Masai Mara

Masai Mara

May 2, 2011

Masai Mara is a national park here in Kenya. Here you can, on a good day, spot all 5 of the “Big Five” animals here in the park. From what I’m told spotting all of them is rare, but it has been done. 

To get to the park is nothing short of a trip to hell. The road is horrible, dusty, and all of the drivers go really fast even over pot holes. There are essentially no potty stops unless you go in the bush, and no place to purchase a soda or water on the way. From Nairobi it took us almost 6 hours to get there. Now if the road was a good road it would of only taken us about 4 to 5 hours. Once we arrived at the park and at the lodge we settled in in our individual rooms. The lodge was really unique in that all of the rooms were in a “hut” like building but had all of the modern conveniences needed to make our stay lovely. The lodge sits on a side of a mountain, well what they call a mountain here in Kenya at least and you can see it from the road, but it is well hidden withing the canopy. Most of the security guys on the grounds were Masai men/warriors. I asked one of them what he was doing with a machette. Then I was told that a Masai Warrior is never without his machette. Well that was comforting at least. I guess it is a real good thing too as the lodge sits right in the middle of the park and there is nothing seperating the lodge guests from the residents of the park (lions, buffalo, elephants, etc). One thing about being on this short safari is the ability I’ve had to take a hot shower. Can’t do that at Alice’s house, but the hotels and lodges have hot water even if it’s only for a certain number of hours each day.  Masai Mara is in the middle of nowhere to coin a phrase. It is essentially smack dab in the middle of Masai land. The Masai people have all of their rights to raise their cattle and goats, and if a lion kills one of their livestock, the Masai have the right to go and chase down the lion and kill it. Which they do on a normal basis. It is said that a Masai man can not become a warrior until he kills a lion. Poor lions :o(