Saturday, November 9th – Monday, November 11th
World Tour Days 7-9
After our free days in Nairobi Nick, our friends Chloe and Alex, who will be joining us for our 57 day overland truck tour of Africa, and I made our way to the hotel where our tour would start from. We will be in a truck with other travelers journeying from Nairobi, Kenya all the way to Cape Town, South Africa. We have our own lockers for our bags, we spend most nights in canvas tents, we get 3 meals a day, and just need to help clean up and set up camp.
Our first day of the overland tour was a 5 hour drive to the Masai Mara National Park. After that we had our first game drive. We saw huge male lions, a cheetah, an elephant herd, buffalo, warthogs, and zebras (including a very cute baby). In Masai Mara we got to stay in a little lodge which was so nice.
Our second day was a full day game drive in Masai Mara National Park. We started it off with finding a pack of female lions and cubs, which were stalking a small group of buffalo who were apart from the larger herd. While the cubs stayed behind the females began the hunt. We watched them for 1 hour stalk the buffalo, surround them, and complete a successful hunt. Some lions chased off the adult buffalo while one lion got the baby buffalo down. It was such a lucky thing to be able to witness so close.
After the lion hunt our luck continued throughout the day. We saw multiple elephant herds, 2 cheetahs, lion prides, warthogs, hippos, crocodiles, baby ostriches with their parents, running ostriches, and a few hyenas from far away. The other highlight was getting to see a leopard up close, which is super rare. On safari you are lucky if you see just the tail in a tree, this leopard came right up to our truck and walked into the bushes. There were people on our truck who have been on 50+ safaris and said today was the best day they have ever had.
In addition to our two game drives we also took a walk to the Masai people’s village which is in the Masai Mara National Park area. We got to learn how they live, witness their traditional dances, visit their mud huts, and more. They showed us how they start fires, explained right of passage rituals for young men, how marriage works, and how they protect the livestock.
Our third day of the tour was a 5 hour drive to Lake Nakuru National Park. The park used to be famous for having millions of flamingos; the lake would be just pink because of all the birds. Unfortunately that is no longer the case. We saw a baby rhino and mom up close, many giraffes, hyenas, and lions.
