Giraffe Manor

This is it. 6 weeks after we got back home I’ve finally parsed the last photo gallery from Kenya. After wrapping up our stay in the national parks and private reserves we spent the final day at Giraffe Manor. An old English-style manor house that is also a breeding and rehabilitation center for the endangered Rothschild Giraffe. We had opportunities to feed and interact with Giraffes (and the warthogs that sought to hoover up any dropped giraffe pellets off the ground). Especially memorable was having breakfast while the giraffe stuck their heads in the windows to get fed. Pretty amazing.

Mara Bushtops Last Day

Here is the last gallery from Mara Bushtops – we had a great stay though Ben got food poisoning on the last day and the 45 minute Land Cruiser ride followed by an hour in a bush plane to get back to Nairobi was not fun.

Mara Safari 2

Here is the second gallery from the all-day game drive in the Masia Mara. We got to see a wildebeast crossing and a lion chase (but not catch) some cape buffalo. Enjoy the pics!

Mara Safari

After the balloon ride we spent the rest of the day on a game drive in the Masai Mara. Here are pictures from the first part of the day. Enjoy!

Mara Balloon ride

The first full day at Mara Bushtops we had booked a balloon ride in the Masai Mara. We were woken up with coffee and cookies well before dawn and then whisked in a land cruiser into the park. We arrived at the launch site just as dawn was beginning to break. There was not much for us to do as we stood out of the way as the crews scrambled to get the balloon laid out and filled with hot air. Once it started to become bouyant, however, then things moved fast and the had to scramble into the basket while the balloon struggled to fly away and a dozen ground crew members struggled to keep us on the ground.

Once we were airborne the most striking thing is the total silence (if you don’t count the occasional roar of the gas jets as the pilot put more hot air in the balloon). We drifted over the Mara for about an hour and then, after a controlled crash landing, the chase vehicle whisked us away to another omlete station that had sprung up out of the bush.

Mara Bushtops Day 1 – Game Drive and Sundown

Here is a continuation of the last gallery. We drove around the conservancy for the afternoon and then stopped for sundowners where the Mara Bushtops crew had set up a fire (and bar) to enjoy the sunset. Once again I was amazed at the ability for the lodges to make guest facilities pop up out of nowhere in the bush whether it be omelet stations in the morning or a bar for sundowners at night.

Arriving at Mara Bushtops

Our last “safari” lodge was Mara Bushtops which is situated on a private conservancy right off of the Masai Mara park. We arrived after an hour-long flight over the verdant Mt. Kenya highlights to a tiny airstrip without a single building but our safari crew was there to meet us.
We had booked the Leopard Family tent which was absolutely fabulous and really was a case study in how opulent you could make a facility and still call it a “tent”. It was certainly the first (and will probably be the last) tent I’ve stayed in that had its own hot tub and wine wall.
That afternoon we took a game drive staying within a kilometer or so of the lodge but still managed to see plenty of wildlife including a lion checking out game at the water hole – we even got a picture of the lion and our tent in the same frame. This seemed very cool to be situated right in the middle of a heavy wildlife zone but the next night when we heard a pride of lions take down and then noisily eat a zebra only a few meters from our tent it took on a different feel.

Lewa Conservancy Day 2

Here are a few last shots from our stay at the Lewa Conservancy.

Lewa Conservancy

The Lewa conservancy is a vast track of land with a healthy population of rhino and rigorous poaching controls. We were able to spend two days at a safari camp on the conservancy with our guide, Festus. Most of the terrain was grass and long, rolling hills but there were some wooded valleys and even a lake/swamp where animals tended to congregate. Here are some pictures from the first day.

Meru to Lewa

Included in this gallery are a few last pictures of Meru and then on to our next stop at the Lewa Conservancy. We did the transfer by car (a 4 hour drive or so) rather than by plane as there we no good connections that would get us to Lewa sooner.