I got the call early in the morning. “Ben! We need you again for this month’s edition. There is a profile that we are running on the game parks of Kenya, and rather than sending our people out there, we figured we could just send you out on the assignment. It’s a four day gig. Three of the days will be spent in Maasai Mara. We need footage as well as pictures, the TV show ‘Big Cats’ is all over us and we owe them some good stuff! The fourth day, we need you to jet up to Lake Nakuru and do some work with the flamingos and rhinos up in the area.” I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and nonchalantly said, “sure, what time do I have to be there?”… I get these types of calls all of the time. It was the Editor-in-Chief/CEO/President/Talent Scout at National Geographic asking me to be their photographer for the weekend--- WHAT?! They don’t have an Editor-in-Chief/CEO/President/Talent Scout? ---ANNND they don’t have photographers for the weekend? Alright. I admit it; it didn’t go exactly like that. I DID get a call! But it was from Hazel, my friend from orientation. She DID ask me if I wanted to go on a four-day safari! But it wasn’t for National Geographic… and I had to pay for it. But it was 3 days in Maasai Mara… and 1 day in Lake Nakuru! Stop judging.
Ever since I was in 2nd grade (what up Ms. Shein’s class?!) I have been interested, no, infatuated with going on an African safari. I wrote a short story about my adventures on this African safari (focusing primarily on the rhino) when I was sitting in my second grade classroom, and now I have come full circle. Except this time it actually happened. The night before the adventure took place I was a little kid on Christmas Eve. I legitimately couldn’t sleep. When I did fall asleep, I woke up every 15 minutes to see how much time had passed. It was the longest night of my life. But when my alarm finally did go off I rushed out the door to catch the first matatu I could find to get to the meeting place. When I got there, I met Mike and Jackson, our guides. Jackson is 23 and from Nairobi and turned out to be one of the most fun people I’ve ever met. I chose his van, with Bud, Julie and James and grabbed an iced coffee before we took off. I chugged the iced coffee, thinking I was going to be tired, but didn’t realize that we had a 4 hour car ride to Maasai Mara Game Reserve. I don’t think Jackson could have hated me more. The drive took us from the bustling Nairobi streets into the Great Rift Valley, a stretch of valley (obviously) made up of plains and desert that stretch for a ridiculous expanse of land. The reason I don’t clarify where the expanse of land falls is because I have heard four different tales of its size since I’ve been here. Some say it goes from Syria to Tanzania, some say from Southern Egypt to Southern Kenya. I have even heard someone tell me that it stretches all the way down to South Africa. Regardless, it is HUGE, and it makes up the largest area of Kenya’s landscape. Besides being enormous, it is beautiful. Encompassing both Maasai Mara and the Serengeti (which is an extension of Maasai Mara, just on the Tanzanian side of the border…fun fact) it is home to forest, desert, plains and more animals than I can list. As we drove through the desert we saw incredible scenery, including mini-tornadoes whipping around the desert as we drove by, Jackson meanwhile, unfazed by the swirling wind and dust.
As we got closer, Jackson turned to me and whispered “here’s where the driving gets rough”. This coming from the driver who told me that he was going to get me so close to a big cat that I was going to cry (let’s just say that is paraphrased for the sake of censorship). I thought to myself, I’ve been in Kenya for long enough now that no bad driving could really, REALLY surprise me. Wrong again. I should probably stop thinking I know what’s going on. The “road” was a partially cement, partially gravel, mostly non-existent expanse with the same general topography as the face of the moon. We spent more time with two wheels on the road than a bicycle as Jackson drove half off the side of the road, half on the road to avoid potholes the size of wildebeests. At one point our car was tipped on its side, the long grass scraping the windows on the passenger side. Julie screamed and Jackson laughed. I’d known him for only a few hours but I loved him, hated him and trusted him with my life all at the same time.
We arrived at the “hotel” (very loosely used) that we were going to be staying for the next two nights late in the afternoon, dropped off our stuff and ran back to the van to get as much time in the reserve as we could. The hotel was a group of tents set up less than a 3 minute drive away from the entrance to the reserve. -- The difference between a game park and a game reserve is that a park has a fence. The reserves do not. The animals can (and do) roam anywhere that they want, which is why staying so close to the reserve in a tent can be a huge disadvantage as well as an advantage (more on that shortly). As we entered the Maasai Mara game reserve, I was overwhelmed. It was literally a dream come true. The number one thing that I’ve wanted to do in my life was actually happening. Everyone knows that when I get excited about something I get ridiculously excited about it. Now imagine if I had been waiting for my entire life for it. It was like the Cubs winning the World Series… only with rhinos! Needless to say, I was bouncing off the walls and the other people in my van couldn’t help but laugh with (more likely, at) me.
