Maasi Mara Safari - Day 2


Buffalo.  That's a 1-hour old baby on the left, with his mom
      We have another Land Rover tour scheduled for 6:30 this morning, and I am thinking:  what could we possibly see that we haven't already seen?

      I was wrong.

      First we came upon a large group of giraffes.  I try to count them … eleven?  O wait, there's some more back in the bushes … fifteen?  Oh wait, there's a couple more by that tree … I give up!  They're everywhere!  I wonder how many there are in this park; must be more than a hundred.

Ostriches, female and male
      Giraffes are fascinating to watch.  They seem to spend all their time just … walking, with that slow, majestic gait.  They can gallop pretty fast, tho, if they need to.  They seem rather oblivious to us in our wheeled vehicle; sometimes they just walk on by, without a care.

      We also come upon a pair of ostriches, male and female.




Baby elephant never strays far from Mom
     And then we see … elephants!  There are five them, including two mothers, one very young cub, and another about halfway grown.  The little baby is never far from Mom.  He's just as cute as can be, his trunk only about a foot long.  Fred tells us that elephants are usually docile but that ANY wild animal with young cubs can be very aggressive, so he is careful not to get too close.

      We come upon a group of buffalo, mostly laying around in the grass.  But there is a newborn calf!  Its skin is still wet, and it's a little wobbly on its feet.  The cub is probably about an hour old.


Hippos in the Mara River
     We drive up to the banks of the Mara River, which winds thru these parts and demarks the park boundary.  And down there in the river are … hippos!  They are everywhere.  Mothers with babies, too.  They are somewhat divided into pods.  Fred explains that each pod has one dominant male.  Ever so often, we'd here them snort and grunt loudly, which is hippo-talk for "stay away!"  It was cool, watching them from up on the river bank, where we observe closely but safely.

     Back at camp, I pull a chair up the stoop of our tent, sit back and just take it all in.  I could get used to this place.



Other animal observations

  • a male "Tommie"
    Thompson's gazelle, aka "tommies".  Diminutive, about the size of a large dog, slender, agile, constantly moving, graceful, very alert to their surroundings, and skittish.  They have a distinctive black stripe down their sides. Very prolific; must be a million of them here.
  • Wildebeest.  Majestic, hairy, somber.  They are somewhat comparable to American bison, tho not as big.
  • Buffalo.  Big and mean-looking.  They have distinctive "part" atop their head which morphs into a pair of upturned horns; it kinda reminded me of a hippie hairdo.  (The safari camp had a couple of buffalo skulls tacked up on the entryway.)
  • Zebras.  Don't know and don’t care what's going on around them; they only want to graze.  Also very prolific; you see so many zebra out here that they become ho-hum.
  • Warthogs.  The ugliest, yet funniest animal ever.  They lift their tails up when they run.  Also very skittish.
  • Hyena
    Hyenas.  Not as ugly as I thought they would be, and actually kinda cute.





Taking a morning coffee break





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