African Safari
abass mohammed@mohammedabass484730
27 days ago
A further 100 miles brought us to the samburu game reserve and larsens camp, On the bank of the uaso Nyiro river.
This was our favourite.
The camp teemed with monkeys and birds.
This was the marvellous, the staffs are outstanding, and as we ate superb buffet lunch on our side of the river a family of elephant joined us across the water. we also had our best game drives from here. We saw a pride of lions sleeping off on enormous lunch by the river, a cheetah dozing under a tree as her three club played a high-speed game in the bush, huge numbers of elephant, giraffe, zebra, oryx, impala and gazelle, rare species such as eland and kudu, enormous crocodile lurking at the brown water's edge and scores of bird species.
After two night at larsens we headed in broad arc some 400 miles to the southwest to the greatest masai mara reserve on the tanzanian border. Given the state of the roads. some so bad given that drivers by common consent leave them, and make parallel course through the fields to either side - an overnight stop was Lake Navaisha.
But there was no time to linger there and admire the birds. We all wanted to push on mara in the hope catching one of greatest wildlife shows on earth - 1.5 million widebeest and zebra regrouping to the return journey of their annual migration from the serengeti to find fresh grazing.
Basing ourselves at the gloriously sited Kichwa Tembo camp on the northern edge of the park, we set out with David early next morning to spend the whole day on the reserve.
During the plains are littered with bleached bones as the gluttonous big cats gorge on the endless supply of fresh meat. Soon our binoculars picked out what David's eyes had already seen - that the irregular lines and blotches of shadow far in the distance, on the plain below the escarment, were in reality moving columns of widebeest heading for a crossing point on the mara river.
We arrive with them, and watched spellbound as tumbling cascade of frantic animals slithered and slipped down the banks and plunged and reared their way across the fast-flowing brown waters, while crocodiles and vultures lay in wait downstream for the casualties.
