Oh it was an exciting moment I can tell you. The
truck couldn't fit under the normal gate so we had to go around the side, so I
hopped out of the Queen and walked through. The greeting we were given by all
the Masai guys was so warm and friendly. I had about five of them all rush out
and greet me, shaking hands, telling us their names and welcoming us to Masai
Mara. It felt like greeting long lost friends like we had returned home at
last. This was such a different feel from what I remember of the Masai people
who were previously a little unfriendly and not interested in us as tourists.
There seems to be such a change of heart.
Edwin was there and helped guide us through the
payment cycle as we had to pay for the truck and the cars to drive through the
reserve and then of course the entrance fee. These reserves all work in Dollars
and given that our Rand has performed so badly of late it is quite an expensive
excessive but then when you have travelled so far to get here it becomes
irrelevant. Just to be in this place that has been something most nature loving
South Africans want to see and experience was truly wonderful.
Edwin was just a delight and really represented
a standard that you would expect from a company like Great Plains Lodges who
are the owners of Mara Toto and Mara Plaines. Ever since we first met Derek and
Beverly Joubert we have wanted to visit their lodges and experience the
pleasure of their unique hospitality. Derek and Beverly are well known for
their film making and Photography and the epic movies that they have made on
the wild life of Southern Africa - Eye of the leopard and Eternal Enemies ...
To name a few of their outstanding works. Now they have put their hands to
developing lodges and have built a reputation of being one of the best in the
business.
Mara Toto is just inside the Mara Reserve and
Mara Plains is in a conservancy just outside. They are only ten or fifteen
minutes apart so our transfer from one to the other would be very short.
The girls and I climbed into the open game drive
vehicles with Edwin and had a wonderful drive to Mara Toto with him. It is hard
to describe how spectacular and different the Masai Mara is. These vast open
plains, not many trees, in fact very few trees, just clumps of trees and bushes
that run along the riverine and because it is so open, you can see just every
animal on the plain for miles around - nothing is hidden. And there are these
huge herds of Tope, Grants Gazelles, the famous wildebeests, zebra and
Thompson's Gazelles. It was so interesting listening to Edwin talk about the
reserve and how the Masai with their cattle, have been able to live in harmony
with the wildlife. He explained that no Masai will eat game meat, in fact they
eat only goat, sheep and beef but only on rare occasions as their wealth is
measured in the number of cattle and sheep they own.
They prefer to drink blood mixed with milk and
so very few of their cattle ever get slaughtered and their wealth grows with
their cattle holdings. The only trouble being the grazing does not grow and the
pressure from the wild life grows ever greater especially in times of drought.
Anyway the point is that they do not eat game meat so the game has never been
decimated by them, which is what has occurred in other parts of Africa and
results in the constant tussle between conservation and the communities who
live on the borders of the game area who poach for the pot.
Edwin also told us some other interesting things
that have been happening to the Masai people which I am sure might just account
for the difference in their attitude since we first came up here many years
ago. The Masai on the whole had never been educated, their own elders had
decided that they were pastoralists (tending cattle and sheep) and that their
wealth was in their livestock so there was no need for them to read and write
or have any other activities to make a living. The Kenyan Government on the
other hand realized that with the increase in population plus the pressure on
the grazing and increases in demand for land for the cattle that this situation
could not continue and so they went in and selected a few children from each
village and sent these kids to boarding school to be educated. Edwin and our
next guide being two of them. When this proved to be successful they started to
set up schools in the villages and started to force them to go to school. So now
a number of the youth have completed their education. They have chosen to go
into the tourism business like the game wardens and the guides, lodge managers
etc. I am sure this is also what has resulted in the Masai being willing to
give up some more of their pastoral lands to form the Conservancies where Mara
Plaines is situated.
Our arrival at Mara Toto was unforgettable, we
had been building it up for several days and we were certainly not
disappointed. We were greeted by the staff and Stella the manageress with such
enthusiasm it was impossible not to feel totally welcome. What can I say about
the camp other than it was absolutely charming. It has five of the most
gorgeous tents nestled in the thick bush along the river with a main building
in the middle.
The loo is of course the main attraction for us
girls and as Rouvierre said, it is a room with a view and one that you just
don't want to leave. This makes it a bit difficult when everyone really needs
to go!
