African Tour:Maasai Mara National Reserve / Serengeti National Park

Wildebeest across the Serengeti
We drove 230km southwest from Lake Nakuru to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The Maasai Mara is on the southern border with Tanzania and sits right up against the Serengeti National Park. They are two separate parks in different countries, but are easy to treat as one, as long as you like driving. The Maasai Mara is four times larger than Amboseli. The Serengeti is ten times larger than the Maasai Mara. Conveniently, you can cross the border from Kenya to Tanzania without even realizing it. Rather than customs agents and checkpoints, there are stone markers, and a pretty enormous reason no barricades separate the two.

Both the Maasai Mara and the Serengeti are famous for “The Great Migration”. About two million wildebeest, almost 500,000 gazelles, more than 200,000 zebras, and a few thousand other herbivores leave the southern Serengeti and head north to the Maasai Mara. Then they turn around and head back south again, though they take a different path. Rather than one trail north and south, they move in a large circle. There are specific times to watch them cross the Mara River and get eaten by crocodiles, but you can see the Migration at almost any time, as long as you go to the right spot.

Since the animals are free to roam from one park to the other, both are great spots to see everything. Most of the larger national parks have the Big Five. The Maasai Mara and Serengeti have the Big Nine: elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, lion, leopard, cheetah, giraffe, zebra, and hippopotamus. Realistically, that is little more than marketing. Kruger had all nine, but only advertised the Big Five. Every park I went to had giraffes and zebras. Both animals are so common, they lose their lustre pretty quickly. Spotting zebras in Kenya is as rare as seeing a pigeon in New York. What the Maasai Mara/Serengeti have over other Kenyan parks is the Mara River. It provides a home for hippos and crocodiles that are not at Amboseli or Lake Nakuru and gives everyone somewhere to drink.

Mara Serena Safari Lodge
I spent eight nights at the Mara Serena Safari Lodge, which is one of only two or three places you can sleep inside the Mara Triangle. There are plenty of lodges and camp sights throughout the Maasai Mara, and even more outside the reserve's gates, but the Mara Triangle is the best place to be, according to the people at the Mara Serena Safari Lodge. More importantly, Edgar thought it was a good location. I thought I should spend a few nights in the Maasai Mara and a few in the Serengeti, but Edgar explained why it was easier, cheaper, and better to have a single base camp. There was also a little bit of national pride at stake. Edgar was from Kenya and wanted me to spend more money in his country than in Tanzania, especially since Tanzania had just defeated Kenya in some big football game.

This was my smallest room in all of Kenya, so naturally I spent more time at the Mara Serena Safari Lodge than anywhere else. But it was big enough for one person, and I spent more time away from the lodge than in it. My tiny hut was crammed next to my neighbor's tiny hut. I never had that feeling of living in a house with my own yard that I had at Ol Tukai. My front yard was everyone else's front yard. But the entire lodge was on a hill, so our backyard was a view of the Mara as far as the eye could see. Each hut had a tiny balcony where you could sit with a drink and stare at the world in front of you.

As with everywhere else, Edgar picked me up before sunrise and we drove around all day. I looked around the property a bit, but never really did anything besides eat and sleep. The exception was the night of the big lightning storm. There were several points in the lodge where people could sit or stand on an outdoor terrace and gaze at the endless Mara. One night, there was a lightning storm that lasted several hours. There was no rain, and no lightning ever came close to the lodge, so everyone felt safe to stand outdoors and watch the storm in the distance. It was pretty spectacular. Like a lot of people, I had a camera, but lightning is notoriously difficult to photograph. There were enough strikes to guarantee getting a shot, but I did not have enough expertise to guarantee quality.

The Great Migration was in the Serengeti at the time, so Edgar gave me a choice. We could drive down to see them right away or check out the Mara Triangle first and make our way south later. Either way, he promised I would see more animals than I ever did at Amboseli, though not more elephants. The Maasai Mara and Serengeti had plenty, but no place could compare with Amboseli when it came to elephants.

Having said that, my most interesting elephant story happened at the Maasai Mara. We were sitting in the van and looking around while a small group of female elephants walked toward us. We were not directly in their path, and unlike the male elephant at Amboseli, they were not trying to show us who was in charge. We could sit there and watch them walk past, so we did. They were walking slowly, as elephants do. You do not need to hurry when you are the largest land animal in the world. Their complete lack of urgency makes elephants some of the easiest animals to watch, as long as you are not in their path.

