East Africa, Days 1 & 2

On Saturday, March 8 we flew from Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg and then onto Nairobi, Kenya.

Just before landing we got to see Mt. Kilimanjaro from the plane!

We left at about 8:30am and arrived around 6:30pm. Kenya was hectic. Their international terminal burned down recently so they had to make-due in an old parking garage. Now we never travel with cash because we have learned that exchanging money = getting shafted, while taking local currency out of the first ATM you come to = less shaftage. So that's always been our strategy. Imagine our surprise when we found out that we had to pay our Kenyan visas (50$ each) in USD and they would not accept Kenyan shillings! Of course we had no USD as we came from SA and there were no ATM's in the "terminal" so we were off to a poor start. They finally let Jeff leave the customs and immigration area and go out thru security to an ATM while the 3 of us and our passports acted as collateral for his return. In the end and about 45 minutes later it all worked out but for a second there I thought we were going to be deported from Kenya!
We finally emerged from the Terminal and found our guide. They met us with our Safari vehicle so we got to check that out right away. We drove about 45 minutes to our hotel. Nairobi is interesting. It's definitely rougher than SA but you feel a bit safer as everyone is going about their business and not really scoping you out. There is less there as far as nice restaurants, malls ect. but also much less of a gap between the haves and the have-nots so there seems to be less crime. Our hotel was really nice. We were tired and hungry so we had a nice dinner and headed straight off to bed.
Breakfast on our first non-travel day:

The next day we got up and met our guide Sam at 7:30. We had about a 5 hour drive to Masai Mara National Park and then an additional 1.5 hours through the park to get to our first accommodation - a tented camp right in the middle of the park!
It was nice to see Nairobi in the daylight.

 These busses had HUUUGE loads strapped on top!

We drove through the city then out through the rural areas and finally down into the Rift Valley.
 East Africa rift valley:

 Trying on a wool hat at a roadside stand:

About 2 hours into the drive we headed onto the "rough road". We would not see pavement again for many days!
As we drove the villages got smaller and smaller until we were driving past Masai villages. For them 1 village = a senior warrior and all his wives and children. There are no fences around game reserves in East Africa, so lions, cheetah and leopards roam free and often visit villages outside of the National Parks. It was shocking to see very small children herding goats and cows out in the middle of NOWHERE where we were forbidden to leave the vehicle to pee. Sam assured us that those tiny kids knew just what to do with lions and could easily defend themselves and their herds from the threat. Us - not so much. Apparently screaming your head off and running in the opposite direction is not the best strategy against lions...

They live in these surrounds they build so that they and their herds are safe at night. They have huts inside the big fence and they herd all the animals right in with then and everyone is safe after the sun goes down.

The Masai is the one tribe in East Africa that has for the most part kept their traditional ways and not integrated with the modern world. They eat mostly cow's milk mixed with blood, and meat. They do not eat game animals ever and consider it taboo so they are allowed to live next to and even enter all National Parks since their lifestyle is compatible with conservation efforts.
We passed many people who all waved enthusiastically to us. Sam told us that most of the people we waved to would never in their lives see a paved road. Wow.
Finally at about noon we hit the park.

We headed in and immediately started spotting animals -

one of the first things we saw was a leopard!

These are incredibly difficult to spot. Many people go on safari and never see one. Jeff has a work colleague that goes on safari yearly and he has seen ONE. It was on our wish list so it was just amazing to see this incredible animal in the wild within 15 minutes of entering our first park. There was an air of total celebration among the 3 vehicles that were there. In the drive from the gate to our camp we saw 4/5 of the big 5... everything but a Rhino! We drove on and saw herds of buffalo, a few lions, and other animals and finally got to our our camp around 1:30.

 Lovin' it!

 This is what I call camping!

 Lunchtime overlooking the hippo pool:

 Kid's side of the "tent".

We checked in, checked out our massive tent complex with adults on one side, kids on the other and a big shared porch and then headed to lunch. It was hot and we were feeling dusty so afterwards we had just enough time to take a swim in the pool to refresh and cool off before meeting Sam at 4 for an evening game drive. Everyone swam except the big guy - the gravity of this big lounger on our porch sucked him in!

Our evening game drive was awesome.

We saw a HUGE lion pride! At first we thought there were only two:

 but then a cub scampered by.

The lions had big full bellies and Sam thought he smelled something dead so there might be a kill in the area. We followed the cub into a ravine and bam! lots more lions and cubs eating a kill - a big Eland. The cubs were taking their turn to eat but there was an Auntie Lioness that was being possessive of the kill and pretty mean to the cubs. You will see what I mean in the video.

 We watched the pride eat and nuzzle each other and just nap in the evening sun with their big food-stuffed bellies.

The littlest ones had a snuggle with mom and some mama milk after some rough treatment at the paws of their aunt:

Then we headed over the savannah and saw a lot more amazing creatures and watched the sun set over the park.

We got back to camp around 7:30 and watched the hippos in the pool call to each other while we had a drink and chatted with a Masai warrior named John.

Then dinner! It was 3 course awesomeness and we enjoyed sitting over the river listening to the hippos sing and re-capping our day.
Ostrich-egg light sconce on the dining deck:

Our first full day on safari had been a big one and we were exhausted. I think all of us were sound asleep by 9:30pm!

The Lions are way cooler in video than they are in pics. Check out days 1&2 VIDEO HERE!

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