Nairobi - Masai Mara

After a little bit of sleep I was up early for our first full day of the safari.  The five hour drive from Nairobi to Masai Mara allowed us to watch the changing landscape from an urban city to the rural countryside as we drove further out.  We stopped at a viewpoint of The Great Rift Valley and came across a lot of goat, cattle and sheep herders along the roads as we drove past.  The last hour of our drive was on an unpaved dirt road and we bounced around a lot in the van.  Our final destination and home for the next three nights is the Siana Springs Tented Camp which is located in the middle of where there are some Maasai villages.  The large tents include a shower, toilet and twin beds and are set amongst a natural setting.  There are deer wandering around the grounds and we have to tie our tent zippers closed so the monkeys don't get in!

After lunch we set out for our first game drive in the Masai Mara National Reserve, which is about 30 minutes away from where we are staying.  It was a pretty amazing afternoon as we searched for and found zebras, wildebeests, Thompson's gazelles, topi antelopes an ostrich and then our first big sighting- a herd of elephants including a baby!  They were just eating and walking around and it was so cool to watch them.  We next set our sights on finding a lion.  We drove around for a while without much success, but our big break was finding a group of vultures eating a zebra, which our drivers thought indicated there should be a lion in the area.

By some miracle we managed to spot a lion up the hill and drove towards him.  Then he started walking towards our van!  He was so close to us as he walked past and then went to a watering hole to drink.  Because he appeared to be full from a feed he didn't pay much attention to us watching him.  After that incredible experience we started to head out of the park and came upon another herd of elephants.  It was such an amazing afternoon that I wonder whether we have cursed ourselves for the rest of the trip.

When we got back to Siana Springs it was dark so we headed to dinner where we were treated to a performance by a group of male Maasai people, including a jumping competition.  They have a fire pit with a man singing songs on guitar, which adds to the camp feel of the place.  Chantal and I returned to our tent and enjoyed the sounds of nature outside before falling asleep.