Friday, February 24, 2012

Thursday, Feb 23rd, Massai Mara Sopa Lodge

Greetings!

Yesterday was such a great safari day, and I can't believe we'll ever see lions in the same way again. We've been counting up the different big five and other animals, but never seeing lions until now. Two of our friends were leaving on Saturday, and the whole crew was hoping we would see a lion by then.

And then, just like you imagined lions to act, they brought their regality to the scene. Okay, we did see five lazing around together last night. But that really wasn't like seeing them hunt, or watching a baby lion sleep peacefully on top of its parents. You want prides hanging out together, we'll give you piles of them under a tree. You want hunting parties sneaking around a bunch of water buffalos. It's been great.

Though we didn't see a cheetah, we've been fortunate enough to get up close a personal with almost 80% of the animals and 70% of the featured birds in two good books we'd recommend. I'm hoping they can be purchased on Amazon, because they've made good spotting tools. The titles are "Jonathan Scott's Safari Guide to East African Animals", and "Jonathan Scott's Safari Guide to East African Birds", both revised and updated by Angela Scott.

The Massai Mara Sopa Lodge stay was perfect, perched against a mountain in the heart of the National Reserve. The Reserve goes on forever, and is only second to the Serengeti in size on the continent. Those members of the group who chose to lift off at 5am today aboard a hot air balloon were given a great birds eye view of its many tribal compounds, and of its huge expanse. The rest of us slept in, and joined them near an airstrip before lunch. And all of its come away from the wildlife safari adventure with a day we will all remember forever.

One apology. Yes, there are probably too many photos of the animals we saw today. But it is so hard to choose which ones to delete, and it seemed important to us that you get the movement of them. So you'll just have to endure the flood of them today.

Gregory



















To see the photos taken today, click on: Thursday, Feb 23rd, Massai Mara Sopa Lodge

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