Thursday 31 July to Saturday 2 August
An early flight from Amboseli to Mara. These bush flights have no boarding passes, no bag checking, no scanning.
There is a guy with a red flag chasing animals off the runway and Neil did find the business lounge!
The plane arrives in a cloud of dust and taxies to the car park area.
The pilot hops out and sort of checks the passengers off a printed list as they embark.
At Keekorok airstrip we are met by a massai warrior/driver in a 4wd minivan who doesn't seem to know our names but assures us we are to go with him.
Oldarpoi Mara Camp is just the right balance of comfort and value and very well located close to Sekanani gate.
The staff are great, the food is good and there's an okay Chilean sav blanc and single malt whisky at the bar.
Every evening we sit around the Boma fire before dinner.
Our excellent guide is Ken from Keniamara Tours. He takes us into the Mara Reserve every day.
Game is so abundant here. Vast herds of wildebeest and zebra everywhere.
Gazelle,eland,giraffe,warthog, buffalo and elephant.
And multiple lion, cheetah and hyena sightings every day.
We searched the bushy areas for rhino without success. We did see two young leopards in the riverine bush but with quite a few cars around they weren't about to come out into the open. On Saturday we drove to the Mara river hoping to see a mass wildebeest crossing but more on that in a separate post. The Mara is beautiful with vast plains dotted with quintessential umbrella thorn trees.
On Sunday we flew to Nairobi and spent a very restful time at The Norfolk Hotel before heading back to Johannesburg on Monday evening.