The main lounge is a large tent and is just what
you would expect from "Out of Africa" and the African experience is
really personified in this very comfortable space with cream couches and
Persian carpets. We had a quick but delicious lunch at a table set under the
trees and then quickly dropped our things off in the room and were off on a
game drive that we had so been looking forward to.The clouds were building and
it was very definitely going to come down in buckets but we managed to get in
about an hours’ drive before the
heavens opened and we needed to head back to camp.
We all went to our tents and had the opportunity
to get a good look at the inside of the tents as we were kind of rushing out
before and only glanced inside. They are very spacious with a king size bed, built
on a wooden deck with a separate bathroom off to one side, just so appropriate
for the bush and as I said before my best description would be charming. In the
bathroom there was a fantastic shower over a slatted floor where the water runs
out plus in our unit there was a little copper bath that had no taps but in no
time we had a Masai come in with buckets of hot water and the tub was filled
with delicious hot water for me to bath in... I felt like I had just stepped
into Meryl Streep’s shoes and I was
playing the part of Karen Blixen in Out of Africa. In fact all the girls felt
the same.
Dinner was served in the main lounge/dining room
area, very elegant with all very tasteful decor. I was surprised at how cold it
had become. I suppose the rain hadn't helped but we also learned that we were
at 5000 feet and so there was no malaria in the area and the evenings and
mornings are pretty cold. The dinner was delicious, their chef (of which there
are a few) are certainly of a very high standard and we were in bed at about
10pm, tucked up and asleep fairly early as we knew we were in for an early
start the next morning.
We were woken sometime in the night by the very
loud roaring of a male lion that was very close, if not in our camp. That is
for me the best sound ever. I probably prefer to hear the lions at night to
actually seeing them. It is always blood chilling and makes Africa very real.
Our wake-up call was at 5.30am and this time I
managed to get Ernest up and on the game drive vehicle. At Safari lodge we
always give the morning game drive a miss but being here and having this kind
of opportunity it was not to be missed. Edwin had decided to take us on a
fairly long drive all the way down to the Mara River inside the reserve. He
thought that there was a possibility that we could or might see a crossing of
the wildebeest. This is of course one of the most filmed and famous happenings
in the wildlife calendar. Plus even if there wasn't any crossing we would at
least see the river and all the game in that area and there are plenty of cats
down there. So off we went and what a wonderful morning it turned out to be. I
must say it was absolutely freezing on that vehicle, a pretty cold wind was
blowing and it was very overcast, but it had stopped raining, so we huddled up
with the warm ponchos tucked around us and off we went. As I say with the wide
open plains and undulating landscapes, it was exactly like the picture that I
had of the "Masai Mara" when I was a little girl and was told of this
magical place where you saw thousands of animals.
We were out for about 6 hours, you don't travel
for great distances as there are very muddy river crossing which Edwin jokingly
referred to as the Mara massage and mud pack as you slide sideways so often. We
were impressed with the fact that Edwin always stuck to the road which was
sometimes deep and muddy rather than make a new road on the un slippery part
like some other cars obviously do, which is unsightly and is a huge potential
for erosion.
We got to the Mara river at about 9.30 after
having seen 4 lionesses with two sub adult cubs, a wonderful elephant sighting
with baby's that were still suckling, great hyena sightings with about 10 of
them all fighting over an old kill and herds of wildebeest, topes, red
hartebeest which I am sure win the prize for the ugliest animal on earth,
giraffe, Tommie's, Grants and buffs. We thought we were going to have a quick
coffee, tea and biscuits and then head back to the lodge for breakfast as we
were all starving by this time, when out came the tables, chairs, a beautiful
Masai table cloth and a surprise breakfast to fill our rumbling tummies. Oh we
had stepped into a movie set for sure.
The river is just full of hippos, big, small and
medium but when I say dozens of them I mean dozens, all lying in these small ponds
with their heads on each other’s backs plus another
few dozen on the banks trying to catch what little sun there was just peeping
out from behind the clouds. On the other side of the river there were thousands
of wildebeest amassing and they seemed to be traveling with great determination
in the direction of the main crossing... We were hopefully excited about the
possibility of a crossing but suddenly they all stopped and started grazing so
it seemed quite likely that the crossing would not be happening for a while.
Edwin also explained that there was very green grass on both sides of the river
so the pressure to cross the river ‘for greener pastures” was not too great.
So we gave up and decided to head for home.
The marked difference between the reserve and
the conservancy where the camps are is the number of vehicles that you see. We
had seen a cheetah kill in the distance but there were so many cars around it
we had decided to give it a skip, rather go find something else closer to the
lodge with less people. We did have an outstanding leopard sighting which
really put the cherry on the cake.
