Another bloody safari - Mara and Ol Pejeta October 2015

[BieneMaja]

@@pault I just reread your whole trip report and still absolutely love it! Great photos, lovely writing and lots of information. I'm sure you had a fantastic trip! Thank you for sharing it with us.

 

I read your trip report for the first time about 3 months ago after returning from my first trip to Africa (South Africa) and have since booked two more trips to Namibia and Kenya. As I'll be staying at Serian The Original for 4 nights (also 4 nights each at Speke's for Mara main reserve, Sosian and Offbeat Meru) I was particularly interested in your section about the Mara. Especially as I'll also be there very early in October. Thank you very much for letting us be part of your experience.

[PHALANX]

You can't miss this one, even if it's another of the "boring ones".

 

Strange, new creatures there were! Giant caterpillar cats.

 

 

 

The rare Eastern Black Lion

 

 

 

 

And I am not swearing in the topic title... honest! You'll see.

 

I regretfully announce I am going to start this report about a third of the way through the trip. I would like to give you a better reason but the simple truth is that my wife wants the photos from the Mara quickish, and I live to please. So Ol Pejeta will have to wait. However, the expedition to find Safaritalk the rhino goes in the Safaritalk thread, not here. It doesn't have to wait as long.

 

Nevertheless the actual itinerary was (dates being nights in camp so our last day was 10 October).

 

September 26 - 30 Pelican House* Ol Pejeta Conservancy October

 

1-3. Kicheche Bush Camp Olare Motorogi Conservancy

 

October 4-5 Serian Nkorombo Maasai Mara Reserve

 

October 6-9 Ngare Serian. Mara North Conservancy

 

Chalo Africa did the legwork, deal-spotting and negotiations for me and Gamewatchers did the bookings and transfers on their behalf, as well as providing guide and vehicle for Ol Pejeta. My wife did the spoiling and checking for “interesting things”. These were purged.

 

* Pelcian House was technically on a salf-catering basis, but as someone fairly pointed out, since we had a maid, cook and private guide that description isn't quite accurate. Colonial style self-catering perhaps? About all we had to do different from normal was push the shopping trolley for our cook and pay the bill... and ensure our guide got enough chapatis and ugali to keep driving - he weakened noticeably when faced with two days of potatoes, pasta, rice and fluffy bread. Anyway, it is not to be confused with Ol Pejeta Hiouse owned by Serena Hotels.

 

Just so you won't suspect an "agenda" is behind this - that I am lying through my teeth and just putting off a damning expose of Ol Pejeta long enough for the blackmail cash to be transferred to my Swiss bank account, at Ol Pejeta this time around we saw more rhino that I could be bothered counting, including small calves and everything else we could have expected except for the dogs, who we couldn’t find and who everone said were not denning in Ol Pejeta this year (then just after I got back Ol Pejeta proudly post a picture of denning wild dogs on Facebook – damn! Where were they?) Just as important, Mount Kenya was nicely visible quite frequently. It was good - very good.

 

Anyway, do remember not to expect much excitement this time around. We're back to a boring trip again. Well-run conservancy to well-run conservancy. efficient transfers, lots of wildlife, no vehicle mates (except for one day at Kicheche), no visits to the locals, nothing new at all. It was so boring that crossing the rope bridge to Ngare Serian was a notable experience. Pah! We did meet up with @@Paolo and @@Anita, accompanied by a rather striking "Italian Stallion" who our guide had to protect from my wife, who just thought he was insanely handsome. That was different. Otherwise, it was just bumpabumpabumpaclickclick click bumpaclick bumpabumpa where?there!clickclick bumpabumpaclickclickclick.

 

In fact if it wasn't for the camps, wildlife, scenery and guides this trip would barely have been worthwhile at all.

 

Oh, excitement… I did get sick! First-time-ever-on-safari. Not a tummy thing though – if any camp ever gives my rusty iron pot of a stomach trouble, they don’t need to improve hygiene, they need to quarantine the kitchen staff, burn the kitchen tent and possibly relocate the camp.

