Mara Arrival 27th June
The Mara Engai lodge wifi is really slow, even sat next to the router in reception, so not much hope of photos, but to fill you in….
1 hour from leaving the Acacia hotel in Kisumu to flight departure is not good for the blood pressure, but the hotel assured us that this was plenty enough! And actually it was, we made the flight onto our Kenya Airways jet, despite two goes through security, in good time.
Taking off over Lake Victoria gave me an impression of just how enormous it is (I always opt for the window seat, Roger is very understanding!) Then the plane banked and headed back over Kisumu. I felt the tears well up. This, barring miracles, was the last time I would every see Jecinter, and now that the sponsorship was finished, no way of contacting her, if Compassion didn’t let us share contact details.
The landing, collection of baggage, sorting out things that we could take to the Mara into soft bags, and getting to Wilson airport through the rush hour was bound to be difficult, but we made it thanks to our driver finding a route through the slums near the airport to avoid the gridlock we found ourselves in. The departure shed was very informal, luggage weighed (though not us!) and then it was ‘Everyone outside to the Orange Bus’. That took us a couple of hundred yards back the way we had come to the Departure Lounge. Usual removal of clothing and shoes to go through security, and into a waiting area open to the airfield.
No-one seemed to know which plane to get on, and there were a lot out there, both large and small. One plane that had just come in was tiny, and the crew seemed to be investigating the engine with a toolbox. Guess which one turned out to be ours! It had only 8 seats, and would have been a prize exhibit in a vintage aircraft museum.
With some trepidation we boarded the little flap down steps, collecting our paper bag of water and muffin as we got in, and took our seats, one each side of the aisle. The captain and co-pilot were already crammed into the tiny cockpit. There were six of us passengers, and our luggage was slung into the space behind us, with the last crew member, probably an engineer, sprawled on top. Our emergenc y briefing was ‘the exits are here and here’!
Our mini plane taxied down the runway and lifted smoothly off, and soon we were above the clouds again. It was only a 30 minute flight, and from the loud noise of the wheels coming down, we knew we were about to land. The engineer opened the back door and shouted, ‘two of you off here, rest stay on for Keekorok’. Since that was the hotel that had double booked us, it was us to get off then!
We gingerly climbed down the four tiny steps and found ourselves on a dirt track. There was a 6 wheeled vehicle parked near by, and the driver introduced himself as Ekai. He was to be our guide for the next 4 days.
The plan was to go straight to the hotel, but after five minutes a ranger told us to go and look back the way we had come. This was our lucky break to see a black rhino, coming straight towards us and then crossing the road and heading off the other side!
On the way back we also saw Thomson’s gazelles and topi, a bigger antelope.
Baboons were leaping across the road, and we also saw giraffes, and even elephants in the far distance.
After crossing into the Mara and having our passes registered, we then drove through and out the other side and up a very steep, extremely uneven road. This was the approach to the hotel, which I think we will get very used to!
A very warm welcome awaited us, hot towels and straight into a tasty buffet lunch, before checking in and being taken to our lodge, which was huge! The staff referred to it as our mini-palace.
After a short rest we were off on our first official game drive, seeing lots of animals, but close encounters with a pair of inquisitive hyena cubs, who came right up to the vehicle, and then two lionesses eyeing up a journey of giraffes but deciding not to chase them.
We also came face to face with a family of elephants before returning to the Lodge for dinner. A frustrating time followed trying to get anything uploaded to the blog, the Lodge’s wifi has a maxiumum speed of 4mps if you are sitting right next to the router in reception, and WordPress kept losing anything updated too.
28th June.
Up early for an early morning game drive after family wishes to our granddaughter on her birthday.
Setting off, the first things we saw were a couple of secretary birds sitting on their nest.
They have such long legs, they looked very precarious us there. Their main food is snakes, which they stamp on to kill them, but the snakes also eat their babies, so it is tit for tat. It wasn’t long before we came across a couple of young lions, brothers, just drowsily dozing right by the road.
We were within four metres of them, and they were not in the slightest bit interested in the cluster of cars round them, just twitching tails and occasionally opening an eye. I could have spent all morning watching them so unbelievably close, but we had other animals to see.
During the morning Ekai was teasing us on how close we were to Tanzania. We were hazarding guesses of hundreds of miles, and when he said 500 metres we though he was teasing. But he wasn’t. We were able to stroll across the border so that technically we have also been to the plains of the Serengeti! As we were doing our illegal immigrant bit, a jackal casually crossed over from one country to the other, no passport for him!
Another couple of lions came into view, but in the distance, a lioness and her cub. We only could see the cub’s ears, it wasn’t going to show itself, sadly. As we stopped at the road, there was something in the water which the ducks were swimming round. A huge monitor lizard was looking for eggs, but gave up and hauled itself out for a sunbathe, right beside our truck.
