December 1, 2018
Unnamed coffee shop, Sierra Vista, Arizona
Sitting in a coffee shop in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Hoping to find the ‘hip’ place in town, something to replace the places we came to rely on in Bend. Sadly, this won’t be the place, but I’ll keep looking.
Didn’t have much opportunity to write while in the Mara. We were so busy and the time was so full, I couldn’t find a couple of hours to write. Then, a week ago, on Saturday morning, we woke up in our tents on the banks of the Mara River, surrounded by hippos. One last game drive, back for lunch, pack up and to the airstrip, to Nairobi, to Amsterdam, to Seattle and landed in Redmond, Oregon Sunday afternoon. Tuesday morning, up at three-something, last breakfast with Gina, then spend two very long days in the car with a yowling cat. Literally 20 hours of yowling, like she was being skinned alive. Arrived in Sierra Vista Wednesday afternoon. Scrambled to make some sort of livable household out of a big, empty house. Start work on Friday morning.
And now it’s Saturday again. I’m watching SafariLive from Kruger and the Mara and my heart is heavy with loss. This whirlwind we’ve been in was, I think, unavoidable but it’s left no time to process the re-entry from the African bush into life here and, of course, life here is not ‘normal’ for me now.
The time in the Mara was amazing. The routine was to get up early (wake up was 0530, but Gina and I would get up earlier because it seemed to take us a little longer to get going than some of the other guests). We stayed in a comfortable tent along the banks of the River, tent 2 – Duma, which means cheetah in Swahili I think. Some guests said they got great sleep, and Gina can sleep through anything, but it was hard for me to get much sleep. Hippos were very active in the camp throughout the night (you’d hear them chomping grass right outside the tents) and every night we heard hyenas and lion. Most nights we’d hear baboons squabbling about something, with someone getting a hiding, and one night we heard a leopard sawing, followed by major upset with the baboons. Bird life really fired up at about 0300, though sometimes there’d be vocalizing throughout the night. So, not much sleep for me, but not complaining. I didn’t want to miss any of this.
The routine was different than our routine in the Kruger. We’d typically take off with a specific objectives (to find that leopard, those lions, etc.) and the distances were so great that you had to have a specific focus. Gina and I were in a vehicle with Johan, our facilitator, and Jackson, who was the local Masaai guide. Jackson drove (amazingly well), and we all looked. The vehicle was a modified Toyota Land Cruiser (the preferred safari vehicle it seems) with a roof that would lift so that you could shoot either low out of the windows or stand up and shoot through the top of the roof. Hours spent bouncing around in this vehicle with these awesome people. Honestly, I got to where I didn’t really even care so much about photography – I just so enjoyed the company of these people and the experience of being there. By the way, the bouncing around fools any electronic pedometer. According to my phone, I think I was averaging around 17,000 steps per day, sitting in the back of this vehicle.
The Mara is so dang beautiful. You could just look around you 360 degrees and in every direction you’d see a soft beauty, from the Olololo escarpment to the Mara River, south toward the Tanzanian border and the Serengetti (the boundaries of the ‘Triangle’). Big, big sky, with horizon open, visible and unbroken by the clutter of man. The wildlife was almost overwhelming – massive numbers of zebra, wildebeest and buffalo especially. You almost become numb to it.
The sighting were good, though, again, I was just so happy to be there. Probably the most interesting for me was watching a group of relatively inexperienced lions trying to stalk buffalo. We’d been watching these lionesses for a few days and had seen them make a lame attempt to snag a wildebeest. They didn’t look too hungry though, which I think is a testament to the massive amount of lion food visible in every direction. On this day, they’d been joined by a gnarly male lion named Ziggy. Ziggy is a prime condition lion, not a Hollywood lion – a genuine baddass. He is one of the dominant lions in this area, with his brother, Bob Marley. Ziggy and the girls were just sleeping. But as the day drew to an end, the females started to slowly file off in the direction of a group of about 15 or 20 buffalo in the distance. Among that group was a small calf. We kind of lost track of the lions in the gather dusk, but then noticed that they’d actually made up quite a bit of distance to the buffalo and it looked like they might make a go at them. We took off, bouncing along the two track trail that could pass for a road, sort of. We were driving fast because it was getting dark and there was quite a bit of distance to cover. As we turned in the direction of the buffalo, we could see it was on and the buffalo were running around frantically, gradually regrouping in a tight mass. And at that point, the vehicle quit running. So while Jackson got out and popped the hood to see what was going on, we watched from a distance while the buffalo turned the tables on the lions. A group of four or five buffalo charged the lions and chased them full speed – hauling ass – across the plain. The rest of the buffalo stayed in a tight group with the calf in the center. The lions were in full retreat. And finally, Jackson found that a fuel line had come loose, reattached it and we were mobile again. We started to head back to camp because it was getting dark. We noticed then that Ziggy was up and he started trotting in the direction of the buffalo and it looked like the lions might take another run at them. The addition of an experienced male would substantially change the equation. But then Ziggy sat down, the lionesses sat down and by then the calf had been moved off over the top of a nearby ridge. It was getting dark and we had to head back. The next morning we found the lionesses again, but Ziggy’d ditched them, undoubtedly making the calculation that his odds of finding a meal were better without these ladies.