 

Ironically, we begin our trip report with some actually unwelcome excitement at Nanyukii airstrip, where we arrived more than an hour early to find our Safaritalk flight on the runway and two pilots pointing at their watches. Record time goodbyes to Francis (you'll meet him later) a trot across the runway to impress everybody waiting we were considerate, and off we go - leaving an hour early for the Mara.

Sitting on the right hand side of the 12-seater plane I have a beautiful view of Mount Kenya..... wonderful! I wonder why I didn't appreciate this on the last flight to the Mara from here. Then I look at my hands. The right one is closer to Mount Kenya, which means left one is west. So my nose is north! Why are we following my nose? Did someone move the Mara? Are we going to take a shortcut by flying over a pole? Nobody else has noticed yet and the pilots hadn't mentioned it, so I guess we are going to pop in a pick up a passenger from Sosian....or Laikipia Wildnerness Camp...... or maybe it is Borana.... Lewa? Must be Lewa as we've been going 20 minutes now.

But this doesn't look like Lewa in pictures I've seen. I know it's a dry year but....

"We're going to Samburu." I tell my wife.

"I thought something was strange" she replied. She was right, despite having her eyes closed and headphones, trying to ignore the terror of the take-off.

Being on their first trip to Kenya the family in front were unconcerned by this conversation. I decided that the effect on fellow travelers of asking the pilot why he was flying us in the opposite direction to that expected, toward the Somali border, would be unpredictable and so ignore-ance was the best policy. Instead of worrying I sat forward to enjoy the free scenic flight over Laikipia and Samburu districts that Safarilink had added to our itinerary for free. Good for them. Enjoy!

House with a view

3D Strata

The Wild North

An hour or more and two stops later the last of the arid, vacant space turned into fields and heavily logged forest and it was starting to get a bit boring? More importantly, tingly-buttock time was arriving. Mr Right Bun was beginning to doze. We'd actually been beyond Samburu to Saruni before turning around and heading for the Mara. Now we were on the familiar route to the Mara and the scenery is a lot less interesting now. It's nice enough the first time, but I think this is fourth or fifth. I just wanted to get there. Eventually there is the Mara River and then, ooh hippos, wildebeest, giraffe, and the mighty river. The hearts of my fellow sufferers rose. Mine did too, but sinks a bit at the same time as this is Mara North and for some reason we have to get off at Naboisho to transfer to Olare Motorogi. God and the pilots only knows how many stops there will be in between.

Actually it wasn't too many and we arrived only 25 minutes late after a 2 hour 40 minute flight. We were met by a transfer driver rather than our guide and got to ride in what I am pretty sure was the same vehicle we had when we first visited Kicheche Bush Camp back in 2008. Happy memories! Further reminiscences as we passed through Naboisho (there's the turn off for the guiding school!; look at all the giraffes)

We arrived at camp 45 minutes after setting out, and were greeted not by Darren and Emma and their dog, all of whom were on leave while Darren got a dodgy knee fixed, but by Aki the relief manager, who is lovely.... and great company.... but can't be Darren, Emma and dog.

So nothing had been as expected so far. Wrong way, wrong time, wrong airstrip, wrong person picking us up, wrong vehicle, wrong manager. Had everything changed? But Aki told us we had "our" tent and that we'd be with Nelson as requested, and there was the huge frame of James making sure everything was fine with the catering (and who would dare say it was not to a guy built like Victor Matfield, carrying a billy club? Especially when everything always was decidedly all right). Even better, from the next afternoon we'd have Nelson all to ourselves, although after a couple of game drives with our companion we were genuinely sorry to see her leave. You do seem to get the best of vehicle mates at Kicheche Bush Camp (touch wood).

Tent was the same - couple of small changes for the better to better reflect the price range now, but still just the basics done well and with a few touches for the softy in us all. Still the only tents I have seen with a covered and (at night) closeable ante-room where you can sit separate from your partner at night (if you want to do so, which of course I didn't) relax sort of half-way outside during the day, or even have meals served if you wish (although the communal dinner table conversation is usually decent at Kicheche with lots of photographers and wildlife travel junkies - of course a few of such people can be real wazoos too, just like any other group; but at least they are wazoos with interesting stories).

