Safari - last post...

Well I debated whether to throw these photos up on facebook or whether to do it on the blog, and since I kind of promised on my last post that I'd try to get some up, here you go! I'll wait until we get home to put them up on facebook since that is SO much faster there.

We had an incredible time at the Maasai Mara (the name for the game reserve that's about 1600 square km large, and apparently the best place in Africa to do these "safaris"). We stayed at a camp called "Sekenani", a small place that had luxury tents for accommodations, and Maasai guards who would escort us to and from the dining tent and our "living tent". The reason they did this at night was because of the resident leopard and the buffaloes and elephants that occasionally enter the camp! Luckily they didn't have to use their spears while we were there...

At any rate, the wildlife we viewed on our 3 game drives (afternoon on Monday, full day on Tuesday, then morning on Wednesday) included giraffes, elephants, zebras, wildabeast, buffalo, some lions, a couple of cheetahs, hippos, a leopard, and the list goes on and on. You just look at these animals and their habitat and how everything works together and you're just left in awe of this aspect of God's creation. Some of the animals are SO powerful (we saw a lioness dragging around a freshly killed zebra), beautiful (you should see these leopards!) just downright massive (elephants, hippos, buffalo, etc) and graceful (impalas, gazelles, falcons). It truly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

One thing that we really thought about was the fact that SO much money funnels through this area from tourists. I mean, it cost us $120 American each day to just be inside the park, let alone the cost of staying at the camp. Despite this fact, the Maasai people (the residents of the area who basically just herd cattle) live in some squalid conditions. Also, the last 50km of the drive was on a brutal dirt road that in some places reduced each vehicle to a crawl to avoid bottoming out. Much of the money that is made in this area goes straight into the pockets of corrupt people at various levels of influence, with only a small portion going to infrastructure or community development for the Maasai (although it should be noted that some camps, including Sekenani, have community development and environmental projects that they support directly with their profits). The Maasai people have been nomadic, basically driving cattle where the rains are (between Kenya and Tanzania). Since the formation of these "countries" happened when the colonial powers (i.e. Britain) left, they can no longer pass freely between these two countries without a visa! Furthermore, since the establishment of this vast nature reserve, they can't use the whole reserve for their cattle either! These are just more examples of the differences in culture and distribution of wealth between this country and our own. I mean, I was left wondering how it would be different in Canada if this magnificent of a reserve was in our country. How would indigenous peoples of the area have been treated? Maybe just the same (i.e. native reserves?)

Anyways, those were just the thoughts we were left with as we felt guilty for how luxurious and relaxed we were able to feel. I'll share with you just a taste of the pictures we were able to take. Honestly, we were mere feet away from some of these animals, and we have 350 more pictures where these came from...

Like I said in the title, this will be my last post. We leave for Mount Kenya tomorrow morning and will be there for 6 days climbing up the mountain. When we finish the hike on the 30th, we're basically showering up and then getting taken straight to the airport to fly home! So, we'll be home and back to the cold weather before we know it. Thanks to those of you who have stuck through this blog through the end. It's been great to have a forum for our random musings as we've experienced this, and it's touching to know that so many of you back home have been interested enough to keep reading it! We're looking forward to catching up with you all in the New Year.

Bye for now,

Kevin and Jackie

Lioness with its baby zebra kill - they would later abandon it because some wallies got out of their vehicle about 200m away. Amazingly the animals are totally fine with the vehicles driving around because they are used to it; however, if people get out of the vehicles it's out of the ordinary so they get spooked...

Surveying his landscape... We have some real close-ups of this one as it walked about 5 feet away from us.... He's just gorgeous!

One of Jackie's favourite pictures...

I don't know what possessed this elephant to do this, but he was about 10 feet away from the van at the time...

A cheetah early in the morning, surveying the landscape for gazelles to have for breakfast. If we hung around for long enough we might have witnessed the kills, but who knows.

Jackie goofing around and pretending to be an elephant. She got so happy every time we got near them...

Jackie took this one as the ostrich ran across the road in front of our van. At the dining tent in our resort, all of the lamps on the walls were actually ostrich eggs, and we couldn't believe that these football-sized eggs could come out of a bird! That is, until we saw the ostriches... This picture doesn't do it justice, but these things were actually taller than the van...

The landscape was beautiful...

Chillin around...

The end! At least for now...