Sharon and I had just spent about a month traveling to Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Kenya.We were traveling with Jadmaire Ndivo, a Kenyan, who is a supervisor in the Nairobi Kenya Service Center, which directs church finance and administration in these countries. Our job was to train church leaders how to handle financial matters and membership records in their individual branches and wards. Jadmaire was very helpful in getting us where we had to be and to help us when crossing borders and keeping us out of trouble as we traveled. It was a lot of work, and now we were going to play for awhile.
When we finished our working tour in East Africa, we had scheduled a visit the Masai Mara Game Reserve. This would be our second visit. The first one was about three months previous when we were invited by a group of senior missionaries from the Nairobi, Kenya Service Center and the Kenya Nairobi Mission.
We were excited to go there again because this is when the Great Migration takes place. In July and August every year, it is estimated that about 1,300,000 wildebeest, 500,000 Thompson Gazelle, and 200,000 zebra migrate north from the Serengeti Plains in search of pasture. They migrate through the through the Masai Mara because of the plentiful grass that grows there. These animals, especially the wildebeest, are very vulnerable to the dangers along the way. As they cross the Mara River they sometimes jump from the high riverbanks into the river, breaking their legs in the shallow water, or falling on each other and drowning. If they survive these hazards, there are hungry crocodiles in the river waiting for an unfortunate wildebeest that may be down in the river. Then away from the river, there are hungry cheetah, lion, and leopard, and hyena that lurk along the way, just waiting for their next meal. We were excited about seeing the migration, but not really looking forward to the grisly scenes of animals being killed.
So we flew out of Wilson airport in Nairobi to the Masai Mara 'airport' in the little turboprop airplane, landing on a dirt airstrip. The 'airport' is nothing more than a dirt landing strip and a wind sock, but many small airplanes land and take off every day bringing safari clients in and out of the camps. When we arrived, a Land Rover picked us up and delivered us to the Intrepid Camp where we had stayed previously. Our 'luxury' tent was as nice as before, the food was great, and we were treated very well.
We asked for Reuben as our Land Rover driver, and fortunately he was available, We wanted him because of his knowledge of the animals and the Masai Mara. Also riding with us on the game drives was a couple from England with their 17 year old daughter. After lunch, we met up with Reuben, and headed out into the bush on our first game drive. It was as exciting as before as we saw and took photos of lion, cheetah, hyena, wart hogs, giraffe, elephant, cape buffalo, several species of antelope, including the small dik dik, (that looks like a miniature deer) and many species of birds, including the ever present vultures. Reuben seemed to know exactly where to go to find the animals and birds. He was always in contact by radio with the other Land Rover drivers in the area, as they worked together to maximize the sightings of animals. On one morning, we went out at 6:30 and at about 9:00 we stopped and had breakfast and hot chocolate that Reuben had brought along for us. One afternoon, a big rainstorm came in and Reuben hurried to unroll the canvas portable top and side curtains, but not before we got wet from the wind blowing the rain into the Land Rover. As a result of the rain, most of the animals disappeared into the bush, so we headed back to the camp. The next morning, as we were out on our early morning game drive, Reuben was driving through a wash, that, because of the heavy rain had turned into a quagmire. The Land Rovers can go just about anywhere, fording streams, crawling over boulders, and climbing steep slopes, etc. However as he was climbing the bank out of the wash, we got stuck. Reuben jokingly (or maybe seriously) told us that we may have to get out and help push. He shifted into 4 wheel drive and with all 4 wheels spinning, mud was flying all around, including into the open sides of the Land Rover. The wife of the family that we were riding with us took the brunt of the mud in her hair and face. She was good natured about it and we all had a good laugh. Meanwhile, we were still stuck, but after backing up and getting a run at the slope several times, we eased out of the quagmire.
As it turned out. we didn't see herds of animals crossing the Mara river and the carnage of broken legs, drownings or crocodile attacks that we had anticipated seeing. Nor did we see any lion, cheetah or leopard kills of wildebeests, zebra, or antelope. However, many of the lions that we saw, had full stomachs, according to Reuben and were just lying around, and sleeping. We did see, however, many dead wildebeests in the river, some of which were being eaten by vultures. Also in the river, were huge crocodiles, that looked to be about 15 or 20 feet long, just waiting for their next meal. In a big mud bog, a huge dead cape buffalo had sunk into the mud and it look like he had drowned in the mud.
In summary, this was a very exciting and interesting experience. The Masai Mara Game Reserve is considered to be one of the largest and with more animal and bird species than any other game reserve. We are grateful that we have the opportunities to travel around Africa, and for these experiences. We are very fortunate for the opportunity to be serving in Africa.
Amazing! It made me smile that you were that close to those animals. Yikes. Maybe it was a whimpering smile on my part.
Posted by: Tamara | August 17, 2011 at 09:44 AM