Monthly Archives: October 2021

We got up and finished packing with coffee to get to breakfast at 7.

At Lewa we had had our breakfasts in the bush, so this was our first sit down breakfast at the lodge and it was gorgeous, both in offering and in setting. Every single meal we have been served in Africa has been excessive – no chance of running out of anything.

Sated, Johnson and Amos collected us and our bags and we said our goodbyes to Kayla, then headed back to the airport – the farewell committee was out in force many of the Lewa citizens showed up to send us off on the drive to the airstrip..

Once we arrived at the airstrip, we waited for our Safarilink flight. These flight times and such change every day based on passengers, cancellations, new bookings. It is all about efficiency, sort of like an uber-share. On this flight, we were picked up, stopped to pick up a few more people, then flew to Maasai Mara to drop off some folks, a few more minutes to pick up some folks, and finally, be dropped off ourselves.

Now begins one of a set of “I can’t believe I am saying this” treatises, but: were I to do this over again, I would probably just charter the flights the way my friend <redacted> who I relied on for advice for this trip did. Not so much because of safety – though mask compliance was crap, thank you America, and poorly enforced; but because when you look at the total cost of a trip like this, losing whole half-days to air travel makes little sense. Air time *needed* was like 50 minutes, but with all the hopes, that turned into 3 hours or so. The incremental cost of charter is high, but not insanely so in the big picture, and the time back is probably worth it. For extra credit, some of these places have helipads.

{Tirade: if you are a jerk who won’t wear a mask properly, at least have the guts to not wear it at all and take your licks. Sneaky crap like dropping it when you think no one is looking or leaving it off your nose “accidentally” is both being an asshole and a coward. Just be an asshole. Or better yet: if you aren’t willing to comply with safety regulations, JUST DON’T FLY. For the rest of us – wear masks for self defense, not courtesy – use N95s and KEEP THEM ON because the people around you are not following the rules and the pilot is too busy flying the aircraft.}

Once at the Maasai Mara (Mara means “spotted” in Maa because the Wildebeests make it look polka dotted) we were met by Nicholas and Daniel, who would be our guides for our stay at the Mara Bushtops. We had a mini game drive getting back to the lodge, then left the national park, went along paved roads for a hot second then turned up some proper rough two track to climb up the the lodge.

Given the roughness of the signage, roads, etc. it was a shock to see the absolutely beautiful lodge – just incredibly gorgeous. The lodge manager, Lawrence welcomed us and we discovered among other things that we were the *only* guests at the lodge. For the next 3 days, the staff of 45 was there to serve … us.

We settled into our incredible room – really a luxury hotel room on a platform, with tent walls that would drop down later – then went to lunch. I ordered fish tikka and was just blown away by how good it was. The chef at bushtops is *amazing*, and this was the first of several incredible meals.

Mara Bushtops has its own private reserve and we went for a short game drive, with a quick start of watching a hyaena litterally running off with a local farmer’s goat.

Onward to watching the Maasai Giraffe (we completed the set! Southern, Rothschild, Reticulated, and Maasai) some Zebra, Wildebeest , Warthogs and even a hard-to-photograph mongoose before the rain kicked in.

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There is a lot of rain on the Mara – we went back to the lodge to have a G&T and watch it.

Before long it was time for dinner. We went down and were treated to the cocktail of the evening – a tequila sunrise. We ordered and had a great dinner (I had the best curry prawn of my life) and turned in to be ready for the morning hot air balloon safari (up at 0400, leave at 0430!)

Out at 0630 to look for cheetah, having coffee on the veranda before leaving and met this dude. Never seen so much ennui in a monkey.

Long drive across reserve scanning beautiful lands for movement, and of course, Africa was just showing off. So much beauty.

Went to high spot to getter a better place to look for the cheetah, but he beat us to it snuck up to him in what I thought was a moment of cheetah indignity, but turns out to be just a really efficient way to change the scan angle from one side to the the other.

Clearly on the hunt, scanning for a good target. Efficiency and safety are key – an injured or sick cheetah is a dead cheetah, so the hunt has to be for something catchable, something that doesn’t fight back, and during a time of day that isn’t too hot. Fortunately this, meant lots of scanning and photo opportunities.

Grants gazelle herd nearby – yawn, stretch, limber up and off to the hunt.

But alas he was spotted. Time for a nap. Have to conserve energy. He lay down in the grass and basically disappeared. Johnson emphatic he won’t hunt until nightfall, unless a gazelle just walks into him.

Down to look at prehistoric tools – hand axes made from stone were found in the 10s of thousands here. They are clearly made for the human hand, and date back 1.2M years.

