Monthly Archives: October 2021

We had a final lovely breakfast then settled up at Alfajiri, said our goodbyes, and went to the airport.

Repeat rant about mask compliance and enforcement – there ain’t none at Diani airport. After 40 minutes or so we boarded the Dash-8 for a quick dash up the coast to pick up more passengers and then off to Nairobi.

From Nairobi we got our transfer (courtesy of Africa Travel) off to the Sankara Marriott, which I intially chose because it was close to our offices there and I was going to visit with the team.

With the Pandemic, the office is basically empty so that wasn’t operative, but the hotel, modulo some very creaky checkin procedures was lovely. We hit the rooftop bar, had a snack, got settled in, and, by the time all the kerfuffle was done, just called it for the night.

We had intended getting up early but totally failed, going down for a late breakfast and then getting a hotel car to the Karura forest, which is a very large reserve in Nairobi (northwest of the town center). It was super pretty, and we did about a 5 mile hike around the area (partially due to some navigation errors on my part).

Because we were travelling in a more urban area, I was keeping my camera in its bag. I saw a Sykes’ monkey in a tree, really close, and wanted to get the shot so reached into my bag to get the camera out. The monkey just kept eyes on me. I snapped a shot, then he moved.

I assumed to run away, but nope, he came right at me.

I snapped one more shot then he jumped at me, I think trying to grab the camera out of my hand. I pulled it away (we made pretty hard contact) and this shot triggered.

He still didn’t run away, and looked like he was about to try again, so I yelled at him, and he backed off a bit. We started walking away and he stalked us for a while before giving up. Better than coffee.

We were following the 5k “yellow trail” and there was a sign that said “Waterfall only” and so we assumed the trail would do a loop and come back to the waterfall.

Another mile of hiking later and it was clear that wasn’t happening, so we doubled back to explore the waterfall.

It was super pretty, walking along the stream to the waterfall.

I got some decent time exposure of the waterfall (propping the camera on a rock) then we walked downstream to the Karura caves.

These were an important part of Kenya’s fight for independence (which culminated in 1963), as the people fighting for independence would hide and plan in the caves. Unsurprisingly, archeological exploration of the caves showed they had been used by humans for … ever.

We finished our hike up past Lilly Lake.

Then we reconnected with our driver, Patrick, who I think thought we had gotten lost in the forest and seemed relieved to see us.

I had read that Market Village was good for souvenirs (and nearby) so I asked Patrick to take us there. It was basically just a mall. A mall with some amusing security signs, like “over 900 cameras are keeping you safe!” and this gem:

We went to the grocery store to buy local potato chip flavors, and refresh our water stock, and figure out where we should go. A quick web search turned up a place called “Spinners web.” We went back to Patrick and asked him to take us there.

JACKPOT. Spinners Web has a huge, diverse collection of handmade crafts, food, antiques, etc. All if it nicely curated and beautiful. We went from “we have nothing for anyone” to pretty well fully provisioned in short order. Our carry on situation got much more complicated, but hopefully all worth it.
Goodies in hand we went back to the hotel to shower and repack.
We decided to have a nice last dinner at Inti, a peruvian/japanese hybrid restaurant at the top of a nearby office building (one of those Gherkin shaped buildings). The walk over, at rush hour, was hilarious and super chaotic and those 3 blocks felt like an achievement. We went up and had a nice (not Cultiva, nice, but nice) meal then were picked up by Wycliffe from Africa travel.

An hour later we were at the airport, going through a lot of paperwork, checkpoints, etc. Covid exit requirements vary by origin and destination and so it can all be a lot. We had had our negative test proof etc. so it wasn’t a huge deal to get through, eventually ending up in the Kenya Air lounge waiting for our flight.

8 hours in the air and we were in Amsterdam, 4 hours of layover and we boarded our 10 hour delta flight home, where I wrote all these final blogs.

We got up a little late and went for our breakfast, after we had our Covid tests, then decided to try walking the 1.5 miles to the Nairobi Museum. It was a bit of an adventure. We were not unsafe, but we definitely stuck out as tourists and attracted a fair bit of attention from beggars.

