Up by 5 with coffee and hot milk delivered to our tent with the now familiar “ode” (good morning) We quickly packed, had breakfast at 7:30 and I was out for a quick visit to see the progress on the hammerkop’s nest in Double Gorge. The light was beautiful, softly filtered by a high layer of clouds, perfect for photography.
The industrious pair of hammerkops was still industriously building their nest. Every few minute another twig, stick, or mouthful of dry grass was fetched, and it was all woven carefully woven into a beautifully tight basket-like nest. It was amazing the progress over the last few days, but they still have nearly a month and a half before their nest-building task is done. Then the eggs will be laid, hatch, and the real work of raising the kids begins. We searched for lions in the luggas on the way back to camp and found none. It was an unusually quiet morning that matched my mood. It will be hard to leave this place. The Maasai Mara, the spotted landscape, an unrelentingly real place as magic as dream. It is here that the veneer of life seems to be peeled back and the true nature of this land is exposed. This place transcends words, it exceeds expectations, it amazes and amuses, and above all else it is as raw and real as it is beautiful.
We returned to the Camp for lunch, gathered our bags and loaded into the Land Cruiser one last time for a drive into the National Park to the landing strip. From the strip’ we could look out across the tall golden grass and watch the elephant herd moving slowly down to the lugga to drink. The world was moving in the slow deliberate cadence of life on the Mara at midday. There always seems to be a hush at midday and the long stretched warm afternoons. Predators sleep, prey rests and a tranquil calm settles in over the land. I will miss this place so.
The single–engine plane arrived as a white buzzing dot on the horizon flying out of the towering thunderheads set against blue skies to the south - my stomach tightened. I only had a few minutes left to stand on the Mara.
The plane landed, we loaded our gear onto it and climbed aboard. I moved forward in the 12 seater and settled in behind the pilot. Once aboard the pilot turned to me and said, “Would you like to see Wildebeest?” “Yes! You bet! “I answered enthusiastically. Anything to see more of this precious place and to delay the return to Nairobi, I thought.
So the pilot took off headed farther north toward Tanzania and the Serengeti to see the first of the wildebeest migration coming into the Mara. The vast savannah, as far as the eye, could see was spotted with luggas, herds of elephant, zebras, gazelle and impala, bomas, Maasai with their tightly bunched cattle herds, and with the occasional lone thorn tree. After one massive deep gliding turn, we looked down through the aircrafts windows and saw thousands, upon thousands of wildebeest. It looked like an aerial view of black ants sprinkled across the ground. Some wildebeest were gathered in herds while others were making their way along the game trails in long winding single-file lines. The migration had begun in Tanzania’s Serengeti and would soon reach the savannahs of Kenya’s Maasai Mara.
After one long last look, we steeply banked the plane to the right and headed back toward Nairobi, 45 minutes to the south. Landed at Nairobi at about 6PM. We were met by our driver, Anthony, and taken on a wild, death defying ride through traffic of downtown Nairobi at rush hour. It was the first time in two and a half weeks that I felt nervous in a vehicle. Pedestrians streamed across the road, cars darted in and out, vendors walked along the cars stopped during the massive congestion selling everything from sunglasses, and Mickey Mouse plush toys to grapefruit and passport covers. We were, at last, back in “civilization.” How I longed for the Mara and its congestion of zebras and wildebeest and having to patiently wait for “pedestrians” while a family of elephants crossed within a few yards of us or a group of lions wandered along side of the truck.
Made it to the Fairview Hotel and checked in. Tonight the night fell on the Masai Mara without us. I spent the night dreaming of wild places, of predator and prey, of a giraffe illuminated by the golden light of sunset and dramatically set against black storm clouds, of lions hunting, of impalas snorting their warnings, of fish eagles preening in the arms of a candelabra tree, and of young lion cubs learning the rules of the hunt.
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