Maasai Mara Safari

Do you ever have experiences in life where you can’t help but constantly remind yourself how rare it is, how fortunate you are to be there and how you may never experience something like it again? That was how I felt on both days of my safari drive through Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. I went the second week of November, so unfortunately I missed the Great Migration of over 1 million gazelles, zebras and wildebeests moving south to Serengeti National Park by several weeks. Even so, the experience was so EARTHLY and magical. I’ve been doing so much the past couple of weeks that it would be easy and is kind of tempting to be lazy and not write about this experience in detail, but I know that I have to. Some things you just have to write about.

— Editor’s note: It’s important to note that Maasai Mara National Reserve is named for the Maasai, one of Kenya’s 44 recognized tribes, famous for hunting lions with spears. The reserve sits on Maasai land and the tribal people still occupy the area surrounding it. In writing this, I was so confused about whether the tribe’s name is spelled “Maasai” or “Masai”, because I’ve seen both. Even the sign to enter the park is spelled “Masai”, but it turns out the people of that community spell it Maasai. The incorrect spelling is yet another relic of British colonizers not understanding the people they aimed to control. But that’s a whole different post. End of note. —

In addition to sharing my experience, I also want to incorporate some tips into this post because I really do think a safari is an adventure, if you’ve ever been remotely interested in wildlife, that you should absolutely go for if you get the chance. So before launching into the story, here’s a quick list of things to know and tips to help you have a great first safari:

• Big game hunting is totally banned in Kenya, which makes it a more ethical country to support financially for safaris. I’m not so interested in funding an industry that allows big game hunting for leisure/ sport. Botswana, Gabon and Cote d’Ivoire have also banned big game hunting, so they’re other ethical options for African safaris.
  • In Kenya, the big parks are Maasai Mara (where I went), Amboseli National Park (where you can get beautiful views of Mt Kilimanjaro), Tsavo East/ West, Mount Kenya, Nairobi National Park, Aberdare, Lake Nakuru, and Samburu. So many options!)
• I was recommended by a Kenyan friend to do at least a 3-day safari to maximize my chances of seeing all of the Big Five – lion, rhinoceros, buffalo, leopard and elephant
• There were 8 of us in the truck, excluding the driver. We all discussed what prices we paid. The lowest price was paid by the couple who booked directly with the tour company, Axis Africa. I’d recommend checking in with multiple tour companies to get quotes and compare with Viator.com listings to make sure you’re getting the best price. I do recommend Axis Africa, though!
• Confirm when booking your safari that park entrance fees are included. If not, you’re looking at an additional $100 per day to enter the park.
• It’s chilly in the morning and gets hot during the day, so dress in light layers that don’t take up too much space. There isn’t that much room in the truck, so the more compact your stuff is, the better.
• Even though you’ll be driving around all day, it’s good to bring cash, especially small bills. When going into the park, there are lots of Maasai women reaching into the truck showing off their crafts and wares. Some of the stuff was actually pretty nice, but I didn’t have cash on me, so that made sticking to my budget easy.👍🏾
• If you have binoculars, BRING THEM. If you don’t, maybe get some. I had a lil binocular envy toward the Germans that came prepared.
• If you need to go to the bathroom during the full day game drive, the driver will pull over somewhere for you to use the “bush toilet”. It’s on you to bring your own toilet paper and hand sanitizer/ hand wipes (no trash cans either, so bring your own lil bag for trash).
• The safari truck is a bumpy ride and can move pretty quick. If you get motion sickness, it’s a good idea to bring some meds for that just in case.
• Wear light colors like tan and white. The second day I wore dark colors and the flies were noticeably more active around me than the others. Who knows though, maybe it was just my aura that drew them in🤷🏾‍♀️

Ok, that’s enough free advice. Time for storytelling.