I gave a young boy 200 shillings and ended up giving away my (ridiculously priced) hotel coffee to a very persistent woman. I would say 30% of the walk was spent saying “no, sorry” to beggars. The total cost, amusingly, of walking was about 900 shillings (200 to the boy, and 700 in the coffee plus tip). The uber back was 240 shillings 🙂 The streets of Nairobi were also generally chaotic, and rough enough you had to keep a serious eye on your footing. We never felt unsafe, but definitely kept our awareness up.

Anyway, the museum was really interesting – there are tons of cool exhibits, and it was also fun to do some people watching as students, families, and tourists all made their way around the museum. Again, mask enforcement and compliance was nominal. On the bright side, the museum had retooled for a one-way walk through that both guaranteed you saw all the exhibits and helped people stay distanced. They also regulated entry based on exits so it wasn’t too dense in the museum.

We saw early man, learned more about hand axes, learned a ton on kenyan culture, saw great kid-art exhibits, etc. Once done, we walked around the grounds a bit to enjoy a break from being masked before calling an uber, which got us back to the hotel for (after we added a 200 shilling tip) less than half the cost of the outbound journey.

After this we went back to the hotel and got changed and kicked back for about an hour before it was time to go to Cultiva.

Cultiva is LEGIT farm to table, sort of a sprawling restaurant in the midst of a farm field in the Karen neighborhood in Nairobi.

When we left Alfajiri, that was Sofia’s parting gift – “and while you are in Nairobi, you should go to Cultiva – it is amazing, farm to table, and why not?” We had, by this time, learned that we weren’t likely to have better ideas than Sofia’s, so we went as instructed.

We got a driver from the hotel who was fantastic, though his Mercedes hit the same “nice car, rough roads” problem that Eva’s had the previous day. When we finally arrived after some truly painful “high centering the mercedes sedan on speed bumps designed for a land cruiser” moments we were blown away – beautiful lighting and design, incredibly stations set up for pastries, pizza, a bar, etc.

We were led to our table and after delighting in the menu, ordered some amazing cocktails (I had an orange mule made with woodford reserve bourbon – it was incredible). We also had some veggie dips and prawn dumplings for appetizers, and ceviche and some incredible prawn and calamari in broth (replete with house made sourdough baguetter basted in olive oil and heated on a fire grill . . . OMG). All with awesome wine. What a meal. We were too vanquished to attempt desert.

We found our driver and bumped our way back to the hotel, full and happy, and turned in. The next day would be our last in Africa (for this trip).

The next morning we had a nice breakfast in the lounge then I was picked up by Eva from my team in Nairobi to go go-karting (it was a Sunday). I got to meet Eva and chat a bunch over about an hour’s drive to the go kart center and some racing observation.

The drive is only about 20km from the hotel, but the roads are really rough due to this massive expressway project that is underway. Eva’s boyfriend’s beautiful Audi A6, which she was driving, was low slung, but the terrain was really much better suited for my jeep. In fact, I might have even aired down. So there was a lot of creeping along and trying not to bottom out on rough terrain, speed bumps, etc.

We finally got there, then we met up with the rest of the folks who wanted to come karting – Jivi, Julius, and Wangechi. The agreed meet time was noon, we got there at 1, and the rest of the crew at 2. Kenya time, as Jivi taught me (ok, but as long as features come in on time, ok?).

We got suited up, got our helmets, and while we waited our turn on the track, one of the track employees when fully crazy on getting group photos with Eva’s phone. We all agreed he had missed his calling as a photographer.

We had our race (in which only Julius’s cart didn’t break down in our 20 minute time alottment), then watched some motorcycles run the course at crazy speeds, then headed over to the restaurant area for conversation and beer.

And theoretically lunch, but service, too, was on Kenya time (they were just overwhelmed) so we chatted until 5 at which point I just said – why don’t you just join us for dinner?

Heather was very gracious and so the whole team agreed to join us at Mercado (I like mexican food, and was amused by the mexican restaurant in Nairobi thing) so we all headed back from the track. It is only 20km but it took everyone at least an hour to get there.

Once there, we enjoyed quite good guac and ceviche and various mains.
The team had bought me a birthday present (a really cool set of traditional lutes) and a birthday cake, and they and restaurant staff sang happy birthday. It was a wonderful end to the day and very touching. It was just incredible getting to spend the day with such a fun, wonderful group.

