Flat Stanley Goes to Kenya (4): Masai Mara Game Reserve

Masai Mara is one of the most famous game reserves in the world, a great place for a flat boy who wants to see some of the wild animals he has read about. I've had two previous adventures in Masai Mara, so I was pretty excited when I was going to be visiting the game reserve again with my partner. The others joining our big safari will be with us later, but for this visit it's just Andrew and me and Charles (our wonderful driver and good friend).

There's much to see and do, and the whole Masai Mara idea just seems to cry out to be shared with someone else (and so as not to repeat, if anyone wants to read about my earlier visits, go to the posts for my first trip to Masai Mara in May, 2010 and the migration safari, written about in September - see links to the left).

I'm a great fan of the famous (and well-managed) Sopa Lodges in Kenya, and Andrew and I opted to use them for this trip. One reason of course might have to do with my great love of the elephants, which the Sopa Lodge folks seem to share. Their decorators include images of elephants in the lobby's wall decorations, giving Flat Stanley and me an appropriate background for our first Masai Mara photo op.

One of the reasons why Masai Mara is so well-regarded is the variety of wildlife. Some claim that lion sightings are almost guaranteed, and perhaps that's so, since we had pretty good luck seeing the lions.These were resting in the sun when we first spotted them, and they were not at all concerned about having a vehicle stop nearby for some photographs. I continue to be intrigued with how docile lions can be when they are not hungry and looking for food. They really are just great big cats, perfectly content to lie in the sun and observe what's going on around them or, with most of them, just sleep the afternoon away.

We also were very lucky with many other animals as well, and Flat Stanley had a good introduction to wildebeests (which I don't think we have in America), hippos, the African buffalo, and all sorts of other animals and birds, including topi, gazelle, eland, and the ostrich and the kori busturd. There are plenty of zebras, great herds of them, and they make a pretty impressive picture when seen from a distance. The zebras, too, don't seem to mind when they are close to the track and a van or 4X4 comes by and stops so the visitors can have a better look.


At Masai Mara we got to see plenty of elephants which pleased me and, I'm happy to say, pleased Andrew and Charles and Flat Stanley as well. The African bush elephant is definitely my favorite animal now, and there's just something about their grace and their huge size that intrigues me. They are very social animals and it is always interesting to watch them moving about in groups and try to figure out what the relationships are. The bulls are often off by themselves, but not always, and as friends and I found out when we was on the migration safari, bulls can be extremely possessive parents.


While at Masai Mara, we had the good fortune to have Tomas as our guide. A member of the Maasai community, Tomas had been our guide when Charles and I visited in May, and it was Tomas who arranged for us to visit a Maasai manyatta, the family compound where he and his relatives live. He took Charles and me there on the previous safari, and he agreed to take Andrew and Charles and Flat Stanley and me there this time. It was a pretty exciting trip, and not only did we and Flat Stanley get a chance to go inside a Maasai hut, the men and women of the community danced for us, demonstrating some of the ritual dances that have become almost a trademark for the Maasai.

The men of the Maasai community are easily recognized by the brightly colored toga-like wrap they wear, the shuka (also now one of the cheapest and most popular souvenirs a visitor can bring home from Kenya). They color their hair with henna, giving it sometimes a rust-colored tint, and they wear a great deal of jewelry, both metal and beaded jewelry. They measure their wealth in the number of children they have and, perhaps as important, the number of cows (they don't use our plural word "cattle"), with a man not being considered wealthy unless he has at least 50 cows. The manyatta is not only the family compound, for at night when the cows are brought in from where they've been taken to graze during the day, it becomes their home for the night, shared with the people living there.

Africa: The Migration (4) - The Wildebeests and the Zebras

The Best Four came on safari to see the Great Migration and we certainly were not disappointed. We'll get to the numbers later, as we try to describe our adventures with finding the animals crossing the Mara River to continue their migration on up into the Kenya grasslands.

For the present, let's share some of what we saw on our first game drive. In addition to the elephant excitement of our afternoon, we saw much more, and addicted safari-goers that we are, we just couldn't get enough.

As noted in other posts, the migration is generally associated with the wildebeests (in some countries the Afrikaner pronunciation is used - vil'-de-beest - with the accent on the first syllable) and the zebras (sometimes - pretty often, as a matter of fact - referred to as zeh-bras instead of our American zee-bras), and here at Migration Safari - Wildebeests and Zebras are some photos of the first herds we saw. Often the African buffalo gets mingled in, but I think that's just because they were already onsite and were enjoying the juicy grass before the wildebeests and the zebras migrated from the Serengeti to join them. Some authorities make a big deal about other travelling companions, such as the Thomson's gazelle, Grant's gazelle, topi, Coke's hartebeest, and eland, but it's the wildebeest that makes up the numbers, along with the many beautiful zebra that join them for the journey.

Also known as the blue wildebeest (I suppose because of its grey-brown coat), this member of the antelope family is a funny looking animal. The long, spindly legs give it an odd shape and seem hardly capable of supporting the wildebeest's upper frame. On the other hand, it's not a heavy animal, and I'm always surprised to see how thin the animals' upper body is, how slightly built the animal is. Another distinctive feature is the shaggy beard, which makes for some silly remarks from time to time amongst safari-goers. Known as a very gregarious animal, it's not surprising that the wildebeest herds travel together in the migration as they head for better feeding grounds. But that characteristic gets shoved aside a little as the migration moves forward. For some reason, as the animals go toward their new grazing grounds, the wildebeest move "into formation," positioning themselves into a single file, a line of moving animal bodies that can go on for the longest time (reminding me of my childhood in Virginia, watching the long freight trains moving forward, sometimes with a couple of hundred boxcars). My friends and I didn't try to count the wildebeest, but it was clear that any one line could have several hundred of them, only herding together and bunching up when there was some impediment to moving on. Very curious.

