but we ended up upright. After the landing we were served a champagne breakfast in a clearing cut by the landing crew.

Masai Tribe

While venturing around the countryside in both Kenya and Tanzania you see many Masai people. The Masai is one of the few tribes in Africa that has kept it's cultural heritage intact (almost). They fit the typical image of tribal people wearing toga like robes and colorful beaded jewelry. For protection they carry swords and long spears. The Masai are basically nomads that tend large herds of cattle. Traditionally, they were truly nomadic, moving their herds and homes as they saw fit. Today, most Masai establish a home base from which their cattle are moved as necessary between the wet and dry seasons. The need to roam about is directly tied to the availability of food for their live stock.

Masai life revolves around the cattle and goats. The livestock provides their income, meat and milk. The cattle are a sign of wealth. With large herds they need many children to take car of the livestock and have multiple wives to bear them. The children start taking care of the goats shortly after they learn to walk and eventually graduate to tending cattle when 5 or 6 years old. We saw many instances of very young children taking care of several dozen cows. They have a few disgusting habits (by our standards) including preserving milk by curdling it with a little cattle urine. They also drink blood from bulls or oxen when milk is in short supply. The blood is obtained by shooting a blunt arrow in the jugular vein and filling a gourd. On our last day in the Masai Mara we visited a Masai village. The driver negotiated the price for our tour. It ended up costing us seven dollars each which is a lot of money for the Masai. The village boundary was a ring of thorny bushes. All the homes, called manyattas, can be found along the perimeter leaving a large area in the middle for their cattle. The cattle are brought into the village from time to time for protection. The ground in the village was a mine field covered with large piles of cow shit and there were flies everywhere. The flies drove me nuts. They were constantly flying in my face and landing on my arms and legs. It's very distracting to take a picture with flies landing on you! I did take some pictures of Masai with flies all over them.

Our trip back to Nairobi from the Masai Mara was the worst road I've ever been on. It was a paved road, built by the Italians, that climbs up the side of the Rift Valley. The road didn't have pot holes, it had craters. I hit my head on the ceiling of the van a couple of times while bouncing off the seat. One the dirt road that preceded this fine example of Italian engineering, the driver was going up to 130kph (over 80mph)!

Amboseli

At the base of famed Mt. Kilimanjaro is Amboseli National Park in Kenya. If you have ever seen the definitive safari pictures of elephants with Kilimanjaro in the background then you've seen the view from Amboseli. Kilimanjaro is actually in Tanzania but the view of the mountain is generally much better from the Kenyan side. Even the Kenyan view is often obstructed by clouds. On the day that we were there you could see the entire mountain for only about two hours (8 to 10am). There was a halo-like ring of clouds around the top of the mountain for the rest of the day. It was a strange sight since they were about the only clouds in the sky. The drive in Amboseli was on an extremely bumpy and dusty road. many sections of the road had been washed away by heavy rains during the wet season. This is where we set our five bounce record from one bump in the road. The drive relieved that if you drove too slowly then you would feel all the bumps. Thus it was better to maintain speed and bypass some of them. The amount of dust was incredible. It came in even with the windows and doors closed. It was a very fine volcanic dust courtesy of the now dormant volcano, Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Amboseli is one of the busiest game parks in Africa. It's primary draw is Kilimanjaro but is also convenient to those people that go on vacation to the Indian Ocean beaches and want only a short safari as an excursion. The park contains both swamps and desert. The start contrast between the two was amazing. The swamps almost appear to be mirages when you're in the desert sections of the park. Each swamp is an oasis in the middle of the dust bowls. We stayed in the oasis of the Amboseli Serena Lodge. The lodge was the nicest during my two week trip. It had beautiful bungalows that overlooked the flood-lit grazing areas or Kilimanjaro, depending on which room you were in.

