The Amazing Masaai Mara National Reserve!

July 11-14 we spent at Masaai Mara. This was the final safari location of our trip. We were very excited to head there, as everyone had told us we can see the big 5 here at the Mara! If you haven’t seen something yet- you will find it at the Mara they said…that was not the truth BUT we weren’t upset by any means! Out of the big 5 safari animals we hadn’t see the leopard. We later found out that there aren’t even many leopards in the Mara, but we did meet people who saw one or even two. We will leave Kenya with only seeing four of the big 5. The Masaai Mara is where part of the Great Migration happens. At this time of year, wildebeest, zebra and many other animals come from Tanzania, cross the Mara river while attempting not to get eaten by crocodiles, into Kenya in hopes of eating lots of greens and maybe getting pregnant or getting someone pregnant. This is the stuff you see on TV and we were here for it! Now, we had been told that the migration had not started near our location yet and we wouldn’t see it, but we did see some of it and you will too in a separate post. Just an FYI Kenya is having a presidential election on August 8 and there may be some unrest pre, but most likely post election and it’s not ideal for Americans (well anyone that doesn’t need to be here) to be here, otherwise we would’ve come later in the month to see the migration.

Our accommodations were really nice at this Reserve. Yes it was a tented camp, and we were in the family tent which had 2 bedrooms separated by a living room area. You had to zip the tent each time you left to prevent mosquitos from coming in and at night there was an outer part to the tent where you needed to zip both sections. Our tent was facing the river, which was nice because we sometimes saw animals in the river. It seemed as though a buffalo was there daily. We booked directly through the camp and not a third party. We also decided to fly to the Mara because I was told it was a 6 hour drive- which was actually not true. Looking back, driving would’ve been just fine, as the flight was changed and then delayed and we could’ve been there early than we actually got there. There are rules when flying in small airplanes within the country, including that your bag can only weigh a certain amount as well as your bag needing to be of “soft” luggage. We followed the directions and our bags were even underweight. We did, however, see lots of hard luggage going under the plane, so perhaps that really is ok, who knows. We flew out of the smaller airport, Wilson, for this flight. There was a random woman on the fight who would not keep her mask on and also kept coughing. I was almost at my wits end with her but managed to keep my mouth shut because he eventually put her mask back on.

The Maia Mara has about 10 different landing trips in the reserve since it is so big. Based on your accommodations is were you get off the plane. Our plane made 3 stops, other small planes going to the Mara stopped at different landing strips. Passengers are picked up and dropped off at this strips by multiple airlines.

They let family’s with children bored the plane first, and since Jasmine technically had a child fare ticket, we lined up with the families, hopped on the plane and picked good seats! Lol.

There was only one real hiccup on this getaway. I guess when I booked this safari the woman thought, based on my last name, that I was a Kenyan resident. She had given me pricing of the park based on that and when I was asked to pay more I refused, showing the email that I was sent. This caused a bit of a panic among the staff, as the park requires a resident card to be shown as proof you are a Kenyan resident. I reached out to a Kenyan friend back home and she said “Lenise just stand your ground, don’t give in and it will be fine”. Now, those of you who know me well, know that I will let someone know when I feel they have wronged me BUT when I’m overseas I have more of a chill because this is not my home. Now to put things in perspective the amount of money we are talking is pretty significant…we were planning to pay around $80 USD and what they wanted us to pay was almost $1200 USD. After a few days of back and forth between the park and the hotel, the hotel admitted it was their fault and that the “Chege Family” are Kenyan and this shouldn’t be charged as non-residents and this shouldn’t even be a discussion, because we are all family! YEP, SOUNDS GOOD TO US! They apologized to us, charged us about $60 USD (they charged Sanaa as a child) and that was that. Praise God!

The food at this place was not amazing. I think it had changed during COVID. ` They had a buffet for breakfast and lunch and a plated meal service for dinner. At dinner we asked for garlic bread only, because that was the best bread they had. Dinner was always at 730p but we started showing up at 7p because service was slow, Jasmine actually was sleeping at the table one night AND (most importantly) hot water ended at 9p and we all wanted to shower before bed! Hot water was only offered from 5a-9a and 5p-9p This place had too many rules for me! Electricity was off from like midnight to 5am. I just plugged everything in and hoped it was charged by morning when we left for safari.

We typically did a safari early in the morning with the choice to return for breakfast or bring breakfast with (we always chose to go back for breakfast), one in the afternoon and then one before dinner. We also did a couple other things while at the Mara, which will be in another post.

On day one here, we saw a lion pride of 24 lions! The males were sleeping underneath shady trees while the females kept watch over the cubs playing. We saw approx 30+ hippos in the water, zebras, ostrich, giraffe, buffalo, elon- which make a clicking noise with their joints when they walk, as well as elephants. On day two we saw lions eating a zebra- I mean the head and mane and everything was being eaten, a film crew was out there filming this as well, we saw hyenas eating impala, Pumbaa, jackel, eagle, topi, crocodiles, stork, quartz rocks (this is normal gravel here and our driver let us pick up a piece to take home). We also saw hot air balloons in the sky. Day three, in addition to the animals I mentioned, we saw cheetahs and hyena cubs. Hyena cubs are so cute and are actually brown in color. They look like little bears.

Enjoy these pics!