A Day on Safari

A day Safari! Out in the vehicles for a day drive away from camp, this means we have a picnic lunch and our pit stops are called "checking the tires". It was a fabulously overcast day, nice temperatures and nice light for our photos. As we start out, I'm amazed at the number of zebras and wildebeest there are on the Mara. At some areas of the vast landscape, it reminded me of the illustrations of what the Wild West looked like, covered in Bison. As far as the eye could see, there were spots of animals. A couple of new animals to this leg of the trip are the wildebeest, part of the great migration, Topeys, Hippopotamus, Secretary birds, Janet cats and lots of people . Repeats here, but still awesome to see are a pride of Lions, Cheetahs, Elephants, Giraffes (but the Massai Giraffes now), Impala, Thompson Gazelles, Grants Gazelles, warthogs, Olive Baboons, Black-faced Vervet Monkey, crocodile, and zebra. It was incredible to see all these animals in one day, 8 hours. Lunch, as mentioned, was a picnic. Under a huge acacia tree, on the open planes, for us to enjoy the views of the animals, rolling hills, mountains in the distance and to keep an eye out for predatory animals. It could have been a scene in a move it was so beautiful. After shooting as many pics as we could, we made our way back to the hotel/camp. Before dinner a lady named Georgia, also on my previous Panama trip, met me on my porch that overlooked a river and we did yoga, amongst some baboons, birds and gorgeous trees. Once done with yoga, the power was about to be turned on for the night (they save energy by turning the power off during the day, so no wifi) so I grabbed my iPad and climbed the spiral stairs case to the deck built around a huge fig tree. I sat in a tree "fort", watching the sunset on the Mara while using wifi, pretty cool stuff! More excitement came during dinner, when I was asked by a Massai girl to join the nightly dance demonstration, and of course I did. No direction was given, I just had to watch, quickly and try to follow along. It was a parade dance through the restaurant out into an open area, were the Massai men demonstrated hoe high they could jump. Latter finding out, it's a traditional matting dance. But, they made me jump as well, even though I wasn't a male, haha. It was a lot of fun and we all got a good laugh out of the whole experience. To me, it was a magnificent day on the Mara.