Maasai Mara Safari Friday, June 7, 2013
We wake up early to drive to Masai Mara. Millie spoke with the game warden and they agreed to give us 3 days in the Mara for $45 instead of $200 tourist price in return for one more clinic for their people. We drive for a long time and we get the gate to enter the park. There are tons of Masai women selling bracelets. I bought 10 for 1000 ksh but bought from many different women so after bartering they had to count up which ones I bought to distribute the money. We have so much time at the gate because Millie is in the huge office trying to work out the deal that was previously discussed. The people here say they were told of no such deal and the game warden has no power and we need to pay the full amount. Millie says we will come back to pay when the game warden is back.
The hotel is beautiful with hot showers and very nice bathrooms. The food is very very good. We eat and head out for the game drive. We drive by the gate and the game warden is there so we get our deal. On our drive we see tons of zebras, gazelles, wildebeests, giraffes and buffalo. The best was the lions. On our first drive we saw lions which is very rare. There were 5 adolescent lions under a tree and then a lioness walking through the grass. We then found 2 male lions sleeping. The sunset was beautiful as well.
We return from the drive for dinner and hang out until the hyena feeding. Before the feeding we enjoyed the Masai dance. They make an awesome beat with there voices and have a jumping contest. Alfred decides he cannot be a tourist and joins the dance because he is from the Masai tribe. We all cheer him on. after the dance we walk down to the feeding. Hyenas are babies. There were some cats eating the meat put out and the hyenas were afraid of them! They would slowing walk up, grab meat and run. Before the feeding they were actually laughing in the darkness. There were 4 hyenas that ran up to get the meat.