The Maasai Mara part 2

The second day in the Mara we did a full day game drive. We went out at 8 o'clock in the morning. We started off by seeing several Zebras right when we came out of the camp. We did not see much at the beginning of the day, but we did see all of the animals that usually take part in the great migration, they just stood around. It was amazing how well they got along together. It was cool to see so many animals in peace with each other. I had never seen so many animals all together at once in one simple place.

We drove off to somewhere else to find what we could. We went a little while without seeing anything different, then our guide spotted some lions a little ways away. When we got there we stopped for a while. It turned out we were really lucky, the lions were mating. it was interesting to watch. The female would go over to the male, the male would get up, get on the female and they would "go" for about fifteen seconds.

The lions kept it up for a long time, it seemed like it anyway. A little bit later we left the lions and headed out to look for something else that could be interesting.

We were driving along when Nixon, our guide, spotted Zebras over by a river a while away. When we got there there were thousands of Zebras lined up near the river. Since we were there for the Great Migration, the Zebras were deciding if they wanted to cross the river to the other side or not.

They ended up not crossing, but it looked like they were going to a couple of times. What they would do was get real close to the water, get a drink, then they would go back to where the rest of the herd was. One of the reasons they did not cross was because of the 3 Crocodiles that were nearby just waiting for the Zebras to start crossing so they could get a good and tasty meal.

Once we decided they were not going to cross, we left so we could find a place to get out and have lunch. We stopped near a river with Hippos in it.
The cool thing about the lunch was that it was out in the middle of nowhere, the bush, where any animal could pop out of the bushes or something.

After lunch we left. We did not see anything more that is worth telling about, so I will talk about The Maasai Mara part 3 next time.

The Maasai Mara Part 1

To get to the Maasai Mara, we needed to go to an air strip in a town near Samburu. The plane was not very big but we went in a smaller one to Amboseli. It was cool to watch out the window and see how the area changed. I mean with the trees the color of everything that we saw. Since we were so close to the ground we could see animals running around and playing and living their life not knowing we could see them.

When we landed in the Mara, there were animals all around us. From the looks of it, I think that the animals thought we were just some other weird animal, the plane that is. Our guide in the Mara's name was Nixon. He was a Masai. In his vehicle he had some beverages for us.
 
The Mara was the coolest place we went to. And it was my favorite, we were there for three days. We stayed in tents that were right in front of the river were many hippos were. It was a beautiful place to stay at and the service was nice, the food was good, you could see animals across the river from your room or the dining area, and I had my birthday there. The Mara was the only place that we were not by ourselves on our drives. There was one other couple with us.

We took our first game drive in the Mara at four o'clock in the afternoon. It was unlike any of the other places, where we had to look so very hard to find one animal at a time, where in the Mara, we could not go ten minutes without seeing hundreds of Wildebeast or Zebras or any Gazelles and birds.

 Road block, Wildebeast style.

Thomson's Gazelle

 We also saw a lot of Topi which are what you see here.

Zebras playing

We were driving along looking for anything we could see, when Nixon, our guide, spotted one lioness behind a rock a little ways away. It was deciding if it wanted to try to take on a buffalo or not, so we watched it for a while, but it did not do anything, it was still interesting to watch though. We left the lioness and went to look for something else. We only went about two minutes when we found two male Hyenas laying down. They look surprisingly a lot like dogs.

This is Nixon

We left the Hyenas and started heading back to the camp, which was called Karen Blixen camp.

That was the end of our first day.
I will write about our second day next time.

Sweetwaters Camp

Hey everyone

Today I am talking about Sweetwaters in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. We only stayed for one night but we wished we could of stayed longer but it was still nice to stay there. Right out side of our tent there was a water hole where many animals would come and drink the water there. The Warthogs were fun to watch eat, they stick their butts in the air and munch away on the grass.

When we got to the place we had lunch, and sitting or standing right out side the window of the restaurant, was a Maribou, which is like a mix between a Stork and a Vulture.

 And then after lunch, I got to go on a Camel ride. It was fun, but mine was being a bad boy, he kept stopping to eat leaves and he started to run one time.

At four in the afternoon we went out for a game drive. Before we actually started we went to a Rhino sanctuary and a Chimpanzee sanctuary. The Rhino was a blind black one, so he had to be kept in captivity so it could live longer than it would of in the wild on it's own. His name was Baraka.

 We didn't see much at Sweetwaters but we were glad of what we saw. But we did see vultures eating a dead giraffe and lots of gazelles and some giraffes and an elephant.

The next morning we got up and went to the town that was nearby so we could fly to the Maasai Mara. As a matter of fact that is what I will be writing about next.

Samburu the first place we went

Hi everyone,
Samburu was the first place we went after we stayed the night in Nairobi. In case you did not know, Nairobi is the capital of Kenya. We got to Nairobi late at night and we needed to get up early in the morning to get to Samburu. The drive was six hours. Half of it was bumpy roads so it was a bit annoying after a while. We finally arrived in time for lunch. 

Amazed by the beauty and the nature of the place, we walked through with monkeys all around us and many different beautiful birds. At the lunch area, or the dining area, there were two of the local Samburu men that were scaring away the monkeys with their slingshots and using them so the monkeys don't steal any food from the kitchen or from peoples plates.

 It was an enjoyable meal with the scenery and all the stuff around us that's going on at that moment.

At four o'clock, in the afternoon, of course, we went out for our first game drive. At first we did not see anything but birds, but then we started to see a lot of Impalas, dik diks, and other antelope and gazelles. But then we saw the one thing we thought we would not see, a cheetah. 

The next day we saw some water buffalo over by the river, a warthog, a huge herd of oryx and some elephants and three reticulated giraffes. The stay was good, but we did not see that many animals, or at least as many as we thought we would. 
On our way out of Samburu, we stopped by the local village to visit for a little.
The people danced for us sang some of their songs and showed us around their village. It was fun to see all the people and the way they live.

Next I will be writing about Sweet Waters, where we stayed for only one night.

Kenya

Hi everyone sorry I have not written in so long I was busy with stuff I needed to do and plus, I got to go to Kenya for 2 weeks and it was fun and even more amazing than you can imagine. We first went to a place called Samburu which was a in a tropical sort of place which had monkeys and a few antelope called Kudu that came around every once and a while. I kept a journal so I wouldn't forget about everything. All the animals are:

• Wildebeast all over in the Masai Mara because of the great migration
• Zebras same thing as the wildebeast
• Giraffes
• baboons
• Rhinos
• Chimps
• Elands
• Topis
• Elephants
• buffalo
• monkeys
• dik diks
• impalas
• thomsan's gazelles
• grants gazelles
• hippos
• crocodiles
• vultures
• eagles
• secretary bird
• ostriches
• cheetahs
• lions
• hyenas
• mongoose
• jackals
• hartebeast
• oryx
• maribou
• warthogs
• storks
• spoon bills
• and much more

and many birds that were beautiful in color and that we saw many times so we could appreciate how pretty they were.

 This is Wafula--does he look familiar? I was given an African tribal name by a Kenyan man I met. It means Rainy Season which is a good time for Africa. It is a time when everything grows and animals are nourished.

This is only the intro to everything. My next blog entry will be about the first days in Samburu National Reserve.