Safari - Day 7 - The Masai Mara

We were given the option of a later start (7.30) for the drive to the Masai Mara, or to leave an hour earlier and take a boat trip on Lake Naivasha. As we are still waking up early, and will need to tomorrow for our hot air balloon ride, we decided to take the boat trip - and we are very glad we did. Lake Naivasha is close to Lake Nakuru, and indeed they were probably the same lake many years ago. The lake is growing due to flooding, and so the first part of the boat ride was over what until recently was land leading up to the previous lake edge. Clearly no one had told a young Masai giraffe as it had waded through the water to eat from a bush growing in the expanded lake. We were able to come right alongside the giraffe as it was eating, and hardly gave us a second look! In the lake, there is an island which was the setting for much of the film Out of Africa. When making the film, animals were brought in from the Mara, including wilderbeast and gazelle. These have flourished with the lack of predators, so much so that animals are now flown back to the Mara. There is also a lot of bird life, including African Fish Eagles, one of which we saw dive from a high tree to grab a fish that our driver had thrown in. We also saw our first hippo. To begin with, we thought that it was just a rock, but then saw the eyes and realised that we were about 20 feet from a hippo. In fact, we were 20 feet from two hippo, as there was a second hippo almost touching the first! All in all, a very good extra trip - one that we think should be compulsory rather than optional.

The journey on to the Masia Mara was interrupted when one of the other safari vehicles making its way in got a flat tyre. We stopped to help change the wheel - keeping an eye out for any animal that could attack us.

Our first game drive in the Mara was one spent largely looking for cats. We were rewarded by finding a small pride of lions, including a male and three females, one of which was heavily pregnant. Once we found one set of lions, we quickly found another male lion sitting in the sun, before making a quick return (with a short stop to catch the sunset) to make the final arrangements for our balloon trip tomorrow.