Lots of Babies at the Masai Mara

I just arrived back into Nairobi after 3 days at the Masai Mara Game Reserve. The game drives were wonderful and the game viewing fantastic. It's so strange to see the animals so upclose. Unlike the zoos, there are an enormouse number of flies and insects buzzing around the animals. It's no wonder that you always see twitching and swatting their tails in the nature films. There was also an overwhelming number of babies.

There are both the "Big Five" and the "Big Nine" in terms of African animals. It was originally the Big Five in terms of what hunters would want to kill on safaris of days gone by. The Big Nine are elephants, water buffalos, hippos, zebras, giraffes, lions, leopards, cheetahs, and rhinoceros. I managed to see all of them except for the leopards. They are always elusive and nobody from where we were staying had seen any while we were there. However, the others more than made up for it.

The elephants were so numerous. The largest herd we saw was a group of 20. Although I saw the babies at the Sheldrick Elephant Trust, to see them playing with there mothers and other youngsters was very exciting.

Giraffes were just as numerous and we saw a herd of 18 as well as many smaller ones. Our guide said that one of the babies was probably not more than a couple of days old. I'm not sure which would be worse, birthing and elephant of birthing a giraffe. Fortunately, I won't ever have to find out.

We always saw the lions in the heat of the late afternoon or shortly after sunrise. Therefore, they were always like housecats just laying lazily in the sun. However, I would not want to be outside of the vehicle no matter how lazy they appear. They are quite large and would not want to experience their jaws closing down on me. The babies were a bit more playful.

I feel like a broken record in terms of naming an animal and then repeating just about the same thing for each one. That being said, the hippos were very numerous in groups of about 30 or 40. They mainly just wallow in the water and pop their heads up every so often, but are fun to watch none the less.

I'll wrap it up with the huge numbers of antelopes. There are dik diks, impala, hartebeests, topis, and several others whose names are escaping me. Also sighted were hyenas, jackals, wart hogs (truly ugly but fun to watch), and too many birds.

Geri and I are back in Nairobi for overnight. We will be leaving for Lamu on the coast in the morning. Then back to Nairobi on Monday afternoon before flying back late that night/Tuesday morning.