Playing with Lions in Kenya, 7/21/2007

Yesterday morning we left at 6:30 am for one last safari in the Maasai Mara Reserve.  I have to admit, after being out on safari there for half day Wednesday and all day Thursday, I was not sure I really wanted to get out of bed for it.  What were the chances of seeing anything new.  At the same time, I can sleep on the way home.  


The only animals we were still trying to see were male lions (every time we ran across them, they were relaxing in the grass and refused to get up) and leopards.  Within 20 minutes after we left, we were driving down the road and two male lions walking straight toward us on the path.  We could not believe it.  They walked right by my side of the truck, looked up at me, then kept walking.  So we fallowed them down the path for quite a while.  After marking every tree they came across, they found some wildebeest dung and rolled all over it so that they would smell like wildebeest, and therefore be able to sneak up on them easier.  They must have played in the dung for 10-15 minutes, before we finally left.  They were acting just like tame cats at home, rubbing against each other, belly's up in the air, purring loudly.  It was wild; well worth getting up at 6 am.


After a 5 hour drive back to Nairobi, I finally got my luggage.  I don't quite know what to do with all the clothes options.  Also, I found it much harder to pack this morning - I needed more time than usual to repack this morning.


Then we went to dinner at Carnivore, a well know restaurant for the area.  They used to carry lots of unusual game, but with new laws, are more limited.  The food is all you can eat.  They bring the meat to the table on a skewers and will carve a piece right onto your plate.  They will continue to bring meat to the table until you "give up" and take down the flag they give you.  Usually they have crocodile, but because of a skin disease the crocodile have in the area, they do not have that right now.  So we just had beef, chicken, pork, lamb, and ostrich.  The ostrich came as meatballs (tasted like ground chicken meatballs to me) and sliced (tasted more like hen than chicken).  Both were okay, but I would not go out of my way to eat it again.


So today we are off to Amboseli game reserve.  This is at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro, so the pictures are supposed to be spectacular.  And now that I have my camera back...


Hopefully we will see a leopard.


Until later.