We arrived at the actual nature reserve around 8:30am. Maasai Mara – over 550 square miles of land bordering the Serengeti in Tanzania. Within minutes of entering wildebeests surrounded our van. Further down we saw buffalo. These were real wild animals.
Cheetahs in the shade. They had such fluffy necks. Elephants that quickly disappeared into the bush. Hyenas and their cubs. A fox!
We saw so much and in close proximity to the path.
During lunch we hid our bananas and sandwichs from hovering baboons and then stood around watching hippos wade below.
There were 7 volunteers on safari and we all napped. At one point our 4×4 van got stuck in a mud puddle. First, the guides tried to move it. Then, two male volunteers jumped out push. Finally, everyone got out an attempted to dislodge it. Didn’t work. We all stood in the thigh-high grass waiting for another safari crew to push us out. Anyone who’s every watched Discovery or Animal Planet or Planet Earth knows that big cats creep in the grass to hunt prey. As much as wanted to see a leopard, we did not want to be lunch. This was unlikely given we were a group but still it was a little uncomfortable standing in the wilderness like that.
Eventually, we came to no man’s land – a strip of the nature reserve that’s between Kenya and Tanzania. A place that doesn’t belong to any country.
The Jam 