Maasai Mara, Kenya

It's been interesting getting here. We flew to Chicago and boarded our British Air plane to London. But 10 minutes before departure, the gate personnel asked us to gather our things and leave the plane. Apparently we had a booking to Nairobi, but no ticket. Perhaps it went unnoticed because we did have a ticket to Chicago on United. The British Air personnel, Candy and Jackie, were wonderful They had tried to contact OAT, but couldn't get through. They convinced us to have dinner the business lounge while I contacted the OAT emergency number. In about 45 minutes, we were ticketed on the same flight the next day.

John and Mary in Chicago, rather than Nairobi

BA put us up at the airport Hilton and gave us vouchers for breakfast and lunch. We took the train into downtown and walked around the lake front. BA upgraded us to business class for the flight to London, so we got to stretch out, even if we never fully slept. Our London-Nairobi flight was uneventful and we had transport to the Intercontinental Hotel on arrival. We learned that we were flying to Masai Mara at 10 AM, but we weren't sure about a shuttle to the airport. We woke at 6:15 ready to enjoy a shower, but both the power and water were out. The bell captain called Pulloman, our trip vendor and found out that we were being picked up at 8 AM.

Impalas, Zebras, and Giraffes in the Maasai Mara

We made it to our camp in the Maasai Mora by noon. Only to find that Flo and Bill were missing their luggage, which we had seen last night in Nairobi. (They ended up waiting till our return to Nairobi before they saw their luggage.). The Maasai Mora is one of Kenya's national parks, that is part of the Serengeti ecosystem. It lies just north of the Mara river in South western Kenya.
Enough about the adventure of getting here. We missed seeing a leopard this morning, but we did encounter sleeping lions, a wandering cheetah, and more more zebras, antelope, and wildebeest than you could count. The animals are plentiful - as are the safari vehicles. We would have 7-15 vehicles at each of the lion sightings, a real contrast to the 2-4 vehicles, we encountered in Southern Africa 3 years ago. Just to provide a list, here's what we saw today: topi, impalas, warthogs, Grant's zebra, Masai giraffe, elephant, Thomson's gazelle, Maasai Ostrich, cheetah, lions, and a jackal. Birds included a Rufous-crowned Roller, Grey Crowned Crane, African white back vulture, and a tawny eagle.