SAFARI SERENGETI - PART ONE, 

MASAI MARA GAME RESERVE

I’ve recently returned from spending the month of February in Kenya and Tanzania, with the last 6 days of the trip on the island of Zanzibar.  It was an amazing trip with many unique experiences along the way.

The trip started in Nairobi, Kenya, and from there I traveled to the Masai Mara Game Reserve for the next 4 days.  Our guide was George, a Maasai warrior.

Going out for the first game viewing drive in the Mara was not what I expected.  The Mara was covered in tall grasslands that swayed in the wind and there were clumps of trees and rolling hills, with green everywhere I looked.  It was a serene and peaceful sight.

The wild animals I had come to see were plentiful.  Even though this was my second time to come to Africa the exhilarating feeling of seeing something so wild and dangerous and beautiful still took my breath away.  By the second day our group had already seen the “Big Five”, which is not an easy thing to accomplish.  Some people that visit Africa and go on game drives never do see the Big Five.

Here is the Wikipedia explanation about the big five:

“In Africa, the Big Five game animals are the lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo. The term was coined by big-game hunters, and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot, but is now also widely used by safari tour operators.”

The safari vehicles on this trip to Africa were quite different from the vehicles on my prior African trip 8 years ago.  These Land Cruisers were closed-sided with sliding windows and seated 6.  The roof hatch opened up about two feet so each passenger could stand on their seat and view the animals and take pictures.

The roads were all rock and dirt so driving was continuously bumpy and very dusty.  The drivers call the ride “the African massage”.  It’s definitely not for someone with back issues.  If you were seated in the farthest back two seats you really got “massaged”.  Hence the need to rotate seats after a few hours riding in the back.

During the early morning game drives the vehicles would stop somewhere for a mid-morning coffee break.  We all looked forward to these.  They’d set up small tables and have thermoses of hot coffee or tea and always some yummy cookies the cook had made and packed for us.  One day we even had a brown bag picnic lunch out on the Mara.  These breaks were a good time to stretch our legs and visit with each other about what we had seen on the game drive since each of the three vehicles went there own way.  When one of the drivers spotted an animal the others would like to see they used something similar to a CB to communicate back and forth so the other two vehicles could find our location.

On one of the afternoons at our lodge we gathered together for a talk by our Maasai guide, George.  He told us about the Maasai culture and what he had to endure to become a Maasai Warrior.  One custom was the burning of small circles on his bicep when he was still a young boy.  This was to prepare him for his circumcision when he reached puberty.  In order to become a warrior he had to show absolutely no pain whatsoever when he was circumcised.  This was done with a knife, in front of the males in his family and tribe, without any anesthesia or pain relief medicine.  He could not even flinch his eyes or grimace.  Of course George’s story had most of us squirming, especially the men in our group.

Part of our talk was the presentation of a female Maasai.  George told us about some of the customs for the women, including stretching of the earlobes several inches and the removal of the bottom two front teeth.  He also explained about her jewelry and clothing.  The large circular necklace was made for her wedding, as well as her leather belt.  After the talk by George, the local Maasi women performed a song for us.

The next morning we left early to drive to a small dirt airstrip to board a 12 passenger airplane and fly to Nairobi, Kenya.  From there we traveled in safari vehicles to Arusha, Tanzania, where we began the next part of our African adventure.