With all the paperwork for diving out of the way, we did a later pickup after breakfast at Alfajiri, getting to the dive center at 0800. By 0815 we were on the boat. Jon was not joining, so I basically had a private dive boat to myself with our two captains and Saidi as my dive master.

We did our shore brief, planning on two sites – Nick’s Place, and Shark Alley. Nick’s Place was named for an advanced diving student who discovered the site, and Shark Alley because once a white-tipped shark had been spotted there . . . once. But Shark Alley sounds cool 😊

Nick’s place was a first for me, because it was a one-way dive. Basically, we got off the boat and went down to the mooring, then swam at about 18m for about 40m up to the mooring for Shark Alley. I saw blue spotted rays, tons of amazing coral (both soft and hard) and reef fish, as well as her , some more lion fish, angel fish, clown fish (in sea ananome), more lobster, and . . . more. It was a fun dive with the current.

On the way back up the mooring we took our safety stop, and another group was coming down the mooring. I hadn’t seen this before, but it was super interesting watching this family descending. There was a 12 year old boy who was just killing it, and his dad really struggling with buoyancy control. Generally just interesting to watch the dynamics while Saidi and I hung out.
We surfaced and our boat was tied to the stern of the other dive boat, so we swam past both as I listened to Saidi and the captains chatting with the other crew in Swahili.

Back on the boat, we relaxed for a 40 minute surface interval, then at this point really comfortable, I went over the side for our last dive. By this time we had moved up to primary spot on the mooring, and we descended really quickly and efficiently.

Saidi retied the mooring line, which was pretty cool to watch, and then we started a loop around shark alley. We didn’t see any sharks, but we did see a bunch more sea turtle and other reef fish. One of the highlights of shark alley for me was the really tall coral formations with mini caves under that acted as nurseries for baby fish.

The net effect of this is that you could swim below these clouds of brightly colored fish flashing in the sunlight, with these alien landscapes above and around you. I was super careful not to touch coral and I look forward to getting better buoyancy and positioning control as I gain experience – I am still very conscious of my placement. That said, my buoyancy control was really noticeably improving by the fourth dive, gaining confidence and reducing air consumption, so that was cool.

Back to the mooring, we swam a little more until we were at 50 bar of air (or I was, at least – Saidi, basically, doesn’t breathe – 30 years as a dive master and he is just SOOOO efficient), then ascended for our safety stop where I more or less napped and watched the sun dancing off the surface until Saidi indicated for going up.

Back on the boat, I got out of my wetsuit and had some fruit to clear the salt, and we motored back to a fishing pier to disembark – the water was just too skinny for us to get back to the dive center.

The dive center truck drove us back, and I turned in my dive gear, gathered my street clothes, paid the bill and off to Alfajiri I went. I had an interesting convo with the driver – the second time I heard the perspective that hey – we have typhoid, malaria, diptheria etc – covid just gets added to the list. Its a bit fatalistic, but faced with not being able to feed their families due to lack of employment, you can see why they want to get back to it.

At Alfajiri I came back to another amazing lunch. Was this one the tuna tartar? Maybe. I dunno – its a huge blend of amazingness 🙂

I had lots of time to relax and get cleaned up and relax after lunch, then we had our massage – still amazing – and more relaxing (is there a theme?) just delighting in the Cliff House at Alfajiri, then it was time for dinner.

Sofia joined us for snacks and a cocktail, and we had a wonderful freewheeling conversation and had the opportunity to learn a ton about how Alfajiri came to be. I am sure their website tells the story more properly, but basically Sofia’s dad, Fabrizio, was working in hospitality in Kenya and bought the initial property to live on. He built the cliff house for his parents and in laws to stay in when they visited. Once a friend came to stay, and was just blown away and said – wow, you have to offer this experience to other guests. So they did. Eventually the neighbors sold, and the second two suites (Beach and Garden) came to be.

Sofia is a blast – an equestrian, surfer, diver, traveller, and of course proprietress for the property, and the conversation went until about 2030 when she excused herself so we could have dinner. This time was an amazing seafood salad served in big oyster shells. So good.

