We had high expectations for our last half day in the Mara. We still hadn’t seen a cheetah or rhino.....and since others at our lodge had seen both the day before, we were determined to make it happen! Sonia and I spent most of the morning on our feet scouting out the area but the only new find were a few hyenas (cool but not cool enough). Our driver found a lion eating a kill...which under normal circumstances would be amazing....but we couldn’t be bothered with that today. We needed to see cheetahs and rhinos!
After an hour or so of looking for the illusive rhino, Sonia and I told Emmanuel we were giving up and wanted to find the cheetahs. After another hour or so of hardly seeing an animal, everyone was in a dark, depressed state. The car was completely silent (that’s saying something with 6 New Yorkers in the car). Poor Emmanuel was stressed because he knew we were very discouraged. He promised us we would see a cheetah if we kept looking. Just when we were ready to call it quits, we noticed several cars stopped and Emmanuel assured us it was a Cheetah sighting...and he was right!!! We saw a mama cheetah with 2 cubs!! They were adorable. After we left that sighting, we came across another mama cheetah and a cub. It was amazing how in a matter of seconds we were filled with complete happiness and joy! Talk about highs and lows!
After seeing the Cheetahs, we decided to try one more time to see a rhino. We had a good laugh about how discouraged and grumpy we were and promised Emmanuel we wouldn’t get upset if we didn’t end up seeing a rhino. He was a good sport and tried his hardest to find a rhino but unfortunately that never happened. Side note: we eventually found out that there are only about 20 rhinos in the Mara...so it’s nearly impossible to see them in the Mara. After finding this out we started calling them fat unicorns.
Also, Milca had decided that she needed to a have a hot breakfast (not the nasty hardboiled egg, cold sausage, and bread breakfasts we had been eating during our game drives) so she opted to go on a game drive with the hotel and then return for breakfast. At one point during the hotel safari, they took her to see the Cheetahs. They said, “Oh look, that’s Mikayla. She’s a friendly Cheetah”......and then Mikayla jumped on the back of a jeep and posed for pictures. Granted, the picture was stunning...but after hearing this story....I’m convinced that the rhino everyone saw the day before was another “Mikayla”. Planted and ready to put on a show!
Well, that pretty much wraps up our rookie safari experience. It was unbelievable, amazing, incredible, and life changing!!! Let it be known that I WILL RETURN TO THE MARA FOR ANOTHER SAFARI EXPERIENCE SOME DAY!!!
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