As soon as Edgar pointed out the baby elephant, everything changed. It was as if the elephants could hear him. Or maybe they instinctively knew that humans are trouble. In the blink of an eye, all the adults surrounded the baby. They were moving slowly, but at the same time, they all changed positions in the group as if they had choreographed the routine a million times. I was a little jealous. I wanted my dance company to be that precise.

We could barely see the baby. She was behind a wall of thick elephant legs. We were no threat to them, and our van could never survive a direct charge from a single adult elephant. As a group, they could kill us without breaking a sweat. But other than protecting their young, the group did not acknowledge our existence. They kept walking on whatever path they were taking at their same leisurely pace. They simply made sure the baby was safe.

My most interesting cheetah encounter was a little different. Edgar spotted a mother cheetah with two juveniles on the remains of an old termite mound. As we drove closer, I could see them. The mother was standing tall on the mound, staring in the distance. Her cubs were sitting at her side, not at all interested in the distance. Technically, they were not cubs. They were almost as big as she was.

The closer we got, I wondered how close we were going to get. Edgar usually gave the animals more than enough room to get away from us, if they so chose. The mother cheetah not only chose to stay put, she chose to completely ignore us. She was looking for food, according to Edgar, and since we were neither food nor danger, she was not at all interested. When we were what I thought was entirely too close, Edgar slowly inched the van forward. By the time we stopped, we were close enough that I could stretch out of the window and pet the mother cheetah. Edgar suggested I not do that, and I was not about to. Cheetah almost never attack humans, but any mother with her offspring should be considered dangerous.

What surprised me, other than how insanely close we got, was how the juvenile cheetahs ignored us as much as the mother. I thought they would be more curious. Edgar said they followed their mother's lead. She saw us as nothing more than a nuisance, so they did the same.

After two days of driving around the Maasai Mara, Edgar took me to the Serengeti. Since the border is an arbitrary line on a map, there was no difference between the two. Except the Serengeti was much larger. Edgar could have told me it was all the Maasai Mara and I never would have known. Instead, he pointed out the stone marker that told everyone which side was which.

The Serengeti had all the same animals as the Maasai Mara, so we headed straight for the stars of the show. I cannot say that I saw two million wildebeest, but there were a lot. We did not reach them while crossing the Mara River, so it was nothing dramatic. They were all simply standing around. Even doing nothing, it was pretty impressive. I have never seen so many huge mammals all gathered together in one place. Except maybe Las Vegas.

Though based in the Mara Triangle, we spent more time in the Serengeti. Edgar had our daily route mapped out, but he was more than willing to improvise at the drop of a hat. When he heard about a leopard sighting on the other side of a small creek, we changed course. Unfortunately, the tiny creek was flooded. That made some of the nearby ground wetter than usual. The dirt trail we were on became a mud trail. The Toyota Hi Ace van is not four wheel drive. It was good on paved roads and hard dirt trails, not so great in the mud. The irony is that Edgar knew the road was no good. Before heading into the mud, he told me there was a chance we might get stuck and asked if I wanted to go a different way. I assumed he knew what was best and told him to go for it. He did know best and most likely wanted to go a different way, but also wanted to keep his customer happy.

When Edgar got out of the van to push, I got out as well. He never asked me to help, but I was not about to sit in the van and add extra weight. He pointed out that we were in a part of the park where everyone is supposed to stay in their vehicles at all times. He also pointed out that if we just waited for help, we could be stuck in the mud for days.

Fortunately, there was more traffic than Edgar expected. Probably other people looking for that leopard. A jeep with two guides pulled up to us and helped with the pushing. Why they never tried to winch the van out, I have no idea. Maybe they did not have the proper equipment. Not that it mattered. Four people pushing should have been enough.

But it was not. That van was really in there.

When a jeep of tourists pulled up, a flock of humans got out and started wandering around. A few of them helped push the van. Most of them took pictures of our surroundings. Some of them took pictures of the small group pushing the van out of the mud. I am probably on someone's Facebook page with a little story about how the person who took the picture helped out a fellow traveler on their African journey, even though the person taking the picture did absolutely nothing to help.

It took longer than I expected, but we eventually got the van onto solid ground. Edgar thanked everyone and the three vehicles drove off in three different directions. Much to no one's surprise, the leopard was long gone.

