This was to be our last day in Kenya; we left the AA camp at 6 am with our packed breakfasts and lunches. It was a beautiful morning, with several hot air balloons up over the park. We would have to say goodbye to Joseph today and were sad.

Looking at a map, you wouldn’t think the trip to the Serengeti would take all day, but Joseph assured us it would. The closest entry point for Tanzania was Nyamwaga, meaning we had to travel out of the Maasai Mara National Reserve, west to Migori, south to Tarime (Tanzania), on to Nyamwaga for passport control, past Mugumu and Fort Ikoma, and THEN on to Serengeti National Park.

Last Morning in Maasai Mara

We had beautiful weather traveling through the Reserve; clear and chilly. We first saw hyena crossing road, then not further along, a young lion walked up the road toward us. We heard a roar elsewhere and saw another lion coming through the grasses. Both lions joined up and continued walking up the road.

Serval—again! Joseph says it’s unusual to see one, seeing two on one trip is extremely rare. And then we saw a third serval!

We saw many more lions—pairs, solo, prides.

One pair had made a kill; a hyena was lurking nearby…it had managed to take some of the carcass and looked like it was trying to figure out if it could get more.

Then there were the thousands of wildebeests and zebras spread out far and wide, part of great migration.

Tanzania

I’d always heard this country’s name pronounced “Tan-zah-NEE-uh”; turns out, many people, inside and outside the country, say “Tan-ZAN-ee-uh.”

Upon entering Tanzania, we had to sign a ledger book (we found that most establishments, whether lodging or country entry points, used a hard copy ledger system). An officer took each person’s temperature via a forehead thermometer and we entered our temperature in the ledger. Our bags were then scanned and we went through immigration. Our bags were transferred to a Land Rover and our driver Santos introduced himself. We said goodbye to Joseph, sadly, and started on our way through Tanzania to the Serengeti.

We passed many children tending herds of goats and cattle, areas with banana trees, and a gold mining area—one mine here is owned by the government and one is private.

This entire area was much greener, with more flowers including the bright orange flowers of the African tuliptree, cactus and aloe, and yellow thunbergia-type flowers.

We had noticed in Kenya, as in Tanzania, that there were many half-built structures—homes and office buildings alike. We learned that the practice was to save money, build what you can, let the foundations or walls sit, and then save more to build more. Mortgages aren’t really a thing here. We’d also learned that after both countries won their independence from Britain in the early 1960s that the governments deeded land to each citizen. It was still up to each person to save the money to build structures. Newer style homes are right next to traditional round huts. Some of the huts had solar panels.

It was a long, long drive to our accommodations, Akoma tented camp. And I admit, I wasn’t too pleased with the camp at first. It seemed unbelievably remote and at first we thought we were the only guests. It’s funny really, because normally I don’t like many people around, but the lack of people here kind of spooked me. However, it did turn out that there was an Irish couple a few tents along, so that seemed better. Never mind that she was bitten by a scorpion that night…

We were very pleasantly surprised to find that this camp had, hands down, the best food we’d had throughout the trip.

Dinner was an avocado and tomato salad, delicious cream of sweet corn soup, flavorful beef stew with carrots and zucchini, and a caramelized banana with chocolate sauce.

 

 

A delicious stew, sweet corn soup. I never thought I’d enjoy hot soup in a hot climate, but it was just right.