It was at about this time that we had to reason over a flight change (our original homeward flight cancelled, and we had to stay another day. Should we spend that day in Nairobi at the Marriott? Or at Alfajiri? The answer was pretty obvious, so we extended another day.

We decided we’d go snorkeling in the morning and shopping in the afternoon 😊

We had another great breakfast, and Sofia dropped by to chat post-surfing, then shooed us out to get to our snorkeling excursion before the tides went out too far.

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We went out to the fishing dock and took a small launch to the reef, then had a great time watching the reef fish and getting Heather comfortable with snorkeling. After a few hours of this, we headed back to – yes, you guessed it – an amazing lunch.

After lunch our driver took us around to shop at some boutiques and we got a few treats for the family, then headed back for massage and dinner.

It was with seriously mixed feelings that we enjoyed our lovely last evening at Alfajiri. It was such an amazing experience, differently amazing than up-at-0400 and 12 hour game drives. TIme to process all that adventure.

The morning would see us packing our gear for our flight back to Nairobi.

Duncan brought breakfast at 0630 and coffee, fruit and eggs tucked away I walked up to meet the driver for Diani Marine Center, the dive resort recommended by Sofia.

The whole pandemic thing put a huge damper on SCUBA (and everything else) so I hadn’t been diving since September of 2019 when dove Caesaria harbor north of Tel-Aviv. I was eager to get back in the water.

At Caesaria, they were mostl only concerned on my insurance – so I made sure my DAN stuff was current and mostly didn’t worry about my certifications (assuming I could easily log in to the PADI website and retrieve them). Ooops.

So I met the driver at the appointed time (0700) and we got to the resort at 0715, but our dive master, Saidi, was anxious on time – there are really tight waters at Diani and we were in danger of missing our dive window. He had thought we would be arriving at 0700, so we started behind the power curve. Then he said “I need your Open Water Certification number” and . . . well, PADI doesn’t have that easily on the website, and I had forgotten my plastic card, so lots of rooting through email and anxiety later, I signed a “I promise I have this” waiver, then immediately found the ID.

Dive briefing, boat briefing, and my dive buddy, Jon, plus captains and Saidi all headed to the boat. The pandemic has hit tourism very hard, so instead of 16 divers on the boat, we had two, and instead of a captain and crew, we had the two captains taking turns crewing for each other.

As a client, this, and other experiences, have been amazing – whole resorts with only us there, etc. The service levels are astonishing, and Jon and I had the most experienced dive team you could imagine guiding us. That said, I really hope there’s a huge travel resurgence and these resorts can get back to fuller capacity. Diani Marine Center is really great – would love to see the boats full, the bar full after the dive, etc.

My dive buddy was really a character. I am not going to say much here other than that he was ex foreign legion and a huge, huge character – hard to believe if I hadn’t seen so many of his photos. The kind of person I think you only meet off the beaten path, a lifelong dedicated adventurer. Ask me about him over beers 😉

We hit two dive sites – Igloo (because the water sometimes brings cold currents) and Boabab (named for the resort visible from the mooring). Jon’s ear was bothering him so he bailed on the second dive, it was just Saidi and I.

The first dive featured a yellow spotted snake eel, some lion fish, and a horde of reef fish – lots of fun and it was great to get back in the swing.

The second dive featured a ton of sea turtles. I have seen sea turtles but swimming with them was super cool and calm.

After our dives we had a long slow journey back picking our way through the reefs. Once we got back I got my ride back to Alfajiri, where I did the totally obvious thing – had a Tusker Lager in the pool.

Before Duncan summoned us for an amazing lunch, then it was time to stare slack jawed at the ocean for a bit before massage. The massage, like a lot of things at Alfajiri was the best I have experienced. And this is a daily thing at Alfajiri!

A few more hours of total relaxation and it was time for G&T and a whole platter of raw Oysters before dinner starting with homemade spinach ravioli and a snapper carpaccio. I think? It all kind of delightfully runs together 🙂 I do recall that desert was the family Tiramisu recipe.

Time to rest from all the relaxing, more diving tomorrow…

After our epic day we had a walking safari scheduled prior to our (we thought) 1400 flight Diani Beach via Nairobi. More on that later.

