We nearly went straight back to Kampala from Nairobi. For about half a day, we thought we should skip our last couple of stops - Maji Moto and the Maasai Mara - due to our incredible exhaustion. I think I’ve mentioned in every post just how tired we were, but it’s hard to explain this level of tiredness. It was absolute weariness. The long drives with children, the constant work of camping, the poor sleep - it was all adding up and we were tempted to just go home, but we got a bit of energy from our short stay in Nairobi and decided to push on. The Maasai Mara, after all, was the grande finale.
I’ll admit, I pooh-poohed the Maasai Mara when others talked about its grandeur. I had been on safari in Zimbabwe, all around Uganda, and Tanzania. Safari is safari. A game drive is a game drive. They all offer a relatively same menu of experiences, I thought. I was wrong. The Maasai Mara was beyond any of Africa’s wild places I had visited. Usually, a game drive is quite boring the majority of the time, as you may drive for hours before seeing something spectacular. Not at the Maasai Mara. We drove from one great sighting to another, all scattered across an incredible landscape. It was truly almost too much to take in. We were glad we came.
When we arrived, we set up camp at Aruba Mara camp, just outside the Talek gate, which had both luxury tents and camp sites with great facilities and an excellent restaurant. We pulled our Land Cruiser into the first camp site that looked appealing, right under an acacia tree, but when we got out of the car, we found nail-like thorns on the ground everywhere and quickly decided to look elsewhere. Once finding our new campsite, we realized two of the acacia thorns had punctured two of our tires. This was not how we wanted to begin our time in the Mara. Leo, however, brightened up. He had admitted to placing a thorn under our tire at a previous campsite because he “wanted to see what would happen,” so now he had his chance. Luckily, we weren’t far from Talek town, so after lunch, Eric and Leo headed to a local fundi (handy-man) while I waited at the campsite with Pax. I put him down for a nap, washed dishes, and was just settling down for a rare chance to read a book, when the boys came back ready to go.
On that first evening drive, we saw elephants, a hyena, and a pride of lions basking in the sun before their hunt. Now, the grandeur of the Mara is also its curse. Because it is so incredible, it draws the largest crowds and most of the drivers do not stick to designated roads, thereby destroying the very landscape they have come to enjoy. This also means that when there is a special sighting, you will likely be joined by dozens of other vehicles. So it was with the pride of lions. As we sat with the lions and several other vehicles, I handed Pax over to Eric, who sat at the steering wheel so I could take pictures. Soon, my 1-year old leaned his entire body on the steering wheel, giving the horn a decided blast, which was followed by a chorus of shame from the other tourists. “Are you serious!?” someone shouted. We bowed our head in embarrassment and pointed to the baby. People couldn’t stay mad for long. After all, the lions hardly blinked.
Leo, my son named after these great beasts, became bored. Instead of appreciating this special sight, his attention wandered to a safari van which had gotten stuck in the mud on the other side of a bush. We could hear it spinning its tires, trying its best to get out. Leo begged to leave the lions and instead wanted to watch the van try to get out of the mud. To each his own, I suppose. As the sun set, the lions stretched and got up to hunt for dinner. We had to get out of the park before dark and we had dinner to make. As we left, Leo craned his neck to see the status of the van.
We arranged for a game drive early the next morning, this time hiring a vehicle and driver so we could leave our tent in place. Just as we entered the gate, we spotted a hyena trotting across the plains with a freshly-caught meal and soon caught sight of 2 more hyenas in the tall grass. It was a good start to the day, but it then took a while to see anything else of note. We took a break by the river, where we could get out for a wee and we watched some hippos across the bank. Two were standing outside the water (a rare enough sight) and we heard them growling and grumbling at each other. We watched them fight for a while, which was the first time I had seen a hippo fight.
Later, we heard of a lion sighting and were taken to some bushes where we could barely glimpse a male lion laying in the thicket, with an occasional glimpse of movement inside, which we were told were cubs. We saw a couple of them come out to pounce on Daddy’s head for a bit, and then scamper back inside.
The best sighting of the day came after our guide received news on his radio of cheetahs. Our driver snapped the car into a higher gear and drove maniacally in the direction of the cheetahs. All other drivers in the area did the same and it felt like we were in a rally race. First, we saw a lone female cheetah glancing around the tall grass, her spots helping her blend in. Then our driver left her, much to my surprise and disappointment, but soon drove us up to a crowd of other vehicles where we saw the famous 5 cheetahs of the Maasai Mara, known as the band of brothers. We were told it is rare for cheetahs to hunt together, making this team of brothers a particular fascination for tourists and researchers alike. They had come from a meal and were now taking their rest. I was so happy to get this close to 5 cheetahs at the same time, even if there were dozens of other tourists around, too.
We had seen a hyena with a kill, lions, and several cheetahs. it had been a good morning, we reflected, as we headed back to camp. Leo, however, wasn’t satisfied. He had seen so many 4 x 4s stuck in the mud and he wanted to play in the mud, too. We laughed and tussled his hair. Crazy kid. And then, we heard a motor hard at work. Our driver looked to the right and saw another vehicle stuck. He promptly turned down the road to help push it out. Leo perked up. Now this was a successful morning for us all. After we pushed the vehicle out of the mud, we headed back to camp for lunch and baths.