Our mission: find the big 5. Maasai Mara is one of the only places on the planet where you can see all 5 of the big 5 in one place. The big 5 got their name because they were deemed the hardest 5 animals in Africa to hunt. They are; the lion, the leopard, the elephant, the buffalo and the rhino. As we entered the reserve the wildlife was breathtaking. There were gazelles mixing with wildebeests. Warthogs grazing alongside buffalo (big 5 #1…) giraffes and zebras watching as vultures circled and Meer cats sprinted through the grass. Animals EVERYWHERE. This wasn’t like a zoo. They were in their natural spots, interacting in a way that no one, not Jackson, not people who study these places could truly predict.
This entry could be a novel. I could write 300+ pages about this journey, but besides wasting your workweek, I would bore you to tears with the painstaking details. So I’ll give you bullet point highlights and some stories about some of the most ridiculous experiences of my life thrown in.
Day 1:
Leopard spotting—the hardest of the big 5 to see because it is incredibly intelligent, lives in trees (and can drag prey almost twice its size into those trees) and hunts at night. It is also incredibly shy and doesn’t like humans. When we spotted it even Jackson got excited! He screamed “praise the lord… the leopard is such a pain in the ass!”
Lion spotting—A pride of lion lying in a dried up river bank. A baby lion suckling from its mother.
Elephants—everywhere! (4 of the big 5 knocked out in our 2 hour first day excursion!! Only the elusive rhino remaining.)
And then sun started to set. Wow. The animals could sense that the predators were about to come out so they huddled into packs, making the scenery that much more impressive. There were elephants gathering their families, zebras on guard against lions, antelope sticking close to buffalo because they are too small to fend for themselves against the big cats that see impeccably in the dark… all while the sky turns a bright orange. It was amazing. Maasai Mara game reserve doesn’t let people stay in the reserve after dark (safety? Arbitrary rule? I’m not sure), but Jackson did a great job of avoiding security for as long as possible until it seemed like we were the only humans remaining in the entire Maasai Mara/Serengeti. It was an experience that I will never forget.
Day 2:
Bright and early game drive. First thing in the morning we see our friend the leopard. This time Jackson is on a mission. None of this seeing it from 30 feet away nonsense, he wanted to make good on his promise of making me cry. He whips the van off road and chases down the leopard. It is so close that I could reach out of the window and touch it…. We didn’t. But we did get some ridiculous pictures.
The one thing that I took away from Maasai Mara is that lions are not endangered… they are everywhere! Well that might not be true, but the fact that Maasai Mara has 300 lions, making it the highest concentration of lions in the world, sure makes it seem that way. We saw a lion that was wounded by a buffalo. Then after about an hour of game drive we returned to where we had left the lioness, wounded, only to find that the pride was feasting on (what we would like to imagine) was the same buffalo that injured the mom. Sorrrrrrryyyy buffalo! We saw a male lion walking through an open field and the entire world stopped. Every animal within a half a mile stopped what it was doing to watch this beast make its way through the grass… they weren’t taking any chances. Once he was gone, they went back to their business. We saw lions mating (a nice word for it) and we saw a lion pride feasting on a zebra (including one of my many national geographic worth photos). We saw 3 of the 50 cheetahs that are known to frequent Masaai Mara, and even caught one of them munching on an antelope. We pulled up to a river bank, got out of the van and sat on a tree that had fallen over only to witness about 15 hippos rise up from the shallow water… breathtaking. We even stopped to have a picnic lunch under an acacia tree in the middle of the plains area (where we could see animals coming from a mile away). The smell of disgusting ham probably kept the animals away anyway.
After the game drive we to the Masaai manyatta (traditional tribal village) that was located about a 5-10 minute walk from our tents.
