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| A giraffe strolls through the golden savanna of Kenya’s Masai Mara game preserve. More than 90 species of animals live in the sanctuary. Norma Meyer |
Hakuna matata, no worries — hah! Our windowless
Land Cruiser was parked in the midst of 14 — count ’em, 14 — canine-fanged
razor-clawed lions, so close I could see every gnat on their tawny,
bone-crushing bodies.
A king of beasts slowly got up, slinked by within
a hair of our vehicle’s side, then plopped down in the cool shade of the front
bumper. Other members of the female-led pride playfully piled atop one another,
licked each other’s faces and stretched on their backs like lazy house cats.
“They’ll soon hunt for dinner,” said our safari
guide Ping. Ohhh boy.
We were in Kenya’s far-famed Masai Mara game
preserve, an out-of-this-world Animal Planet of trotting zebras, thundering
elephants, stick-legged giraffes, unsightly wildebeests, graceful gazelles,
scampering baboons — in all 90 spellbinding species. Until you’ve gawked at
tartar on a lion’s choppers, it’s hard to believe marauding carnivores don’t
ingest camera-pointing Homo sapiens in safari trucks. Once we stopped within 10
feet of a massive male lion, his mane gorily matted with crimson blood and
guarding his freshly killed meal of a half-ton hippo. His piercing yellow eyes
fixed on us. Then he yawned. Whatever.
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| An excursion through the Masai Mara game preserve in Kenya gets you up close to lions and many other wild animals. Norma Meyer |
Nothing preps you for the heart-racing,
heart-melting, awe-striking adventure of a lifetime in the primal wild. To be
vastly outnumbered by thousands of extraordinary creatures, all communicating
with each other on unspoiled golden savannas. I turned to blubber when a
days-old elephant nursed its protective mother after the two carefully plodded
across a stream.
My Kenya trip also threw open my eyes on a human
level: In another region, I visited a Masai village where traditionally garbed “warriors”
and their families live in cow-dung huts and the women walk hours with jugs on
their heads searching for water to drink. Nearby, a rural medical clinic
treated perils of bush life — like getting stomped by elephants sharing the
trails home.
SAFARI
THRILLS
“Don’t move. The female looks agitated,” warned
Ping, who had a knack for tracking big cats and a nasty scar rippling down his
bald scalp from being attacked by a Cape buffalo while on foot.
Lions can run 50 miles per hour; I was standing
upright a pounce away in an open-air 4-by-4. This time, we were enjoying a
happy hour “sundowner,” sipping cocktails out of silver chalices while studying
a fascinating mating-hopeful male and uninterested quest, both resting in the
grass. Normally, lions perceive safari vehicles as unthreatening rectangular
units — staying still as Ping advised kept it that way. Soon, as if on cue, the
noble duo simultaneously belted out throaty roars, rattling the acacia-dotted
terrain.
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| A mother elephant nurses her days-old baby on the Masai Mara game preserve in Kenya. Norma Meyer |
Ping was our crack animal-intuitive guide from
Mara Plains Camp, a seven-tent oasis in a people-sparse wildlife-teeming
conservancy on the edge of more tourist-trodden Masai Mara Reserve. What’s
supercool is camp guests get free use of $4,000 worth of photo equipment — a
Canon 7D camera and 100 mm-400 mm telescopic lens — along with $2,200 Swarovski
binoculars. I did my safari in low-season spring; from July to October crowds
descend for the world-famous annual Great Migration, a phenomenal stampede of 2
million wildebeests, zebras and gazelles rampaging through the Mara (with
salivating predators in tow).
Having a front-row seat in nature’s raw dramatic
theater throws your emotions into overdrive. Just after dawn, we mesmerizingly
watched a majestic spotted cheetah with her beautiful cub, their ears cocked,
gazes intent, surveying the plains from a termite mound.
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| A mother cheetah and cub share quality time before hunting for dinner on the Masai Mara. Norma Meyer |
Off in the far distance, a herd of Thomson
gazelles — so cute, they look like mini-deer — grazed with their offspring.
(No, please no…) Then it happened. Our off-road vehicle crazily gave chase as
land’s fastest mammal, with cub close behind, madly tore across hills and while
terrified prey sprinted for their lives, efficiently took down a gazelle fawn.
