Kenya

When my parents came to visit, I took them on a safari that goes from Masai Mara and back down to the parks in Tanzania. In August, the migration is pretty much over, and most of the animals are in Masai Mara. The Mara is a much smaller park than the Serengeti, so the high concentration of animals is particularly startling. Driving into in, we saw so many wildebeest, probably several thousand. At one point, we almost saw a river crossing, but the presence of too many cars made it so that they were afraid and did not cross. Clearly tourism is becoming a problem for these animals, and I think they need to restrict the number of tourists that can enter. Perhaps charge more for park entry fees? It is already very expensive, but apparently Cheetahs are starving to death because too many tourists are interrupting their hunting. Sometimes, there are 20 cars gathered around a single animal.

We did see a lot of lions in Masai Mara, the highlight being the lion cubs, which were extremely cute! One was so young, it couldn't even walk properly and was tottering around after its father (who completely ignored it and fell asleep somewhere in the bushes). In the morning, the lions head for the water hole, presumably to wait for animals to come drink--and then the lions kill them and eat them.

Since I was traveling with my parent, we booked nicer accommodations, the tented lodges. They are very nice, and surprisingly comfortable and equipped with flushing toilets and hot showers.

We also went to Amboseli, the National Park close to Kilimanjaro. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy, so we could not see the mountain. However, there were tons of elephants, and the dry desert created the most realistic mirage that I have ever seen. It looked as though far in the distance there was a huge lake, complete with greenery--we could see the reflection of the trees in the water (well, fake water). In the distance, we could also see dust tornados.