I think the thing that was most impactful for me in the Mara was the opportunity to get to know some Maasai people. The camp is essentially run by a local staff, mostly Maasai, who are there from June through November. Then, at the end of the season (and we were the last two guests), they tear the entire camp down, put it all into storage and let this site return to normal. The Maasai wear traditional clothing in camp and that isn’t an act for tourists. These are traditional people, who live in villages when not in camp, count wealth in cattle and goats, and the men often have multiple wives.
I don’t know what I expected. Somehow, I think I expected that these warriors who have killed lions with spears would be proud, aloof and stern. What I found was completely different – they were friendly, warm, funny, open. Proud for sure, but in the sense that they wanted to share their culture with us. They were happy to talk and answer questions.
I think on our second evening in the camp, they prepared a special introduction to Maasai culture. They prepared a goat for the guests (there was maybe 6 or 8 of us at that time), quartered on spits over an open fire. Then the head man, Dickson, stood and talked about the journey of the Maasai and the nature of the culture. Then dancing and singing around the fire. So much fun. They sliced off bits of the goat for the guests as a starter to the meal, using the long knives that the warriors carry on their belts. Just fantastic.
Later, I asked Francis about the organization of the Maasai people (is there a central organization, a head chief, that sort of thing) and he spent quite a bit of time describing the organization of Maasai by 10-year age cohorts, which govern themselves. No courts. The age cohort makes decisions for themselves. If someone has done something wrong, they determine the restitution or punishment, which might include taking someone out into the bush and beating the hell out of them. It’s simple, straightforward and seemed all about maintaining a certain harmony and balance among these nomadic herders. There are also complicated rules governing marriage among these age cohorts, which I didn’t fully understand but I believe were meant to prevent incest.
I think it’s fair to say that both Gina and I fell in love with these people. The experience made a big impact on us and it’s sad to think that it’s now been a week. Dickson is scheduled to come to the US on a marketing trip to New York and LA in February. Dickson has only been on a plane once – the bush plane between the Mara and Nairobi. He has never experienced anything remotely like New York or LA. Hearing his experience will be fascinating. Gina and I are hoping that we can go to LA and connect with them during this trip.
Some of the WildEye Mara team....
Gina and Duma tent
Hippos from balloon
Mara River
Beautiful Mara leopard
Flying back to Nairobi
So this entry has been long. It’s been such a frantic week. Our lives are truly turned upside down right now. I FaceTimed Gina this morning and hope that she will be here in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, I’m living in an empty house with a very unhappy cat who just wants to go back to her old life.
I don’t know if/when we’ll go back to Africa. Some of that is just acknowledging the uncertainty of life of course. None of us know what’s in store for us (but we can be sure there are surprises ahead), but I’m also recognizing that I’m getting older and begin to think about what life will look like when I make a lot less money…. I just don’t know. I think the experience in the Mara has fired up my desire to go back a lot more than our two weeks in the Kruger. I just don’t know what’s possible. Time will sort that out for us. What I do know is that, for reasons I don’t understand (and probably won’t make sense), my heart is there in Africa. I sit here remembering that a week ago, two weeks ago, etc., I was there and trying to hang on to the memory by looking at the tan marks on my feet. But now, I sadly have to turn attention to all of the stuff involved in moving, finding a house, setting up a new location….