I got up at dawn, as usual, and got a few shots of the Mara waking up from our “tent.”

We were expecting breakfast at 0630, so I took some time to pack while my new assistant worked on the blog.

After breakfast we headed up to the lodge to meet our guides. Unlike previous walking safaris, we had our usual guide (Daniel) and a few armed escorts from the lodge’s scout team, including the Moses, the camp’s scout team leader. Moses speaks Maa, but isn’t Maasai. He comes from the north of Kenya, a member of the Samburu tribe. Dennis was a man of few words but what appeared to be a functional AK.

They walked us down to the dining room for a safety briefing, then we were under way. We got a ton of lessons from Daniel and Moses on how the tribes work, how various plants are put to practical uses, and how to track based on dung and animal prints.

We had about a 3 mile walk over very varied terrain. Nicholas was scouting ahead with the land cruisers in case of dangerous animals or route changes that could help us see more, but all in all it was a pretty relaxed and enjoyable walk up the valley into the hills.

The goal of the walk was the Maasai caves, which young warriors use to plan attacks or hunts, share information, overnight while they are shepherding their herds, etc.

As we got closer to the caves we got into baboon territory. We spotted a few, but wow could you smell them. There was also plenty of evidence of other animals.

As we got near the caves, the trail became much more slippery and treacherous. I have good hiking shoes and they usually have awesome traction, but this rock, especially once wet, was like ice. So we had to choose our paths carefully.

Our guides encouraged us along, and we got to the caves. Super cool. There was a very active bee’s nest with a smoking stick at its mouth and a still smoldering fire, along with some Maasai cloths indicating the camp had been used the prior night.

After 20 minutes or so hanging out and learning about the caves we headed back – more treacherous than up.

But before long we were back on level ground.

The hike returning to the lodge was pretty uneventful, modulo more flower pics.

By 1015 we had arrived back at camp. We could see our table already set for what was sure to be another amazing lunch….

Now, we had an hour to shower, change, and pack before lunch and our leisurely trip to catch our flight to Diani Beach. I was packing up my computer and went to check in on my diving plans for Diani, and found a nice mail from Cheli and Peacock which confirmed diving and added “also, your flights to Diani have changed, we informed your lodge” – we were supposed to take off at 11, not 2. (I believe the issue was the connection in Nairobi was misinterpreted as the local flight – that connection left Nairobi at 2).

I rang the front desk and they said they would call back. I showered quickly and started shoving things into bags. Sure enough Lawrence called back and said yep we have an issue but we are going to run you to a nearby airstrip sorry no lunch and we need to leave immediately.

Pascal came and grabbed our bags and we said our thanks and goodbyes as we heard our flight pass overhead and went to full “careen” in the land cruiser, leaving the reserve on the back… wildebeest trail? And then absolutely bombing down the local roads while Lawrence kept shouting “Nicholas! Hurrry! NICHOLAS!” over the CB!

Nicholas was too busy white knuckling the Land Cruiser to answer and we just held on for dear life and laughed while old Maasai farmers shook their heads and tsk tsk’ed at us, and occasionally glanced behind us to make sure Daniel hadn’t been bounced out of the back seat.

I think Lawrence was nearly in tears (I am sure the pilot was threatening to leave) by the time Nicholas pulled us up to the SafariLink Cessna Grand Caravan waiting for us. He told Lawrence we had arrived, handed us lunch bags (Samosas! Yumm) and we said our quick goodbyes and loaded up.

We bopped to two more airstrips picking people up until we were a completely full flight, then made the hop to Nairobi. In Nairobi we went to a waiting room briefly – less than 20% mask compliance and zero enforcement. Again, in transit you have to mask in self-defense mode – no-one (well only 20%) is willing to have their face be uncomfortable to stop others from dying. Half the officials are unmasked too.

Boarded a Dash-8 and enjoyed a relatively quick flight down to Diani beach. Got out and we’re greeted by our ground transportation from Cheli and Peacock, then to our car (Land Rover … uh oh) from Alfajiri.

Another 15 mins through the many vendor shacks of Diani beach and we were winding down a beautiful tree lined road that ended at a gate marked Alfajiri. We had arrived.

