On Friday morning, Kristoffer, Kirsten, Hans and I left from Nairobi to embark on a true Kenyan safari to the Masai Mara in south western Kenya, on the border of Tanzania. The word Mara means “spotted” in the Masai language and this part of Kenya is called “the Mara” because the land is mostly open plains spotted by trees and animals. The land is also the native home of the Masai tribe – pastoralists who raise cows, goats, and sheep and live what we would consider to be a very primitive lifestyle (more on that to come). People from all over the world come to the Mara between July and October to see the “Great Migration” of around 1.3 million wildebeest (called “gnu” in both Swahili and Danish) and zebra across the Mara River from the Serengeti in Tanzania to Kenya. We were a little too early for the migration, but we did see thousands and thousands of “resident” wildebeest and zebra for sure.
The drive from Nairobi takes about 5 ½ hours and, to be honest, is not entirely pleasant. We wanted to see new parts of Kenya and so we made the journey by car…but we totally get why most other people fly! Most of the trip is just horribly bumpy, pot-holed, rough terrain but we did hit a few strips of good tarmac. It was pretty cool to see how much the country changes between Nairobi and the Mara; there is a town called “Narok” which is a transportation hub as it is the last place for fuel (or pretty much anything else!) before getting to the Mara and I think Kirsten and Hans were really fascinated to see all of the activity in this small town.
We arrived at the Karen Blixen Camp (www.karenblixencamp.com) in time for lunch; the reason for staying at this camp went beyond just the usual Karen Blixen Danish connection. We actually know the young Danish couple who own and operate this luxury camp (which is about two years old). The camp is located at a narrow point on the Mara River and from the main reception/dining tent we had amazing, daily views of 46 resident hippos, two crocodiles, and frequent visitors to the river such as zebra, elephants, giraffe, gazelles, impala, and baboons. It was easy to sit on the beautiful lawn and overlook the wildlife activity for hours. Also, our tents were amazing (and were bigger than my last apartment in Brooklyn)! The 22 tents at the camp have thatched roofs and inside look like rustic, old-school hotel rooms, complete with outdoor showers (heaven!). At night time you aren’t allowed to walk from your tent to the main tent without being accompanied by Masai guards, because the camp gets visits from hippos, lions, and other friends at night. The food was quite good and we definitely felt spoiled to stay in such an amazing camp.
Friday afternoon after we got settled, we met our Masai guide, Peter. Most people who come to the camp don’t have their own cars, so they are going in land cruisers with guides from the camp and other safari agencies. Because we had our own car, Peter came with us on all of our game drives to take us to places where we would be more likely to see specific animals than if we were venturing out on our own. Just like the guide Kristoffer and I had when we went to Naivasha at Christmas, Peter was amazing. Throughout our three days of driving with him, we learned so much about Kenyan animals and life on the Mara, the Masai people, the relationship between the Masai and Kenya’s tourism industry, and the changes that are taking place in traditional Masai culture.
Our first game drive was not very lucky – we didn’t see too many new and exciting animals, but Kirsten and Hans did see their first giraffe as we headed back to the camp in a rain storm. The second day, however, was very exciting. In the morning we took a lovely, peaceful nature walk with Peter and learned a bit about trees, plants and flowers, birds and some animals (from their dung and footprints!). In the afternoon, we took a game drive to a different area and finally came across our very first Kenyan lions! They were three lionesses, actually, resting within some bushes shaded from the afternoon sun. Two of them stayed asleep the whole time we were up close watching them, but one of them looked at us a bit more, even sitting all the way up to check us out at one point. They were so beautiful that I was shaking! That afternoon we also saw a live kill – not by lions, though, but we saw two jackals (sort of like foxes) hunt and kill a young gazelle. Of course, we were tempted to feel really bad for the little gazelle…but that is nature! We also came across a large herd of elephants that afternoon and enjoyed watching them eat so up close. What a day!
As if our second game drive hadn’t been enough, our third game drive was an even greater adventure. We left the camp at 6:30 in the morning with a packed breakfast to eat later in the morning. Our plan was to drive a bit of distance to this mountain park where some white rhinos live, and on the way we hoped to see some animals in the early morning hours. Well our hopes certainly came true! We quickly saw two lionesses (possibly two of the ones we had seen the day before) hunting for food. We didn’t see them kill anything, but in the surrounding area we could sense that all of the other animals were VERY tense as we watched the lions stalk through the high grass. As we continued driving, Hans noticed that there were two males lions in the grass. Good spot, Hans! Not only were they lying there but they were also feasting on a zebra! We parked to watch these amazing creatures, when another male lion approached and walked right in front of our car. When he joined his brothers, one of them left the group and walked behind our car. We could also see another female lioness in the distance. It was incredible! We were so lucky!
As we continued towards the rhinos we saw many, many hyena (which are usually hard to find in the day but it was still early morning) and they were actually eating a wildebeest! Such scavengers! And the vultures were all around them waiting for leftovers. We kept thinking that our day could not get any better! We did eventually stop in a hyena/lion-free area to eat our breakfast, and we had a beautiful view of some giraffes as we did so. If you have never eaten a packed breakfast out in the middle of the African bush, you should really try it! It was a little windy but the car provided some relief and it was extremely refreshing. We did finally make it to those rhinos and, of the four that live in that area, we saw three of them: one female, one male, and one baby. We were actually outside of our car walking with a guide and came across them so closely! But these rhinos must be somewhat used to humans because they were extremely tame and didn’t seem to either notice or be bothered by us. The baby rhino, we learned, was born during the post-election crisis when Kofi Annan was in Kenya to mediate the political stalemate; as it turns out, the guides who work there call this baby rhino Kofi Annan.
