Kenya and Tanzania -- Oct 2012 -- Part III of III

Masai Mara National Park

About 1/2 the Vantage group left around 8 AM by safari jeep to drive to Nairobi (perhaps a 7 hour drive). Most of them would board overnight flights for home (all with a stop and plane change somewhere in Europe, such as London or Amsterdam). One couple was going to Nairobi by jeep but planned to stay overnight there and fly out the next day (to avoid such a super-long travel day).

The other (approx) half of us (including me) left on a flight around 10:30 PM to Nairobi. We then traveled to another Serena lodge in the Tsavo West National Park in Kenya. More on this below.

The arrangements meant I had an easy morning hangiing around the lodge in Mara Serena Lodge (and spent some of it taking photos -- some of which were of the lodge interior and appeared earlier in the gallery; and some of the people in those photos were waiting to get on the jeep; I went to the reception building to bid them farewell).

The view out the guest room window early in the morning was rather strange. Large portions of the plain (or valley) visible from the room were devoid of animals. These areas had been FULL of them the previous day.

When some animals started to return, some large groups of wildebeests seemed to come in long lines. One of these lines came running -- uphill from the general direction of the Mara River.

Several of the photos taken from the guest room window that morning are in pairs. With the two members of the pair taken at different zoom lens settings.

This photo shows one of the long lines around the horizontal center of the photo. They are moving left to right. Note that the lower 2/3 of the photo shows an area with very few animals in it, while the upper 1/3 has animals. The area in that "lower 2/3" was one of the areas devoid of animals (unitil the lines of wildebeests started arriving).

Masai Mara National Park

This is a high zoom shot of a portion of the line shown in the previous photo.

Masai Mara National Park

This is another area visible from the room window (or abbreviated balcony). It has a lot of termite mounds in it. There are no animals in this photo, but there were many here the previous day.

Masai Mara National Park

High zoom view of one terminte mound.

Masai Mara National Park

I believe this is the area upslope from the (empty) field of termite mounds. It has animals. Note the isolated tree in the upper right corner. It also appears in the next photo (at a higher zoom lens setting).

Masai Mara National Park

A slightly more zoomed-in view of the region shown in the pervious photo.

Masai Mara National Park

The line of wildebeests is curved here and ends in somewhat of a herd.

Masai Mara National Park

Zoomed in view of the herd from the previous photo.

We had seen lions near here the previous day.

This is the terminal building -- and the only enclosed space except for two rest rooms.

There were initially two planes here. From different airlines and both flown by women pilots (and no co-pilot)

The two planes were had 12 passengers. Most of the luggage storage is in a cargo compartment below the passengers. In out plane, a hotel employee flew as a passenger in the co-pilot seat. I'm not sure if he was a paying passenger, or if the airline was just doing a favor for the hotel and/or the employee.

This weas after the other plane had left. Our pilot had arrived the afternoon before and spent the night at the hotel.

View inside the cabin.

Another line of wildebeests, taken from the air.

The Mara River fom the air.

The original plan had been to fly from Masai Mara Park to Tsavo Park. However, the flight went only to Nairobi. Then we drove the rest of the way by safari jeep. I think the change might have been due to the airline they had originally been contracted to going out of business. We received a letter of apology (and a partial refund) after arriving home.

The drive from Nairobi was much longer than expected -- and not at all relaxing because of the heavy truck traffic (large trucks, traveling in both directions) on the two-lane road. It was similar to a two-lane US highway of around 1952.

This photo is a kiosk along the roadside selling fruit and vegatbles and the next two photos are similar. These were probably taken several miiles apart. In several areas, the kiosks were not in village market areas.

That might be a private home behind this stand.

Here is one of the Coca Cola kiosks, but it is not open.

This must be after we finally arrived at the park.

This lodge was built so that all of the rooms looked out on a waterhole (really a set of about 5 ponds of various sizes). DIfferent types of animals seemed to come at various times of day, with the elephants apparently having the night shift. The first night, right after we arrived, there were about 25 or more elephants there. There were a couple lights (similar to street lights) out there. They did not provide enought light for photography, but I had to try anyhow.

There were pretty noisy elephants. Miuch of the noise seemed to involve two elephants who SEEMED to be arguing about which of them would have the primo sport under one of the lights.