The Dark Continent - Safari Part 2 - Kenya

East African Safaris continued... on to Kenya

I was very happy that we had switched vehicles, viewing from the truck, even from the seats on the top, would have been difficult as we just wouldn’t have been able to get off the main roads where the animals usually are. As it was, on our way to Acacia Tent Village where we were to camp, we were treated to more lions, buffalo, impala, and Thompson and Grant gazelles. Near the end of our game viewing a black rhino rumbled into view and crossed the road between our vehicles. There are only 1,600 of these animals left in Africa and I was later to learn there are only two known to be in this part of the Mara/Serengeti. Moreover, neither of those two had been seen for several weeks. We were very fortunate indeed. And I had now seen all the big five.

We made several game drives in the Mara seeing many more elephants and buffalo, gazelles by the hundreds, and many lions, some as close as three meters. We were able to watch a magnificent male lion, his crowning mane shining in the sun, lapping water from a pool less than 5 meters from us. He regarded us with the languor and disinterest of a house cat sunning itself on a windowsill.

Effective game spotting is best accomplished by looking for signs of the animals rather than the animals themselves. For example, a circling flock of vultures probably indicates a kill of some kind. A better sign is a circling jam of Land Rovers; there will almost assuredly by something of interest to see in the center of the cluster.

Maasai Mara Safari