Kenya 2019: Maasai Mara Part 1 – First Impressions

Monday, June 10th

I think this time it was the excitement that got us up at 4 am. We got to work sorting, downloading, backing up photos as we watched the dark night start to lighten up. It was cloudy that morning, so there wasn’t much of a sunrise. Breakfast consisted of cereal, toast, an omelette, potatoes, a pancake that had the texture of a crepe, sausage, and bacon. A feast!! While there was a wide variety of food, we didn’t leave the table feeling overly stuffed, like you would have at an American breakfast. The bird feeders on the patio had been filled and there were dozens of parakeets.

Lenny and David arrived just before 8 am, we checked out, and headed back south towards Naivasha and then on to Narok, a three-hour drive. Kenya is a little smaller than the state of Texas and with slightly fewer people. We stopped in Narok to refuel both of the diesel tanks on the truck and relieve ourselves. A few miles outside town, the road went from the very best we had seen to the worst dirt road I had ever been on. That’s saying a lot considering I’ve covered tens of thousands of miles of Nevada’s back-country trails. The dirt road persisted for an hour and a half, but felt much longer than that. After about 45 minutes of bouncing around, our guides affectionally referred to the heavy vibration as the Kenyan massage. There was no additional charge for this luxury. Intermittent construction was taking place at random intervals along the route and forced us to switch sides of the road frequently, dodging equipment and large potholes. There are major infrastructure upgrades occurring across Kenya. The Chinese have invested heavily in exchange for trade. There are road, rail, and port improvements ongoing and the road from Narok to the Mara is one of them.

We arrived at the gate to the Maasai Mara at 1 pm. While in line to get in, we were accosted in the truck by hawkers pushing their wares. Our entrance fee was paid and we were off into the Mara!

Much like Nakuru, it didn’t take us long to start seeing some wildlife. We saw wildebeest battling it out in the road about a mile in. After the next turn, a lone bull elephant stood on a hillside right next to the road. Maasai giraffes grazed in the distance. It was an incredible welcome to one of the last truly wild places in the world.

We arrived at Keekorok Lodge at 1:30. We were given cabin 1287 and made our way there to start unpacking. The concierge arrived several minutes later and asked if we wanted a different room because the one we were in had only a single king-sized bed. It was our impression that she felt embarrassed to have given us a room with a single bed for two men. We agreed and walked down to 1297, where there were two beds pushed together with one set of sheets and covers, as if that was an improvement. We offloaded our gear and headed to a lunch of stir-fry in the dining hall. I made sure to use my Swahili while being there.

“Asante sana”, I would say after our waiter would refill our glasses. Translation: Thank you very much.

“Karibu sana”, he would reply. Translation: You’re very welcome.

After lunch we checked out the hippo pool behind the lodge. Hippos are one of the most dangerous animals in the world because although they look slow, they are fast, powerful, territorial, and unpredictably aggressive. The hippos in the pool wander through the camp in the wee hours of the night and the staff at Keekorok made it very clear that we needed escorts if we went out after dark. Unlike Sunbird Lodge, Keekorok is not fenced in, and wild animals can wander through at any time.

Lenny and David met us at the main lodge at 2:30 and we headed out for an afternoon game drive.

Kuta futa simba!!! Translation: Let’s find lions!

It was cloudy with intermittent rain. Kenya was just getting into winter there. And by winter, I mean it was 60 degrees in the mornings and in the afternoon it can reach the low 80’s. The great migrations start in Tanzania in April and work their way into Kenya by late June and early July, so we were there at the cusp of the arrival of the herds. However, there were still a staggering number of animals on the plains already. The one hillside appeared to be forested, but upon closer inspection, we found it to be huge herds of zebras and wildebeest. The herds of wildebeest we passed were large, but the noise was deafening. Wildebeest make a guttural lowing noise that almost sounds like "wowwwrrrwww" (think Owen Wilson saying "wow", but in a deeper tone). Although it seemed like it should have been a quiet afternoon, we were met with a cacophony a while driving around the savanna. There also were ostriches, Topi gazelle, Griffin’s vultures, a tawny eagle, marabou storks, white-backed vultures, and impala.

As previously mentioned, Kenya is home to the Big 5: Elephant, Rhino, Cape Buffalo, Lion, and Leopard. But there are other 5's:

The Ugly 5: Warthog, Wildebeest, Hyena, Marabou Stork, and Vulture

The Impossible 5: Aardvark, Pangolin, Cape Leopard, White Lion, and River Lion

The Shy 5: Aardvark, Bat-eared Fox, Porcupine, Striped Hyena, and Meerkat

The Small 5: Antlion, Rhino Beetle, White-headed Buffalo weevil, Elephant Shrew, and Elephant tortoise

After about an hour, we were alerted to a leopard spotting not far from where we were and made haste in that direction. Leopards themselves are not necessarily rare, but they are an uncommon sighting. When we arrived, there were about six other safari trucks there and in the tree, a lone female leopard. She was gorgeous. A woman from Kansas in another truck was mentioning that this was her sixth safari in the Mara, but the first time she had ever seen a leopard. More of our Tester luck. There were some audible gasps and murmurs as we broke out our heavy artillery and went to work.