We got back to Mara Toto got straight into our
cars and were escorted by Edwin to Mara Plains where we were to spend the next
part of our stay.
If we were impressed with Mata Toto it was
nothing compared to Mara Plaines. Not to make less of Mara Toto as it is quite
charming but this was the real deal. The lodge has just won the award for the
best lodge in Kenya and the Mara and you can really see why. It is also tucked
into the riverine bush and hard to see from the road. There is a wonderful
wooden suspended walking bridge over the river which gives the lodge a real
ambiance of mystery. Of course everyone wanted a picture on the bridge so just
getting across took some time.
After you have crossed it you enter the main
lounge which is slightly razed and when you climb the steps and walk in you get
the most tremendous vista of the Plaines in front of the lodge, just full of
grazing animals and you completely understand why they call it Mara "Plaines".
The decor is to die for, so "out of Africa" with the leather couches,
Persian carpets and the leather trunks used as side tables together with beautiful
dark wood cabinets and coffee tables. You can just see Beverley's persona
stamped all over the interior. Her wildlife pictures that she is so famous for
are very prominently displayed. They are printed on canvas and really just
complete the whole picture of perfection. I am sure this is the ultimate lodge
and you can really understand why it was voted as the best... It sure had our
vote.
We were welcomed by Johan du Toit...Not a
boertjie (Afrikaans farmer) but a good Kenyan who couldn't even speak Afrikaans
- we all didn't believe him at first as he really has a South African look
about him but it was true, he didn't understand a word of what we said to him
in Afrikaans. He was standing in for the managers who were on leave and did a
great job of hosting us.
We were given a quick lunch as by then it was
getting a bit late, signed our indemnities
and were shown to our rooms. That is when I thought I had died and gone
to heaven!
The tents are so large and spacious; I could
have my whole house just in this one tent. Ernest immediately paced it out...
12x6 ... My gosh it is the size of a house! Anyway again I could see the same
theme carried through from the lounge and library area. There was a real copper
bath on the bathroom side of the tent.... This time with taps and an abundance
of hot water!! The front of the tent was really just a huge window and looked
right over the plain with the wildebeest etc quietly grazing. What a peaceful
and ideal scene. Now the tussle in our minds - stay put or go on a game drive
and I am afraid the “stay put" won
the tussle. Besides - the storm clouds were brewing again and we decided who
would want to go anywhere with this luxury right here. So we vegetated in our
rooms with hot tea and a great view. The lure of the copper bath eventually did
get the better of me and I spent a good twenty minutes soaking in the water and
cleaning up the dirt from the last few weeks.... Yippee I have clean nails
again.
We again dragged ourselves off on an early
morning game drive but this time we stuck to the conservancy and didn't go into
the reserve. I think the terrain is much prettier and more interesting. There
seemed to be a greater concentration of game which for me was unexpected as I
thought the game would stick more to the park but that was definitely not the
case. We had the most fantastic sighting of two lionesses with 7 much younger
cubs. The mothers just lay in the sun trying to soak up some of the warmth as
it was again a cold morning, while the cubs played just like kittens, rolling
and having tug do wars over old branches. They were very entertaining and tried
very hard to get the mothers to play too but they were definitely not going to
comply. Then we set off to look for the leopard that they knew was in the area.
She had a cub but that was usually quite difficult to see. We did manage to
track her down by spotting the "Tommie" in the tree which she had
obviously killed and left up there for later. It was a dead giveaway and some
slow driving and looking in the bushes close by and there she was. What
beautiful animals they are. The guides here call the little Thompsons gazelles “cheetah chips" and the warthogs they
call “lion sausages”.
A little while later we came around the corner and there all set out was our breakfast, what a treat, this time the chef was there and cooked us fresh eggs and bacon, nothing like a good breakfast when you are hungry.
We all had great difficulty tearing ourselves
away when it was time to leave. I think we had all got used to the luxury of it
all and just hated the thought of going back to dirty cars, cooking and washing
up and most of all the buckets of washing. But then that is what this trip is
all about and we waved Johan and the wonderful staff at the lodge good bye and
with great memories of our stay at Mara Plains we put our noses towards Nairobi
and the rest of the trip.
We are due to spend two very uninteresting days
in Nairobi so I will pick up our travels again when we get back on the
expedition road.
Until then !
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