Day 8 Mara North

Ch…Ch…Cheetah

Our first night here was a bit of an experience, lying in your bed at night hearing the sounds of wild animals, and knowing the only thing between you and them is nothing but a screen…

We could hear one particular animal calling and in the morning Brian replicated the sound perfectly informing us it was a hyena.

At 5:30 Amos delivered us our hot beverages and cookies and by 6:00 we were meeting up with Brian to start our morning game drive. We had filled out our picnic breakfast request at last night‘s dinner and that was already loaded into the Land Cruiser.

It’s amazing the plethora of animals here that all mingle together, each one playing a vital role in the group’s safety. Some have better hearing than others, some have better eyesight than others, while some have better smell. In the evening, they congregate on the plain away from the bushes, hence away from an ambush by predators, and collectively protect each other.

Not far in we found a pair of warthogs, one of which was humongous, so big that even Brian said it was one of the biggest he had ever seen.

As we rambled along slowly following a river, the view across the river and a large open field became clear and just as Brian stopped the car to pull out his binoculars Jenny said, “What’s that over there on those rocks?” By the time she had finished her question, Bryan exclaimed “Cheetah…Hold on.”

Again Brian demonstrating his prowess at driving like he stole it. He flipped around, raced back to the main road, crossed the bridge and ran up along the open savanna where the cheetah was ,trying to find a clear opening to cut across.

How lucky were we that we happened upon her while she was sitting on the black lava rock because by the time we reached her, she had come off of the rocks and was walking through the tall grasses. It would’ve been much harder to spot her if that’s where she was to begin with – their camouflage is incredible!

We pulled up to Nagol, Maasai for strong, and relished a few minutes to ourselves with this magnificent creature before any of the other guides could get there in response to Brian‘s tip.

Nagol wasn’t the least bit leary of the cars and moved around from spot to spot giving us fabulous opportunities for pictures in the early morning sunlight. We stayed with her for a full 40 minutes until a sixth car showed up at 7:50.

Not even ten minutes later we were back watching the same pride of lions we had seen yesterday evening but this time we counted five cubs and they were all up playing being completely mischievous!

We had about 25 minutes with the pride, known as the Offbeat pride (named after one of the camps in the Conservancy). We honestly could have watched those cubs all day!

We stopped and watched mara giraffes for a while, getting a kick out of just seeing their heads up above the trees. Brian explained how giraffes have prehensile tongues, allowing them to safely remove leaves from the giant thorn trees – quite the sight through binoculars! we also learned that both sexes have horns, but the females are fuzzy and the males are usually bald because lady. They also only have seven cervical vertebrae in their neck – same as almost all mammals, including us!

At 9:30 we stopped to have our picnic breakfast on a hill overlooking the valley below and the giraffes busy feeding. We were gobsmacked at everything we had managed to see already!

Our next sighting included an endangered secretary bird who had just killed a small mammal and was feeding on it when a tawny eagle dove in to steal it, only to then have a critically endangered white-back vulture swoop down and steal it from him. Quite the entertaining scene.

Next up a small herd of African savanna elephants including a one tusker and her adorable baby, a ridiculously large herd of zebras and their too cute brown striped babies mixed in tobies who was showing signs of a brain worm infestation by shaking their heads and runnng wild for no clear reason.

Arriving back in camp we were greeted with a cold drink and a yummy lunch. After Billy’s nap we worked on getting the soccer balks blown up before heading back out for the afternoon game drive.

On our evening game drive we went out searching for the elusive leopard but instead came across a hyena chomping down on a jaw bone – exciting but…Eventually though we ended back with the lions (we just couldn’t resist) before concluding the evening in a beautiful location to enjoy sundowners.