After a while we left the leopard sleeping in the tree in search of other wildlife. There was scattered rain throughout the afternoon, and finally around 4:30 or 5 Lenny spoke to another guide, who indicated that there were some lions nearby. We headed that way and found some male lions lounging about in the grass. The clouds broke and the late-afternoon sun bathed the three brothers in warm light. Back to work we went. Our success in Nakuru as a team settled into a steady rhythm in the Mara that afternoon. Greg would shoot from high up with the long lens, I would shoot low for a bit. We'd trade lenses and positions, trying to capture the scene, details, and behaviors of the animals. We generally try to get a variety of wide-angle and close-up shots, but we also change from landscape to portrait shots as well, trying different compositions with the same subject.
A light breeze picked up and made the lions look even more majestic as the wind rippled through their manes. After almost an hour there, we felt that we had exhausted our shooting angles and headed back to camp.

We made one more pass at the leopard, who had woken, and to our pleasure there were no other vehicles there now. She was still laying in the tree, but the big lenses could get in close enough to see her sky-blue eyes. Absolutely gorgeous.

We returned to the lodge for a dinner of Hungarian beef, beets, and pineapple. After dinner, we got Tusker beers at the Tembo Bar. Tusker is a light lager beer popular in East Africa. I was first introduced to it in the Congo. There’s not much appetite for the niche craft beer market like there is in the US, so we were stuck with only a handful of regional macro-brews. The Maasai people perform traditional song and dance in the lodge with the guests and we joined them for some singing.

We returned to the room, and got to work moving our 1,500 pictures from the afternoon. We had seen 14 new species that day, including some lions. And to think, this was only about four hours out in the Mara. We still had two and a half days ahead of us. Who knew what lie in wait.

MARA DAY 2

Tuesday, June 11th

We continued our tradition of early wakeup at 5 am the next day to finish moving photos off cards and backing up our quarry. Lenny and David brought the truck just after 6 am, and we were off into the field by 6:30. Although we could have spent the morning and afternoon in the field and have lunch at the lodge, we opted to bring our breakfast and lunch out with us to maximize shooting time and minimize commute. Lenny and David seemed to be happy about that. They’re both very passionate about their work. Lenny spends his free time bird-watching with his son, so he is probably the most knowledgeable person I’ve ever met when it came to bird identification. Both men were very familiar with the Mara. Lenny had been a guide there for seven years, David for about two years. They knew the roads and terrain well. David was an expert spotter. On more than one occasion he would see some tiny, little movement off in the distance or behind a bush that turned out to be a species we hadn’t seen or an interesting group of animals. On our list of safari requirements, bad-ass guides: check.

The dark night was giving way to an array of pink clouds at dawn. We hadn’t driven more than five minutes before David spotted a leopard in the bushes. This leopard had incredible scars on his nose, evidence of the hardship these animals face in the wild. With the low light, long lenses, and high apertures, we struggled to get the focus on him, but finally managed a few frames before he took off into the underbrush.

Second leopard in 13 hours. Tester luck.
(Edit: We’ve later come to learn that this is a famous male leopard called Split-Nose.)

As the sun broke across the plains, we came through a small copse of trees to find a lone hyena in the road. Hyenas are pack animals, so we knew we couldn’t be far from a larger group. And we were right: just around the corner, there were more of them fending off another pack and pushing through the vultures to get the carcass of a wildebeest. One of these hyenas appeared to be blind in one eye. Although they’re often depicted as aggressive and ruthless, over the course of our time in the Mara we found them to be skittish but seemingly happy. Think: cute puppy.

Just up the road, two lionesses were basking. There wasn’t much to see. Lions are, after all, just big cats and I’ve mostly watched my cats lounge around all day so we really shouldn’t have expected anything different from the lions. We took some obligatory pictures and moved on.

A few minutes later we spotted a small herd of elephants on a hillside. They were too far for even our long lens to get decent photos, so we opted to have some breakfast. I counted in Swahili as I passed out the boxes: mojo, mbili, tatu, nne. Lenny and David were impressed again, and asked if I knew how to count to ten or higher. I got to twenty.

Pro tip: if you travel to a country with a new language, really take the time to learn some of the basics of the language like counting, greetings, and asking for things. It will be most appreciated by the people you meet.

In our boxes there was a yogurt, an apple, some carbs, and some chicken sausages that were delicious. We sat there for about half an hour, enjoying the complete silence as we watched the elephants in the distance. Our conversation turned to trophy hunting. There had been some recent controversy back home about Americans taking endangered African animals as prizes. The argument from the hunters is that the money they spend on the opportunity to kill an exotic animal goes to conservation efforts and the local communities. Both Lenny and David noted that Africa is largely corrupt, and that the money never really goes to those conservation efforts. Ecotourism, however, drives dollars to local communities much more effectively, while actually preserving the wildlife. Kenya has recognized this trend and to bolster conservation efforts, the country has banned single-use plastic bags. The people responded very well to this change, and now use other methods or reuse existing plastic bags. It’s amazing to us that Kenya, a “developing” nation, can enact such a stringent measure, but we can’t make the right kind of change in the United States towards a better environmental future.