We were greeted at the gate by the incredibly gracious and charming hostess, Sofia. Passing into Alfajiri is, forgive the hyperbole, a little like passing into paradise. The spaces are all designed and, as it turns out, the furniture hand crafted on site for the spaces they will occupy. All areas are appointed by incredible antiques or objects d’art.

The breeze blows up from the beach amongst the flowering trees and the Indian Ocean stretches out into infinity. It really is all that.

Sofia breezily said (and I think any novel based on her would feature that prominently… ‘Breezily, …’) “I know you had booked the beach house but I upgraded you to the Cliff house because, why not? You will enjoy the views from the turret.”

I was wondering “which suite is ours?” when I realized, nope, the whole place, private pool and all, was at our disposal. She introduced us to our butler, Duncan, and got him going on “something to tide you over – maybe just a cheese sandwich?” and started discussing menus.

Now, the thing is Alfajiri’s founders are Italian (more on this later) and recipe ideas (all from her family) trip off the tongue and, in that Italian accent and with Sofia’s “how about this? Sure, why not…” demeanor every single thing she mentioned sounded like the most amazing thing I would ever eat. And mostly, as it turned out, it was.

Sofia set our schedule and menus for the next day, then took her leave. We settled into our room, then onto the second floor veranda to relax from our flights.

Our amazing panini grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches and fruit arrived, and we gnoshed away, dashing this poor fellow’s hopes.

A few hours of mostly staring at the ocean later, we were summoned to appetizers (bruschetta) with our g&t, then pasta (a simple but perfect spaghetti and tomato sauce), followed by calamari swimming in coconut milk, all with an amazing green salad, then followed by a chocolate crepe with chocolate sauce. All of this scratch made, home made, flawless (and of course, served with perfect wines).

Very sated, we turned in so I could be ready for diving in the morning.

After the previous day’s 0400 wake up, getting up at 0530 for and 0545 depart seemed pretty laid back. We had a quick coffee then it was off to the national park. The gateway congested due to a computer problem and we had a *lot* of opportunity to practice polite “no thank-you”’s while we waited.

Once inside the gate, we enjoyed watching the animals waking up on the Mara.

It took no time at all to find a pride of lions on a fresh zebra kill. There was mom and two aunties with three cubs literally climbing inside the carcass to snack.

The senior female was collared for tracking. Where she goes, the pride goes. The goal is conservation, but our guides were strongly opposed to this, having seen a cheetah killed because it’s prey got a horn hooked into the collar resulting in the car being trampled to death.

Of course, kittens are cute. But these were definitely death kittens.

One in particular was ferocious and turned his attention to me, practicing his (still cute and meow-like) “Rrawr!”

I had some nerves wondering if his attention to us would draw his mom or aunties as well, but happily he just wanted us to know he could kick our asses, then went on to making sure his auntie knew too. 

The cats drug their kill across the road and down into some bushes for a day of snacking and resting. 

We moved on, our goal in this last drive being watching a hunt.

We went looking for cheetah, coming across many reminders to the vegetarians to keep an eye out.

Such as these vultures sunning themselves on a wildebeest skull.

All this interspersed with delicacy and beauty.

Soon thereafter we came across an adolescent male lion wandering across the savannah.

He linked up with his sisters. Essentially, a hunting patrol.

They scanned, moved, approached prey … but were spotted. It was cool to watch them socializing and having lion conversation.

But eventually they found shade and went back to doing what lions do best.

We kept moving toward the Mara river, encountering warthog families and hyaena hanging out in puddles.

Eventually, we got to the river, and set up for breakfast. Heather and I had figured on being back at the lodge around 2 for lunch. The best laid plans…

The Mara River was bereft of wildebeest but choc-a-block with hippos, crocs, storks and heron.

And of course, I found a Siafu nest. They are insanely cool, building transit tunnels to keep the out of the heat even as they migrate nests.

The giraffe and zebra made up for the missing wildebeest.

I also was able to get some close up captures of an African Goose. 

We moved on from the river and saw more hyena, vulture, and an African walking hornbill.

I was also happy to get this capture of a wildebeest. It is a little mundane but shows off the beautiful striping on their necks. They are gorgeous, agile creatures even if not particularly bright around predators (Daniel joked that they are called “spare parts” by the guides).

