Serian Masai Mara National Reserve

... at the restaurant after seven and on the way to our table we walked past the 'kitchen'. There was just on open fire with a huge extractor hood over it and lots of animals rotating on spits. When we were seated a guy came over to make us 'Dawa' cocktails which are made of vodka, honey, lime all stirred with some sort of bamboo stick. It was strong! There was no menu, the waiter simply asked were any of us vegetarians. None of us were. We were brought soup as a starter and then a two ...

... are not old enough to hunt for themselves. Just old enough for mom to go hunting and leave them without a babysitter.

Next we heard there was a leopard afoot. Our guide joined 9-10 others in pursuit. Here in the Mara, the vehicles are allowed to go off road to track animals … not true in the other parks and conservancies we visited. Some vehicles got to see the leopard (Ed Mershon in our group got a great photo) but the others of us just ...

... calf or calves during the night to keep them safe and warm and then milk them in the morning. Next to the calving room is a hallway that leads to the rest of the house. There are no windows in the house, only a very small opening about 30 cm. (12 in.) above the floor to allow the smoke from the fireplace to disperse. The room was completely dark to our eyes and we needed to be guided into the main part by hand. The middle of the room, which measures ...

(N.B. Once again quite behind in my updates due to lack of accessible internet facilities. Currently back in Arusha, Tanzania after spending 2 nights in Serengeti National Park and Day 8: Got back from Serengeti and the unbelievable Ngorongoro Crater.) Woke up early in the morning and checked out of Hotel Boulevard in Nairobi. Incredibly slow process and already getting used to the overland term T.I.A. (This Is Africa). Although I can name so many ...

... sizes. The giraffes soon became a favourite of Virginia's too! Dinner was beef again (the meat of choice here), so I had to load up on filler instead of killer as Calvin would say. We spent all of the second day in the park. And though it's a somewhat arbitrary measure of safari success, we saw four of the big five. My favourite sites included: 1) A row of giraffes in the horizon with two old male giraffes leading and ...

... I made the big bull calls to the bulls, who would stop and stare up at us and bellow back. They have a very strong smell, almost like domestic cattle, but a little gamier. If you are downwind you can smell them for several miles, and you can hear their calls just as far. Saturday morning we had a 6:30am safari to go on, so that wake up was a bit bleary. The morning safari turned out to be amazing, as we got extremely close to several male lions, one of ...

... see the crocodiles (not exciting), and a hippo in the water opened its mouth huge. It was the only one to do so and at that moment Travis was showing me a photo he'd taken and therefore was not prepared for such an excellent moment. Next time. Some Spaniards declared that they found a water snake, but as it drew closer we identified it as a baby crocodile. It was quite cute, considering that crocodiles aren't exactly "cute." So we'd wandered around and ...

... for a firm of hackers who cracked into online bank/shopping sites and them Tim sold them the products to sort out their security Krys - already nicknamed Red Wine Monster on the gorilla trip on a year out from doing something high up in Walkers crisps and had met Gary Lineker Trudy - an Aussie from Brisbane on a 9 month trip Duncan - aka Hawkeye on a 10 week trip before starting an Investment Mgmt job in Aberdeen Rusella - a masseur/artist from San Fran on a ...

... who we picked up at an airstrip once in the park. We stayed in a camp just outside the park near a Masai community: it consists of basic tents with beds and a nearby mess-hall structure where we ate our meals. I now fully understand why it might be worth it to pay an additional $300 or so to fly in and out of the Mara. Our drive started off nice... and hour or so outside of Nairobi we descended swiftly into the Great Rift Valley, then tackled several stretches of ...

... has an amazing concentration of wildlife. We got there in time for lunch. Following our usual pattern, we took an afternoon game drive across the rolling grassland. The Masai Mara is located at the northern end of the Serengeti Plain. "Considered the best of Kenya's parks, it is on the pathway of the yearly wildebeest migration, which comes north from Tanzania about the end of June and returns to Tanzania around the end of September. The ...