With cub prancing next to her, the panting mother cheetah carried the kill by
the throat in her mouth — ditching two scavenging jackals — and set it down in
tall grass. Then as she maternally stood sentry, her hungry youngster
frantically devoured lunch, even crunching the bones. (This is where I kept
telling myself, “circle of life, circle of life…”)
At night, I lay in bed in my remote spacious tent,
hypnotically listening to wildebeests loudly grunt and hyenas cackle. Like all
guests, I was told not to leave my quarters after dark; if I needed to come
out, I yelled, “Jambo! Jambo!” (“Hello! Hello!”) to night watchmen patrolling
for four-legged party-crashers. I also, comically, was armed with a colossal
orange horn to blow in case a beast barged through my floor-to-ceiling zip-up
screens. The camp manager assured the last time someone sounded the alarm “15
naked Masai warriors came running with spears.” Now, that’s wild.
TRIBAL
VISIT
In their primitive village of
mud-stick-and-cow-dung huts, the Masai women greeted us by gleefully singing,
dancing and grabbing our hands to join in. Their necks were encircled by
decorative dinner-plate-shaped beaded necklaces, their bodies draped in
multicolored sheets (called kangas) and their feet swaddled in sandals crafted
from recycled tires. Their elongated earlobes bore huge stretched holes.
Slender young men, wrapped in intricate beaded jewelry and red-checked blankets
(shukas), exuberantly jumped in the air, a competitive festive ritual. Barefoot
children, with baby goats tagging alongside, were most excited to see images of
themselves on my camera.
This village, Ngabolo, was in Laikipia, more than
two hours from the Mara via a 16-seat bush plane that lifted off from a dusty
strip and soared over menageries of zebras, wildebeests and topi antelopes. In
both the Mara and Laikipia, tourists can arrange to visit Masai settlements for
a pounds-everything-into-perspective cultural experience (you’ll smack the next
American who gripes about slow Wi-Fi). A gentle Masai named Isaac took me into
his round thatched hut that had softball-sized gaps as “windows” and was so
smoky I choked. It was dark inside, but when my eyes adjusted, I saw his wife
cooking over an open fire. Next to her, their toddler son hysterically cried.
Isaac said the scared boy had never seen a white person.
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| The Masai people, such as these women, have clung to their tribal traditions. The women live in a village in the Laikipia region of Kenya. Norma Meyer |
I learned about the hard life of these humble
women — they build the houses, collect firewood, search for water, milk cows
and tend to children. A seminomadic tribe, the men herd cattle whose numbers
represent their wealth. (Our Masai guide described a cow as “an ATM machine”
since it can buy you goods.)
Classes weren’t in session, but we later stopped
at the village’s new primary school, cheerily emblazoned “Education For A
Brighter Future” and supported by The Sanctuary at Ol Lentille, a high-end
do-gooder eco-lodge that immerses guests in the Masai community. Ol Lentille
also helped build a rural hospital that still needs equipment. This day, a
medical mission of UCLA nurses treated wary villagers, bedecked in traditional
beaded jewelry and frightened to even have their blood pressure taken. A
2-year-old had been severely burned in his hut, a man writhed on the floor with
appendicitis pain, and an ailing tuberculosis patient occupied the lone
hospital bed.
“People here live in bushes. We saw a man where a
giraffe had stepped on his back,” said the hospital’s only doctor, locally born
Alfred Saigero. “In the last four months, we’ve had five people with elephant
injuries.”
Nearly 300 miles away on the wide-open Mara,
elephants roamed sun-dappled plains, seemingly oblivious to vacationing voyeurs
in safari trucks. I had sacredly stared at scores of tusked behemoths, their
precious offspring huddled nearby raising snorkel-like trunks and flapping
Dumbo ears.
But in Laikipia’s wilderness, parades of
pachyderms trek twice daily to the dam to drink water, using the same paths as
the Masai. “Some kids walk six miles to school,” Saigero said. “If they see the
elephants coming toward them, they have to turn and run back.”
IF
YOU GO
• Traverse
a rustic swing bridge to enter all-inclusive Mara Plains Camp, a seven-tent
luxury retreat on the wildlife-abundant Masai Mara. Enjoy gourmet cuisine near
the campfire with amazing hosts Amy and Shaun, then soak in your tent’s copper
bathtub. Rates from $956 a night per person include game drives, guides, meals,
alcohol, laundry, airstrip transfers, park fees, photo equipment use. Stay
three nights and get free round-trip airfare from Nairobi to the Mara (a $400
per person value). www.greatplainsconservation.com.
• Teetering
on a panoramic hilltop, the all-inclusive Sanctuary at Ol Lentille in Laikipia
offers four unique villas, including the arabesque Sultan’s House. You’ll see
and hear trumpeting elephants in the valley below. Owner John Elias, a
talkative Brit, fills you in on local Masai projects (which your tab helps
fund). Rates from $925 a night per person include game drives, guides, meals,
alcohol, personal butler, laundry, massages, visit to village schools and
hospital. Extra donation for village visit, www.ol-lentille.com.
• Kenya’s official website, www.magicalkenya.com.