In the middle of my time at the Maasai Mara, I took a ride in a hot air balloon. That was not at all part of my safari package deal. It was most definitely a separate charge, and far more expensive than it really needed to be. I figured I had to take advantage of the opportunity when it came up. A lot of things might sound like a once in a lifetime experience. Riding in a hot air balloon over the Maasai Mara truly is. I suppose it is theoretically possible that I will do it again some day, but I doubt it.

Balloon rides over the Maasai Mara require waking up exceptionally early, even by my standards. Since the balloon takes off before sunrise, you have to be there even earlier. It was so early in the morning that someone from the balloon company picked me up instead of Edgar.

At the launch site, about a dozen people got the balloon ready while seven other passengers drank coffee and tea. After the crew inflated the balloon with a large fan, the passengers were all invited to walk around inside it. I have no idea why this is even an option, but it gives you a good sense of just how enormous these balloons are.

Once everyone was out of the balloon, they filled it with hot air and we all watched the balloon slowly rise like an old man reminiscing about Charlie's Angels. When the balloon was fully erect, the pilot climbed into the basket and moved levers and flipped switches. When the balloon was ready, eight passengers climbed into the basket. It was a snug fit with no room to move around, but we all had an unobstructed view from our own little corner.

Take off was smoother than I expected. There was no jolt or bump of any kind. We simply started levitating. Rather than go straight up, the pilot moved forward like an airplane. For safety, we were all asked to sit down during take off. The pilot told us we could stand once we were a few feet off the ground.

We rose above the savannah with the sun. They timed it perfectly. I have seen a million sunrises, but never over an African savannah and never while I was floating upward at the same time. It was one of those experiences that I will never be able to fully put into words. Pictures look nice, but they can never tell you how it felt.

With 12 years experience flying over the Maasai Mara, the pilot knew where to go. He knew when to fly high and give us a bird's eye view and when to take us down to get a closer look at everything. He knew which animals we could get relatively close to and which would be scared away. Elephants and lions mostly did not care about us flying above them. Giraffes and gazelles ran as soon as they spotted the balloon.

Even though the Maasai Mara and Serengeti feel like the same place, they are legally in different countries. You can drive between the two, but hot air balloons cannot cross the border. Since the Great Migration was in the Serengeti at the time, we were all warned in advance that we would not see it on the balloon ride. Taking a balloon over the Great Migration must be an amazing way to see just how large it is, but you also have to go at a specific time that probably has to be booked months in advance.

Instead, we flew over the Mara, crossed the Mara River, and saw a lot of animals, just not millions at a time. When our time was up, we made an incredibly soft landing and everyone climbed out of the big basket. A long, decorated table was waiting nearby for all of the passengers to have a champagne breakfast in an open field. Someone asked if it was safe to be there, but I think most of us just assumed the balloon company would not serve their customers breakfast in the middle of a lion pride's feeding ground.

The biggest tourist trap in the Maasai Mara was the visit to a Maasai village. It was a real village where people lived their lives, but some of them also put on a show for the tourists that they would have never done if we had not been there. It was interesting, and a bit like a Disney show at the same time.

A small corner of Lake Victoria
Near the end of my time at the Maasai Mara, we were driving around the western edge of the Serengeti when Edgar said he had a surprise for me. We drove out of the Ndabaka Gate and kept heading west. Before I knew it, there was a large body of water in front of us. We were at the southeastern foot of Lake Victoria, on the Tanzania side.

Lake Victoria was on my original list of places I want to go. Most people reach the lake from Kampala or Entebbe on the Uganda side or Mwanza or Bukoba on the Tanzania side. We were at least 100km east of Mwanza, where pretty much no one goes. I could tell it was not one of the more popular parts of the lake since Edgar and I were the only people there. While the view was limited and 90% of the lake was around the corner, it was nice not to share it with a thousand tourists.

One of the great benefits to sleeping in the parks was that I could start my day as early as Edgar was willing and I did not have to leave before the gates closed. Sunrise and sunset are when most of the animals are most active. Kruger was great, and large enough to see something new every day, but the gate times were extremely limiting. Spending the night inside the Mara/Amboseli/Lake Nakuru meant watching brilliant sunrises and sunsets over the savannah/mountain/lake instead of over R40 back to Hazyview.

I am glad my last national park was the Maasai Mara/Serengeti. I liked Amboseli a great deal, but the Mara/Serengeti was more magical. It was easily one of the best places I have ever experienced anywhere in the world.

But I never spotted a leopard.

The Serengeti