Safari's End: Lions, and Cheetahs, and Cubs - Oh my!

After Lake Naivasha we spent the rest of the safari at the incomparable Massai Mara national park. We had been feeling self-satisfied with all the great hippo spotting we had done at the lake, so you can imagine our surprise when we discovered that right behind our lodge in the middle of the park was another watering hole . . . and it was filled with hippopotami! But our previous enthusiasm wasn't too deflated because this meant that we actually got to see them at all times of day, getting into and out of the water, sleeping, waking, eating, etc. At the watering hole, we also found our first crocodile, some buffalo, zebras, and gazelles. Oh, and did we mention that there was a bar on an elevated platform out there? At the end of the day we could relax and be refreshed just like all the other animals that were looking for a drink.

Massai Mara was bigger and better than we could have imagined. After the previous day's game drives, we were blown away at the variety and abundance of wildlife that just went on for miles and miles.

The stars of our last days on safari were definitely the lions and cheetahs. On our way into the park we found a lioness sleeping just a few feet from the road! The next morning we found a female on the hunt. She was injured and looked hungry. We stayed around to watch her for almost an hour. Later that day we heard there was a fresh kill and went out to check it out. That was when we saw our first male lion, there were two grown males in this pride, and then three large females, and three babies. We watched the whole patriarchal feeding cycle unfold:

• females hunt and kill the zebra
• alpha male eats his fill
• other males eat their fill
• then the females get to eat
• and then the babies

We sat and watched this scene for much longer than I could really take. . . I think E enjoyed that part much more than I did . . .

We also found a serval that afternoon. He was hanging down by a stream, and when we spotted him and pulled up close, he just hunkered down and seemed to pray that we would go away. Closing his eyes like "if I don't see you, then you can't see me." We left him be after a bit.

Later we found another pride of lions lounging in the shade after eating. Right next to them was a big family of elephants, but neither seemed bothered by the other's presence. That was cool to see.

The cheetahs stole the show, though. We were out looking for them when we spotted a male cheetah coming up the road in front of us. We had just passed a trail of wildebeest completing their migration, so we figured where he was headed and turned to follow him. We pulled up near the end of the wildebeest group and watched this scene unfold:

Yeah! Mama power!

Then we left the cheetah to try his luck with some other game and continued on our way. A bit farther down the road we found the mama cheetah and her three cubs. They were sooooo cute. They had like fully body mohawks. I couldn't get enough of them, and they kept posing for our camera.

The rest of the time in the Mara we cruised for elephants, found another serval cat, did some giraffe spotting, and were just generally blown away by the vast expanses of savanna. Everywhere we turned it was just . . . beautiful. We never did see a leopard, but as we drove away, we said that that would just give us a good excuse to come back some day. Amazing.