Maasai Mara Day 2 Morning

Maasai Mara Day 2 Morning

We awake at 5:30am, had some coffee in our room, and prepared for an early morning viewing drive. For the first time it is chilly enough to to wear an outer layer. I notice how the rounded roofs of the main building and the rooms are rather like the roofs of the homes of the nomadic Samburu that we saw over that past few days. We see the beautiful African sunrise next to a big cloud bank, leftover from the rainstorm. Joel notes that for the animals, “having a good night” has a different meaning than it does for us, for them it is about surviving the attack of predators for one more dark night. The morning sun turns all the grass golden, and the air is so fresh from the rainstorm.

We drive only a few minutes, and come to  the spot where we saw the big male lion, and we see him again, off in the distance, in the brush, barely visible against the sunrise. We stop at the place where the group of lions were eating the wildebeest yesterday, and see some of it still remaining. A hippo ambles his way to the river, afraid of no other animal. Joel says that hippos are very fast, he was once out at night and they spooked a hippo, which started to run and they clocked it at 30 mph, pretty fast on those little legs. He notes that they are nocturnal, feeding at night and staying in the water during the day, so it is unusual to see one out at this time of the morning. Further on, we see three more hippos, a long way from the river.

Along the road, we see two Ground Hornbills, silhouetted against the rising sun; they are larger than others we’ve seen, almost two feet tall. We see several large  groups of wildebeest grazing, perhaps thinking about when today they will try to cross the river. We must see several thousand here; these are the ones that made it across the river, We continue on, Joel says we’re now in black rhino country, and they are very hard to spot, being quite skittish, as Barney notes, understandable given how they have been hunted almost to extinction. I take a panoramic photo, we are surrounded 360 degrees by wildebeests. Their variegated coloring and tan “beards” are beautiful individually and stunning en masse. Joel notes that as relatively hairless, upright species, we evolved to take advantage of this environment. The hairless body, so different than the chimpanzee or ape, allowed early humans to dissipate heat more effectively, and standing upright allowed them to see over the  grasses.

We continue on, see a family of jackals by their den, and one stays out to watch us. A Ground Plover cackles and runs by us on the side of the road, and some Egyptian Geese scurry by. Suddenly Sammy spots a large male lion, sleeping by the side of the road; his belly is quite full, and he is deeply asleep, afraid of no one. He looks so peaceful, occasionally moving his foot, just like a house cat. It is amazing how the characteristic movements of the big cats are like domestic cats, and the smooth, efficient trot of the jackal is like the trot of the domestic dog.

Around a bend, we see a group of lions by the riverbank. One lioness comes quite close to us, Joel notes how thin she is in the waist, and that she is on the hunt. A young male and a female pose on a small hill, where they have a good view. Besides the lions, here we can see Cape buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, elephant, Impala, buzzards, and an eagle, all in one place; this truly seems like Africa. Another lioness approaches, Joel says that the group might be brother and sisters, all from the same litter, as the mother will push out the youngsters when she has a new litter. They move along the riverbank, on the hunt for breakfast, and cross behind our truck. We  now see three lionesses on the hunt, as they triangulate around some possible prey, Impala, or wildebeest, or warthogs are all options. They hunt slowly, widely spread apart, taking long breaks as they watch their prey. The hunt may take hours, as the prey are distant, so we move on.

Well past the area where we saw the lions, we see some large herds of zebras, grazing but always with a few sentries on the watch. The trees here are deep green and well-leafed out, so seeing leopard and birds will be very tough. We come across another lion, though there are probably others, laying about 5 yards away from the kill, perhaps resting from eating a while.

Turning back toward the lodge, the view is filled with Acacia trees, but a different type than the Umbrella Acacia we saw in the Serengeti. These trees dot the landscape, and give it its local name, as Mara means “spots” in Swahili, which is how the landscape looks from the hills. We are rocking and rolling on the way back, getting stuck momentarily in the mud a few times. We see the sleeping lion we saw earlier, who has moved under another tree, and briefly raises his head. Farther on, we pass another huge herd of wildebeest, in a long line; driving about 40mph now, it takes us 30 seconds to pass this whole herd, which is a lot of wildebeests. We turn onto a two lane dirt road, the main road, for the 11-mile drive back to the lodge.