A herd of elephants, the biggest we had seen, were walking along in the distance, babies amongst them, though too far to get a good photo. We also saw Hartebeeste, distinguishable by their strange shaped horns. On our way back to the lodge, we came across a huge herd of buffalo, more than 1000 of them Ekai reckoned. And the migrations don’t start till next month!
Consulting the booking confirmation, we see that we should have had a bush breakfast, but apparently that is now scheduled for our last day, with a Bush Dinner tomorrow night, weather permitting
We had another game drive this afternoon, this time joined by two american ladies. We caught up with the lion brothers again, even more idle than this morning, all that was visible to start with was a single hind paw, waving in the air.
We saw many elephants, including crossing the road in front of us, the babies are so wonderful.
There were some more topi, two warthogs, and the bird life here is incredible, especially the lilac breasted rollo (hope I have got that right) which is the national bird of Kenya.
They all seem positively suicidal, diving under the wheels of the truck, or running ahead of it, but seem to survive, flying off just as you think they must have been crushed.
The American ladies asked if we had heard that a large puff adder had been killed at the Lodge this afternoon. Asking where it was found, they reported on the little path running almost beside our tent. Oh joy, we must have been sleeping within 20 feet of it last night!
Dinner was entertaining, we had just sat down when there was a loud scream and a troupe of maasai warriors raced in, leaping and dancing, and encouring the more fit amongst us to join in. (not sure if the scream was from them or the shocked audience!) We had our photos taken with these handsome young people, you will have to wait for better wifi to see those…..
29th June
As I write this we are in the most cracking thunderstorm and torrential rain. As the tent has a metal roof above it (thank goodness!) you can imagine the noise, and the last crack of thunder had Roger leaping off the bed!
Well it wasn’t like this this morning, we had a beautiful, clear sunny day for our early start. Andie and Andrea joined us, thanking us for suggesting 7.00 am would be a more reasonably time to start than the 6.00 am they had proposed!
After the usual sightings, we then stopped on the banks of the Mara river, in good spate after the recent rains. After a short walk, there below us were about 20 hippos, you never really realise the size until they stand up!
As we set off to return for lunch, Ekai heard a message that cheetahs had been spotted on the Tanzanian border, miles away. Did we want to go to lunch, or try and find the cheetahs? No contest, off we went! About an hour later Ekai pulled up next to a tree, technically over the border, there they were! Two brothers, lazing on the ground, rolling over and occasionally washing each other. We spent about half an hour in their company, could have stayed all day.
We were very late back, too late for another drive in the afternoon, but Ekai took the two of us to a Maasai village instead. I was wearing the necklace I was given in the Maasai village on our last trip, and we had a very warm welcome. We were met by the son of the Chief, who shocked me by saying the necklace would have been worn at a wedding, I hope I haven’t been given a widow’s present from her groom! I had brought a photo of me with the lady who had given it to me, and he actually knew her, said she was in a nearby village! There would have been no time to visit her, even if we knew where to go, but it was lovely to hear she was still alive.
We were greeted at the outer protection fence, and presented with a bead encrusted ‘talking stick’ so that we could control the conversation. It seems the Maasai use the Talking Stick as a tool of communication. The holder of the stick is enable to have the complete attention of the group. In the past the chief was the only one to possess this privilege, but now we could have one (we were expected to pay for it, though given that these sell for $45 elsewhere, the price of $18 dollars we suggested seemed very reasonable, there is a lot of work in making these, they are covered in tiny beads).
We then had to stoop to go in throught the archway. This is deliberately made small so everyone bows as a sign of respect to the Chief. I didn’t actually have to stoop, but I bowed my head just to be on the safe side!
The son was telling us about Maasai beliefs, some of which are hard not to comment on, but this is a completely different way of life. For example, the Chief had enough cattle to purchase 8 wives. I asked if they all got on, or if there were any arguments. ‘Oh no, they do not argue, they would be punished’ was the answer!
Children live with their grandmother until the age of 10, presumably so the parents can work, but I don’t think I could cope with our seven 24 hours a day, nor would their parents want me to!
The son told us that he hoped to become a chief one day, and for that, to prove his strength, he would have to kill a lion with spears and bare hands. It seems such a tragedy that a magnificent beast has to be slaughtered in such a horrible way just so that a young man can be deemed to be an adult. Having killed the lion, its mane is then made into a helmet as proof of manhood.
The money from the visits goes to fund a school for the children, who otherwise would not be able to go. It has also enabled them to get a toilet block with running water!
Having been shown the enclosure inside the outer perimeter fence where the animals were kept at night, we were then shown into a field where their beadwork jewellery had been set out.
We did buy a few pieces as the money goes to pay for the school for their children. The ladies of the village then gathered together to sing us a song of welcome, and I was encouraged to join in!