We found yet more hyaena.

We went back to see if the hunting patrol was going to … well, hunt – but found them unrepentant in their relaxation.

Even the raptors were chill.

I was able to dismount and get a few macro shots in. The last time I had seen a fire lilly, there was a lion 20 feet away so I had to stay in the truck. This time I was able to get a few shots of this amazing flower, and a few others.

Then all hell broke loose. We had been watching the rain clouds build for a while and finally it was rip wide the sky. I asked Nicholas and Daniel to leave my flap up and got some “what the herds do when it rains.” 

Yes, it is mostly “stand there getting wet.” But also “move away from the rain.”

About this time we heard the back right tire losing air. But also about this time the roads were just rivers, and Nicholas pressed on in the rain, eventually coming up to a hill with a tree on it to change the tire.

But these dudes were already there. Known as the brothers, these not-actually-related Cheetahs hunt as a (very successful) team.

Big cats in the rain look just like cats in the rain, only bigger.

When the rain broke, they shook off. I was lucky enough to get each of them mid shake.

And then they took turns grooming each other. I love how social the big cats are.

Then the dominant cat walked right at us, walked to the front of the car and marked it (peed on it). One by one, the other three did the same thing. I didn’t get good shots of this partially because they were inside my camera’s focal range, but it was a very intense experience. 

I am now cheetah property- as I told a friend, if they call I have to bring gazelle or provide ear scritches. Fortunately, they didn’t get my number.

After marking us, they went on the hunt. This gave us some space to change the tire, which wasn’t without drama – the hi-lift jammed, and it took a bit of us all poking at it before it went down with a whooomph. Fortunately we were all keeping clear of the car and the jack for just that contingency. For a while, the wheels had literally come off on the Mara.

Good thing, too – the roads were still running like rivers, and even proper four wheel vehicles had serious fun getting around.

We caught up with the brothers on the road and followed them as they worked their way east.

They at turns stalked, strolled, marked territory, rolled around, sniffed things and played.

One cheetah had markedly lower status and got scolded for trying to hang with the in crowd.

Unfortunately the brothers were moving towards where the rains had come from, so there was just no prey… we watched and followed for over an hour, then scouted ahead to see if anything would be forthcoming.

Then we called it, another 12 hour day in the bank, and headed back to the lodge for our final night at Mara Bushtops.

On the way back we saw a pair of Ostrich, and a jackal.

We were also greeted warmly by some of the folks at the school associated to the lodge. Even on this trip, you could sense the truth in the statement that people come to Africa for the animals, but fall in love with the people.

Time to dry off and have some G&T.

For dinner, I had asked the chef to do something protein and veg and spiced like he would spice it. The curry prawn had had some amazing peppers and I had asked if this was spicy, and he said no. So I asked for something he would consider spicy.

He did not disappoint. After Manhattan’s by the fire, we settled in for our dinner and he brought this insane medley of fish, prawn, julienned veggies and oh-holy-cow spicy curry. 

Basically, the gauntlet went down, and he picked it up. I loved every bite, but oh-my-goodness the capsecin (and the endorphins). So so good.

Back to the room to pack up and be ready for our walking safari to the Maasai caves, scheduled for a very civilized 0715 start.

Took advantage of the clear sky and lack of light pollution to try some astro. Got just a hint of Jupiter’s clouds, my first shot of Saturn’s rings, and tried a simple 30 shot stack of the milky way over our tent.

Mornings on Safari come early – the best light, the best animal activity, and the best temperatures are at dawn and dusk. But ballooning took that to next level, as we got up at 0400 for our 0430 departure to the launch site. We were picked up in an old Land Rover (first time we were not in a Land Cruiser) and began the slow crawl out of the Mara Bushtops reserve. It was *really* slow, which I put down to the driver trying to keep us comfortable, but once we hit the pavement and the car only barely sped up, I realized it was just the nature of that beast.

We stopped at another hotel to pick up four other guests – honeymooners from Spain, who were just lovely. While they were boarding the hood went up on the Rover and the driver and another guy started poking around. Then there were some tense moments to see if the car would restart, but it did, and we continued our journey to the launch site. It was pretty amusing kind of willing the car up the hills.

