Kenya = Maasai Mara, the famous game reserve that spans the border to Tanzania where it is called the Serengeti. Full of animals and home to the Mara river crossing featured in countless wildlife documentaries, where thousands of wildebeest and zebra throw themselves across the river trying to evade the waiting crocs and lions. Land of empty open plains swaying with grass, the odd tree decoratively breaking the endless horizon, where vast herds of exotic animals graze, from zebra to impala, gazelles of every variety alongside elephant and giraffe, eland, reed bucks, topi and kongoni; where predators roam looking for easy pickings, lions, leopards, cheetah, hyena and fox, a place to go at least once, although it would be hard to think we will never return.
I had heard many stories before we came, had a picture in my mind of how it would be, and it all turned out exactly like that and at the same time completely different. Access to the park is unlike any other we had been to, the road up to the first gate was terrible and only got worse as we pushed on to Aruba Bush Camp, whose owner, a Bavarian lady, we had met at Jungle Junction in Nairobi, and who promised hot showers and clean toilets at her camp site. Due to the bad infrastructure, the lack of signage and bad tracks in the park we had been told to take a guide, so Daniel, a local Maasai, hopped in the car with us in the morning. This turned out to be an advantage as well as a drawback. Daniel knew the roads, so he took us into the park through a shortcut. He was also on the phone a lot, for reasons of navigation, it turned out, as the mobile was the communicator for those guides not belonging to a lodge (their cars are equipped with two way radios). So in order to find out where the game was he called and was called, and he promptly took us to a spot where we could see a cheetah. A cheetah, wow! These guys (or often gals, as the females are extremely territorial and keep all males out of the way) are pretty hard to spot, as they are very shy and spend most of the day in hiding. But there it was, all lean and elegant, if panting a little from the heat, a real live cheetah in the wild.
Unfortunately that was also our introduction to how things work in the Mara and the drawback of having a guide in the car with us. There were three other safari cars around, each of them nudging in to see the cheetah better, taking turns to close in, overtaking and cutting each other off, in the process pushing the animal to move on just as it had found a shady spot to rest. It was looking increasingly harassed and when we told Daniel that we didn't want to approach any further he looked at us, mystified, and carried on encouraging us to go even closer. It took some will to refuse, but we could as we were driving ourselves. A side effect of all this jostling was that all the cars went off the main track, crunching over the vegetation and churning up the dry soil. It hasn't rained here yet, the Mara is the driest it has been since the 50's so the environment is very fragile, and I was shocked to see that all through the day not only did big 4x4 Landrovers and Cruisers drive on the lesser used tracks, which cut across the plain all over the place, but in the search for a better view they would drive into thickets, reverse over shrubs and pull up right on the river bank, making new tyre marks that would then be used by other cars. Part of the problem is of course that there is no established road system in the Mara such as we are used to from other parks, whether that be Kruger or Etosha or South Luangwa. Even when the signage was bad, there were always clear road markings and offroad tracks were blocked by stones and Do Not enter signs. there is nothing of the kind here, and I have yet to even see a map of recommended routes.
Another problem are the tourists who push the guides to drive ever nearer to the animals, and since most guides are dependent on the tourists' goodwill and their tips, they are happy to oblige. I felt that Daniel considered this just the way things are and since there is no penalty for bad behaviour and no immediate impact he is happy to carry on and satisfy the tourist wishes. Of course there is a long term impact on the environment and - through stress - on the animals. I wonder if the guides were paid a wage, or if they got ranger training so that they could gain an understanding of the impact of their actions combined with the confidence to be guardians of the landscape rather than collectors of tips, if better infrastructure and more policing of visitor behaviour would help here. I am sure many people have already thought of solutions to the problem, but it's sad to see that not a lot seems to get implemented.
Our stop to watch the river crossing became another ambivalent event. The Mara river had slowed almost to a trickle anywhere else, but here there were still rapids, and they were crowded with a dozen patient, scaly, and hungry crocodiles. There also floated the carcass of a wildebeest, horn stuck on a rock, slowly bobbing in the stream, apparently too smelly to still be interesting to the pre-historic beasts hanging around for the next victim. Along the bank a herd of wildebeest was crowding at the edge of the river, bumping and retreating until one took the - literal - leap into the water, and then they were all running, jumping and leaping over each other, pushing from behind, at the point of no return until they - on reaching a deeper channel - had to swim a way to reach firm ground again and stream up the other side to safety. Somehow this time they all made it across, maybe because after a large group had crossed the throng suddenly screeched to a halt and the rest of the herd stumbled back up onto the bank to find another crossing that was not quite so croc infested. Another flow of bodies took place out of our sight, but we soon realised that this one hadn't gone as well as the last. As we watched, a sleek brown body came floating round the bend, legs akimbo, occasionally a horn popping up from the water. Too slow, or maybe a stumble, a bump at the wrong moment, and a wildebeest had become a victim. The carcass was surrounded by crocs, who, pushing and snapping and twisting, tried to take a bite, jostling each other not unlike the ungainly Landcruisers when lining up for a photo of the evasive cheetah earlier in the day.
Unfortunately the ridge was lined with up to 20 cars, all heads sticking out of the roof hatch, 1200mm lenses cranked up to get that perfect shot, pink snappy cams next to pro level camcorders, all facing the iconic sight. Lodge cars were arranged as in a car park. When the spectacle was over they vanished round the corner in expectation of an even better view - and then, to our luck, most of them disappeared. It was lunchtime at the posh lodges.
