Spotted! Day 6

That gray line is the Tanzania border

Our second day in Maasai Mara began on a sleepy note for me. During the night, I was rudely awakened by some seriously loud noises. Wild animal noises. Coming from real wild animals. Like lions. Not like lions, definitely lions. Loud crazy roars that sounded like someone was watching Discovery Channel over the loud speakers. But they didn't have loud speakers and it wasn't a TV show, it was real. Real loud and real close, oustside the electric fence surrounding the resort. It was pretty crazy. There was also a totally weird noise that I can't even begin to describe coming from, what Muli told us the next morning, was another kind of hyrax (like what we saw at Naburu) - probably a tree hyrax. Let me tell you, that sound was weird and crazy loud. I was awake for what felt like hours trying to block out the noise. Micah seemed to only wake up every now and then. Lucky.

We went out early that morning, just grabbing a granola bar before loading up into the vans. We found a pride of lions, possibly the ones from the day before, hanging out fairly close to the hotel. They were right next to the road, and the cubs were so cute.

good morning lions

We spent the morning driving around, really planning to see a ton of animals since early morning was (supposedly) when they were all out and about. Not so. Really not so. We didn't see much at all. We drove around, eyes peeled for cheetah in the grass or leopards in the trees or giant pachyderm roaming the land. We even spotted paw prints in the dirt of the road and followed them to no avail.

Searchin'

no cheetahs or leopards

Lookin'

only Warthogs

drivin'

We went up to a lookout which was really neat. There, you could see hot air balloons from the trips you can charter (which cost a fortune) to take you over the park. We also found a group of park rangers who, incidentally, knew Muli by name. That man knows everyone! It was neat to see such a large expanse as the sun was rising higher into mid-morning the sky.

Stork

crazy tree

overlook with hot air balloon

Julianne with the rangers

We did see some crazy-looking trees called kigelia - aka Sausage Trees. They had these huge potato-like (or sausage-like, if you will) fruit on them. So interesting. We also found some funny-looking antelope. One kind was called hartebeest - fairly large and have really skinny faces and crazy horns. The other was called topi - they look kind of like hartebeest, but are darker and have straighter horns.

Sausage Tree

Topi

Coke's Hartebeest mixed with some Thomson's Gazelle

Back to the resort we went. We ate breakfast and then made a decision. The rest of the group was scheduled to visit a Maasai village that afternoon after lunch. While it did sound pretty interesting, we had read in the guide book that it was really a tourist thing and that, it was actually kind of depressing. The people would beg, and you would have to pay money to take their photos and they would try to sell you things. I really struggled with the decision, but in the end, we decided not to go. We opted instead to catch a nap and relax by the pool. Which was an excellent choice. The whole trip was go-go-go-go, so it was really nice to have a break. Our friends who went did enjoy it - the village did a dance and the Maasai interacted with everyone (and sold them things and sat for photos).
After lunch and an afternoon of relaxing, we headed out on our final game drive of the trip. We saw a bunch more of the amazing animals we'd seen before. We also found some ostrich - so giant and awkward up close. We tracked down a male lion resting in the shade. He was pretty cool.

Female Ostrich

Male Ostrich

Male lion, complete with mane, back under the tree

It was starting to get really cloudy. It's so neat to see the rains roll in on the savanna. You could see it coming from miles away. Well, we skirted the storm long enough to get back on one of the main pathways in the park, but it eventually was coming down in buckets. Sheets. Cats and dogs. We stopped for a while; Muli was trying to reach someone on the radio (apparently, some of the other Liberty vans had gone out of range, and we were trying to locate them). There was, it turns out, one van that got stuck "off road" somewhere on the way back from seeing the male lion. They were stuck for a while it seems, and I'm just glad we weren't there to have to help push the van out that time.

Lilac-breasted Roller bird

Spotted Hyena (during the rain storm)

The rain eventually stopped, and then we got word. A leopard had been spotted (hahaha)! It was over where we had trolled for it earlier in the game drive, but hadn't found it. Muli put the car in gear and we high-tailed it over to the siting area. Sure enough, there it was. Just strolling around. Not even in the trees. Just walking through the grass nearby. So cool to see. Soon enough there were tons of vans - I think the park rules limit officially limit it to 5 vans per animal area, but all bets were off at this point). We stayed a while and got our fill of him.

Leopard!

We started to get going. And then, for a second, couldn't get going. Our super-awesome 2-wheel-drive van was slipping on the newly-rained-on grass. Not that wild, carnivorous animals are everywhere in the park, but being, right next to the leopard, not the best place to be stuck. It only took a few tries and we were free - whew!

Another pretty sunset as we headed back to the lodge for the night. We had dinner with friends and then grabbed a quick drink in the bar before turning in for the night.

In the bar area having drinks with pals