kenya

I am so excited to be writing this post because the African safari that we took just before Christmas was THE COOLEST!!! This is something I have dreamed about for as long as I can remember. I’ve received a lot of questions about the planning process…The first step was to pick a country. We chose Kenya for a few reasons: first, we wanted to go in December, and per the internet, December isn’t the best time of year to do a safari in most of the other countries I was interested in (e.g., South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania), so process of elimination led us to Kenya. Another factor was that we also had plans to visit Cape Town, South Africa on the same trip, so we wanted to make sure the country we did a safari in was located in a totally different region of Africa. Once we picked the country, the second step was to hire a tour company, and then they took care of the rest! Kenya ended up being an amazing choice – we saw so many animals (all of the Big Five and more!) and beautiful landscapes.

We opted for a 5-day safari, which brought us to three different parks. The first park was the most epic – Maasai Mara. It is over 300,000 acres (the same size as the entire city of Los Angeles!) of vast savannah and all of the wildlife you could dream of. As we entered this park on day one, I was almost in tears (of joy). We immediately saw zebras, impalas, topis, warthogs, and so much more. I couldn’t stop snapping pictures while continuously squealing in excitement. Then, about 10 minutes into the first drive, we spotted two female lions! About 30 minutes later, 2 cheetahs!! All of this followed by 4.5 more days of driving and animal spotting! My favorites were elephants and giraffes. We even saw a young leopard attempting to hunt a warthog (he wasn’t successful) as well as so many more lions. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from Maasai Mara!

These cheetahs were looking for food.

We were lucky to see them right at the beginning of the safari, they are usually hard to spot!

Water buffalo are one of the “Big 5” safari animals, but they are everywhere – not difficult to spot these!

This little baby giraffe just kept staring at our car.

The lions were not even phased by the cars pulling up to watch them. If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you!

The male lions were so majestic!

I love how the elephants are always cuddling up against each other.

These two cheetahs were on high alert – our driver told us they were in lion territory, so they were in danger!

We saw SO many zebras.

Giraffes were always curious when we pulled up. None ever came close.

During September/October, wildebeests migrate through Maasai Mara. There were just a few permanent residents left in December for us to see. They are UGLY!

This baby leopard was stalking some warthogs.

When he missed out on his first attempt, he kept looking for more food.

Leopards are such beautiful cats!

Lions were not the most difficult to spot, because they are always sleeping under a tree in the middle of the day. The drivers all know where to look.

I loved all of the giraffes! They didn’t hang in large groups in Maasai Mara.

Hopefully this picture proves how close we were able to get to these guys!

We stopped for a picnic under this tree in the middle of the park. I asked our driver to come sit with us – he said he had to stay standing to watch out for lions. We didn’t stay long!

Pumbas! (aka warthogs)

This huge pride was so cute sleeping in the shade!

There are just single trees scattered throughout the park, so all of the lions have to cuddle close to be in the shade.

It wasn’t often that we saw a lion sitting or standing (they were always asleep), so this sitting female lion was fun to see!

Lions will put their heads up for a quick look when the car pulls up, and then go right back to sleep.

We saw so many parades of elephants on this trip and they were just the cutest.

I fell in love with elephants during a trip to Thailand, and I was so excited to see them again!

Lions were Steve’s favorite!

Ostriches are HUGE

All of the employees of the camps were so friendly and had stories to share. This was our bartender, who grew up in a Maasai village, and had to kill a lion in hand-to-hand combat to become a man (he ended up killing two). Although we don’t condone the killing of innocent animals, Steve HAD to get a picture with him!

The next park we visited was Lake Nakuru. This park is significantly smaller than Maasai Mara, and is a foresty park surrounding a large lake. We chose this park because rhino spotting here is much easier than any other park, and luckily we were able to find a whole family of rhinos! We also saw about 30 giraffes all gathered in one place, which was so amazing. We parked the car right in the middle and just watched them eat for about 20 minutes. They are so beautiful!

There were a ton of zebras gathered at the edge of the lake

This was the one “crash” of rhinos that we spotted on the safari. There was a little baby one that was running around in circles for a few minutes and it was so dang cute.

Once we were far from the wildlife, we were able to step out for a few quick pictures.

Doesn’t Safari Steve play the part well?!

We both loved using the binoculars to get a close up view!

This was where we saw SO many giraffes in one place. Everywhere you looked, you saw more!

Giraffes EVERYWHERE!

Lake Nakuru is known for the abundance of flamingos!

Sunset at Lake Nakuru

The last park was Amboseli. We chose this park for its amazing views of Mount Kilimanjaro (on a clear day, which we unfortunately did not have) as well as the abundance of elephants (my favorite!).

We saw lots of birds at Amboseli. This one was my favorite!

Jackals! They look like pups but they are scavengers and kinda gross.

Sleepy hippos!

This little monkey was cute and funny.

When it’s hot out, elephants use their trunks to scoop dirt onto themselves to keep them cool!

Baby elephants like to hang out under the momma!

There was a small hill in Amboseli that we could climb up for some good views.

We didn’t spot any animals from the top of the hill, but the views were nice!

More hippos!

Hyena, another scavenger.

Sunset at Amboseli.

Our camp had a Maasai show every night, where a local tribe comes and sings/dances.

They invited us up for a traditional “jumping dance.” They jumped absurdly high and I barely left the ground…

The camps we stayed at in each of these locations were also really cool. You essentially get your own “tent,” which has a permanent roof/floor with canvas sides. So, we weren’t “roughing it”, but we could hear all the sounds of the wildlife around us. One of the camps was on a river with a bunch of hippos. They are LOUD and up all night, so we heard them laughing away while we tried to sleep (the sound they make kinda sounds like a laugh…google it!). The camps also all had pools so that we could relax when we weren’t out driving.

SO, have I convinced you all to go on a safari yet?! Seriously, it was probably my favorite thing I’ve ever done. I grew up going to the zoo, but seeing these animals in their natural habitat was so much more epic and amazing. I can’t wait to do it again (someday…)!!