Zebra for breakfast

Trip Start Sep 04, 2008
1
5
18
Trip End Oct 13, 2008


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Flag of Kenya  ,
Tuesday, September 9, 2008

We start our last day in the Masai Mara with a very early morning wake up. 5.30. We have tea, coffee and biscuits for a light breakfast, as we will be having  a cooked breakfast upon our return. Our morning game drive started with disappointment. We weren't interested in seeing Gizelle or Zebra anymore, we were hunting something bigger. We spent 1.5 hours driving around the park seeing everything else, but a lion. We even stumbled across a hippo that was wandering through some long grass - perhaps on his way home after a night out eating. They eat 30kgs of grass overnight.
We get a tip off and our driver Francis (his brothers name is also Francis) races through the game park to some lions. There are about 6 other vans on a road with 3 lions walking directly for them. They came closer... very close. Their fur brushed the side of the van. They were 1 foot from me. Anthony was hanging over the top of the van snapping away with the camera. I was so spellbound I took only 2 photos. Simply amazing.
We were late for breakfast - but we'd sooner have gone hungry. We following this giant cats for about 10 minutes as they walked slowly back towards their den. We couldn't stay - so we drove up and around the back of some trees and noticed through the binoculous that their was infact a pack our cubs waiting for them. Our first glimpse of babies. We drove on back to camp for breakfast, until we then came across a huge pride of lions eating breakfast, a zebra.
That's the thing with game drives, one minute you see nothing and then your turn a corner and there's a lion walking beside your van.
Breakfast was an hour late, but I think we were all happy to have witnessed our lions for the morning. It made the long drive back to Nairobi easier, as we were all recounting how close we had got to these animals.
As we get closer to Nairobi, the heavens open and we get a massive downpour of rain. It was supposed to be our first night to pitch our tents, but everyone decided to upgrade and get either dormrooms or doubles. They weren't that good, we didn't' even have any water in our bathrooms, but at least we weren't pitching a tent in the rain.
 
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