"Amazing Maasai Mara" a Masai Mara Game Reserve Travel Page by Krumel

After having been to Sweetwaters, Tsavo and Amboseli before I thought the Maasai Mara would just be another park like the others, but I was very wrong. Just the sheer expanse of the plains is absolutely breathtaking, when you look down from an escarpment, and the scenery just keeps on changing from rivers with fever trees, to dense bushlands and open plains, and the hazy shape of mountains in the far distance.

Animals are everywhere, and we saw many hippos, big herds of wildebeest, lots and lots of lions, and even found a cheetah. Sometimes you could sit just in one place for an hour and watch, for some many things were happening at the same time

Like when we came across a pride of lions that were just finishing off feeding on a kill, and a jackal and some marabou storks were already lurking nearby to get their share. It was hilarious to watch the jackal trying to sneak up to the carcass while eyeing the lions all the time, and dashing away again when one of them as much as twitched an ear. At the same time just a couple of metres away there was a large family of mongoose emerging from a hole in the ground and starting to sun themselves. When the jackal went over to investigate them they all huddled together to form one big mongoose-bunch and stared at him, and they actually managed to scare the jackal away. And while all this was happening, a large wildebeest herd appeared and calmly ambled past us.