Kenya Part 1: Safari in the Masai Mara

I consider Africa my second home and last month Jason and I were finally able to share an experience there together!  One of my former colleagues is the Senior Medical Advisor & Regional Coordinator for Africa at CMMB and he was kind enough to set Jason up to volunteer at a hospital just outside of Nairobi.  Meanwhile, I did some volunteer work for Touch a Life Africa Mission.  Of course, no pre-travel plans have ever remained the same in Africa and upon our arrival we discovered that no operations would take place at the hospital over the Easter weekend.  We promptly switched our safari plans and after only two days of work, we were seeing the untouched parts of Kenya.  It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, not to mention an incredible anniversary weekend!

Our tiny plane shoved about a dozen people into an extremely tight space.  This was my view.

As we landed, we were able to see some views of the local villages.

We saw innumerable exotic animals just on the drive from the airstrip to our camp.  You can see how huge these ostriches are by the size of the gazelles in the background.

Before you look below, let me tell you that we stayed at a tented camp, called "Ol Seki".  It had no fences to keep the animals away.  We were roughing it in the wild.

Okay, so our tent in the wild was no where near roughing it.  It was definitely the nicest we stayed while we were in Kenya and possibly the nicest place we've stayed since our honeymoon.  Hard to believe it is a tent in the middle of nowhere, right?

Then off we went on our safari!  We saw more animals than I can even post, but here are some.

Topis, a warthog, lions (we ran into a pride of 7 male lions, which is rare), and a baby giraffe.

We saw zebras everywhere we went, this baboon I captured from our tent (we found a group of them about a foot from our tent one time), a hyaena who just finished eating its kill, and a group of buffalo.

An eagle, hippopotamuses and elephants.  What we didn't see were people.  We were on a huge conservation where only one other camp was allowed to drive people around on the land, so we didn't see anyone else - it was just me, Jason, our two guides and the animals.

After our safari, we were able to relax and shower before dinner.  As you can see, Jason fit right in with nature. Sometimes I accidentally took pictures of him, thinking I was seeing another strange animal.

Below are the library tent and the dining tent.  There was only one other family staying there at the same time as us and we ate meals at one table with them and the Kenyan manager, who answered all of our cultural questions.  It was perfect.

That evening, we did a "sundowner" - a night drive, where we stopped for drinks to watch the sunset.  We were able to see and hear many of the nocturnal animals.

Everywhere we looked was a picture waiting to be taken.

The next morning, we did a sunrise drive.  We saw many large groups of animals, like elephants.

And giraffes.  There are seven of them in this one photo.

But the most exciting adventure of the day came when the impala and the lion met.

We were watching a lioness and her two cubs when our amazing guide could tell that they were hungry and ready for a kill.  And then it happened - the lion suddenly sprinted after two impalas!  The mother impala escaped, but the baby was caught by the female cub.  Then the three lions fought over the small kill, with the male cub getting the bulk of it (lions are not so different from humans, I see).  It was amazing to watch the circle of life happen right before our eyes!  A baby impala is not anywhere near enough food for three lions, but since it was the end of dry season, they would take anything they could get.  Here is a video of the process, if you can stomach it.  In case you are wondering, it is not easy to video while standing up in an off-roading vehicle.

If you didn't think you could handle the video, here is a sneak peak of what you missed out on.  Crazy, right?

With our new perspective, we counted this zebra with a bite out of its leg as lucky.

It was hard to believe that all this was happening within view of our tent.  Certainly an unforgettable trip.  And that was just the beginning....