Thursday, September 08, 2022

Day 5 - Leaving Lake Nakuru and to Maasai Mara

they say it's healthy you know to get a little alone time
responsibility, it's a bit too early for that, you see
'cause I've got things I must fight for and places to be, there's no caging me (no-no-no)
Free Spirit - Josef Salvat

Heard that song when I was watching Moominvalley, the animated TV series. Before watching that, I didn't know what the Moomins are, like when Uniqlo was selling shirts with their images, I didn't know what it was about. When I started watching the cartoon, I was still a bit confused about the target audience, like I wonder if kids would like it. As I watched more episodes, I kinda like it a lot. Favorite character is perhaps Little My, just because she's snarky :D I like her the way I like Oscar the Grouch the most in Sesame Street. Moomintroll is perhaps my second favorite character, he has such a soft heart and it makes you kinda want to just pat him in the shoulder kinda thing :D

Anyways, back to the trip. Day 5, we were leaving Lake Nakuru and were going to Maasai Mara which was the last leg of my trip. As I was getting ready that morning, I suddenly realized that the sun was rising when I saw orange light seeping from below the curtain of my room. My window was overlooking part of the lake and I caught a bit of that sunrise.

On the way out, K drove a little bit around the park again and we saw a number of rhinoceros. It made me happy because the day before K pointed a few to me, but they were so far out that I couldn't really see them clearly and I am super amazed that K could always spot these different animals. In fact his eyesight was one topic of conversation. Anyways, there were quite a number of rhino that morning and really it made me happy to see them in their groups. There were also baby / smaller rhinos. I am stunned at myself for being stunned that the rhino's horn was like longer than I imagined them to be.

We passed the lake with the flamingos again; I kinda regretted not asking K to stop so that I could take pictures, but oh well. For pictures from Lake Nakuru, you can go here. It's quite a drive to Mara and again the drive to the lodge was bumpy, but we made it. It was the same schedule of arriving by lunch and meeting later to explore the reserve. This lodge in Mara is the one I dislike the most *sigh* but again it's me being difficult. Other people would say it's fine. The wall is thin that later that night when I had to really sleep because I had to get up super early, I kinda knocked on the wall because I could hear music from the next room. Luckily the french couple next door took the hint.

On the afternoon drive to the park, the entry process wasn't as chaotic as in Amboseli. The reason why I chose to go in August is because it's migration season. Does that make things more special? I don't know because it's my first time doing this, so I can't make a comparison. One thing for sure though, I think the next time if I am fortunate enough to have a chance to do this again, I don't think I will do it during peak season because it's just way more expensive. What I can compare is the landscape between Amboseli and Mara. It's quite different, less arid in Mara, no sandspout flying around, and I do feel like you see more animals in Mara, but again I don't know if it's the season.

Below is a picture of two topis. The name is cute for Indonesian, topi. K didn't think much of it, but I was like, we don't have that in the zoo! It looks pretty unique with its colouring. Wikipedia just told me that it's vulnerable, aaww that's sad :(

One of the ignorant things I asked K is that if the locals eat the animals. I was even more curious for buffalo because for Asians in this part of the world, at least in Indonesia, this will be seen as food. I guess because it's seen as food, in Asia they can be domesticated. While with the ones in Africa, it is perhaps not possible. Just like the elephants, K said it's interesting that people can ride the elephants in Thailand while African elephants can never be tamed. Look at this buffalo below, it looks quite majestic with its horn curving up. By the way, I did read in a sign back in Amboseli during the lunch in the viewing point that the Maasai do not hunt the animals in the wildlife for food, unless in really severe drought and they do not have food.

At one point, K got us stuck, gosh! What was amazing was other people nearby quickly stopped and helped, without even being asked. They were so kind. It took awhile to get unstuck and it was quite embarrassing for me, but I guess it's one of those things in which I told myself to be cool, everything is fine, chill. It took some effort and as usual my mind quickly ran all over the place, like I was thinking someone would surely give me a ride if it came to that, but then K would have to stay until he's rescued? That's not good. Luckily it didn't come to that, we managed to get free. Anyways, let me end this post with a picture of elephants and a hippo. Looking back at the hippo picture, I wondered where it wandered from.

:) eKa @ 10:00:00 PM •