A nighttime game allows you to enter into a nocturnal Mara. The expanse of the Mara is blanketed in darkness and every noise is enhanced as it ripples through the silence.
The windowless vehicles add a touch of excitement and fear to the journey. Everything is turned upside down on its head as you see the animals that laze during the day become alive at night. A bit like me when I was 13 and couldn’t manage to sleep till 3am.
We saw a school of hippos travelling, compared to their sojourn in the hippo lake at breakfast. They follow the very same track and know when there’s another on their route. I managed to find out that hippos are related to dolphins and whales, not elephants as many are said to believe. Fact of the day.
Hyenas were also prancing around in all their assumed authority. A natural trait of the hyena is to wait until other animals like leopards make their kill then steal it. This is generally why in the Mara once a leopard’s got its food, it will drag it up a tree and feast there, away from hyenas.
We also managed to have a tire puncture in the middle of this wonderful animal kingdom. Meaning we were stuck, fixing a tire and if a lion, cheetah or leopard came along there’d be nothing we could do but hope and be amazed. M
With all of our luck we saw something spectacular that not even the rangers had experienced. We saw a lion roar out for its pride and then there was a roar back from the pride across a lake. With only torch lights to show us where the lions were, it was a surreal experience. Once found, the lion swam across with haste and when together they started to play together. It was a beautiful sight and watching them play around like kids was an experience on its own.
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