Day 151: Masai Mara – Day 3
We crawled out of bed in the dark for our final game drive, which did not disappoint – gorgeous scenery and lots of cats – Kenya sent us off on a high note for sure. True, we never got to see a kill, but we’ve come to realize that it’s 90% right-pace / right-time-of-day, and 10% pure luck. Even Joseph – who proved to very talented tracker – couldn’t find us a kill in Tanzania. Besides, Igor is such an animal-lover, he probably would have cried, and Lindsay doesn’t need to see that.
Now *this* is an early start! Out in the Masai Mara sunrise for our final game drive EVER
As the light starts to fill the sky, we see a pair of giraffes in the distance
Edward gets two notifications on the radio at once, and both are cats! We are closest to a pair of cheetahs, and we reach them just as the sun appears over the horizon
Dozens of other vehicles start crowding the cheetahs, so we move on to the lion pride, which has a playful little cub!
The cub tries to jump on mom, but she quickly shows the baby who’s boss on this savannah
One final herd of wildebeest crosses our path as we head out of the Masai Mara
We had a 5-hour drive back to Nairobi, with a lunch break halfway through to break it up. When we finally got back to La Maison Royale in Nairobi, we were pleased to see that the staff made good on their promise to put us in a nicer room – high floor with a view outside of the building! We considered heading out into the city to see if we could shop for a new backpack, but as we only had an hour before sunset, we decided to just take it easy and enjoy our hotel TV. Lindsay went a little MacGyver on the ripped backpack to make sure it would make it to Dubai (personally, she thinks it’s just like new and doesn’t need to be replaced) before heading upstairs for another roof-top Indian-food dinner. Next stop: UAE.
Lunch stop on the way back to Nairobi – rice, beans, veggies and a cold can of Coke – no complaints here!
We were delayed for an hour by an accident ahead of us. A few entrepreneurial locals took advantage of the traffic jam and started cooking & selling corn on the cob on the side of the road (if only we hadn’t just eaten!) – we were relieved when we finally got through amd back to our hotel in Nairobi
Duct-tape and hotel sewing kit – all I need to fix a rip and make our backpack travel-ready!