Ambroseli National Park and the Masai




Today was a bit of a mix up day. When we left dinner last night, Omari told us that we were to rise at 5:30 and eat breakfast at 6 and meet at 6:30 to go to visit the Masai tribe. We all were there and it turns out, Omari had told the lodge to notify us of a change in plans because it was a holiday and there was no school so we would go later than originally planned. Only no one from the lodge came and told us. That didn’t sit too well with a lot of folks. Jim did not sleep at all last night once the power went out and he did not have his CPAP machine. So he was very tired and so was Carolyn, who had been kept up by the noisy kids who were in the tents behind them. We all heard them as the tents are too close together to suit my fancy. They are gorgeous tents with granite countertops in the bathrooms and lovely everything. But it is rather like living in a trailer park since they have an electric fence to keep the animals out! But to get to this area, it is a nice lodge, but just not my favorite in the way it is planned. The food is excellent to everyone else and the chef has been great to me-even fixing tomato wine soup tonight with no garlic or onions! And it was so good. Anyway, we were not in the best of moods as we left the camp.

But the visit to the Masai was very very interesting and we all enjoyed it. The leader’s name is Joseph and he showed us around as did some of his men. They showed us how they make fire each time and they had a lovely one going within 3 minutes. They took us into the boma and showed us how they live and explained a lot of their traditions. While we were there, one of the hot air balloons landed just up the hill which was fun to see. Mt Killamanjaro was hidden behind the clouds today but during our Masai visit, it peeked its head out behind the clouds which was thrilling. At the end of the visit, the ladies of the village had their beadwork for sale and we bought a couple of items for our travel wall. We enjoyed playing with the children and we gave our items we had bought for the school to Joseph who is the director of the school. The school was beautiful and was built with the help of the GCT foundation and is going to do much to improve the life of the masai.

We said our goodbyes and headed back to the lodge where we had several free hours but no power except from 1-2. During lunch, it came up about the CPAP having no power. Larry asked why we didn’t use the backup power. I said “what backup power”.Turns out that two tents have backup solar power-but we had not been given one of those tents but Larry and Elaine had. They offered to trade, but instead I asked if the other tent was occupied and it was not. So they moved us over there and were very nice about it. We rushed as the group had also contacted Omari and asked him if we could start the afternoon drive at 2 instead of 3. So we felt pretty disjointed by having to grab our stuff and rush to get it all moved, but it was worth it. However, the solar power lights the bathroom and the bed lights so when the power is on, if you run those lights, then it uses the saved power. So we showered with the candlelight of a wind up battery lantern! After the adventure with the scorpions last night, we decided it was just another discovery event! Jim is now peacefully sleeping with the cpap on and I am hoping it will last all night.

On the game drive, we saw so many animals. It was very different than I expected as the land here is flat and barren. There are a few trees but nothing like we have seen before so it was long stretches of flat grassland that is void of grass for much of it because it is the dry season. We saw so much though- lots of ostriches! We probably saw closer to 2 dozen of them over the course of the drive. We saw our first hyena and as we were leaving the park, we saw a lion asleep in the middle of a sandy patch! We saw rhinos in the marsh, over 200 elephants , wildebeast (a different type than we saw in Botswana) and tons of zebra and cape buffalo and Thompson’s gazelles. It looks like the Thompson’s gazelles are as common here as the impala were in Botswana. We saw two kinds of jackels-the silver backed and the golden. We saw a couple of dozen secretary birds and a lovely saddle back stork. We took time to sit and watch the animals and not just photograph them and move on which I enjoyed. So it was a very satisfying visit.

We came back and ate dinner and worked a little to pack for our leaving tomorrow. Omari says the next camp is much better than this one for our liking-the animals will be around us and no fence to keep them out. So we are all looking forward to it , though it will be a long day’s drive.

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