Actually the first day is a little atypical. We find ourselves the relative youngsters at the lunch table. Perhaps Kicheche is moving further upmarket than would be good for it, I pondered, but judging by our experiences over the next three days nothing has changed except that things they always did well have got perhaps even a little better, and since the kindly folks at the lunch table seemed to be having a great time, maybe I am simply becoming a worse instant judge of character. It wouldn't surprise me.

 

But I am not here to tell you about this. Let's fast forward past the unpacking and straight out to meet Nelson, who delivered that "most remarkable day on safari ever” back in 2011 and has since been added to the permanent guiding staff at Kicheche Bush. All the guides at Kicheche have their fan clubs, and the others have been there longer than Nelson, but I am not sure any of them can be much better than Nelson is now. Lovely and generous man too. No question who we'll request next time. You'll see.

 

And off we go. Cheetahs for my wife; wild dogs frolicking with lion cubs for me (or bar that anything the day brings, thanks). Like a maitre d'hôtel, before setting off Nelson suggests we might start with a search for lion cubs, and if we don't find them we will probably at least find some of the Moniko pride instead. Then maybe we'll follow that with a look for leopards. Or should we start with the leopard? Lion appetiser sounds good we all agree, especially as they may be getting active and there are plenty of wildebeest around.

 

Only one other Kicheche vehicle out today, guided by Patrick, and we head in the same direction, but at different paces - our pace very slow as we are chatting a lot - our vehicle mate is a very interesting woman and very experienced traveler, and has some excellent gossip to share and a sharp tongue to share it with. Oh, the zesty feeling of fishwife superiority...... "Oooh,er – he didn’t did he? What was he thinking?"

But back to the lions.... drive, stop, get the binos out, look for signs, follow the signs, binos again... find a lion, and then there are two ....and where might the cubs be? Not here.... Too dangerous, Let's have a look at that lugga.... Oh, there they are, just coming out of it. And they are absolutely filthy! Since I don’t have a scrubbing brush and hosepipe I got my camera out.

Mother’s a bit nervy because the sub-adults are getting a bit too close and the cubs haven’t been properly initiated into the pride yet.

Warning the sub-adults that they better not come any closer

Yeah, yeah, auntie!! Scary!

The cubs were dirty with mud from playing in mud in the lugga rather than from the ground. While it was raining a bit, it was only a mild drizzle really, about to stop.

After some play they calmed down and joined their mother for some licking and milk.

While watching the cubs we were also (at more distance) able to watch some of the other lions around – spread over quite a wide area. With the light rain Nelson reckoned it was good hunting weather and predicted one or more would have a go if we stuck around. He was right and one lion did make an effort to stalk some wildebeest, but she was spotted and the hunt aborted at a jog. No harm done… food was in plentiful supply at the moment, with Olare Motorogi starting to heave with wildebeest again despite the return of the majority of the herds to Tanzania a couple of weeks before.

The sub-adults on our side of the valley we were in already had a carcass to chew on, and Nelson had pointed out that they had killed another wildebeest the night before and hadn’t even touched it yet. It just lay by the side of the track, 100 meters from the cubs, with no hyenas or jackals reckless enough in this time of plenty to come close enough to the cubs (and more importantly the mother and sub-adults) to make a start on it.

With the sun now below the horizon (although we would make it come up again simply by coming up out of the valley) and the wildebeest now keeping a greater distance, the lions started to nod off a bit. Nelson suggested we leave as he thought Patrick might have found the main course by now and it would be dark very soon.

The lions meanwhile appeared to be deciding which one would be their main course that night.

Not too long after... our main course. Was there ever any doubt?

And then time for drinks…….

Looking at the beautiful sunset after the wildebeest had passed by, I joked how all it needed for a classic picture was a leaping Maasai warrior. Nelson agreed, and to my complete surprise he made it happen (more for our vehicle mate than me I think, but what a sport anyway!). He received a warm round of applause from his fans on his return to the sundowners.

 

Great story, great photos, especially the Leopard.AJ