The safari experience started in Nairobi when the driver came to pick me up from my Airbnb. I was driven into the CBD, a much less hectic area than where the bus station is. We went up to the tour company’s office where I had to answer some questions and the lady took a picture of me with their sign. I was thinking, “If I get eaten by a lion, this will probably be the last good photo of me, so let me make it good.” I asked the driver if we had time to go to a nearby cafe to get some food because I hadn’t eaten and wasn’t prepared for the 6 hour drive out to the park. So we stopped by a spot across the street from the office and I got a muffin. It was there I discovered that I lost my second credit card. So I was just down to 2 debit cards. I barely had cash, but was too lazy to try to go find an ATM. I can’t express enough how unprepared and equally unbothered I was. Maybe concerning, but hey you see how everything worked out. Anyway, I was able to buy a muffin and bought the driver a coffee before we headed over to the safari truck a couple blocks away. When we got there, he unloaded my giant backpack from his car into the safari truck trunk (they call it a boot in Kenya. British colonial influence) and introduced me to the safari driver, Evans. I got in the truck and met some of my companions for the next few days. There were two German guys, an Indian guy who lives in Sweden, a Kenyan woman, a couple from The Netherlands, and a French guy. It took about an hour for everyone to show up. The German guys told me they had to organize their own transport and were told to arrive at 7am which is wild because I was picked up from my Airbnb around that time. Honestly, unclear communications and expectations were just a common part of being in Kenya for me, so I wasn’t at all surprised to hear this was their experience. Still, everyone was in good spirits and excited to embark on the adventure. Once everyone arrived, we were off.

The drive to Maasai Mara was long and not the most comfortable. I was in the back and had a bag at my feet, so I had very little room to move. Life’s greatest cheat code helped with the discomfort though… sleep. We stopped for a break a couple hours in as we passed the Great Rift Valley escarpment. We were heading straight toward Naivasha on the same route I took when I first arrived to Kenya, so I felt like a veteran traveler. “Yes, I know this place.”. I was actually so glad to stop there because when I visited a curio shop there in early October, I got some waist beads but didn’t have them fitted properly. I grabbed them out of my bag in the boot and asked one of the shopkeepers if he could cut them down for me. Of course, I picked up some souvenirs too and obviously had a photoshoot with the view.

We got back in the truck and crawled through the traffic chokepoint that is often seen on the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway. Evans told us it’s a popular shipping route and there were lots of large shipping trucks, some that were carrying cargo all the way from Uganda. Over the next several hours I slept, chatted with my safari-mates, and watched the landscape transform from the massive expanse of the Great Rift Valley to the countryside with roadside markets into the town of Narok.

We stopped in Narok for a quick stretch break at a gas station before hitting the final stretch of the journey. Not far beyond Narok town, the road turned from smooth pavement to dusty, rocky dirt roads. From that moment on, for the next 2.5 days, the ride was buuuumpy. We ventured more into the countryside and started to see more sheep and cow herders (a surprising number were children) guiding their animals with sticks. As we passed by, kids would wave enthusiastically at the truck. I think they were mostly excited to see the muzungu – white people- but I waved too.

I saw homesteads with tall fences made of long long sticks set up to protect the animals from roaming predators at night. We were officially in lion territory. I saw a couple of giraffes nibbling from a tree not too far from someone’s home. There’s no fence enclosing Maasai Mara National Reserve, so of course the animals are free to roam where they wish. On my second day at my campsite, I was told by a staff member there that elephants would walk through the site regularly. Incidental destruction of property is just part of life there. As we got closer to the reserve, we passed through a small village called Ololaimutiek, home to some small local guesthouses, restaurants, a medical office, and a carwash that was a few guys washing cars from a big water tank. I was surprised when Evans took us to the first campsite and told one of the guys, “this is your stop.” Thus began the ~35 minute journey of us all being dropped off one by one at different campsites around the area. I definitely expected us all to stay at the same site, but I guess staying at different ones helps to spread the wealth among competing lodging businesses in the area. I didn’t ask because I assumed I understood. Eventually I make it to my campsite, Wild Nest Lodge, and Evans tells me I have 45 minutes to eat and get settled before he comes back to get me for the evening game drive. I was thankful that when the truck pulled up, the extremely kind staff was there waiting for us. One woman carried by bag in for me while another greeted me with a cool glass of juice. We walked into the spacious lobby/ dining hall where there were a couple of couches and several dining tables. I was the only person there, so it was really quiet, which I was cool with. I was glad there was wifi and so I was able to text and catch up with people on my phone while I wolfed down my plate of spaghetti, chicken, fries and salad. An unexpected meal, but actually hit the spot since I was pretty hungry.

I quickly went to drop my bag in my tent and was happy to find a cozy, clean, well-appointed glamping situation that included hot water and a real toilet! I headed back out front just in time to jump in the truck, which now had the top lifted so we could stand and poke our heads out the top of the vehicle. We were all nosy about what each others’ campsites were like. Questions of, “how do you like your campsite?” and “what did you have for lunch?” were flying around as we made the rounds to pick everyone up. It sounded like we all pretty much had the same meal if you’re curious.

Finally, it was time for the safari to begin! We headed to the gate to enter Maasai Mara National Reserve. Evans got out of the truck to go handle our entrance fees or some other business at the office. Honestly, he might’ve just been giving the locals some time to sell to us, because several women came to the truck, reaching inside the open windows to show off their wares.

