The Actual Safari Begins!

The week starting 3rd June to 9th June was the first leg of our actual safari in Kenya. We covered Masai Mara, The ark (part of Aberdare reserve),Sweet Water tented camps, all well-known for spotting the BIG FIVE (lion,elephant,rhino,buffalo and lepoard) and each with its unique speciality.

What I saw in these five days I will try and put into words, but I'm sure no words,or photos and videos can do justice to what i witnessed.

Thinking of the past week, I am at a loss for words and dont know where to begin. So I do the most logical thing... Recollect every incident chronologically!

MONDAY 4TH JUNE-

We left Nairobi at 730 am ( pretty punctual I must say!!) and got onto the coombi( atleast I think thats how its spelt) and headed to Masai Mara. This is a part of a huge reserve in Africa that is present in Kenya. The continuation of this reserve in Tanzania is called Serengeti. The five and a half hour journey was filled with pot holes in the roads... and for most of the stretch no road at all! The weather was pleasant and drizzling for a little while but in no means did it dampen my enthusiasm to get into the savannah.

We enter the main gates of the Masai Mara, heavily and into the wilderness. Along the way, the farther we got from the city, the closer we got to Mara, the closer we got to witnessing the actual Africa. The untamed country famous for its animal kingdom.

We started spotting groups of deer, (through the next couple of days I learn to identify one type of gazelle from another) elephants and a few zebra. We noticed every small bird and insect that came our way. Stopped, took photographs and videos of their movements, and I wonder how they are so unpurturbed by the thousands of visitors that come every year.

There are several hotels inside the Mara, and we stayed one called the 'Keekorok'. The symbol of this hotel is that of a cheetah and as we entered, we all marvelled at the paradise in the middle of no-where. It reminded me a lot of the resort in mahabalipuram ( and one of my favorite places to goto) Temple Bay. Individual cottages as rooms with all luxuries of a five star hotel with breakfast, lunch and dinner spreads fit for a king.

As we check-in all the hotels give a welcome drink and we were right away ushered for lunch. At four p.m., we started off on our first game drive. The coombie is specially manufactured such that the roof can pop-up by two feet and all passengers can stand and look on either side for any animals.

I have to mention our driver - cum - tour guide for the week, Mr. Benson, who's been in the business for twenty years and who knows his way around the wilderness. If not for him, i'm sure I'd still be stuck somewhere unknown trying to get back to the hotel! He also a very sharp pair of eyes, and can spot a cheetah half a km away in the grass, which he did!

As we come out of the hotel, again we see tons of gazelle and a few giraffes, elephants, doing about their daily routine, eating.... the entire day... they eat, drink water and watch their backs.

We get a message that the migration is coming. We are all a little excited, because I know it means something but I have no clue what to expect. Now, you're probably wondering what the 'migration' is...
Year after year, zebras and wildebeests migrate from Masai Mara to Serengeti in January, and back to Mara in the beginning of June. It is a yearly ritual, the reason I'm not exactly sure about but guessing that the grass is fresher in Kenya during June- december.

Benson turns the vehicle around and takes us to the edge of Masai Mara, slowly along the way we first see tens, then hundreds of zebras just walking across. The sight was just breathtaking! Thousands and thousand of zebras, till the eyes could see, walking across, some so far away that they looked like striped ants, some so close to the car that if I reached out, I could touch them! As we drive past them, a few seem a little purturbed by the sound of the engine, but most just go about their work and we have to wait for them to cross the road and give us way. It seemed a little authoritative, like establishing themselves as the residents, and we the visitors.
As we approach a gate, I wonder how we can get past that as a few km past that gate is the kenya-Tanzania border, and we aren't allowed to cross it. The watchman at the gate smiles at us and says "Karibu" ( welcome!) he seems as excited as we are, that we are the first to witness the migration this year. He smiles and waves us past, Benson eing a well known figure helps. We drive right past the gate only to see more zebras making their way back to Masai Mara. When we are satisfied with seeing so many of them, we drive back to Keekorok and back to our cozy rooms.