When we arrived, our “guide” was a 23 year old kid named Alex. Alex and I hit it off as if we had grown up together, but the reality of the situation was that we could not have grown up farther apart. Alex was the son of a Maasai tribal chief, living in a manyatta with 200 people, all of whom had the same grandfather (for Alex, older generation has the same father, younger generation great grandfather etc.). Therefore, when it comes time to marry, the men go to another village to find a bride. I am the son of a lawyer, and I don’t have to worry about marrying inside or outside of my village. Alex lives in a house made from dung and sticks with 12 of his family members. Ok, well maybe I did that senior year of college but still…. Alex goes to sleep at night worrying about whether a hyena or a lion will eat his goats and cows. I go to sleep at night worrying about my upcoming exam or whether Derrick Rose will win the MVP (get it, get it!!). Our worlds have never even come close to intersecting, until today. I asked him if living so close to a game reserve he has to be careful about animals. He responds by telling me off-handedly that less than 2 weeks before he had killed a cheetah using a wooden stick no longer than your forearm. WHAT!?! You can’t just throw that out there like it’s not a big deal… story please!? He tells me that 2 nights in a row something was coming into the manyatta and had eaten 7 of his goats. Me? I hate the goats, they’re ugly anyway, and whatever is eating them can munch all they want. Alex? He hides in a bush on the third night and when the predator returns he pops out from behind the bush and BOOOOOOM! Cheetah stew for breakfast. I’m kidding, the Maasai do not eat wild animals out of respect for nature, but I am dead serious about the fact that he killed a cheetah.
We make our way towards the center of the Manyatta (a circle of dung huts, shielded by a fence of acacia thorns in the middle of a field at the base of a mini-mountain) where a tribal ceremony is taking place. The Maasai “sing” with a guttural chant made to mimic a lion. They dance by jumping as high as they can. The bigger the ups, the more attractive they are to the ladies. I should have been Maasai…. About halfway through the ceremony Alex grabs me on the arm and tosses a traditional sheet on my shoulder and pushes me into the middle of the dance party. The rest of the mzungu men are similarly shoved into the ceremony and we do our best not to mess it up and disrespect their tradition. Alex throws a lion’s skin hat on my head and tells me to jump. I do. Thank God I was paired with a mzungu in the jumping competition… As the ceremony ends I bring the lion hat to Alex and ask to whom it belongs. He points me to a young looking man who thanks me for wearing it and I thank him back. Alex explains to me that it is his possession because he was the one that actually ended the life of that particular lion… I am SOOOO happy it didn’t fall off while I jumped as to make this guy mad…
As the dance ceremony ends a cow is brought from behind one of the huts. A noose is strapped around its neck and a bow and arrow is brought out. They are going to kill a cow. Every mzungu stomach in a 5 mile radius (the 9 of us traveling together) turns over. Alex reassures me that the cow won’t die. I feel better for an instant. The bow is pulled; the arrow flies and pierces the flesh of the cow. A cup is summoned from somewhere within the group of Maasai and is placed at the neck of the cow. Alex smirks and tells me “time to drink up”. As much as I want to offend the tradition of the guy who just told me he killed a cheetah with his bare hands, I take the cup from his hand and put it to my lips….
Mmmmmmmm! Tastes like chicken soup. Pause. NOT! Alex asks me if I like it, I respond by telling him that I don’t, personally, but I see how they could enjoy it.--- LIES---
After Alex shows me his house and takes me around the village, answering any and every question I can think of and even dishing some out for me, we walk down the hill together towards the safari camp. As we are walking he asks if I want to buy anything from his village, I decline. He asks me if I want to trade something. How could I possibly say no?! We bargain for most of the walk and when we arrive at my tent I give him a flashlight (he freaked out… “I can’t see when it gets dark, this will help me soooo much!” he squealed) and in exchange I got a cheetah tooth necklace. I wanted the lion’s claw necklace but he said that he would need money for that one. I guess a lion’s claw isn’t easy to come by… who would have thought?
That night we built a fire, bought a couple bottles of maasai beer and stayed up late with our night guards (maasai warriors), who did not sleep in order to protect the grounds from hyena, lion, cheetah etc. (remember, no gate). The beer we bought was made from fermented sausage tree pods (a tree native to the area with huge pods hanging off that look like sausage). After fermenting, they mix the incredibly strong alcohol with tea, honey, sugar, vinegar and whatever else they have lying around. Granted, at a bar I probably wouldn’t order the stuff, but I don’t regret drinking it (out of a used water bottle). Once in a lifetime stuff…. While the guards didn’t drink with us (they wanted to be on their game if an elephant decided to stampede the grounds… good call) they were definitely our entertainment. The cultural divide had both groups cracking up on a regular basis. Nothing brings a group closer together than having absolutely nothing in common! One of the warriors asked to see my iPod touch and one of the girls taught him how to play “doodle jump” (doesn’t matter if you know the game or not, picture a tribesman staring in wonder at an iPod touch, the screen moving with his finger… completely alien), everyone was in tears laughing. One of the warriors taught me how to use his spear, machete and defense stick. He even pretended to hear a lion and took me on a mock hunt to save the camp grounds. Even though I knew it was completely fake, I don’t think I’ve ever had a bigger smile on my face as I crept through the brush with a maasai warrior, hunting lion… We talked about God and cultural differences, we talked about girls and sports, we exchanged stories from our lives (their stories blew our minds and our stories of cities and airplane travel blew theirs). One of the mzungu asked if the tribesman would ever want to live in a house with modern privileges. He responded by saying, no-- why would he want to risk the lifestyle change towards something that he didn’t know or understand when he loved the way that he lived and the character that it gave him? He asked us to not think of our way of life as better or more advanced, and to ask ourselves-- just out of way of life, if we would like to live in a manyatta…. We said HELLLLLL NO… That’s how he feels about modern amenities…. Not bad for someone who only had 5 years of formal education…. speaking in his 4th language.
