Lowes Travels

Our wild and wonderful safari – part 1

Aug 11-13, 2023

We’d been dreaming forever about doing an African safari, and couldn’t wait to jump into the 4×4 Land Cruiser and get started! A safari adventure had come calling to us when our original plans to visit Peru were thwarted by political unrest earlier this year. Thankfully, with the help of our amazing travel agent Philip, we were able to transfer our reservations to an 11-day safari journey to Kenya and Tanzania – including the Serengeti – with Gate1 Travel. This was our first trip with Gate1, and we were very happy with their service and would use them again.

We headed out of Nairobi and our introduction to Kenyan driving began. As I mentioned previously, Kenyans drive on the left-hand side of the road in right-hand drive vehicles, and it took us a while to get used to it. We watched Benson skillfully navigate 2-way streets that morphed into 6-way roads in heavy traffic. Busses, motorcycles, vans and Safari jeeps all jockeyed to get ahead. Overtaking is more of a game of life on the road, and it’s nothing short of controlled chaos. After a while we decided not to look ahead, but instead to focus on the countryside scenery and grazing livestock along the roads:

Lake Nakuru National Park

Four hours later, with cameras ready and excitement building, we arrived at our first game drive at Lake Nakuru National Park. This place is famous for the colonies of flamingos that thrive along its waters, and they were just waiting for us. It’s also a habitat to over 100 endangered black and white rhinos, and home to the endangered Rothschild’s Giraffe (remember the ones we fed at the Giraffe Center?)

We also spotted many other notable park residents – lions, zebras, impalas, buffalos and hundreds of pelicans. But the highlight was spotting a white Rhino and several ugly warthogs (also known as Pumba from the movie, The Lion King).

The drive to Lake Elementaita Mountain Lodge after the game drive was yet another experience of insane driving. Climbing 1400′ up the resort access road (if you can call it a road) was a hair-raising experience, and the wine included with dinner was a welcome relief. But the stunning views from our room made up for it. This was just an overnighter, and we would have been happy to stay longer.

Masai Mara National Reserve

We had a very early start the following morning for a 7-hour drive to Masai Mara National Reserve , an area of preserved savannah wilderness in southwestern Kenya. Once again Benson was basically a madman behind the wheel, but it’s pretty much a requirement to survive here.  With all of the complete chaos on the roads we were amazed at not seeing a single accident and almost no dented cars.  It’s a whole different method of driving and most people from the states wouldn’t last five minutes here!

The Masai Mara Reserve stretches 580 square miles and is known for the highest concentration of wild animals in the world. It was named after the Maasai people, the ancestral inhabitants of the area. The word “Mara” means spotted in the their language. It was easy to discern the many unique acacia trees with bushy tops spotting the landscape:

The Mara offers some of the best opportunities to see the African “big five” in action, which we had heard references to. So what are the “big five”? It refers to the 5 African animals – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant and cape buffalo – that early big game hunters considered the most difficult and dangerous animals to hunt on foot. They are still hunted, but for photographic reasons and wildlife safaris now.

We did early morning and late afternoon game drives, which are the best times to go when the big critters are out and about. Several of the travelers in our group elected to take a hot air balloon excursion one morning, so we enjoyed a game drive with only one other person and our driver.  It was like a private guided tour, and were we ever in for a treat! Seeing any one of the “big 5” on a game drive is good, but we struck gold on this day!

Steve and I alternated in taking videos, and below are some short clips to remind us of how we felt when watching these amazing animals. Being in the thick of it made us feel we were part of a National Geographic documentary. Their movements took our breath away:

The members of our group that went on the hot air balloon trip had another perspective of the Mara. When we got back to camp, we excitedly shared what we had seen, and Sharon and Amy airdropped their experiences to me:

The famous “Great Migration” occurs every year between July and September. According to Benson, during these months the yellow savannah is dotted black by more than 1.5 million wildebeest, zebra and antelopes that migrate across the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem in search of food and water. It’s a huge, circular migration culminated by the crossing of rivers filled with crocodiles and other dangers. We couldn’t stay for a river crossing (a high drama we’ve seen on TV documentaries), but we saw thousands of wildebeest in one area during an evening game drive:

This next short clip is X-rated in the animal kingdom, but….they were just a few feet from us doing their thing along the road, oblivious to our presence. And that is what’s amazing, the animals here mostly ignored us.

Except for a leopard, we saw almost everything wild that Kenya has to offer during our game drives, from the tiny birds to the majestic elephants. I took thousands of pictures, deleted many of them, and tried to choose the best for this post. It also turns out that Benson is an ornithologist, so I had a certified bird expert to help me identify the many beautiful new birdies we saw.  Score!

Our home base for two nights was at the Neptune Mara Rianta Luxury Tented Camp, directly overlooking the Mara River. It’s surrounded by wildlife and teeming with large groups of hippos. We had to be escorted after dark when we wanted to leave our tent – not because of criminals but because of wild animals. Cool!

We went to sleep to the chorus of streaming river, grunting hippos, and the sounds of other jungle critters.  If this is what it’s like to live in the jungle you can count us in!

Upon arrival, we had a fabulous outdoor lunch on the lawn with the sounds of chirping birds and over 20 hippos grunting as they lounged in the nearby river.

There was never a dull moment during our game drives, as we witnessed wild animals in their natural and awe-inspiring habitat. So far Benson had been right when he said we’d have the best time of our lives while on a safari.

We can’t wait to see what’s next in Tanzania !

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Next up: Tanzania