On The Road With The YaYa's

July 24, 2026

Experiencing the Maasai Mara

We left Nairobi at 6:00 AM in the morning for a 45 minute flight to Maasai Mara in a plane that sat 12 people. A surprising smooth flight and beautiful scenery.

Upon landing on a dirt runway I meet with a special guide that I met 3 years ago. The details were discussed in a previous post. We began our game drive even before we checked into our hotel. Unless you have been on a safari you will not understand the significance of this. Within 1 hour we saw 4 out of 5 of the Big Five. We first saw the elephant in the same vicinity of a leopard up in a tree. We circled back several times to see this leopard during the day and for most of the time we only saw his tail wagging as he was gorging on a gazelle that he had dragged up to the tree. The picture below was taken at the end of the day. What a reward!

Most rewarding for me was the sighting of a black rhino. A real sighting, not just looking through the binoculars and saying you saw a black dot. I think our guides were as excited as we were.

Note to self: Both black and white rhinos are grey. The prevailing story is that when the British asked the native tribes people what kind of rhino it was they thought they heard the word “white” rather than the word “wide” for the shape of the mouth.

A majestic female who was head of the herd.

She is shown with her baby on the previous day. If a baby can fit underneath his mother’s belly he is less than 2 years old.

You can’t be out in the bush all day long without tea and crumpets and a potty break. Our guide calls it tea and pee break.

Funny thing happened at our potty break that usually occurs behind the jeep. Four girls squatting down and another jeep comes up towards us! We were laughing so hard we were crying. You have never seen a potty break stop so fast.

Where we are staying:

On day two our quest was to see a lion to complete the Big 5. We hit it out of the ball park.

The lioness completely oblivious to all the jeeps watching.

Lunch today was under a shaded acacia tree. A gourmet lunch provided by the lodge included a chicken, beef, pasta and vegetable dishes in addition to rice, salads and assorted fruits. The pasta dish was still warm.

Before dinner we were all honored by our guide, Josh, in his Maasai warrior garb. We learned that boys are circumcised between the ages of 13 and 15 under no anesthesia. The procedure is watched by the elders and if the boy so much as flinches he will be immediately ostracized from the community. It is felt that if they can’t be brave enough for this that they can’t be brave enough to protect the cows from lions. After this they enter their warrior years. Years ago this meant living on their own for 5 to 7 years with boys their age with the goal of killing a lion. They lived off the land and grew their hair long. When they completed the task they returned to the village, were celebrated and now were able to marry. All marriages are arranged although in modern times, as in Josh, he met his wife at work, but all 4 parents had to agree on the marriage. A dowry of cows was paid.