Mass Migration in Masai Mara

We have returned from a whirlwind tour of Kenya with my dad. We started out in Nakuru for a night (in a $4 hotel room, classy classy!) and moved onto Masai Mara, then to Lake Naivaisha where we climbed a volcano, biked with the giraffes, boated on the lake and walked to a crater lake. As you can probably deduce from that list, one post will not suffice, as it will be too many pictures and too many Kenyan shillings for us. (Although even if we do multiple posts we are still paying the same amount, just at different times, so therefore I am sparing you the reader from a plethora of information and pictures.) I will post about Masai Mara and then Marc will discuss our trip to Hell, Hell’s Gate that is. (Ramble, ramble) And now to the actual post . . .

We started out the trip to Masai Mara on the worst roads I have ever been on. I mentioned to my dad in the morning that there was no way the roads could be any worse than the road from Eldoret to Nakuru so we would be in for a good day. Boy was I wrong! Let’s just say I am very thankful I had no gastro-intestinal issues on our traveling day because it was bad enough! I would predict we went maybe 300km but it took us about 10 hours to do it. UGH!

At our "classy" hotel for breakfast. Jesus dispensing wise advice as usual.

At one of the crazy tourist spots we stopped at along the way. There were huge warehouses of overpriced souvenirs all the way to Masai Mara. A huge carved lion would only set you back $4000 US! We plan on getting one before we head back. Or maybe we will buy a 10 foot tall giraffe because I hear they are really easy and cheap to ship.

After the long bumpy roads we arrived at our camp for the evening. The game drive that evening and the next day definitely made up for the bumpy roads. The first night we saw numerous herds of elephants and an amazing sunset.

The next day we had the “perfect” safari. We were in Masai Mara during the wildebeast (AKA Gnu’s) migration and did we ever see them migrating!! We estimate we saw over one hundred thousand on our safari day. Everywhere we looked we saw lines upon lines of the black beasts and just when we thought we had seen them all we would see a gnu line. Hee hee. (Marc and my dad really enjoyed my gnu jokes on the safari, they even repeated them later!)


Wildebeasts were not the only animal we came into close proximity with. We saw a pride of lions, two females (one pictured below) and a huge male. Unfortunately our pictures of the male did not turn out but we did get an excellent video that we would post if we were not volunteering in Kenya but were rather working with a lucrative organization that pays its overseas doctors ludicrous amounts of money. (Do those organizations really exist?)

The ever elusive warthog.

A monkey contemplating life. Or maybe jumping?

While we were off photographing animals on the African Savannah we were being photographed ourselves in Canada. How can that be you ask? Well we made an appearance at Julie and Lowell's (Marc's sister) wedding in cardboard form. We danced, we kissed (and not eachother apparently) and we even made the photos! Take a look at the fun we had. Double the fun I must say, in Africa and in Lethbridge at the same time. Don't you all wish you could be in two places at once?!

Taking a break after a long day. It's hard to stand all day you know.