While we were at the river looking at evidence of 1.2M year-ago commerce, another land cruiser came and delivered our breakfasts. Johnson said we should head to the dam to eat by the lake.

Well, the lake was completely dry. It had been mostly dry, but the drought had finally sucked up the last of the water. It made for an amazing scene.

You could see where elephants had gone across looking for anything that remained.

The lake afforded me some opportunities to shoot little flowers growing on the banks. These were all super-teeny, but macro lens FTW.

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After breakfast, Heather wanted to find garanook for her friend and fellow travel agent Joanna. This started a quest that took us through several other animals. My team was asking for baby pics, so I grabbed a bunch. The cutest was probably the baby white Rhino we saw, so young its horn hadn’t developed yet.

Right next to her we saw an elephant nursing her newborn.

And a Zebra mom and baby,

Getting up to the garanook zone we saw Tik tik (teeny little antelope) hiding under a bush – a Marshall Eagle can actually take one of these on the wing!

And finally, the Garanook, which is a Somali word for “Giraffe-Antelope.” Didn’t capture any of their iconic tree climbing behavior, but got a couple of fun shots nonetheless.

Finally back to lodge for lunch, inspired by this guy on the way.

After a few hours of down time, we went out again at 1700 – mostly straight to cheetah, way back by the dam. But of course, gorgeous stuff in the way.

Back to searching searching searching – we think we are in the right area but no cheetah. But gazelle the gazelle get all nervous and then we hear lamb cry from another herd quarter mile away to our left. We move down the road.

Get there and no action we think they are spooking at a bird, then see an ear pop up from behind the grass. It’s our cheetah! The herd wasn’t spooking at a bird, the cheetah had taken a baby gazelle right under our noses.

We got positioned to watch (again, land cruisers are “no-op” for the animals and basically watched him chomp down the whole baby gazelle in an hour – occasionally poking his head up in case hyaena or lions coming. Cheetah have traded everything for speed – can’t defend their kills, so he was very worried about being noticed.

While drinking red wine in his honor, we watched his meal for a bit then headed back to the lodge for our own.

Back at camp we had great conversations with new guests and staff, g&t and an amazing (albeit vegetarian) dinner.

After the previous night’s lengthy drive, we had arranged for a walking safari with a relatively luxuriously late 0715 start. The lodge delivered coffee at 0645 and we drank up and headed up to meet our guide, Rakita. Rakita is a pretty cool guy, looooves to walk and has been guiding for decades. Also Maasai.

We headed down into the ravine behind the lodge and along the river. We crossed the river hopping boulder to boulder, then climbed up a bit to encounter a troupe of baboons.

From there we climbed a bit more to an old abandoned lion’s den. It was a stunning view and we had fun climbing around.

There were also great views of “Hobbiton” aka the Lewa Wilderness Lodge.

From there we kept on climbing to the ridge top, which afforded incredible views all around.

Walking along the ridge and gradually circling back towards the lodge, we encountered a mom and baby white rhino. We got pretty close up, but the rhino stayed calm and let us get some glamour shots.

Walking farther down the ravine we saw a greater Kudu, which is apparently very rare and marked by really cool spiral horns.

As we descended a little further Amos pointed out a land cruiser in the distance and said “oh there are some rangers over there doing a study on flies . . . lets go talk to them then head back.” I was like . . . ok!

Then he started on about how they were gendering the flies and I was mystified but still pretty happy to keep walking. We got there and … “Surprise!” Bush breakfast.

It was all super delicious and beautiful and after two and half hours hiking in the bush very very welcome.

We were joined by buffalo weavers (so cross off the second of the little 5) and some elephants on the ridge.

After this we got in the land cruiser and went to the farm for a tour. I hadn’t realized everything they were serving at the lodge was made there – milk, eggs, fruit, veg, they even had a small tilapia farm. True farm to table. I went wild on macro photography.

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Back to the lodge for another amazing lunch, then a swim, then out for another game drive. We were looking for black rhinos and found them almost immediately.

Then we got word of a lion pride on the kill, and headed over for photos.

On the drive back across the savannah, I asked Johnson to stop and let me take a shot of the night sky. Really, really clear and beautiful. Never mind that rustling sound in the field while you set up the tripod . . .

And a long, bouncy, joyous and cool ride back to the lodge for more amazing food (now recognizing it all from the farm) and to bed for another day’s adventures – cheetah day!

We got up at 0500 for our 0615 pick up for our 0800 flight. Wycliffe was pretty great and the morning was uneventful.

Before long we were walking out to our grand caravan and clambering in behind the pilot.

We flew out of Nairobi and North towards Lewa. It was about 50 minutes of flight over very beautiful country before we landed on a dirt airstrip.