Our morning was amazing, but before we headed back to camp we paid a visit to a local Masai village. The village we went to is made up of about 25 families. Physically, the village was a large circle constructed of thick tree branches. Just inside were 25 huts/houses made of cow-dung around the circle with a completely open and empty center full of cow/goat/sheep DUNG because that is where the animals sleep at night. The thick branches protect the people and animals from animal predators at night, and then the young boys take the cattle out to graze and eat for the entire day. In order to get into the village, visitors (aka white people/mzungu) have to pay a fee – this money is crucial to the Masai’s economic survival. Once Kristoffer negotiated our price, our guide Peter introduced us to a young man named Elliot, who lived in this village and would be our guide inside. We learned that Elliot, 16, is the only boy in the whole village to go to secondary school and that he has aspirations of becoming a teacher. It sounded to us like Elliot is very eager to get out of his village – he said that it not his hope to live there when he gets older. It sort of made us wonder how the other young men, who did not get good marks in primary school, feel about having to stay in their village for the rest of their lives now.
We were greeted in the village by all of the women singing us a “Welcome Mzungu” song (literally…they sang the word for welcome in Masai over and over again followed by the word mzungu). Then the young men came out and did a traditional Masai Warrior dance and chant (which involves a lot of jumping). We noticed that one of the young men was wearing the mane of a lion as a hat on his head and were told that he is the oldest son of the village’s chief and in that position had to kill a lion, whose mane he was wearing. Later, we saw the scars he had on his body from the attack and learned that he had been in the hospital for 2 months recovering from the fight with the lion (which he won! How crazy is that?). Then we were encouraged to join the whole group in some singing and “dancing” (more like holding hands and walking around the cow-dung circle) for a little while and the women put jewelry on me and Kirsten. Note that we did not meet any of the Masai men – only women, older boys/young men, and small children/babies were around. And let me tell you how cute these babies were…except that it was a little bit heartbreaking to see them with bugs and flies all over them (but when you live in cow dung… that’s what you get).
Now the thing about this whole Masai greeting is that they were definitely putting on this “show” for us because we paid to come into the village to look at their life, and that is totally fine. They do actually live in that village, their houses are actually made of cow dung, and by our Western standards this was extreme poverty – that is not fake! But we sort of knew that they were putting on this show in their traditional clothes and jewelry for our benefit only, so we were all just kind of playing along. Underneath their traditional red clothing (cloth and blankets tied in various ways), the boys were all wearing shorts and t-shirts. I think the women’s clothing was a bit more “every day”. After the show we got a tour of one of their houses….talk about small, dark, and crowded! There were several small rooms in the house: one for baby goats and sheep to sleep (yes in the hut), one for the eldest son to sleep, one for the parents to sleep, one for all other children to sleep, and a room for cooking. After this tour, the women set up their jewelry and other traditional Masai keepsakes for us to browse through and buy. Their prices were SOOOO much higher than the prices we pay for the same stuff at the Masai Market in Nairobi so we didn’t buy too much (which to their dismay).
It was really an interesting experience – their culture is just so far from anything we could really ever imagine living. We also learned a lot about the Masai from Peter throughout our days with him. Older Masai traditionally only eat the milk, blood, and meat of their cattle, but younger Masai are eating more and different things, such as maize and rice (courtesy of programs like school feeding). The Masai still largely practice arranged marriages, as well as female circumcision. Peter could not believe it when we told him that in our countries female circumcision is illegal! The villages don’t have electricity and when the men want to trade or sell their cattle (which they are not largely in the practice of doing…they use cattle for celebrations/sacrifices/and making deals such as marriage dowries), they have to walk close to 100 km to the town of Narok to do so. But Peter also told us of some change that is happening within the Masai. For example, because he is educated (after secondary school he went to school to become a guide), he is allowed to choose his own wife and he does not have the same ear piercings (large, large holes) that non-educated Masai men have. The diet of young Masai is changing, and technology is making an impact so that some Masai even have cell phones. On the other hand, however, girls are still rarely educated in this culture and are not valued in the same way as boys.
After three days of these experiences, we were ready to leave on Monday morning. We were so grateful for Peter and for all of the amazing things we saw, as well as for the lavish hospitality of the Karen Blixen Camp. Our plan was to drive north from Narok to the city of Nakuru and to stay over night in the park there on Lake Nakuru. However, we couldn’t find affordable lodging for the night so we just drove up and around the Lake before heading back to Nairobi on Monday night. The national park around Lake Nakuru is known for having a lot of buffalo, rhino, flamingoes, and pelicans! We saw all of these animals in abundance here. In addition, we also saw about 5 more lions sitting right by the side of the path (literally, we almost missed them!), some more hyenas and giraffe. All in all, I think we saw every possible animal except for leopards and cheetah, which are extremely difficult to spot.
What a trip! After twelve hours of driving on Monday we were definitely tired (especially Kristoffer, who did all of the actual driving). Our big activity yesterday was picking out and ordering curtains for our entire house (with very helpful input from Kirsten and Hans) and having our new sofa for our upstairs living room delivered. It turned out beautifully! We love it and eagerly showed it off to our neighbors last night!
Kirsten and Hans have been here for one week and have seen and done so much! It was a great holiday and on Sunday they will be going to the beach island of Lamu for a few days by themselves. Kristoffer and I will stay back in Nairobi and enjoy our new sofa.
LMW