Stopping to take a wee without breaking the rules and getting out of the vehicle.
We took one last guided game drive the following morning, before we packed up camp and moved on to our next site. It was a satisfying morning, as we almost immediately caught sight of the 5 cheetahs we had seen the previous day. They were given away by the dozens of impala and hartebeest standing at attention, muscles shaking, looking in the direction of the predators. The cheetahs, however, were relaxed and didn’t seem to be looking for a meal. This time, we were nearly the only ones around. We circled the cheetahs and the herds of antelope, getting a perspective of both sides of the food chain. We drove around a bit more that morning, seeing a secretary bird catch a snake, but little else of note, so we headed back, paid our bill at the campsite, and drove on.
We headed to our very last campsite of the trip, which was located in the middle of the Mara Triangle, right on the Mara River. This was certainly the most remote of all the places we had camped, without even water or toilet facilities. We did, however, have a couple of armed guards, who were required to stay with us throughout the night. The drive was lovely. We saw several giraffes and appreciated the landscapes, with all kinds of different species together in a single scene. We had lunch at a popular stopover on the river, with many other tour companies and their clients. I grumbled at several tourists who insisted on feeding the monkeys and even a monitor lizard. They came to see wild animals, I told them. If you don’t want them wild, then go to a zoo in your own country. I have to say, the irreverence of many visitors to this place of splendor really grinded me.
We drove on toward our designated spot on the Mara river. Along a dusty road, we noticed two vehicles sitting around a tree. We slowed down, wondering what they were looking at, and they waved us over. It took us a while to find the path to the tree, and by the time we found it, the other two groups were leaving. As they passed us, they told us there were 2 lionesses and 1 lion. It was an unexpected and lucky sighting to come across. As we drove up to the tree, I realized that, for the first time, we would be approaching lions without a guide or anyone else around. We were alone with the lions and I was nervous. And I was right to be. We kept a respectful distance, but as I cautiously rolled down the window, the male lion looked up at me. I stuck my camera out the window, and he barked at me. I know you don’t hear of lions barking, but that’s exactly what it sounded like. It was a short, but deep bark, meant to warn me. It did, indeed. My body raced with adrenaline and I began shaking. It is amazing how our bodies are primed to react to such threats. It took a while for me to calm down. In the meantime, I kept my window rolled half-way up and took a few shots. I couldn’t capture much, as the lions lay in the grass mostly hidden, but we stayed for a while, just watching them. Soon, another vehicle passed and we waved them over, too. This one was full of a large family leaning out of the pop-up roof. They took one lap around the tree, snapping photos with their phones without even stopping, and went on their way. I rolled my eyes. Here I was, literally shaking in awe and fear, while this family wouldn’t even bring their vehicle to a stop to appreciate Africa’s top predator. If you can’t stop for the splendor of this, I wondered, why are you here?
We made it to the campsite, grateful to be wrapping up our trip at such an amazing location overlooking the Mara River. It was a bit disconcerting to arrive and fully realize there was no camp groundsman, no potable water (we carried our own), and no way to know much regarding our whereabouts or what animals may be around. We knew the 2 guards required for the campsite would be coming before dark, which gave me some peace of mind. We set up camp, started a fire, gave Pax a bath, and started to make dinner. While our meal was cooking, I walked down to the river and noticed giraffes gracefully walking across the grassland, one at a time, to come to the river as the sun set.
Since I’m telling the good, bad, and ugly of our trip, I’ll tell you what happened the next morning. The plan was to have breakfast, then clean and pack up as quickly as we could, so that we could move on and have more time to rest at our next stop-over. However, we didn’t get on the road as quickly as we had hoped. I don’t remember exactly what triggered it, but Eric and I snapped at each other and suddenly, while bent over a basin washing dishes, I broke down crying. This cry was not a silent one with a few sniffles, but a full-fledged outpouring, like a dam had broken within me and the tears were rushing through. I still can’t pinpoint exactly why I was crying, but I knew I needed to let it come. Eric led the boys away and I went into the tent and cried more, taking my sweet time.
Perhaps it was the exhaustion that finally caught up with me. Perhaps it was knowing that we were at the end of a trip we had spent an entire year planning - one on which we had placed a great deal of expectations. I wanted this trip to prove to myself I was strong after being in pain for most of the year. I wanted it to halt power struggles between us and the kids, between the kids, and between Eric and I. Perhaps it was the realization that a trip cannot solve all of our issues and we still had a lot to grapple with once we got home. Whatever it was, I cried it out. Then Leo made me an offering of some kind of stick or flower he had found, and we moved on.
Almost wordlessly, we drove away from our campsite. I asked to stop when we saw a couple dozen hippos basking in the sun by the river. The mood lightened as we drove out of the park, seeing the light of the rising sun strike some graceful giraffes reaching for leaves in the tall acacia trees - the last scene in our last park of the trip.
