Wednesday morning, July 2, it was up at 5:15 AM to leave
camp by 6:00 for an all-day drive in the Masai Mara National Reserve.
Everyone was wearing wonderful safari hats with “Joyce
and Victor 50 Years” embroidered on them (group photo with hats later). Even our guides were wearing them! A spectacular gift from our family.
The Masai Mara is part of a very large ecosystem which includes
the Serengeti in Tanzania and the Masai Mara in Kenya; they are contiguous but
have different names in the two countries.
Our timing is just right for something called the Great Migration,
during which literally hundreds of thousands of zebra and millions of
wildebeest migrate from the Serengeti to the Mara following the rains and the
grasses. The rains ended here just a
couple of weeks ago, and the grasslands are rich and abundant now. The migration is underway.
We drove into the Reserve and were immediately aware of
the enormous herds of zebra and wildebeest, mind-boggling numbers.
We had awakened to coffee or hot chocolate brought to our
rooms, and after driving deep into the Reserve we stopped for breakfast:
We then continued our game drive, with sightings of not only
the enormous herds of zebra and wildebeest, but lion, cape buffalo, ostrich,
baboons, wart hogs, eland, elephant and giraffe. I have literally hundreds of photos and can’t
put them all on this blog; I’ll attach a number at the end of today’s
page. The Masai Mara is incredible. Unbelievable.
I can’t imagine the land supporting this number of animals. We stopped for lunch overlooking the river
where there were large numbers of hippos resting in the sun and in the water:
There were sights like this one, with multiple species,
everywhere:
One of the phenomena which is even more astonishing is a
river crossing of wildebeest—you have to see it to believe it. Thousands of animals congregated at a narrow
portion of the river and cross. The
first animals got to the other side and immediately began to graze, thus
blocking the route for the ones behind.
When the backup became unmanageable, a line of wildebeest moved to
another portion of the river (or stream in this case) and crossed. Meanwhile, some of the original crossers must
have thought that the grass was actually greener on the original side, and began
to cross back where the second crossing was happening, and the two lines met in
the middle. There was total wildebeest
chaos and noise. Astonishing:
I’ll post a number of animal photos, but will have to have a
real slide show for the remainder.
Vultures eating a dead wildebeest:
Cape buffalo and giraffe:
Ostrich:
Lion:
Hippo:
Baboon
Elephant mother and baby:
Giraffe:
Wart Hog
I have loads of bird photos too, I’ll post just one now, the
Lilac-Breasted Roller
We finished exhausted and went back to the camp for dinner
and sleep, as we get up tomorrow morning at 4 AM to go for a balloon ride over the Mara. More then.
This is amazing--the quantity and variety of animals, many types co-existing. (Well, vultures don't exactly co-exist with wildebeest, I see, but they do profit from the one-sided relationship.) Did you know how perfect your timing was likely to be, to coincide with the migration? Wow!
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