Our driver was keen that we should be given Maasai names, we had spent so long chatting that it was beginning to get dark and time to go, so there was not enough time for that ceremony (I understand we would have had to ask the Chief, and it would certainly have been great to meet him, but just not to be) I was however honoured to be told ‘Roz is white Maasai’!
30th June
After getting some sleep despite the drumming on the roof and the thunder, it was an early start again, wondering if we might be lucky and see a leopard. The two American ladies seem very focused on this, I feel if we don’t see one it is not the end of the world, we have seen so much already.
Seeing a large cluster of vehicles ahead, we went closer and identified three lionesses, almost hidden in the grass to the right of the road. Wondering if it was worth waiting to see if they emerged, and the vehicles to the left of us cleared, and there he was. The most magnificent king of the jungle, lying a few feet away from a carcase that really had nothing at all left on it. He was obviously very replete and sleepy, ignoring the excited chatter and camera snapping going on a few feet away. In fact you could probably have got out and walked all round him without him doing more than blink at you, he was stuffed, but it would not have been sensible to risk it.
We passed a range of animals that we had seen before, topi, olive baboons, gazelles of both varieties, elephants, giraffes, it sound dreadful to say that after three days you almost get used to seeing them. Then Ekai turned off the road heading for the river, and suddenly we were parked on a cliff overlooking a large (in every sense) herd of hippos and their babies, with crocodiles basking underneath.
The hunt for the leopard continued, but with no luck, and eventually we returned for lunch
Setting off again, still hunting that elusive leopard, we failed to find anything, and consoled ourselves with a sundowner. 
We were supposed to be having a bush dinner, but the weather was too cold and threatening rain, so we were promised ‘something even better’ instead. This turned out to be a re-run of the maasai dancing of a couple of nights before, for the whole restaurant, not just those expecting a special dinner. Not sure what went wrong there!
We had some good news, Jecinter had been given her laptop and phone back, and was now using WhatsApp to contact me. She even sent me some photos of Franchel wearing the clothes we had taken for her, that little girl has the pose of a future model!
1st July
Another early start for a bush breakfast, for which I put on every item of clothing I had, it was really freezing! It was very special with the sunrise in the background, and they even produced a birthday cake and sang. I had told them this was my 70th birthday trip, but they decided it was Roger’s, and a beautiful cake with ‘Happy Birthday Rogaer’ was produced!
So glad we got to see a Kenyan sunrise, in such a wonderful way.
After our bush breakfast we had to quickly pack up and load the cases onto our touring truck for one last game drive with Ekai. We didn’t spot the elusive leopard, just the animals we had seen before, not even a lion. We ended up at the first hippo site where another driver met us to take us to the airport. He turned it into another game drive, and this time we managed to catch better sightings of a lioness, zebra, baboons, and then this very large elephant appeared. It was in a grassy area as we turned off to go down a side track, and I think somehow we must have got between him/her (difficult to tell head on!) and the rest of the herd. Anyway it started to pick up speed towards us, trunk swinging wildly, and anyone could tell it was not happy with us. Our driver beat a hasty retreat, with Jumbo lumbering rapidly after us, but he couldn’t catch the truck. Phew!
On arrival at the airstrip, we were told we would have to wait because three more were joining us. These three turned out to be our companions from our table at the bush breakfast. As I had taken some photos of them and failed to swap email addresses that was a fortunate event. They were quite cross that they had suddenly been told to abandon their whole day’s drive, and get back and pack to leave immediately. Seems there was a technical fault with their later plane, so they would have to come with us.
Our plane approached from a tiny dot in the sky, roaring towards us – and past us – and up into the sky again. Reason for the overshoot turned out to be a buffalo on the runway. Luton Airport doesn’t have that sort of problem!!
Second time round it landed and we all climbed in, with baggage in the back as before. It was the same plane, and there is a problem with the front seats, they are stuck in a sort of fully reclined position, which apparently is not fixable! So we rose into the sky lying in a semiprone position. The pilots didn’t even bother to shut the cockpit doors, so I was watching the instrument panels with interest. The altimeter was stuck on17,000 feet even when on the ground. Every so often the co pilot would fiddle with the knobs underneath and it would move a couple of thousand feet, but he then seemed to give up and ignore it.
Very few of the instruments seemed to work, though I am certainly no pilot. But the flight was smooth, and we landed calmly enough back at Wilson airport. In no time we were on our way to the Best Western Meridian Hotel and settling into our room.
Hooking up to the hotel’s wifi (and astonishing 30mps instead of the 3mps if you were lucky in the Mara) there was an email from Compassion. The Mamba Village we were going to tomorrow has closed down! There were instructions to ring the local Compassion team, but again we failed to get through. We will have to wait and see what tomorrow brings, we certainly hope to get a great day with Felix, wherever it is.
ROZ AND ROG IN EAST AFRICA 