Ol' Moran

July 9th, Ol’ Moran, the Maasai Mara,

Thirteen hours on a plane is a long time. We landed at Bole airport in Addis shortly after 8 in the morning. I don’t think anyone slept much. Within an hour we were boarding our Ethiopian Airways flight for Nairobi. The flight is only one and a half hours.

We arrived at the Jomo Kenyatta International airport shortly after noon. After filling out the usual paperwork, we made our way to immigration. There were only three lines and with the new technology of photos and finger-printing, it took forever. All of the bags arrived with the exception of Mr. Dols. By the time we exchanged money it was almost 3:30. Bernard from Lion Trails Safaris was there to meet us. He had everything very well organized. Our drivers, Francis, Stephan, Martin and Chris are all great. We are storing the bulk of the baggage in Nairobi…it took two mini-vans and six people to get that to happen!

The roads to Narok from Nairobi were in great shape. We took a short cut from the airport, avoiding much of the traffic in downtown. We had just left the airport when we spotted our first giraffes. The kids screamed. We also saw hartebeest, wildebeest, baboons, hyena, Thompson’s gazelles, eland and impala.

We arrived at Ol’ Moran, a tented camp, in the Mara reserve area about 9 at night. The roads from Narok were in very poor condition, so it was a process of finding which pothole was the least deep. Our driver, Francis, apologized for each of the thousands he hit, as if he took personal responsibility for the roads. Just a note on Ol’ Moran: although all the basics were covered, it certainly does not compete well with the many other camps in the area. I am glad we only spent one night there so the kids can compare another place with it. Dinner was good. It was a buffet with several choices. The fish was very good as was the eggplant. Everyone was so exhausted it didn’t matter.

We did get to sleep in a bit today. Although we had our bags packed and breakfast eaten for an eight o’clock departure. The plan is a full day safari with a box lunch along the way.

The Mara is a magical place. It is a continuous cycle of life and death, it is, as Disney portrayed it: “a circle of life.” And living up to its reputation, it did not disappoint. Even though we are a bit early, signs of the beginning of the Great Migration are everywhere. The excitement of seeing the first ei, gave way to, “oh, it is just another zebra,” as their numbers increase to thousands as we continued into the Mara. Giant herds of topi, gazelle, and buffalo followed in quick succession. And then the wildebeest winding their way, single file in lines that stretched across the horizon for miles. No photo can capture the immensity of the plains and the hundreds of thousands of herbivores that there now graze.

But with all that food follow the carnivores. We have seen two sets of lions, still at their evenings kill, gorged to the point that they only wanted to nap in any available shade, which at one point was the van we were in. The lioness, after circling come to rest under the passenger side of the van. Awkward! It took a bit of maneuvering to pull away from her without running over her. Once we moved she got up and took up her nap under a neighboring vehicle. We saw so many lions, it was no longer novel. We were indeed fortunate to also see a rhino and a leopard, so in one day we saw the big five!

The only mishap of the day is that the electrical system went our in one of the vans, but we all clamored aboard the remaining three vans and were on our way. We have great photos of everything. Elephant, hippos, crocodiles, jackals. We lunched under an acacia tree in the Mara, which consists of roasted chicken, lunch meat sandwich, banana, orange, pineapple and a box of fruit juice. A great day.

We arrived at our new camp, Mara Leisure Camp after five in the afternoon. Nine hours of safari and memories for a lifetime. The Mara Leisure Camp is what an establishment in the Mara should be. The staff is welcoming, abundant and very, very friendly. We found our tents and cabins, which are really, really nice, rugs on the floor, some with bathtubs, comfortable chairs on the porches.

Dinner was Kenyan themed and very good. We had a buffet that started with cream of tomato soup and an assortment of salads: pepper, avocadoes and a couple of others. They offered steak, chicken and two kinds of sausage. They also had very traditional Kenyan foods: ugali (cornmeal mush, which is a staple) arrowroot, pumpkin, Matoke (cooking bananas which tastes like potatoes) and chapatti (a flatbread). The desserts were beautiful and tasty: little cream puffs shaped like swans, a banana crumble and different cakes and pastries. The kids were great with the unfamiliar food. They don’t have to like it, but most of them did, I was just proud that they tried it. It is so important to the people here.

After dinner we were treated to Maasai dancing, in which the kids all joined in. It was a full day, so everyone went to bed both full and happy.