We were met by our guide Johnson and his apprentice Amos. Interestingly here the guides wear a combination of modern technical clothing (like fleece, oakleys) and traditional Masai clothing. Similarly they use a combination of traditional and modern tracking techniques (cell phones and animal calls).

Lewa is a reserve owned and managed by the nature conservancy – originally a ranch belonging to the people who own the Lewa Wilderness Lodge.

Driven back to lodge and enroute saw several new species, including the Reticulated Giraffe – this is our third giraffe species. We saw the southern giraffe in Botswana, and the Rothschild giraffe in Nairobi. Giraffe are generally much tougher and more robust than one would think – walking speed of 10mph, sprint at 35mph, and once into adolescence too much trouble for most predators until they are old (at about 30) and subject to predation.

We also saw Grevys Zebra, which are much more rare than the common zebra in part because their adaptations (like territoriality) make them more subject to predation, and partially due to habitat encroachment.

We saw a pair of hyaena, which is a big deal because Amos comes from the hyaena tribe. But Johnson had a whole herd of sheep and a cow wiped out by hyaena, so he had something else to tease Amos about.

And the big treat was seeing Rhino. Rhino horn is incredibly valuable and hence a target of poaching so it was amazing to see Rhinos in the wild.

On the way back there was some real magic as Johnson and Amos noticed this flower blooming and were really excited. This flower, the Pyjama Lilly, indicates imminent rain – a huge deal in Lewa, which has been in a 12 month drought.

The lodge was really incredible – a ranch house that grew into a lodge, and a very “Hobbiton” feel to it built very naturally into the hillside.

Stunning gardens (many non-native plants) with the bonus of baboons, giraffe, and rhinos on the hillside opposite the river canyon.

Our room was amazing – thatched roof and a very comfortable lounge with a great view of the hillside. Everything here was crafted here, and the whole lodge had its own history and culture, including family portraits and photo albums going back 30 years.

We had a delicious lunch overlooking the river then went out for our first game drive. Our guide, Johnson, was super fun and knowledgeable. Amos was interning with him, just about ready to become an independent guide. Johnson both drilled him and teased him relentlessly.

Leopard was the order of the day. As I have said, it is really hard to be a tree in elephant country and so Lewa has created some elephant exclusion zones so rhino, leopard, and monkeys have some trees. This is done with an electric fence which is high, so rhinos and other non elephant, non giraffe animals can get in.

The result is the creation of amazing Acacia (thorn tree) groves with heavy underbrush. The acacia here are called Tortillus – named for their flat, tortilla shape, and are really beautiful in the evening light.

We went to the grove to find leopard, which are notoriously difficult to spot (Des said “you only see them when they want to be seen”). After a while we managed to see one moving through the brush, queuing off the alarmed monkeys and looking where they looked.

 I didn’t get a capture but Johnson started repositioning the land cruiser in the right and twisty tracks to where we thought it had gone. We came around a bush and saw a mother and baby elephant, quite close. While we observed them, Johnson told us that the elephants weren’t supposed to get in here but a “naughty” (aggressive) elephant named Natasha had learned to belly crawl under the fence so she could get the tasty trees. He told us about How Naughty Natasha was quite bad, and had rammed land cruisers to the point of rendering them inoperable (fortunately no injuries to humans).

After a bit we went to move on but starting the land cruiser startled the baby who ran into his mom’s bum startling her, and she made a distress call. That’s when things got wild. Trees started shaking, and we heard an elephant’s trumpet, and a huge female with broken tusks appeared in front of us, clearly “you messed with my grand baby I am gonna kick your ass!”

Johnson slammed the land cruiser into reverse and we did a three point turn and bombed out of there with Natasha charging us in hot pursuit. It only took a minute to get away to another part of the grove but it was a very exciting minute – very “Jurassic park being chased by the t-Rex”

After this we spent some more time looking for leopard, and spotted one more moving through the bush – barely got a shot.

Then we found a leopard hiding with a freshly killed impala under a bush. I managed to get one shot of her dragging the kill into deeper cover.

We moved out to look for black rhino And other animals. Ended up finding a big male cheetah resting after a kill. Long exposure and a steady hand (and a high ISO) got this as I had a beer:

We circled back through the grove, now in pitch black, and found a much bigger leopard with an impala. She wasn’t too concerned about the land cruiser. We had a red spotlight – apparently the cat’s basically don’t even see the red light, so it doesn’t bother them. I was able to get several shots of her gorging on the impala.

Back to the lodge, quite late, we had an amazing meal and turned in for the next day’s walking safari. Land cruisers don’t really register with the animals – which is great for getting close without chcanging their behavior much. But on foot, we are in the mix and behaviors change a lot, making it harder to get close but much more intimate.