Day 1
In Africa anything is possible- this is our new mantra

Cyrus gave us a sleep in this morning, leaving at 6.45, heading south towards the Masai Mara.

The journey was a bit of an off-road adventure, with corrugated dirt roads that would shake your teeth out.

They certainly shook everything else out- about 2/3 of the way there our brake line snapped- fortunately we were just a few hundred metres from a small Masai village with a very resourceful mechanic (luckily an uphill drive so we didn’t need breaks to get there). About half an hour later we were back on the road jolting away.

The trip into the camp was pretty amazing- literally a maze of dirt tracks going in every direction with no signage or anything we could see to differentiate them. Somehow Cyrus managed to navigate through the maze to get us here in time for a late (4pm lunch) and then get us back out again to the game park to see the animals.

The Masai live in small villages within the Mara along with the wild animals. Amazing to see them walking around on foot while we huddle safely in our vehicles.

Had our first sighting of wilderbeast and the black rhino. But spent most of our time in the park gazing at a pride of 10 plus lions waking up from their daytime sleep ready to hunt. The lionesses were HUGE, and made eye contact with us several times- very glad to be in the safety of our truck.

Drove back as the sun set. We did heed this warning….

Day 2:
Another big day today. R & R headed off for their balloon flight at 4.50 (yes Roger did get out of bed at 4). They were driven for about an hour into the Mara to meet the balloon crew. They found it a bit of a challenge to get into the basket but two Masai warriors ably slotted Roger into his spot.

The pilot guided the balloon up to 1000 feet to give spectacular views of the sunrise and the migrating wilderbeast. Then hovered down low just over the animals- lions, rhino, buffalos and cheetahs chasing wilderbeast.

While they were up in the air, David and I explored from the ground. Highlights were:
Driving through huge herds of wilderbeast – such pre-historic looking creatures. 7 cheetahs (including 2 snacking on a tasty fresh wilderbeast), 2 male lions, an albino zebra, and an attempted zebra cfossing – just when we thought they would cross they changed their minds- mind you I’d be a bit shy about jumping into a river full of crocodiles too.

The Mara is 600 square kilometres of long flat plains spotted with acacia trees -some low bushes but those that arethere may have lions under them- which makes the bush bathroom quite an experience- especially for the ‘mama’ in the group….

Today was Cyrus’ birthday, we were joined by our two young Italian friends Elizabetra and Marcos (doing a parallel safari). We had a cake and all the staff sang. Fabulous!