The magic of a Kenyan safari

By Kelly Watkins

That elephant, and the rest of his herd, had come to drink at the watering hole behind our hotel, the Serena Mountain Lodge.

The elephants didn't just guzzle some water and leave. They stayed and played for hours.

Maybe I was wrong, but I believed they were staging their elaborate performance just for my benefit.

Later, while unpacking in my hotel room, I came face-to-face with another creature. Luckily, a window separated me from the Sykes monkey. He was playing on the second-storey ledge outside my room. James, our guide from All Seasons Safaris, reminded us to keep the windows closed, or the monkeys would 'help us unpack.'

As our first adventure, the two-hour wildlife walk offered by the Serena Mountain Lodge turned out to be a great investment. The walk itself was quite an experience. It is not every day you take a walk with an armed escort. It was a stark reminder that this wasn't the zoo. We were in the animal's natural habitat. The 'wild' image was distorted just a bit when they served tea in the middle of the forest. But, no one complained.

At dinner, the Serena staff visited each table with a checklist of animals that were typically hard to spot. We selected the ones we wanted to see. The watering hole was only 20 metres from the hotel. Every room had a perfect view. The hole was lit with floodlights all night. So, if any of the animals on your list were spotted, someone would knock on your door. All you had to do was roll out of bed and take a few steps to the window. Unfortunately, no leopards or hyenas appeared that night.

However, many other animals visited all day and night. I awoke about 1:00 am and walked to the window, where I stood for some time, just staring at the nocturnal animals as they went about their business. It was so tranquil - not eerie, but peaceful. It was a quieting, calming feeling.

The Serena Mountain Lodge also offers a view of Mt. Kenya, the second highest mountain in Africa. The local Wakamba tribe thought the snow and rock speckled mountain top resembled an ostrich's tail feathers, so they named it Kiinyaa. One of the early European explorers changed the spelling, and it eventually became Kenya.

With great reluctance we left the Serena Mountain Lodge, and Mt. Kenya quickly became a small dot in our rearview mirror. Our departure was bittersweet, since we were headed for more adventures in Kenya.

Masai Mara Reserve

On a wildlife safari in Kenya, the afternoon game drives are hot. The morning drives are cold. Everything is dusty. The non-existent roads are rough and jarring. There are no restrooms, no snack shops, and no mobile phone signals. And...I didn't care! The wildlife was so fantastic that I didn't notice the discomforts.

We were still miles from the Masai Mara National Reserve when small herds of grazing cattle began to appear in the distance. Amidst the quietly standing cattle were...zebras. They were calmly munching grass, as if they were all the best of friends.

After one particularly long game drive in the Masai Mara, it was beyond time to return to camp. Instead, James, our fantastic guide, suggested we take one last detour - to check on the lions we had spotted earlier. Sure enough. There they slept. We were two metres from a pride of lions!

I am not a morning person. The morning we took the balloon ride with the Skyship Company, we awoke at 4:00 am. As my grit-filled eyes struggled to open and my aching muscles, sore from bouncing along rutted roads, screamed - I was wondering if it was worth it. It was!

The balloon liftoff was so gentle I didn't even realize we had left the ground. We sailed just a few metres off the ground. It was such a different perspective to see the animals from above. A few gazelles were skittish, but most animals ignored us. We were at eye-ball level with the ever-curious giraffes. The young ones would gaze directly at us.

As the balloon rose higher, we had a view of the vast bush - it was endless. We could see all the way to the Serengeti in Tanzania. Without that viewpoint, I never would have understood how the Mara River winds and turns back on itself. It resembled a slightly warped, uncoiled spring. Apparently, the hippos didn't care about the shape of the river. There were pods of them in every bend, happily rolling in the shallow water.

'Roughing it'

Our balloon pilot, Gelbart, said, 'It's a great job. I get to make people smile.' And, yes, I was doing a lot of smiling. And the joy continued even after we landed. The Skyship Company hired a professional chef to cook breakfast. It was such a pleasant paradox to sit in the middle of the wild bush, eating off china plates and drinking from crystal glasses. That was my idea of 'roughing it.'

On another early morning (ugh!) game drive, James found a cheetah lazily resting in the shade of a bush. She occasionally swatted flies with her tail, but otherwise she didn't move.

Throughout the trip, our eyes were eagerly searching for an elusive leopard. They hang out in trees. In fact, a leopard can leap into a tree while holding its kill in its mouth.

When we returned to camp that evening, we discovered a leopard had been spotted at the edge of camp. Our tent was also located at the edge of camp. How ironic; we spent all day hoping to see a leopard, and we spent all night hoping NOT to see one.

People keep asking me - what is the key to a successful safari trip? The answer - don't share the van with strangers! I love meeting new people. We met lots of people at meals, around the hotels, etc. But, this was my dream vacation, and I didn't want to miss something important to me just because a stranger wanted to do something else. The best thing I did was let All Seasons Safaris design a private safari for us. We were the only people in our van for the entire week-long trip.

By the end of the journey, I was accustomed to seeing exotic wildlife. Although I no longer reached for my camera as we passed each grazing giraffe or graceful gazelle, I also never grew complacent. Seeing such majestic animals in their natural habitat never lost its magic.