Kenya 2021

August 2021, after a delay of about a year due to Covid, I traveled three weeks through Kenya.

The journey started in Tsavo west National Park, in search of elephants covered in red dust and the Tsavo lions nicknamed "man-eaters". What I liked about Tsavo is the ever changing landscape, from open grass plains, red soil and a lava rock. During the game drives there were amongst the more "usual", sightings of leopard, cheetah and elephants.

After Tsavo the route continued to Amboseli, which comes from a Maasai word meaning "Salty dust". It didn't take long before the meaning came true. In the afternoon the wind became stronger, resulting in a lot of dust and sand in the air. Which in turn created beautiful photographic opportunities. Another must see in Amboseli is the kilimanjaro, although you need to be lucky to not have too much cloud coverage.
My highlight in Amboseli was seeing a bigtusker called Michael roam the plains of Amboseli.

From Amboseli I traveled all the way up to Samburu National Park, which is home of the Samburu Five. These are the Grevvy's zebra, Gerenuk, Retiuculated giraffe, Besia oryx and Somali ostrich. During one of the morning drives there was some rumble in the bushes just next to a road. A male baboon had just caught a juvenile impala and had pinned it to the ground, the impala had no way to escape. The baboon ripping its chest open and started eating, whist you could still see the tail and legs of the impala moving.

Because the trip from Samburu to the Maasai Mara would take to long an additional stop at Lake Nakuru was made. Lake Nakuru is famous for its huge amount of flamingos. Unfortunately the water level in the lake continues to rise each year, resulting in a decrease of the flamingo population in recent years. On the other side the sightings of black and white rhinoceros have been a very nice surprise.

Finally the last destination was reach, The Maasai Mara. The first few days were spend in the Northern Mara where there are plenty of sightings of the big cats, amongst them a cheetah with three cubs. The last days of the trip are spend at a camp on the banks of the Mara river. Traditionally the months of June - September are very crowded due to the great migration. This year, due to travel restrictions, it is a lot less crowded. Game driving alongs the banks of the Mara looking for potential crossing it is apperent that the big herds are not present. So small groups can be seen spread trough the area, but not the thousands that used to. Fortunately, the Maasai Mara has so much to offer and the cat sightings keep coming. Still staying close to the Mara for potential a crossing, a group of zebras is building up to the edge of the river. Eventually a few of the zebra start crossing, causing the huge crocodiles to come in action and grabbing a juvenile zebra.

Sadly the trip has come to an end and the adventure in Kenya is over for now. Since witnessing The great migration is high on the wish list an other visit will surely come. In the end this is how nature works, you never know what you get and when you get it.