Longest travel time, here we come! We begin with a 9 1/2-hour flight to Heathrow London. After a 3-hour layover, we board for our 9-hour flight to Nairobi.
Our final day at the Maasai Mara
Our final day in the Mara came very quickly. As usual, we started it with a morning game drive. A gorgeous sunrise, a jackal, some Cape Buffalo, and a herd of female elephants with their babies greeted us.
After breakfast, we found the cutest hyenas I’ve ever seen. Baby hyenas might be the cutest animal on earth.
We went to the Tony Latham Predator Hub to learn how the Conservancy works to protect animals like the lion, cheetah, and leopard, while working with the Maasai people to make sure they are able to safely run their cattle, too.
After lunch we went to the Maa Trust to learn about the beading shop that employs Maasai women, giving them income of their own. We learned how hard beading by trying it! And we finished our visit by heading to the greenhouse, and learning about how they are working to save endangered plants and house on native knowledge of plant use uses. 
Although rainy, our last evening in the Maasai Mara was beautiful.
Our drive back to Nairobi was long, but not an interesting and we headed home with both Murphy’s stuffy‘s still in tow. It was a trip we will not soon forget.
Day 3 at the Maasai Mara Concervancy
Each day in the Mara began with our early morning game drive and breakfast out on the savanna. This morning was as beautiful as always. We saw the male lion, Supat, patrolling his territory as well as some giraffes & hartebeest before our breakfast.
On our ay the visit a Maasai village, we drove through a herd of Cape buffalo with calves
At the Maasai village we met their sheep, goats, & cows. We got to experience some songs; a lullaby by the women & a dance by the men. Then we were invited to visit a house. The houses are built by the women they are made with mud and cow poop.
Our evening game drive revealed more hippos, a very, very lazy year and a half old lioness with her sisters and mother, an incredible elephant, and our sundowner in a beautiful setting.
This was an amazing experience. Meeting people and experiencing the animals of this area have been more incredible than we could have ever imagined.
Now for a recap of our second day at the Maasai Mara Concervancy!
Yes, it is hard to top seeing a cheetah stretch and a lion roar. I do have to say that adding breakfast out on the open savanna while watching a wildebeest herd play and Maasai cattle pass by definitely was a good follow-up.
We woke up at 5:40 to coffee & hot cocoa being brought to our tent. By 6:15 am, we were in the safari vehicle & seeing animals. We saw a bull elephant, a tiny dikdik (the smallest of the antelope), and a secretary bird. We saw the tawny eagle and a yellow-beaked stork, too.
After breakfast with the wildebeest, we saw some elan, mongooses, more warthogs, a crocodile, and many hippo heads in the water! We also found a lone bull Cape buffalo, more topi, and some hartebeest with babies. All this before heading back to camp for lunch.
Even taking a break at camp, we continue to see animals. We found a cute little bat in the media tent, and dwarfed mongooses running about the camp.
During our evening drive we found 4 female lionesses and an adolescent male, about a year and a half old. The lions started stalking a warthog but gave up after it began raining hard. We put down the cover on the side of the vehicle toward the rain & had our sundowner drinks in the truck, while watching the lions. A hippo and a beautiful sunset were visible on our drive back.
A hot bucket shower, yummy supper, and a hot water bottle in our beds finished this beautiful second day at Porini Lion Camp.
Maasai Mara Conservancy Did Not Disappoint! And We are Only on Our Second Day!
After lots of traffic while driving up and over the pass that led us into the Great Rift Valley (We got to see & drive through the Great Rift Valley!), we made the long journey to the Maasai Mara Conservancy. We couldn’t even drive the four-wheel-drive van that had done great for us at Ol Pejeta into the Conservancy. Only their own four-wheel-drive Land Cruisers are allowed. Of course we didn’t drive anything anytime. Wallace, our driver from Discover Corp, had driven us everywhere so far. And had done a great job of it!
Anyway,, we finally made it to the Maasai Mara Conservancy and to our tents at the Porini Lion Camp. By tents, I mean large tents with 2 beds, a desk, a flushing toilet, cold-water sink, and a bucket shower. Oh, and electricity from a solar panel.
After a late lunch & a bit of time to settle into our tents, we headed out for our first evening game drive. First, let me say that the name Lion Camp is definitely an accurate name. After seeing so many animals like the eland, impala, & hyena,
we saw our first lion. A female lion in the bushes. Minutes later, we saw a male lion in nearby bushes.
Immediately after getting a peek-a-boo view of the lions, we came across a female cheetah relaxing on a mound. She was so elegant and beautiful!
As if all that wasn’t enough… as we headed away from where the cheetah was laying, we came across the male lion out in the open.
Then, after all those amazing animals, we had our sundowner (drinks out on the savanna as the sun sets) we had several curious hyena check us out.
Elephants, Giraffes, & Beads
Yesterday we left Ol Pejeta & headed back to Nairobi. We stopped by the equator, which we had ben going back and forth across for the past few days. I realized that this was the first time I had been south of the equator!