They were selling beaded jewelry, magnets, keychains, I think even knives. Like I said before, I didn’t have cash, so I couldn’t buy anything which actually upgraded the experience for me since it removed the pressure of trying to negotiate. If you’re a westerner traveling there though, I do think it’s good to bring some money to buy from these women. $10 goes a lot further in their purse there than it will go in your pocket in a developed country. At the Maasai market I went to at Hell’s Gate, I found a good strategy was to negotiate a similar price for different items from different vendors to spread the wealth (using this word very generously, it was like $5 ok) and also pick up a nice variety of souvenirs to bring home. After a few minutes, Evans made his way back to the truck and we were off.

Driving through the gate, it took about 10 seconds for us to spot the first herds of zebras and Thomson’s gazelles. Evans went straight into tour-guide mode once we entered the park and shared a lot of fun facts. One that I didn’t know was that Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya is 10x smaller in land mass than Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. The “2 parks” are really only separated by man-made borders. [philosophical side-note: have you ever considered what wildlife would say to us humans if they could talk and knew we created imaginary borders the way we do? We’d be the the laughingstock of the animal kingdom, ya’ll. Not to mention that we pay money for food that grows from the Earth, but I’ll save that for another day.] Those first moments of excitement seeing zebras and gazelles were quickly overshadowed honestly, just by the landscape.

Being in a safari truck driving through this massive grassland was absolutely breathtaking. We passed by majestic giraffes, elephants walking under the shade of trees, bulky buffalo, whimsical warthogs, wandering wildebeests, even the flora was majestic. I learned about the sausage tree, which has sausage-shaped fruits growing abundantly in the canopy. It really looks like a bunch of sausages dangling from a tree. The fruit can grow up to 2 feet long and weigh 20+ lbs. Evans told us the fruit is used locally to ferment beer. Captivating stuff. Pictures!

The most exciting things we saw on day 1 were by far the lions. We pulled up right in front of a lioness that was resting on a mound of Earth. She sat there and tolerated us for a while before getting up to leave which honestly scared me because she couldn’t have been more than 5 feet away from my open window. I quickly learned these animals don’t care about all the safari trucks and if anything, seemed only slightly irritated, but maybe I’m projecting.

Evans’ phone was ringing every few minutes as he communicated with the other safari truck drivers to share sighting tips. After we saw this lioness, he got a call and we booked it over to see some a group of lionesses and cubs moving through the bush.

Nothing else we saw that evening topped that moment, but driving through the park and basking in the glow of golden hour was a truly beautiful, ethereal experience and I was so happy and grateful to be there. The drive back to the campsite was uneventful and so was the rest of the night.

The next day started for me around 7:30am when I had breakfast and got picked up. We got stuck in a bit of a traffic jam on the way there, but we made it to the reserve eventually.

I’m gonna be honest, I barely remember the first half of the day because the second half was by far the most eventful. I know we spent some time trying to track a leopard that was hiding in the bush. There were probably 15 safari trucks full of people trying to catch a glimpse and I only caught a slight view of it. I was glad when one of my companions was like, “can we move on?” and everyone agreed. Shortly after that, one of our group needed a bathroom break, so we stopped and got out to stretch our legs and of course take pics.

We drove around and saw a lot more animals before stopping for lunch. Some more photos…

I was very ready for lunch when the time came. We set up a picnic by the Tanzanian border, but not before having… you guessed it… another photoshoot. This landmark stands at the border between Kenya and Tanzania, so technically, we went international that day.

We ate our boxed lunches on blankets beneath a tree and spent some nice time relaxing and enjoying the fresh air while a scavenging Marabou Stork stood by and waited for us to leave so it could eat any scraps we left behind. I didn’t get a photo of our stork, but I did get one of a couple that were patiently waiting for another group to wrap up their picnic.

When we got back in the truck, Evans had just gotten word of something exciting – all his phone conversations were in Kiswahili, so we never knew what was up and I think we all liked the element of surprise because no one ever asked – and we started booking it over to the next spot. He ended up taking us to a beautiful, majestic cheetah relaxing under the shade of a tree with its lunch. Everybody gotta eat.

