On the walk we also saw - September 18, 2010

a group of wildebeeste, startled by us in the twilight, snorting and cavorting away from us

zebra, sedately plodding away from us

warthog, down on knees, grubbing for supper

babbons, not Jonathan’s favourite animal.

However with our maasai guides, armed with spears and bows, I never once felt nervous, and was was super relaxed as our camp-fires welcomed us back at sun-down

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and that night – we had roast sheep -

as fresh as can be had, our sheep was dipatched for us to eat earlier that evening by John and co.

While John and Alex prepared a rice, ugali (maize meal), greens and salads to go with it

While all this was going on, we practiced some maasai archery, and then went for a lovely work along the Ol Merroi river line adjacent to the camp, to where a leopard had killed an impala earlier that day. John became somewhat agitated and called for another askari. We walked very slowly and carefully, with two Maasai guards with bows drawn at several points, where they suspected they may have been close to the leopard lying up

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Most of the 9th we were game driving -

We were first at the gate at 6.30 am., and game driving through the Mara for the rest of the morning.

We were lucky with the early morning light, the migration, lions replete with the plentiful take away on their door step,

We were also lucky with a female rhino and calf, pictured in amongst the migration, a rare sight these days.

We also took in elephant and buffalo – making it four of the big five – as well as plenty of side stripped jackels, giraffe, zebras, topi, hartebeeste. In between we also started to drive our bird tally up

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He was right – Hyenas whooping at the campsite -

That night we were woken by hyenas whooping around the campsite – obviously enraged by the rain that had come our way that evening, and probably also wondering what five tents and assorted vehicles and askaris (guards) were doing next to their patch.

We also heard a distant lion, and wondered how fresh the elephant dropping seen earlier that night had been !

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Greeted on our first night by John ole Mpoe -

John greeted us, and after a tiring drive down (lets fly next time!), a cold tusker beer under the shady umbrella went down well, we then were taken out for a practical demonstration of Maasai firelighting – without matches or cigarette lighter,

John showed us just how close the wildlife is to our campsite, the hyena dens are only a couple of hundred yards away, with multiple entrences like super – charged badger setts.

John predicted they would be “very angry that night” due to the rain, which maked them prone to be aggressive – interesting how he speaks of them in a detatched observational way – despite the damage they can do to his livestock

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