For our 3 day – 2 night Masai Mara safari trip, we chose Natural World Kenya Safaris. There are a large number of safari operators in Masai Mara and we researched around for a while. We chose this operator based on outstanding reviews on Tripadvisor as well as fairly transparent pricing on their website. The safari representative we were corresponding with (Mr. Humphrey) was very responsive via email. Another option we liked about this operator was that you could make safari payments online with credit card.
After arriving at the Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, we were met by Mr. Emmanuel who would be our guide for the entire safari. He dropped us off at Radisson Blu Nairobi where we were staying for the night and told us to be ready early next morning for our 6 hour drive from Nairobi to Masai Mara Game Reserve.
Day 1:
Early next day, Mr. Emmanuel met us at the hotel and soon we were on our way outside of Nairobi towards Masai Mara Game Reserve. About an hour into the drive we stopped at a vista point overlooking the Great Rift Valley.
The drive from Nairobi to Masai Mara Game Reserve does not have too many picturesque stops. About an hour before arriving at the game park we saw some Zebras wandering around the farmlands.
After lunch and a short rest at the game camp, we went out on our first game drive of the trip.
Gazelle (specifically Thomson’s gazelle) and Antelopes are the most prevalent of the animals in the game reserve. Next on the list would be Elephants.
We saw quite a few of elephant herds during the 3 day game drive.
Obviously its fun to see giraffes, elephants and gazelles but we are not here in Africa for that are we? We kept telling Emmanuel if he can hear from the radio chatter of any lion sightings and he said there indeed was. Before any delay we made our way to a bushy area where at least 5-6 vehicles were waiting.
It was starting to get dark and Emmanuel decided to drive back to the lodge. On the way back we caught a short glimpse of 2 black Rhino’s. Emmanuel told us that we were extremely lucky because of all the “Big Five” (Elephant, Rhino, Lion, Leopard and Buffalo), the black rhino is the rarest in the Masai Mara due largely to their shyness.
Day 2:
After breakfast we started our second game drive of the trip. Within an hour we came across these two jackals.
Shortly after the jackal sighting, we came across this hyena resting on the side of the road.
Karen really likes Giraffes and so when we saw this one standing next to a tree we drove close by and spent some time taking pictures.
Soon Emmanuel told us that he heard on the radio about 3 cheetahs with a fresh kill nearby.
After seeing the Cheetah’s we spent some time looking around the park for a Leopard. Emmanuel got word that there was a baby Leopard with its mom and an abandoned kill nearby. We spent about an hour looking through the bushes in search of the leopard and finally found this baby leopard.
Emmanuel has really good sense about the animals. While all the other safari vehicles were on the other side of the bush looking for the leopards, he came to this side and lo and behold we got this video.
Feeling satisfied after a very productive game drive, we decided to head back to the camp for lunch.
While we were taking pictures of this elephant, Emmanuel got very excited and informed us that he had spotted a leopard sleeping on a tree (quarter a mile away !!). Our guide was really good. We made our way to the tree where the leopard was sleeping.
We spent about 10 minutes right next to this leopard while Emmanuel shared the finding with other safari drivers. Afterwards we went back to the game camp for lunch.
After lunch and a brief rest, we started on our third game drive of the trip. We mentioned to Emmanuel that we wanted to skip all other animals and wanted to search for Lions only. After an hour drive through some small streams, muddy fields and rough terrains we made our way to this lion pride.
After spending some time here we decided to head back towards the game camp as it was starting to get dark and we were far away from the camp in our search for lions.
On the way back we saw the remaining member of the Big 5 that we had missed – the african cape buffalo.
Emmanuel also stopped by a watering hole in search of some Hippo’s and we were not disappointed.
Day 3:
This was our last day of the safari and we only had an early morning game drive from 6 am – 9 am left before coming back to the camp for breakfast and then heading back to Nairobi. We told Emmanuel that all we wanted to see on this game drive was Lions again. We had not seen a male Lion on this trip and no safari is truly complete unless you see that.
We came across another Hyena wandering around in the plains.
After an hour and a half of driving through some really rough terrain we finally saw quite a few vehicles parked in a distance which only meant one thing – Big 5 sighting.
Seeing this male lion up close really made us feel that our safari trip was finally completely successful. We had seen everything we came here hoping to see.
After spending some time taking pics, we drove back to the game camp and after breakfast departed on a long 6 hour drive back to Nairobi.