They told us tales of killing elephants with poison arrows, because it got into the manyatta and panicked, threatening the entire village’s safety. They told us about their 4 years in the bush, mandatory to become a man and their adventures of killing a lion, mandatory to return to the village. I asked what the scariest animal in Africa was. He said the female lion. The male may be stronger but they are soft. The female fights with a never-ending passion. He asks me if I would be scared to see a male lion. A few more sips of this Maasai brew and maybe I wouldn’t be, but I admit that I am. They laugh and all say that I shouldn’t be scared. That’s true… the male lion is soft.
The men in the community get wives by buying them with cows. Men can have as many wives as they can afford. Alex only wanted one wife. Not because he didn’t want more women. He just didn’t want to buy different houses for all of them and if they lived together they would fight all day. Another man had one, but was saving up cows for more. Another man was 22 and was waiting until July to trade his cows for his first wife. His dad set up the marriage with another tribe. The girl is turning 12 in June. (No typo… that does say TWELVE) This was one time that I had to put my personal upbringing and beliefs aside, I can’t judge their culture because I don’t know it. It was an amazing conversation. As we called it a night with an incredible day behind us and an incredibly early morning ahead, we said our goodbyes to our newfound friends and said thank you to the shooting stars above us that these guys were guarding the clear, cool night. And with that, we could sleep a little easier with the hyena calls in the distance.
Day 3:
Sunrise in Masaai Mara… probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. That’s it, no exaggeration... I got amazing pictures, none of which will ever come close to capturing the sunrise in this enormous, serene, (place any positive adjective here) wonderland. We saw elephants, giraffes and almost every other animal going about its morning routine… we saw a lion stalking a group of buffalo, caught in the moment we were almost hoping for a kill. The guard buffalo spotted her in time and chased her off with an amazing display of wilderness defense. We left early in the afternoon for the 4 hour drive to Lake Nakuru, nicknamed the pink carpet because of its enormous population of flamingos. We had seen 4. Jackson had promised us five. The only one remaining was the rhino… the suspense was killing me!
Once we had arrived at Nakuru we settled into our accommodations and had a night out on the town. Not to sound jaded, but I’ll skip this part. It was your standard Kenyan-city-nightlife, sweat-through-your-shirt-dancing, 4 am-bar-closing-time, local-lead-dance and Swahili-lesson filled night out that one has come to expect when going out in Kenya. Again, not to sound jaded.
The next morning was excruciatingly early, but I jumped out of bed, early enough to shower before our departure, in anticipation for the 5th of the big 5 sighting. When we arrived at the Lake Nakuru National Park (remember, park has a gate), we stopped to pay the fee and my friend Julie got slapped by a monkey, expected… again, not to sound jaded. We toured Nakuru, (speeding through because this entry is a novel already) and saw the flamingos populating the area. We drove up to baboon cliff and saw some of the most incredible views in the world. Don’t believe me; check out the pics I’m sending to National Geographic.
As we made our way down Baboon Cliff, I was starting to resign myself to an utterly disappointing safari when my world changed. There it was. A White Rhino, laying in the shade, with another White Rhino guarding the area. My life was (is) complete. Everyone in the van let out a squeal, realizing that my life goal was complete. Jackson let out a sigh of relief. As soon as the rhino flood gates opened, it was a steady stream of rhinos from there on out. Everywhere we went there were rhinos. Eating, crossing the road, giving me pictures that are now the background of my computer… you name it, they did it. It was amazing. The weekend that is. It was almost 15 years in the making, and it lived up to EVERY expectation… actually exceeded them. Looks like there is a new number one thing on the bucket list... It’s just going to take a while to figure out what it is. That number one spot hasn’t been vacant in a while…
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