Two More Game Drives

Day 47

6:30 Game Drive
9:00 Breakfast
10:30 School & Market Visit
1:00 Lunch
2:00 Wildlife Conservation
4:00 Game Drive
7:00 Dinner
8:00 Wildlife Conservation

    "I woke up to the sound of lions, they were pretty close!" When I ventured to the bathroom with my tentmate Amy we looked up at the stars, they were so beautiful; we could clearly see the Milky Way.
   The game drive this morning was, once again, miraculous. We saw a lioness with her cubs crossing a river. “The cubs looked so silly, they all lined up along the riverside until one brave soul jumped in and waded to the other shore to join it’s mom.” We saw herds of elephant, we
 went back to the river to look at the hippos, they were lying on each other, resting their heads on each other’s rumps. “The exciting story for the day was when we happened upon 4 cheetahs, 3 cubs and their mom. The cubs were sitting in a row by a bush watching mom – she was watching a lone gazelle. We stopped the truck and waited for about twenty minutes, just willing her to chase. She finally ran after the gazelle – I got to see the fastest animal in the world running! We fired up the truck to see if she caught it; she didn’t, but I was thrilled to have seen her run!”
   We went to a local school to give them our donations. It was not as ceremonious as our visit to Eremit, we just put the books and pencils in the office. We visited the students in their classrooms. I didn’t feel very comfortable at this school, “they rushed over to me, grabbing and pinching my skin, legs and arms. They were pulling away my camera and tried to take my film canister. I didn’t like it.” There were women selling beaded bracelets there too.
   On the afternoon game drive we found lions under bushes. There were males, females and several cubs playing. “We were lucky enough to watch the cubs suckling the mom – so neat!” The sunset was so beautiful on the drive back to camp that we stopped to watch it.
For dessert the cooks all came out singing the Jambo Song in harmony and then sang some other Swahili songs and were carrying a chocolate cake! I guess it was the cook’s birthday, it was so sweet of them! “They asked Ainsley to cut the cake, then surprise, they brought out a bigger cake! We were served the little cake first. Right before we dug in Heather (one of the coordinators) told us not to eat the cake. Okay, why? Because it was a pile of ELEPHANT DUNG! We looked and smelled closely, yup, it was! The cooks covered it in chocolate as a joke!” 10 years ago today I was enjoying everything the Masai Mara had to offer, even if some of it ended up disguised on my plate!