Maasai Mara

We woke up at 6am Friday morning to get ready to leave for Maasai Mara at 7am from Tenwek. I was happy to see that Matthew was going to be driving us again. I forgot to mention in my first post that on our initial ride in with Matthew from Nairobi to Tenwek, he and Wiley sang a song together. It was hilarious. Matthew is 24, so only a few years younger than us. Wiley was confirming that Jambo meant hello and then started singing a song he learned at Tenwek when he was 12, “Jambo, Jambo buana, habari gana, nzuri sana, ….” and then Matthew joined in and they were both singing the song together. I wish I could have gotten it on tape. Matthew loved that Wiley knew that song and started laughing. He said that he used to sing it when he was younger. Anyway, I thought that was funny. Back to Maasai Mara….It takes 2 1/2 hrs to get to the game reserve and I must say it is a very bumpy ride. Wiley and I piled in the van along with 4 other people from Tenwek. Dr. Dittrich, a plastic surgeon from NC and his son Will, Patsy and her granddaughter Faulkner from Nashville, Tennessee. Fualkner and Will are both about to enter their Senior year of high school. I have enjoyed getting to know each of them. It was a beautiful drive into Maasai Mara. We passed so many Maasai villages that comprised of little round huts with straw roofs and mud walls, cows, sheep, goats and huge fields of corn. We eventually pulled up to the Fairmont Mara Resort. It was beautiful. Wiley said that it has been renovanted since the last time that he came here with this family. We were greeted by the hotel staff and given a warm wet towel and mango juice as we entered. They have a main lodge with a room with couches, a fireplace and tv and then a dining room, outdoor porch area and a pool. The resort is located right next to the Masa river and there are hippos floating in the water right beside the resort. We were told that we would be staying in tents along the river. I hesitate to call them tents because tents make me think of camping- sleeping bags, bath houses, bugs, etc… But these were absolutely amazing. There was a four poster bed in the tent along with a bathroom with tile and marble counter tops. Definitely not what I expected! Wiley about had a heart attack when he saw it. It was so peaceful. We decide to lie down for a little while once we got there because lunch wasn’t for a couple of hours. It was so relaxing to lay on the bed and to hear the leaves rustling in the wind, the water rushing by and the sound of birds chirping. We woke up, went to lunch and then headed out on our first game ride at 3:30pm. When we arrived at the front of the hotel, we were told that our group was going to be split up, so Wiley and I were put in a group with 4 other people. Robin and Gavin were from Ontario and came to Africa to visit their son, who is working for Free the Children – building schools, providing health care, etc… for a Maasai community near the resort. The other two people with us were Ryan, from Ireland, and Alex, from Norway. They were in Kenya for vacation and were going to climb Mt. Kiliminjaro after they left Maasai Mara. They are friends and met when they were in undergrad at Yale. They were extremely witty and had a dry sense of humor. They would always provide excellent commentary for what they thought each animal was thinking. I’m sure that I boosted their egos because I laughed at basically everything that they said. Our guide for the whole weekend was Henry. I loved Henry. He would always say, “Rachel, are you okay back there?” whenever I would get quiet. He could always sense when I was nervous that we were too close to the animals. In my opinion, we had the best guide at the resort. Anyway, on the first ride we saw so many animals - an elephant, a lion, zebra, water buffalo, antelope, karibu, ostrich, etc… The whole experience felt very surreal. The landscape was incredible. I wish I had words that could adequately describe it or pictures that would truly depict what we saw. I felt like I was watching the discovery channel….and with Ryan commentating in his Irish accent, it really felt that way. We got back and took showers and then headed for dinner. Before we ate, we heard a lecture from one of the hotel staff about the various animals. At one point he was telling us what to do if we were to be attacked/chased by any of the animals. I wanted to raise my hand and ask, “how real of a possibility is it that we will be in this situation, should I be worried you are telling us this?”. For Rhino, he said to run in a straight line and then make a u-turn because Rhino can only run straight. I was thinking, “Okay, I could do that”. Water Buffalo, you play dead and then when they start to lick you (which is strange), you cut off their tongue. Also doable if I had a knife. For Elephants, you are basically out of luck. In his exact words, “they can outrun you, if you hide in the trees they will knock the trees down to find you, if you hide in a hole they will bury you in the hole and stomp on you.” Basically there is nothing you can do. Elephants were no longer my favorite animal to see out on safari. After hearing the speaker, we ate dinner and then went back to the tent to go to sleep. I slept okay, but I definitely heard monkeys playing outside our tent all night. We woke up around 6am to go on our morning safari. The wake up call consisted of a friendly “Jambo, hello, here is your coffee”. Someone actually came to our tent to wake us up and deliver coffee! It was freezing in the morning. Wiley didn’t bring a jacket, so he had on pajama pants under his jeans and then pu ton basically every shirt that he had packed for the weekend. I thankfully brought my fleece jacket and Henry had some blankets for us on the truck. The truck that we rode in each day was very open. It had no walls or a roof on it. If a lion decided that he felt like tasting human one day, he definitely had direct access to them. I got a little nervous at times because we got so incredibly close to the animals. The lions seemed to be unphased by us pulling up right next to them. There was one moment when we were looking at some elephants and as we were approaching them, I could just sense that one of them was not okay with it. It turned towards us and its whole demeanor changed. Henry sensed it and started to back the truck up. He said, “Those are bad elephants”. He said that a few years ago he was chased by an elephant for 1 kilometer, so he doesn’t mess around. I loved him for being so cautious. The last afternoon safari that we went on, we were able to get out of our truck and walk up to some Rhinos (sorry mom, I can only imagine your panic upon reading this!). There was a mother and a baby eating some leaves and we were basically about 5 feet away from them. One of the park rangers lead us up to them carrying only a stick. I was not comforted by this at all and just kept telling myself…"run, and then make a u-turn". Wiley of course loved every minute of it. He took a ton of pictures and kept inching closer and closer to them. Saturday night some Maasai warriors came in to the resort and performed a tribal dance. As a part of the dance, they have a jumping contest to see who could jump the highest. After a few dances around the room, they decided to choose a few people from the crowd to join them. I was trying not to make eye contact so I wouldn’t get chosen, but my strategy failed. I got chosen and danced around the room with them for a little while. I think I got the dance down pretty quickly, but thankfully they didn’t ask me to do the jumping part. I can only imagine what a sight that would have been! We woke up early the next morning and went on our last game ride. We headed back around 10am to Tenwek and made it back in time for the 4th of July cook out with the full time and short term missionaries. Wiley helped grill the hot dogs and hamburgers with a few of the other guys and I enjoyed getting to know some of the missionaries and new people that arrived over the weekend while we were gone. The day was ended with a fireworks show that was put on by several of the missionary kids. After a quick card game with other people in the guest house, we headed off to bed.