Today we started by going to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. They have been rescuing baby elephants, as well as other animals, since 1977. They bring the baby elephants (14 at the moment) and tell about each one while giving people the chance to pet them while they eat near the ropes. They do this for only one hour so the elephants don’t get stressed. All of these elephants have a specific keeper who sleeps with them until the leave the nursery. Then they sleep outside & at adulthood, around 15, they choose to go sleep with the wild elephants. They give the elephants the choice once they are old enough. I gave Ed & Jesse the book, Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story for Father’s Day. It is about the creation of the Sheldrick Wildlife Refuge & Ed recommends it!
Next, we headed to see & feed some giraffes. we headed to the Giraffe Center. This a sanctuary for the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe. They focus on education of visitors and school groups. You are given some pellets as you enter and feed the giraffes one pellet at a time.
Finally, after lunch, we headed to Kazuri beads. This bead/jewelry company began with one woman hiring two single moms to work at making beads from the clay at the base of Mt. Kenya. Now they have many women employed & sell the beats all over the world. We were able to take a tour of the workshop & then make a piece of jewelry out of beads we picked. Then, of course, we found the shop where they sell them on site.
Tomorrow we leave for the Maasai Mara Refuge.
Ol Pejeta!
Not only did we see so many amazing animals in Ol Pejeta, but we learned about all their outreach & conservation that they do there.
Amazingly, the Savannah reminded me so much of eastern Montana. When we were speaking with a man who works with the last of the Northern White Rhinos, he mentioned having been to Montana & how it felt like home. I certainly felt that on our game drives.
Besides game drives, we first got to learn about the ant-poaching and search dogs. They had bloodhounds for search/anti-poaching and a spaniel for ammunition & gun detection. We got to be involved in a search & rescue simulation. I had hidden for my Mom’s search & rescue dog before so it was fun to see it. Since poachers have become more careful not to leave anything behind, they use the scent their tracks leave behind. Murphy left a track for them and he, Ed, & one of the men from the unit went to hide. We watched Watson, only 18 months old, sniff & track them.
Our next learning opportunity was to stop by the chimpanzee enclosure. It was huge. They have chimpanzees that have been rescued from being pets people abused & from the bushmeat trade. We share 98.6% of our DNA with the chimpanzee. They are amazing. During Covid, the keepers had to stay at the preserve for a year without leaving because the chimpanzees could get Covid. These people are very dedicated.
We got to learn about how the local cattle ranchers run cattle on the preserve with all the wildlife, including lions.
Our last stop in the conservancy was to see the last 2 Northern White Rhinos alive. They are mom & daughter. The conservancy is working with sperm & eggs taken from Northern White Rhinos to try & bring the species back from extinction. Interestingly, white & black rhinoceroses are not white & black. White rhinoceroses have wide mouths spelled wijde, so when the wide mouth rhinos were called white rhinoceroses, by Europeans, they decided the opposite of white is black, so the other must be black rhinoceroses. In fact their differences are in the shape of their mouth & backs.
We also got to meet a blind black rhino that is living its life at the Conservancy and loves to be petted.
Wow! What amazing animals!
So, I’ve been a bit busy looking at animals and learning about Ol Pejeta Conservancy. When we arrived at Ol Pejeta from Nairobi , I was hoping to see a few of the animals I had been reading about since I was a kid. Ol Pejeta did not disappoint! We were staying at a tented camp in the middle of the conservancy called Sweetwaters. After a lovely lunch we were shown to our tents. I was asked by staff if our tents would be too far away & I assured them it would not be. That was an awesome choice! We were right next to a place where animals of all kinds gathered.
On our walk to our tents, we saw our first wild rhinoceros. Our first! Then, after putting our bags in our (glamping doesn’t even explain it) tents, we looked out to see a herd of cape buffalo right on the other side of a ditch outside our tents. The ditch did have electrified wires, but… As we watched the cape buffalo along with many beautiful birds, here came a herd of impala. Asyou do, I started taking pictures of the animals. A few pictures in, I noticed there was a zebra in the background of my impala picture. That, of course, is when I looked up to see the whole herd of zebra just behind the impalas in the trees. And, of course, a watering hole on the Kenyan savanna would not be complete without the warthog.
Of course, I am not forgetting all the beautiful birds. From the superb starling (Murphy’s favorite) to the Egyptian goose and the Guinea fowl, there were so many amazing birds. And all this was before we ever went out into the preserve on a game drive.
On that note, I will share some pictures of this amazing first day.
We made it to Nairobi!
About 27 hours after leaving the Salmon Beach parking lot, we arrived at our hotel in Nairobi. Both British Airways flights went well. With a Guinness at Heathrow between them. While our arrival was not necessarily uneventful, we made it & had a wonderful South African Cab-Merlot blend before collapsing in our hotel beds!
Getting ready to go!
Murphy has brought Snowdrop (the black & white dog) on many adventures in many different countries. I think the distance of our travel and the attachment to this stuffed dog have made Murphy worry about losing her. So, today, the day before we head out, I spent some time adding an information tag to Snowdrop and Murphy’s new stuffy, Dot-eye. Now we are checked in for our flights tomorrow and have some new tags (the old-fashioned kind, not Airtags!) to make sure we all make it home again.
So Much Adventuring 