Maasai Mara - Day 1

What would a trip to Africa be without a trip to the Maasai Mara for an overnight Safari. The Maasai Mara, or 'The Mara' as the locals call it, is the Kenyan side of the Serengeti. It is a large geographical region spanning the Tanzanian and Kenyan border that covers approximately 30,000 square kilometres, and is home to the Great Migration, which is the largest migration of mammal's in the world. It is also known to be one of the best places to observe many of the african animals in the wild. The area is named for the Maasai people, which is one of the most well known groups of people in Africa, supposedly largely as a result of living near to the major game parks, and due to their easily recognizable attire and customs. But I'll get into that more later.

Overlooking the Great Rift Valley

The trip started with a long, hot, bumpy, van ride from Nairobi to the Maasai Mara, highlighted by a stop overlooking the Great Rift Valley, prior to descending to the valley floor for the reminder of the drive out to the Mara. The Mara is a national park, and as such, requires payment of an entrance fee to get in. Now, you would think this would be a simple process of stopping at the gate, paying your fee and entering, but this is not the case. En route, we stopped off at a bank in Narok, here is where we would buy our park entrance smart cards. Thankfully, the line for the smart cards was non-existent, so we were out of there with are cards, loaded with our park fees (non-refundable if not used of course), in no more than 20 minutes. Our driver/guide for the trip John had previously advised that it is not uncommon to wait over an hour to get the cards, thank goodness this was not the case. At this point, it was already noon, and John suggested we stop in Narok for lunch, as we still had a fair bit of the drive left before arriving at our camp. So we stopped for a quick bite to eat and were back on the road. Here's where park entrance system got even more odd, shortly after leaving Narok, we stopped on the side of the road and John asked for the smart cards as this was apparently a check stop for the park. Odd, as we were still over 100km away and there was nothing remotely official looking, but we obliged, and were back on the road a few minutes later. A couple minutes later, John turned to us in the van and said, sorry, the road is pretty bad the rest of the way, and he wasn't kidding. Take the worst, washed out, wash-board gravel road you have ever driven on, multiple it by 10, then throw in random herds of cows and sheep on the road, and you would be close to how bad this road was. It was so bad, that for a good chunk of the time, we left the road and were just driving down a path in the brush along side the road because it was much smoother than the actual road. 108 or so km later, we finally turned off on the 'road' to the camp we were staying at. This path was barely a suggestion of where vehicles had at one point driven up the rocky hillside. John expertly piloted the van over the terrain and we finally arrived at our camp, where we would stay in 'Tents' for the weekend.

Nick and Dominic, our Maasai guides

Our 'Tent', consisted of a concrete floor, with wood framed walls covered in canvas, with a canvas roof. Attached to the back of the tent was a brick bathroom, with shower. Really, roughing it. Power was supplied by generator, and as such, we would only have lights in the tent between 7 and 10 pm however. Hot water was solar-powered, and there would be hot water 24hours a day. We dumped our stuff in our tent, took a 10 minute breather from the trip out, and then headed out on a hike with our Maasai guides, Nick and Dominic. They took us on a hike in the hills surrounding the camp, which unfortunately had to be cut short due to how long it took us to get to the Mara, and finally to a Maasai village to learn more about their culture.

Maasai Village

At the village we met Ken, who would take us around the village and teach us about the Maasai people and their culture. We got to see some of the Maasai Warriors do some traditional dances, we got a tour of their houses, which are tiny 3 room places made mostly of cow dung with some sticks and grass mixed in. The three rooms were 1) bedroom/kitchen for the whole family 2) storage and 3) bedroom for the calves and sheep.  They went on to show us how they make fire, demonstrate ear stretching and traditional removal of a tooth etc. They were very welcoming and hospitable, right until the very end of the visit when they tried to pressure us into buying souvenirs. It was starting to get dark though, and starting to rain, so we managed to get out of there and started heading back to camp. Both of us brought rain jackets on the trip, however neither of us brought them on this hike, perfect. Although I must say that after a hot day in the car and a hike, walking in the rain was a welcome relief. The rain continued to get stronger, and by the time we were back at our camp, we were completely soaked. Along the way, one of our Maasai guides was kind enough to hide our bag with the camera under his "coat". We dried off, had some hot drinks to warm up, had supper, and headed to bed early. We would be having an early breakfast, and heading out for an all day safari in the park.