Thought-process

Never in my life would I have thought that I would be able to see such wondrous creations of nature up close and so close! This trip happened because my sister decided to give our Dad the ultimate happiness of being in Africa and seeing his favourite animals all around him. So, Dad at 80 and Mom in her 70s had their two daughters and granddaughter as companions on this 7-day trip.

All of us met up at Mumbai from different places, viz., Kolkata, Delhi and Pune and took off to Nairobi via Dubai. The Emirates flight has a great collection of music and movies so we had an entertaining journey. We landed at Nairobi at 8 pm when it was 10.30 pm in India.

At the airport we were met by Jeremiah who had been in touch with us through emails during the planning of the trip. We were introduced to James who would be our guide and driver during our stay in Kenya. Our minivan was comfortable enough to accommodate all of us with each one getting a window seat!

After spending the night at hotel Ibis in Nairobi and were off to Masai Mara early the next morning after a quick breakfast. This was a long journey and James warned us about the last leg of the journey being uncomfortable due to bad roads. Well, we had to encounter bad roads much earlier because we had to take a detour. There had been an accident on the highway which would take time to clear. The road we took was no road at all or if it was, it had been washed away in the rains. But hats off to James for navigating through the rocky land! My Dad has a bad back so that was a concern but he braved it out though parents wanted the journey to end soon. It finally did and we arrived at the Masai Mara National Reserve.

Our Lodge was inside the reserve and as we drove towards it, we saw elephants and zebras and antelopes! We reach Keekorok Lodge just in time for lunch. If you have strange notions about the equatorial weather, let me tell you, Masai Mara was wonderfully pleasant. A cool breeze always envelops you, however intense the sunlight.

On the sprawling lawns of the lodge we encountered a large group of mongooses who seemed pretty curious about us. After they left the scene, the baboons took over! We left for our game safari late afternoon.  The top of our van was raised and we stood up on the seats to get a better view. We were greeted by zebras, antelopes, giraffes and ostriches. As we looked around, we saw vast tracts of the grassland blackened by fire. In the horizon we saw smoke. It was evident that the dry grass had caught fire and there was no stopping it.

Suddenly, James stopped the van close to a blackened mound. I could see nothing. Very softly, he said, “A cheetah!” And sure enough we could make out the head as she looked around carefully. We waited but she refused to budge.

As we moved ahead, a vehicle coming from the other side stopped near ours and the drivers exchanged pleasantries. I was to understand later that these exchanges gave the drivers a lot of info on sighting of animals. So after the chat, James took off in a certain direction. On the way we sighted a lioness close to us on a rocky ledge and wanted to stop. But James insisted we go ahead and see something else first. Sure enough, on the branch of a huge tree, quite camouflaged, lay a huge leopard! It was almost impossible to shoot with the camera but I had by heart fill of watching this majestic creature. James said that leopards are quite difficult to spot, so we should count ourselves lucky!! After we moved from there, right on our path lay a huge lion sound asleep. I am pretty sure he was aware of all the attention he was drawing but he refused to oblige us and continued his snooze. He did tweak his ear and flicked his tail once or twice. And a few meters away was the entire pride, two lionesses and their cubs playing against the setting sun.

We were on our way back to the lodge when James stopped and pointed towards the mound where we had seen the cheetah. Surprisingly, he stopped the vehicle to see if she was still there. Imagine our joy when she emerged from her hiding and decided to give us company. She walked along the path and went along slowly in reverse to keep pace with her. James said she was pregnant. She would stop at times and look around. She saw us ogling at her but did not seem bothered and continued her slow walk and we let her go. That was the the end of day one of our game sighting and I felt blessed!!

Day 2 coming up soon!