Maasai Mara Day 2 Afternoon

Maasai Mara Day  2 Afternoon

We had a very late breakfast, 10:00am after our very early morning ride, so we went back to the room to recharge. I worked on editing the huge number of typos in my blog, and Barney became a serious baboon-watcher out our veranda door. The door is open for quite a while, then he closes it and I ask why. He’a been watching the baboons through his binoculars, and saw a large male cover about 25 feet of grass in about 2-3 seconds and then jump about 6-8 feet into someone’s veranda. Luckily it was closed, but we realized that we need to keep a bit of a sharp eye out. But now they seem to be playing in a little puddle below the rooms, splashing each other, then several run up into a tree, where one goes far out to the end of a branch before it slowly bends to the ground. They are certainly playful. We alternate watching the baboons and reading our books, very relaxing.

We load up with Sammy and we’re off for the afternoon. We see the same lion sleeping in a set of bushes, the third time we’ve seen him. We approach the Mara River, where the wildebeests are gathering and may cross. A huge number of hippos are gathered, maybe 12, all quite close to each other; it seems like hippo happy hour. We see several wildebeest carcasses in the river, casualties from yesterday’s crossing. A crocodile waits across the river, camouflaged on the beach. We hear thunder in the distance, and can see the rain starting to the west, and the wind is from the south. We hope we can stay here until somehow the herd mystically decides to move. After about 15 minutes, part of the herd turns and goes back up the hill. Slowly, more and more of them stop moving forward, pause, and turn around. Still some are moving forward, one takes a few steps, then pauses, then another steps forward, and the herd moves bit by bit. Three times the front of the herd moves to the edge of the beach, with the whole group pushing forward toward them and, then three time they pause, and retreat again. On the fourth round time, even the leaders at the front of the herd turn around, so we move on. 

A lioness has been behind us most of this time, crossing back and forth, and she goes to where we saw several lions yesterday with a wildebeest kill. The male is there, tearing at the leg of the wildebeest, we can hear him crunching the bones. Another female is nearby, resting, while the other paces.

So no wildebeest crossing today, we will look a bit more for a rhino, and we see a group of waterbucks, who leap across a small gully, one by one, and behind them, two young Thomson’s gazelles are literally bouncing vertically, playing with each other. A small herd of elephants filter in and out of the tall shrubs that mark the transition from grass to trees, becoming nearly invisible in moments. The rain seems to have passed us by. We continue our search for the rhino, even encountering some rangers who saw rhinos yesterday, but no luck. Further on, we see a trio of mongoose, with a lioness nearby. The thunder returns and a light rain begins, and there is a partial rainbow in the background. 

Soon we see that there are seven lionesses in total, two of which are sound asleep, one which is watching us, and four pacing a bit. There is also a young male lion without a mane yet. He is posed in front of the double rainbow, which is quite special. Suddenly, two of the lionesses take off, and run down a wildebeest. We catch up just as they’ve downed it, and the wildebeest is still thrashing around. The young male approaches and instead of joining in the kill, he literally throws himself down on the puppy pile, not the least bit interested in eating. The lionesses too seem only  a little interested in eating, as they seem full. Clearly, this was a practice kill.

We’ve seen some wonderful sights today, and as the sun sets over the mountains, we head back to the lodge.