Safari – Morning Star & Kicheche Valley Camp – Day 1 8/25
This morning was our last at Morning Star. We had a quick breakfast of toast and coffee and finished packing and chose what to bring on to safari with us and what to leave behind. Then came some tough goodbyes… The children were doing their morning devotions, but came out to see us off quickly. We got lots of hugs, said some see-you-laters and a few of the kids gave us the nicest, handwritten letters. It was a heart wrenching moment to say goodbye to this group of kids that we had grown so fond of in the last week and quite a few tears were shed as we drove away.
We headed to the airport for our flight to Masai Mara. We flew in a small plane that only seated about 12 people plus the pilots. Because the plane was so small we were only allowed 30 kg of luggage per person. We cheated and didn’t weigh all of our baggage in, but unbelievably we were still over by 2 kg! Once in the air, we got to experience a very different perspective of Nairobi as we flew away. The size of the Kibera slum was immediately apparent and it was far larger than we ever would have guessed from seeing them from the streets. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi and in all of Africa and houses three quarters of a million people. It’s very shocking.
A short time later, we landed in Masai Mara on a strip of dirt in the middle of the Savannah. We were greeted there by our guide for the next two and a half days – Bernard. His departing passengers greeted us and said that “Bernard is the best!” so we knew then we were in for a good couple of days. We knew just how good shortly after departing the airstrip.
We made a game drive out of the return to Kicheche Valley Camp and drove through the Naboisho Conservancy that the camp is in. We saw several animals right away including Thompson’s gazelles, topis, impalas, wildebeests, warthogs (aka Pumbas), giraffes, and elephants. We kept calling the warthogs “Little Pumbas” and Bernard informed us that pumba means stupid in Swahili and that they were called pumas because they have very short memories and forget quickly what they were doing!
Bernard drove us to a spot where a pride of lions had killed a young giraffe earlier in the day. There we immediately came upon the large, male lion with an impressive mane of hair. He was lazing around the kill, full from the feeding. Eventually a female lioness appeared out of the bushes and went to lay by the tree and another young lioness came to join her. We followed the male lion down to the river where he went to quench his thirst. Bernard said that seeing a male lion drink is a rare sight because that makes them vulnerable. Here the lion was joined by a young male lion. The older male taunted the younger one to leave as it is unusual for the more mature young lions to stay with the pride and he wanted him to go away. After a while of watching and photographing we headed to camp.
At camp we were greeted by the relief manager, Mama Rachel. Mama Rachel is a retired, older woman who offers safari camp managers relief during season so that they may take a break. She says that she has grown to be very in demand in the past years of providing this service. She gave us information about the camp and showed us to our rooms. The valley camp is not fenced in so animals may come in and out as they please (which we found is a little frightening at times). You also need an escort to walk to and from the tent when it’s dark out for this very reason. The tent was absolutely beautiful and far exceeded our expectations!
Later in the afternoon, at 4 o’clock, we headed out on our evening game drive. During our game drive we saw more of the same animals and returned to the kill spot to see what the lions were up to. Here we found the more mature lions asleep while the younger lions dug into the zebra with vigor, crawling in all the way up to their shoulders even. It was a sight to see. After some more sightseeing, we returned to camp for dinner and sleep. All-in-all a great first day!