FIRST GAME DRIVE IN THE MAASAI MARA 23rd of 27 Emails‏

“Jumbo!” from the Maasai Mara!


How can we describe this wild, beautiful, and dangerous place to you? Although we immensely enjoyed our previous safaris, the Maasai Mara quickly has become my favorite, both for the terrain and the wild animals within it. It is vast and varied, exotic and beautiful, and contains much of what people dream about when they think of Africa. High mountains and rolling hills; vast, wide, and long savannas, rivers, lakes, and ponds, high grasses and plains going on forever. Parts of it reminded us of the great old John Wayne movie, “Hatari!” (meaning, “Danger!”), which is one of the old African movie classics. No wonder...it was filmed here!






In our first safari here, only 2 hours, we quickly learned why it is famous for big, predator cats. We were thrilled to see:
A mother leopard with her two kittens feeding under a tree on a Grand Impala she had killed.


They all ate, played, and climbed the tree while we watched from around 25 yards away. The young kittens chased her tail and climbed all over her. They wrestled with each other and we could hear their little growls as they tumbled around on the ground and all over her.









They climbed up and down the tree and were still pretty awkward at it. But, it was awesome when she climbed up...so, powerful and strong, but with such graceful movement. Later, we thought about that as we walked under the trees to our tents in the dark night! Her glistening, spotted coat was beautiful, more dark and silky-looking than her babies' lighter, spotted bodies.

Sleeping in tall grass, we next saw a pride of 8 lions. Soon, coming from a long way in the savanna, came a lioness who practically brushed our bumper as she passed by...a very big cat!

We watched her come toward us all the way. It was as if she was stalking us and rather spooky as she looked up at us as she passed by. We wondered about the wisdom of sitting there with
open windows. Meanwhile, the pride of 8 just kept sleeping, occasionally rolling over, stretching, or yawning with big, open mouths. It was apparent they had full stomachs from a recent kill, because it was around 5 PM and they were making no motion to go hunting before dark. We decided to move on, because it didn't even look like they were going to get up for water while we were there.

Soon, after driving for awhile longer, we came across 3 cheetahs, also sleeping in the grass only a few car lengths away. Cheetahs are exotically spotted animals with dark lines on their faces. As they stood, we could see their powerful, big chests, sway backs that sloped downward to a very narrow waist, and then their big, high haunches and powerful legs that make them the fastest animal on earth, especially in short bursts. That's what makes them successful 75% of the time, compared to leopards at 60% and the lazier and slower, but more big and stronger lions, at only 35%.

It was at this cheetah sighting that we first saw the Disney Nature Films truck with it's big, disguised camera on a high, mobile boon. They were waiting for the cheetahs to move on to hunt for the night.

What a phenomenal first game drive in this world
famous safari park! It truly is the home of the big cats! I'm so excited that I didn't even tell you about all the other animals along the way. But, it's time for bed, because we're up at 5 AM for the morning game drive.
Lots of Love, Dick & Lawana

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