Thursday, 26 March 2015

26th – Masai Mara

As game drives go there was nothing out of the ordinary today. Morning went as planned, we left at 0800 and entered the park 15 minutes later.

We drove around until leaving at around 1630, only interrupted by a break on a hill and lunch under a tree after driving off a wildebeest. Apparently this is pretty normal procedure; looking around you could see several lonely trees being occupied by safari vehicles with tourists having their lunch. Shade is a rare commodity on the otherwise open savannah.

The hilltop felt familiar with good reason; it was the same place as where we had lunch last year.

Other than that things went more or less as planned; several of the usual stuff, no leopards or rhinos, but cheetahs. All in all not a bad day.

Coming back in camp Monika (the other tourist) & Patsie went to visit the Maasai camp while I stayed behind. When they returned they had invited themselves including me to a naming ceremony that was to start at 1900. Arriving we found out that the actual naming wouldn’t start until after 2100 so after a bit of talking with the locals we returned to camp and had dinner (which was as planned; we had not planned to stay there for much longer than half an hour).

Tomorrow we will have an early morning drive leaving at 0700 before returning to Nairobi, and in the evening we will meet with our guide for the next leg of the trip.

Bare-faced go-away-bird.

Zebra with foal.

White-back vultures.

The lion and jackal look like friends going for a walk. In reality they both wanted access to a carcass and they were constantly eyeing each other to make sure the other didn't get too close while taking a bite.

Lappet-faced vultures.

Cheetahs taking a nap in the shade.

Lioness.

Hildebrandt's starling. Quite a few of these showed up during our lunch break.

Black-backed jackal.

Banded mongoose with pup.

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