I'm not going to lie, I was not excited for the Masai Mara trip. I had a really rough week and was thinking that sitting in a car all day looking at animals was going to be annoying and tedious. Boy was I wrong! Looking back, I feel like such a spoiled brat for feeling that way. The 3 day safari was definitely a highlight of the semester in Kenya.
At 6:00 a.m. Friday morning I woke up, shoved clothes, toiletries, a book, sunglasses, my laptop, and camera into my backpack and headed to the d-hall for the typical 4 pieces of bread and sausage link breakfast. When 6:30 a.m.- our departure time- arrived, we all continued sitting in the d-hall. None of us even thought to go see if the safari vehicles were there yet. We are on Kenyan time now. To our surprise, our safari guides are not. They are more on mzungu time than we are now a days. We shove our luggage into a white van and yellow land cruiser. I sneak my way into the yellow land cruiser. I love yellow and I want to travel in style.
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| pretending to drive the safari car |
It takes over 6 hours to get to the Masai Mara and after a certain point, it is all bumpy dirt roads. I can nap in about every setting now...even when my body is being thrashed about in a car. We also had some 'sick jams', including some Somali music, and Cadbury chocolate to accompany the beautiful scenery we saw as we trekked our way all the way to the Mara. Our drivers, LaShawn and Miller were a hoot.
When we arrived at the
Ashnil hotel, Aubrie and I headed to our
luxury tent, put down our belongings, and then went to the buffet-style lunch. It was amazing! After shoveling as much delicious food into our mouths as we could, I looked at Aubrie and said, "Gluttony is a sin. Oops." The buffet was filled with cooked to order pasta, mini burgers, fruit, salads, potatoes, deserts, juice, etc.
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| our luxurious beds in our luxury tent |
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| egg chair |
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| our porch looking out on the river filled with crocs and hippos |
After a late lunch, we packed the vehicles and started our sunset safari. Immediately we stumbled upon two lionesses in a bush. One was pregnant. Tyler and I hopped up on top of the yellow land cruiser for almost the whole safari in order to get a great view. Tyler wanted an up close picture of the lioness with his Go-pro so he started reaching it out towards her and she decided to be a scardy cat and run while showing her teeth. I was convinced she was going to leap on top of the car and I quick jumped down into the car before I realized she was more afraid than I was. If I was out of that large yellow car, I'm sure it would have been a different story though. We continued on our safari and saw many animals such as giraffe, elephant, warthog, and buffalo.
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giraffe!
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| elephant |
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| buffalo |
After driving past a whole herd of buffalo, as the sun was beginning to set, the first vehicle (which I was in) made it safely over a large mud puddle and then to our dismay, the second got stuck. We figure that this was because we packed it full with 8 people and it was sitting much lower to the ground than the land cruiser. At first, just the guys pushed and pulled trying to free the van from it's restraining mud trap. No success. It's much darker and we start getting a little panicked. Aubrie seized the moment to quickly film a news story and interview the on-lookers, as in the people not helping LaShawn and his other drivers. Then everyone was summonded to help push it out. A few of us were in perfect positions to get sprayed with mud and two almost lost a leg under one of the wheels when they slipped under the van as we pushed it. New strategy. It's not getting any lighter people...All the girls go and pray out of the way and joke around about the animals likely lurking in the bush planning their feast on the foolish humans. Paige was deep in prayer as we look upon what seems like a hopeless situation when they finally freed the beast from it's muddy snare! Cheers explode! LaShawn thanks all the cheerleaders for our support...we weren't really much help. Phew...now it's time for a pitch black drive back to our tents for another wonderful meal, hot showers and a bonfire.
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| when the van was stuck in the mud |
The next day we woke up to another wonderful meal...no I will never get sick of eating great food. Then we set off on our day long safari. Did you know safari is the Swahili word for journey? And journey it was...
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| First we saw lions! |
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| Beautiful scenery and tree in the Masai Mara |
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| Rawr |
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| I just can't wait to be king. |
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| Simba |
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| We were so blessed to see a Cheetah...in fact, we saw 5! |
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| Pumba |
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| Zebra |
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| Baboon |
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Crocs dining on a zebra
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Lunchtime! We were told that lunch was take away...I figured that meant sack lunch...maybe PB&J? Boy was I wrong. We were treated to a 5 star dining experience in the bush. The food was amazing. We even had cake!
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| photo cred: Tyler Minnesma |
Our meal ended up getting down poured on because it is rainy season, but we escaped to our vehicles and when it finished raining minutes later, we continued...not before finishing off the desserts of course though ;)
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| enjoying the safari |
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| giraffe! |
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| One of the coolest things we saw all day. Lions with at least 14 giraffes in the background |
That night, it was Jake's 21st birthday. How neat that he got to celebrate his birthday in a famous game park in Kenya? Pretty neat. At dinner, Masai warriors and Ashnil staff came out with black forest cake and got our whole group up to dance and sing in celebration. At midnight, the song Thrift Shop started playing on the TV which was hilarious since it seems to be a group favorite and definitely reminds us all of Jake. We then retired to our tents to all hangout in our robes. For some reason, the luxury tents came with complimentary robes, which we all found funny and wanted to make use of. Some boys even went to dinner in their robes. Don't fret, we all had clothes on underneath them. We didn't have much time to sleep that night since the next morning we set out at 6 am for a sunrise safari!
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| We saw a hyena who was attacked by lions. |
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| A milking zebra |
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| Scar...who was defeated by Simba recently and is no longer king of the jungle. |
After we packed up, we head out for the journey back home. That was a safari in and of itself.
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| mama and baby elephant |
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| bye bye birdy |
The whole way back out of the park, the self proclaimed "girls car" blasted music and had a dance party as well as let the wind blow our hair as we sat up on the open roof! It was so fun and one of those crazy moments when Rihanna is blasting and you realize you're in Africa surrounded by wildlife and doing all these amazing things and it just doesn't feel like real life.
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| The fun car! |
Overall, this was one of my favorite weekends in Kenya by far!
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| photo cred: Dara Veenstra |
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| photo cred: Tyler Minnesma |
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| photo cred: Tyler Minnesma |
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| photo cred: Dara Veenstra |
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Ultimate group selfie
photo credit: Tyler Minnesma
"I just want everybody to know how neat nature is instead of just me and Aubrie knowing it"
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