Kenya - Maasai Mara

Arrived in the Maasai Mara game reserve three days ago and luckily for us most of the literally millions of wildebeest which migrated across the Mara river from the Serengeti are still here. The trouble is we are ready for them to cross back but they are not! With daily park fees costing something in the region of USD 160 (without the camp fees) we are weighing up finances with being caught up in the momentum of one of nature’s most dramatic events.

What tends to happen is that the animals form lines kilometres long and slowly head single file towards the river. The ‘leaders’ of the herds look down into the river, which is pretty fast flowing and has crocodiles lying in waiting, and seem to contemplate whether or not it is a good time to go. Yesterday afternoon we waited in anticipation for about two hours after they had gathered and then for no obvious reason the whole herd turned back. Today is our last day here and we are waiting again with a large herd slowly making their way down to the river. We are guided through this whole process by our Maasai guide Nabala who sleeps and eats with us during the duration of our stay here. He is also guarding our camp at night which is nothing more than a clearing in a remote forest in the northern part of the park. For the first time we are without any facilities at all but the trade-off is that we are totally on our own here with just our guide and the night life is pretty hectic.

our camp next to the Mara river

the Mara river

There is of course plenty of other wildlife here and the cheetah above with her two cubs just happened to be sitting on a hill right in front of us as we were passing. So were the elephants crossing in front of our car:

Well it is now next morning and just as we were heading back to our camp last night, Nabala had a ‘feeling about things’ so we headed back towards the river where a large herd had been in contemplation all day and suddenly they went, thousands and thousands of wildebeest jumping and running into the river and swimming across to the other side. Although there were plenty of enormous crocs, only one wildebeest got taken. According to Nabala, they weren’t hungry since another group crossed at this particular crossing point the day before and not so many made it then. Well, I have used both awesome and amazing before but this event deserves amazingly awesome!

I read somewhere that when God had finished creating all the animals he looked at the left over pieces in front of him, undecided what to do. He then put them all together and called the final product 'wildebeest'. They may be ugly but they certainly have guts!

Here is a picture for those of you who have never seen one before:

It is now three days later again and we are back in Nairobi, staying in a camp where 'over-landers' hang out to exchange information, have their cars serviced and wait to link up with other travellers to form convoys to head further north. And of course an opportunity to shave our legs, dye our hair (still to be decided!) and skype the kids. The next step for us is do plan the next stage of our route which we will do today.