After this, we were lucky enough to see a second cheetah and catch it hunting a gazelle that was out grazing alone. Silly gazelle. We saw the cheetah watching the gazelle from afar. I think it was a female since female cheetahs are solitary while males stay in groups. Evans explained that the gazelle was clearly in distress and aware there was a predator nearby because of the way it stood alert and kept stomping its front foot, almost as if it were sending shockwaves into the earth to communicate with its community. The cheetah slowly approached, still far away so that the gazelle didn’t seem to see her. She made her way slowly into the tall grass crouching down so that even we couldn’t see her anymore. How close had she moved to the gazelle? We waited several minutes, but nothing happened. Evans pointed out that the there was a hyena walking not too far from the cheetah and the wind was blowing the hyena’s scent toward the cheetah. Cheetahs do not hunt when hyenas are around because hyenas are scavengers. They let the cheetahs do all the work of chasing and taking down their prey and then bully the cheetah (remember that strong bite?) into giving up their hard earned meals. So the cheetah waited several minutes for the hyena to get bored and walk away. By the time the hyena left, a couple of other gazelles joined the lone one and they started running away in short bursts. The cheetah didn’t sprint after them, just slowly stalked from a distance. I think she was tired. Also, these safari truck drivers stay on top of keeping each other in the loop, so by this time there were at least 5 other trucks around which the cheetah initially seemed a little distracted by. At one point, she ran away as if she thought a truck was chasing her but it didn’t last long.

Even though she didn’t end up chasing after the gazelles, she did end up marking her territory by peeing on a tree that Evans expertly took us straight to before she even started walking toward it. A cheetah marking her territory is a sight I wasn’t ready for.

So we didn’t catch a kill, but we did get to see how these animals interact with each other. Funny enough, there was another Marabou Stork also standing by, presumably hoping to get a lil snack if the hunt was successful. When we left the cheetah, we went over to the Mara River and saw some hippos and crocodiles lounging in the water. If you’ve ever seen wildlife photography/ videos of crocodiles jumping out of the water to snatch up a wildebeest crossing a river, it’s very possible you were watching a scene from the Mara River. The epic great migration sends millions of herding animals across this river, so I’m sure those crocs be eatin good. Fun fact: even though hippos are commonly regarded as the deadliest land animal in Africa, they’re mainly herbivores.

By this time in the day, I was really sleepy. I had the itis from lunch plus the warm air and bumpy ride put me straight to sleep. When I woke up, we had stopped at the airstrip in the reserve for a bathroom and stretch break. That was our only toilet and sink all day, so felt like such a luxurious experience. Thankfully I keep tissue in my purse though because the bathrooms did not have paper. After that, it was honestly a blur because you know when you wake up from a nap and you’re like huh where am I??? Yeah. On the way back out of the park, we spotted our first ostrich and caught an extremely cinematic scene of some elephants coming down a hill as some giraffes were walking.

We headed out of the park around 4:45, which I was personally glad of because 8 hours in a truck was plenty for me. Some of my companions seemed upset that we didn’t stay all the way until 6:30 when the reserve closes, but I was glad to get back to the lodge and relax with a cup of tea while reviewing all my photos and videos from the day.

On the final day, there was an optional early morning visit to Maasai village to get a tour and cultural education experience. It cost an extra $20 and I figured it probably wouldn’t be too authentic anyway, so I passed. So Evans came by to pick me up around 8 the next morning and we all headed back to Nairobi. On the way back, we stopped at a really big curio shop where I literally spent the last of my cash on souvenirs and biscuits. It was on that day that I achieved YOLO level 8.

The safari was such an amazing experience that was exceptionally gratifying to my inner child and adult nerd self. Watching the animals taught me some things. Even today, nearly 1 full month later, I’m still having new thoughts about what I saw. A couple reflections…

• Nature doesn’t rush or put pressure on anything. I saw lions sitting patiently, watching their food gazelles grazing casually in the distance. They weren’t concerned with catching the gazelles right in that moment. They just watched. As a person who has a lot of impatience, I imagine in their position I’d be like, “Am I getting this gazelle or not??? Let’s gooo”, it was really good for me to see the concept of patience embodied. Thank you, lions.
• These extremely powerful, fast, strong animals spend so much of their time resting. They know their limits and they reach them, but a big chunk of their time is spent resting. True, deep, do-nothing, just-lay-there-and-breathe rest. I think as humans, we call this meditation. Regardless of the name, I think we could use more time to really rest our bodies and minds. Not consuming anything, just being for at least a little time each day.

More photos and video from the safari!

At the end of the safari, I was back in Nairobi for one last night before heading on to Kigali, Rwanda. I wrote my last post from there. So in my next post, I’ll pick back up with the rest of the things I did in Kigali and then move on to sharing about the last leg of my journey, my new favorite country in the whole world.