With breakfast in our bellies and the elephants moving on, we turned around and headed east, past the lionesses again. A few minutes later, David was on point and spotted two male lions sleeping next to a watering hole. We pulled up within feet of the brothers and set to work. Much like the lionesses though, they were sleepy and much more interested in the back of their eyelids than the clicking sounds of our shutters.

Somehow, even out there, I managed to receive a text from my wife. I had forgotten to call her the night before. I sent her a picture back of our current activity and said all was well and promptly turned off my phone. Our ability to escape the digital world is shrinking. The sun rose behind an overcast sky and we moved on deeper into the Mara.

We had spent about another hour or so touring the Mara when Lenny got a call about cheetahs. The guides in the field use radios and cell phones to alert each other as to where there may be other species for their clients. We took a shortcut across the road and found ourselves drifting at high speed across the mud. This may be the next installment for Fast and Furious: Mara Drift. Impala and Thompson’s gazelle sprinted away from us.

We arrived to find a herd of elephants and a number of vehicles. A juvenile elephant was amongst them, but they were moving off in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. We took a few shots and joined a growing group of vehicles watching the cheetahs, which included a truck full of rangers who were there to ensure the guides maintained a respectful distance.

A group of cheetahs is called a coalition. The coalition that we came upon was the Fast Five, a well-known group of four adult brothers and one other male cheetah that live and hunt together. It’s normal for cubs to stick together, but once they reach adulthood, they typically become solitary. The cheetahs closely watched a herd of wildebeest walk bravely by, but opted instead for some lounging about as the sun came back out and the clouds moved away. More watching loafy cats. I borrowed Lenny’s binocs to scope out the horizon and he borrowed the big lens. It continued to drop jaws as vehicles pulled by to leave. One of the guides stopped and he and Lenny had a discussion. My Swahili lessons allowed me to listen in and while I couldn’t make out every word they were saying, I was able to understand enough that they were discussing locations of animals, how many there were, what kinds they had seen, and what each of them had seen.

The dozen or more safari trucks and vans that had originally been there, started to disperse as people got tired of watching sleepy cats. The rangers that had been there also left. Kenyan rangers ensure the laws of the Mara are followed by guides and by tourists. These are not your typical American National Park rangers with the wide-brimmed hats, nametags, and cheerful dispositions. These are military-grade enforcement agents packing AK-47’s and SMG’s. They make American rangers look like Boy Scouts.

Alas, the cheetahs continued their lounging about and we decided to move on. Kuta futa simba!

We spent the next two hours looking for lions. We came across a male and female in dense underbrush unexpectedly, stopping within feet of them. The animals there are largely used to people, but will defend themselves or flee if approached too closely. The male let out a growl and a roar before retreating deeper into the brush.

Let's talk about settings. For the most part, we shoot in aperture mode because we like to control the depth of field and amount of light let in by the camera. On safari, though, we switched to shutter priority mode. We wanted fast pictures more than we wanted the whole image in focus. In broad daylight, we generally used lower ISO: 200 or 400, but in shadow or very dark conditions at twilight, we would crank the ISO up to 800 or higher, depending on the conditions. Pro tip: Review your settings regularly to make sure you're not over- or under-exposing your shots. We found that we had forgotten to lower our ISO on more than one occasion early on, so we made it a habit to spend the time between stops to double-check our settings.

Along the short grass plains, we stopped to see a herd of elephants grazing. The sun was out in full force by now. The deep blue sky and the vibrant green grass provided beautiful contrast for the elephants.

We finally reached the Talek River to the north and started west along the banks looking for lions in wait or herds potentially looking to cross. The Mara River further to the west has historically been the primary entry for herds coming in from Tanzania, but changing climate leaves the river higher, and thus more difficult to cross. Herds have started to utilize the Sand River or the Talek River as an alternative means to enter the Mara. The only thing we saw were a handful of giraffes.

That’s the thing about safari. You can easily go several hours without seeing anything. Your best bet is early morning and late afternoon. Mid-day doesn’t usually bring much excitement as the larger predators are usually hunkered down. It was 1:30 pm and after a long, disappointing search, we decided to have some lunch. Lenny pulled up on a hillside near a herd of wildebeest and David laid out a blanket. Our boxed lunches were sandwiches, some chips, a cookie, an apple, and a small juice box. We talked about how they spend their time off with their families. David has two children just entering their teenage years and Lenny has a 4-year old, like me, so we traded some dad stories under the shade of a tall tree as wildebeest wandered by. I don’t think I’ve ever had a better picnic.

Kenya 2019: Maasai Mara Part 1 – First Impressions

Kenya 2019: Maasai Mara Part 2 - The Wild Safari

Kenya 2019: Nairobi to Nakuru

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