Both the morning and afternoon game drives were fantastic. A vast array of animals were seen in a beautiful scenic environment. I bagged my shot of the elephant and Kilimanjaro in the background. I was also able to get some good shots of wildebeests and zebras with their images reflecting in the water as they drank. In the afternoon we saw a freshly killed wildebeest. The lion was taking a nap under a nearby bush while her meal cooked in the hot sun for a while. From Amboseli we drove northward to the equator. At the equator we were shown an interesting demonstration of the earth's rotation around it's axis. The demonstration was done using a bucket with a hole in the bottom. The bucket was filled with water and tooth pick were floated on top so you could observe the water rotation as it drained. It was fascinating to observe that water drains clockwise when north of the equator, counterclockwise when to the south and has no rotation while draining right on the equator. The distance from the equator where rotation started was as little as 10-15 feet to either side!

Samburu

The Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserve was the northern most stop on our journey. Both reserves are at the edges of bone dry deserts on either side of the Usao Nyiro river. If you saw the movie "The Air Up There" you have seen the Samburu area and it's people. It is one of the few places in Africa where you'll see the rare Grevy's zebra and reticulated giraffe. Both have much more distinctive markings than the common zebra or giraffe. The narrow stripes of the Gravy's zebra can make you dizzy if you stare at a herd of them. They appear to be an optical illusion.

The game viewing in Samburu was little disappointing after being in Tanzania and Amboseli. We had to drive around quite a bit to see a variety of animals. We did spot a few lions, elephant and leopard in addition to the usual animals. The leopard we saw was exquisite. It was laying in the grass guarding over it's freshly killed rabbit. The afternoon was rather entertaining with a mini van getting stuck next to a pride of sleeping lions. The van had broken the park regulations by going off the defined roadway to get closer to the lions. Some of the other drivers "snuck" over to try to free the van but they didn't stay long. You should've seen those suckers run back to their vans when the lions started to wake up! Unfortunately my view was partially blocked by a bush or I would have taken some pictures of them. The stuck van and its occupants were basically abandoned until a 4-wheel drive could be sent to pull them out.

Treetops

Treetops is the original tree hotel. It's the place where Elizabeth of England entered as a princess and left as a queen. She was staying there the night her father died and left her queen. The hotel itself is up on stilts amongst the trees overlooking salt licks and a watering hole. The game viewing was quite good starting in the late afternoon and into the night under floodlights. The atmosphere is a bit touristy but it encourages prolonged observation of the animals. You can't just drive off in search of something new and exciting. It forces you to watch the behavior of the animals.

While at Treetops we closely observed elephants, waterbuck, cape buffalo, baboon, warthog and even a black rhino. You could move to various observation posts within the hotel to get a closer look at the animals as they moved around. My favorite was an enclosure that allowed me to be at eye level with the animals from 10 to 20 feet away. From there I could observe the elephant and rhino digging up the dirt that contained salt with their prized tusks and horns. They would then eat the dirt to absorb the salt. One of the elephants that showed up had a 4 to 6 week old baby with it. The cute infant spent most of the time standing under the protective mother.

The rhino appeared after midnight. The lookouts went around knocking on all the doors yelling "rhino" to wake people up. I dragged myself out of bed and went in search of rhino. The elusive creature kept disappearing into the dark. People were rushing from one lookout point to another to find it. After teasing us for a while it finally settled into it's routine of digging up salt and drinking from the watering hole. During this time, a bush baby which is a cute little fuzzy creature, snuck into the lounge. It was going from table to table sampling all the drinks people had left when they went on their rhino expedition. I was able to get some extreme closeups (about 3 feet) of the bush baby with it's head buried in various glasses.

Recommendations

A safari is certainly a once in a lifetime experience that any (adventurous) photographer should partake in. If I were to do it again I would spend more time in Tanzania since the game was more abundant and easier to view. Kenya has a lot more tourists. I took a safari that was geared to Joe Tourist. If you are interested I would recommend checking with the photo safari tours that advertise in "Outdoor Photographer" and "Outdoor and Travel Photography". One thing I didn't take which I wouldn't go back without is surgical masks for the long dusty rides. You should take a can of compressed air and lens cleaning material. Avoid changing lenses as the dust will flood into an open body. You're better off taking at least one extra body to minimize lens swaps. Take lots of film!!! I shot 45 rolls in two weeks and could have easily shot much more. As I always say, "Film is Cheap" especially when compared to going back and taking a picture over again.