We have two types of zebras in Africa, and from what I can tell from my photographs, what we're seeing are the ones known as the Plains Zebra (sometimes called Burchell's Zebra), since their striping goes right around under the belly. the Plains Zebras are all over the place, from Ethiopia to South Africa.

The other species, Grevy's Zebra, has a different look, with narrower striping that stops when it gets to the animal's belly, leaving a broad white expanse under the zebra. Sadly, the Grevy's Zebra is now found almost exclusively in Northern Kenya, and their numbers are diminishing, down to between 1,000 and 2,000 animals according to one count.

The fact most people remember about zebras - aside from their simple equine beauty - is that each stripe is as distinctive as a human fingerprint. I'm impressed about how they always seem to show up with other animal groups, and from our earliest safaris our group has been surprised to see zebras in or near the herds of elephants, giraffes, and other groups we run across. They seem to be very affectionate animals, and it is not at all unusual to see them nuzzling each other as they go about their grazing.

Enjoying the zebras as much as I am, I think I shall re-focus a little as I continue to build my knick-knacks collection at my flat in New York. Although I'm not a rider, for years I have admired the shape of the horse and I have a tiny collection of sweet horse statuettes I've gathered during my travels (or that people have given to me). Doesn't the collection need some zebras now? I thought I had completed my African souvenir shopping a long time ago, but these beautiful zebras might inspire me to head back into the shops.

Masai Mara (1): Beginning A Very Special Safari Experience

One of the pleasures of life in Africa is the nearness of nature and the great beauty of nature, as one of my early guides described living in Kenya. You just can’t help being so thankful to be here and experience all this beauty and sometimes it’s almost a spiritual or philosophical experience.

As readers of these posts know, I’m doing my best to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’ve not been reluctant to go off on safari. I’ve had several private safari experiences (and I’ve  even learned to say “Safiri Salama” when I’ve met up with other travelers and we part, wishing one another “safe travels”).

All my safari activities have been arranged by the wonderful Charles, my driver, and by now he is probably my best friend in Africa. When I think what he has led me to and the experiences and adventures that I’ve had through his good efforts, I’m am very humbled. And very thankful. I could never have had this African adventure with my Charles.

Masai Mara was, in many ways, a grand (and planned-for and thus expected) climax to this phase of Mr. Guy’s  Mafrika time (I will be returning for more work – and more adventures – later in the year). We knew that it would be a big trip, for the drive to Masai Mara is just over five hours (and we’re very thankful to the new highway to Narok, which apparently has cut some three hours off the journey), and we took the decision to have two nights in the Masai Mara Game Reserve. It was a smart move, for it enabled us to have four very rewarding game drives, one the afternoon we arrived, two the next day, and one the morning before our journey back to Nairobi.

We used a four-wheel van for the safari, probably for a couple of reasons. First, as you’ll learn below, the FWV is not a choice if one is travelling into an area like Masai Mara. Secondly (and perhaps it was a little extravagant of one making a safari along) most of the vans open up, as you see in this photograph, and I would be able to stand and see everything I wanted to see. And, once I had my guide, would have him standing with me, to point out things I might otherwise miss.

For most of the trip to the game reserve, of course, we did not have a guide and I sat in the cab of the van, with Charles, where we continued with our many-faceted conversations, just as we always do when he is driving me.

And before I get much further into the tale, it’s important I think to make yet another reference to the roads, for Kenya has been fighting the battle of overland transportation now for several decades (I might have made some reference to the Kenya roads in the past). And with the influx of cheap used cars from Japan beginning in the 1980s, the old dirt roads just could not support the abundance of automobiles. So there has been progress, and once the Kenyan economy (especially around the four cities) began to pick up, suddenly people were buying new cars – in addition to all those four-wheel vehicles the expatriate community had been using for years – almost forcing the authorities to put resources into the highways. The job isn’t done yet – won’t be for a long time – but with the influx of Chinese funding and engineering labor for supporting the work and designing the roads, combined with the massive labor force here in the country ready and anxious to work – the highway situation is definitely improving.

Until you turn off the highway.

Now it’s a totally different experience (and I’ve experienced it – a little – on some of my other excursions). And if you take a look at the photos in Mr. Guy’s Masai Mara (1) Album, you’ll see some examples of what it’s like as one tries to maneuver beyond the hard surfaced roads. Fortunately, when a driver is as expert as Mr. Charles, most of the major potholes are avoided, and with his sharp eye Charles is able to discern quickly where the road is so rough drivers have cut a separate trail along another path (often parallel to the “real” road), simply because it becomes almost impossible to travel on the real road. The photographs demonstrate both the public road, on which one travels to Masai Mara, and the many roads and trails and tracks within the game reserve itself. And in many cases, since you’re in a 4WD, you can just cut across the high grass, but you try to keep to paths that have at least been opened up by someone else. A virgin drive through the grass can lead to some interesting – and rather delicate – encounters.

And as the photos show, all of the impediments to moving swiftly along the road are not just nature being disturbed. This is Maasai country, and Maasai wealth is counted in cows (as I’ll describe later) and when the cows are being driven back into the Maasai manyatta, the compound in which the Maasai family lives with their cattle, they have to cross the road. So you just wait.