HOLYCRAP!HOLYCRAP!HOLYCRAP!HOLYCRAP!...

WARNING: This blog entry contains graphic pictures of awesome stuff, including blood and things dying. Don't look at them if you don't want to see cute animals getting killed by other cute animals.

But first things first. I just got back from the Masai Mara national park for a two-day safari. Here's how it all went down:

Right now the great migration is going on. The zebras started a few weeks ago, and are still moving through the area, and are currently being joined by the buffalo. This is pretty impressive to see, because there are something like 250,000 wildebeast moving through the area right now. That almost makes up for how ugly they are (but now quite). There are still tens of thousands of zebras around as well.

We got there in time for the evening game drive on Wednesday night. We were able to find a lioness and a cub. They're beautiful and everything, but they don't make for exciting viewing in the evening. We watched them sit there and yawn for about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, there were about 50,000 tourists just like this one surrounding them, so it was difficult to get a decent picture of them without a van behind them. I did manage to get this one though.


That was about all we saw that evening. The next morning, we got a sluggish start. Our guides told us we didn't need to get going until 8:00. I'm still not sure why they did that, but nobody complained because it meant we got to sleep, and considering that we just finished finals, nobody complained much. Unfortunately, the big predators do most of their hunting in the morning. So we missed the prime part of the day.

We did spot a bunch of vultures circling around, so we headed over. On the way, our driver spotted the cheetahs. There were three of them, and they still had blood on their faces. They just kind of hung out there before walking right past our vans. It was pretty cool to see how little fear they had of getting close to the vans.



This turned out to be a lot cooler of a picture than I thought it might be. Just goes to show that you never know which ones are going to be the really cool ones.


We were headed to the River Mara, where the wildebeast cross every morning. Owing to our late start, and our van bending an axle on a bump, we got to the river after the wildebeast had crossed it for the day. That was unfortunate because there are a lot of crocodiles in the river, and they take out wildebeast fairly regularly there, and I was really, really hoping to see one of those ugly suckers get taken down. So we missed all that action. But we did see about 40 hippos there.


There are a couple of points of interest. One, the hippos. Two, the prolific amount of bubbles coming up about 1.5 meters behind the head of the hippo. Fortunately nobody lit a match then. It could have been catastrophic. The other cool thing is the two crocodiles behind the hippos sunning themselves. The more obvious one was probably around 12 feet long. The one that looks like a log was huge. They didn't move a bit the whole time, so we never got to see how long the big one was, but it had to be around 18-20 feet long. It was amazing. I would have loved to see one of those chomp a wildebeast. Oh well...


At this point, we were in the middle of a very hot day, and the animals don't move around much when it's hot, so we headed back to eat lunch while the animals were lying down to get out of the sun, and come back out in the evening when they're more active. This marked the river crossing. I thought it was kind of a cool shot.


This is what happens if you put sunscreen on, and then stand up in a safari vehicle on a dusty road behind another vehicle.


This one is one of my most prized photographs from the whole summer. It's of a guy we named Herman the German. He had a blossoming spikey mullet. It was choice. I thought it was funny, so I decided to take a picture of him as our van drivers below us were talking to each other. What I didn't anticipate was my flash going off in his face. He gave me a dirty look after taking the picture, and everyone in our van laughed.


Later on, we caught up to a couple of males hanging out on a huge rock outcropping. It was awesome to sit and watch them, but it was overcast, and nearing twilight, and we were looking into the sun, so it was difficult to get the light to cooperate with us. I managed to get a couple of OK photos, but nothing to scream about.


There were killer skylines everywhere you looked. It was seriously amazing.


So the next morning, we got out and on the road at 6:30. Some of our group had to catch a plane later on that afternoon, so we didn't have a lot of time to deal with, but it was a last ditch effort to see something get killed. We saw a ton of buffalo, but no word of anything getting killed. Then, as our driver was heading in to take the people to the airport, a call came in on the CB, and he flipped around and started driving like a mad man. He didn't tell us what was going on, but when he drove probably 45 miles an hour over a wash board road, I figured there was something worth seeing.

This was the first thing I saw when I got there. There were about 15 lions that I saw in total. The older lionesses had wounded the zebra, and were letting the younger lions hone their hunting skills on it. That allowed the zebra to stay standing for a lot longer than usual, and allowed us to see a kill in process.



They had taken a pretty sizeable chunk out of its hind quarter. Half of the time the younger lions were trying to eat more than they were trying to kill it. Zebras have it rough. Particularly this one.



Unfortunately, my battery died right after I took this photo. There was lots more cool stuff going on, but I didn't have any battery left to get it. I did get some decent video footage, and maybe once I'm back in the states with a decent intronet connection, I'll put the video on here. Until then, trust me when I say it was awesome.

Also unfortunate was that we didn't have much time because of the people that had to catch their stupid flight. We did get to watch for about 10 minutes, but then we had to head back. I'm glad I got to see what I did see, but I was in the middle of seeing one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and had to leave before it got good. 5 minutes after we left, they took it down and finished the job. 10 minutes after that, they started hunting another zebra. I don't know if that hunt was succesful or not. But our other van did get to stay back because nobody in that van had to catch a flight. I kicked myself pretty hard because I started to get on the van without people for the airport first thing in the morning, but changed my mind at the last second. So they got a front row seat to a pride of lions finishing off a zebra, and starting to eat. To say I was a little jealous would be the understatement of the year.

So those are some of the highlites. Unfortunately, those don't really begin to show how amazing of a plaze it really is. The only way to appreciate it is to see it yourself. So call your travel agent... Seriously though, if you get a chance, Masai Mara is NOT to be missed.

So my Africa trip will be over in a few days. I'll be back in the states soon, and back to not having anything all that cool to blog about, unless you like hearing about what a second year law student is studying, in which case, consult professional help.

I'll be seeing some of you soon.