The Mara

The ride to the Maasai Mara was great.  Except maybe for Richard who heard us yelling "Stop!"every time we saw a  different animal.  He stopped a lot - when we saw our first antelope and our first wildebeest and our first giraffe! 

Our first zebras!

 

 

Geographically, this is the Serengeti - famous for the annual wildebeest migration.

It is called Serengeti on the Tanzania side and Maasai Mara on the Kenya  side.

In June we were seeing the first small wildebeest herds.  The million and a half more would soon follow. We saw some Maasai men in their red and orange clothing herding their cattle and goats along the way.

 

When we arrived at the entrance, there were a lot of Maasai women crowding the van trying to sell us beaded jewelry.  They were very persistant - even  trying to open the windows of the van.  They especially like earrings  and they have very elongated ear lobes. There is a fee to enter the park and lots of rules to follow. As it should be. This is their home.

 

We stayed at Fig Tree camp, which was very luxurious after our humble Amani Center.





 

I've read about fig trees in Africa.  Where there are fig trees there will be water.

Our Fig Tree camp was separated from the Mara by a moat.  We crossed a bridge to enter our camp and were greeted by some Maasai employees with cool towels and a cold juice drink.  I was in Heaven. We would go on our first game drive later this afternoon.