Once at the site, we parked next to several other trucks that had brought the other passengers out. It was to be a full flight, 16 passengers. With the exception of two super cool women from Kenya and a solo Doctor traveling from Idaho and one crew, the other passengers were honeymooners from Portugal and Spain.

We all went through a quick safety and health check as they started inflating the balloon.

Then we got our pre-flight safety briefing from our pilot, Sergei, and off we went.

The nerd in me was kind of tickled by seeing how much redundancy was in the systems. Four completely independent fuel tanks, burners, and control systems.

Balloon flight was almost startlingly smooth and quiet – no engine vibration, no real speed changes you’re just kind of standing a platform that happens to be magically floating above the ground. It is really different and cool.

The views over the Mara at dawn were predictably breathtaking and predictably hard to photograph.

Wildlife interactions were somewhat unique – as we were flying low, we tended to startle animals when we fired the burners (which, because we were flying low, was frequent). But it was cool seeing birds from above, and some of the unique behaviors before animals realized we were there.

The spotted land is well named – easier to get it from above, looking down on all the wildebeest and zebra and elephant. The Mara is relatively wet, so there’s lots of life supported by the plants.

The great migration, which passes through the Mara, is host to about 1.5M wildebeest and about .5M Zebra (plus untold flies). It supports an incredible diversity of life and culture. Imagine North america when 30 times more bison (60M) roamed the praries . . .

The balloon flight lasted about 90 minutes, and all too soon it was time to come back to earth, landing near a river there was lots to watch.

We disembarked and the crew got busy loading us back into trucks for the drive to the breakfast site, and putting away the balloon.

Of course, the Mara had lots going on even on the short drive to breakfast, including vultures and hyaena fighting over a warthog carcass.

We enjoyed a really lovely breakfast with our new ballooning friends, then were picked up by Nicholas and Daniel from Bushtops to continue our game drive. In pretty short order, we came across a pair of lions on their honeymoon.

The female seemed like she wanted to hunt, but the male was much more interested in courting. Even though the wildebeest wandered right up to them, his shenanigans (standing up, vocalizing, etc) eventually gave their position away. She was not pleased.

But he was not stressed.

They eventually wandered off to nap, and we quickly found a different pride of a male and two females (all juvenille/siblings) on the hunt. This went on for a long time, but eventually, they, too retired to nap-land withou hunting. The joke is that that’s what lions to – lyin’ around.

We continued our trek, and found some beautiful flowers and wildlife, and another napping cat – this time, a cheetah.

One of the iconic images of the mara is the wildebeest crossing the river. While we didn’t see the huge hordes all tromping on each other, there was still plenty of “grass must be greener on the other side” behavior going on.

We then drove to where there was a huge bunch of vultures – after all, must be something drawing their inerest, right? But nope, just a whole bunch of vultures hanging out.

After this we stopped for lunch, and I found this really interesting nest by the tree. Then suddenly it was – nope, no lunch here! This was a Siafu, or Safari ant nest. The ants are very aggressive. I paid a big price in ant bites for this picture. 5 of them found their way onto my right boot then up my pants leg thence to testing to see if I was good. Ants in my pants, literally. In the end it was Alex 5, ants 0 (modulo the bites) and plenty of amusement for Heather, Nicholas, and Daniel.

After a lovely lunch, we headed back towards the lodge. We spotted and Ostrich on the way – like crocodile, they make the age of the dinosaurs feel pretty current.

Also was lucky enought to get this secretary bird on the wing.

Daniel spotted a Rhino in the distance – very rare on the Mara. He grabbed this shot, which I like more because of how it shows the green rolling hills of the Mara.

Rolling back to the lodge, we were greeted by this beautiful Maasai giraffe – his shoulders really show the unique patterns of this breed of giraffe.

12 hours after we had left, it was time for G&T on the deck.

We had asked the chef to do a sampling of traditional dishes for dinner, and the kitchen blew us away, first with Amarro Martini’s by the fire while we talked to several of the Maasai staff, then with an assortment of vegetables and dips with flatbread, all amazingly spiced. Can’t name any of it but all of it was delicious.

We turned in sated and happy to listen to the Hyaena calls and fade to sleep.

Little did we know our most intense game drive was yet to come.