Kenya 2024: Long grasses, lazy lions, lounging leopards - but where’s the action?

[Zubbie15]

In February 2024 our family returned to Kenya, the second visit to Africa for our kids (8 and 6 at the time).  We’ve really turned them into safari-holics at a young age!  Our trip was organized for us by The Wild Source, after they organized a highly successful safari in November 2022 for my wife and I (I wrote a report that you can find on ST, for any that might have missed it).  After some discussions within the family, we decided to keep things relatively uncomplicated, so we ended up with the following itinerary:

 

Overnight in Nairobi at the Four Points

Fly to Mara North, then spend 4 nights at Offbeat Mara

Road transfer to Olare Motorogi, with 3 nights at Porini Lion

Road transfer to Naboisho, with 4 nights at Naboisho Camp

Fly back to Nairobi, then 36 hours at the Emakoko

 

So we basically just stayed in the Greater Mara area for the bulk of the trip, which I will say made me wonder if it would be too much of the same for the kids but they really enjoyed it. We did choose Naboisho Camp mostly for the fact that it had a pool, which allowed the kids a lot of hours of fun after lunch, but I'll talk more about the camps later on.

 

I think overall we had a really successful trip, although the El Nino weather pattern meant there had been a lot of rain (and we got to experience our fair share during our stay).  This meant that the grasses were very long, even buffalos were disappearing in locations when they were lying down.  We also didn't have a lot of luck (hence the title) at seeing action - I remember @Zim Girlwriting in a previous report about searching out "stuff doing stuff," and I would say that we did have fairly lengthy stretches where this was a challenge.  The title "where's the action" comes from something my son said roughly midway through the trip, essentially "I want action!".  

 

To whet your appetite, here are a few of my favorite photos from the trip:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[janzin]

gorgeous photos to start! Action isn't everything...but I guess for kids it's even more critical. Looking forward to the report!

[michael-ibk]

Top teaser photos, the Topi especially is a real stunner. Looking forward to the report.

[Zubbie15]

thanks @janzin, very true although it's nice to have some variety over animals sitting and walking around, regardless of your age. 

 

@michael-ibk, appreciate the kind words.  It was our sixth time in the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, and I made a concerted effort to try to finally get a topi photo that I liked.  I actually came away with a few that I think aren't too bad.  

[Atdahl]

Consider my appetite fully "whetted"...

[KaliCA]

@Zubbie15Your teaser pictures are stunning and I’m “game” to travel with you and your surely well-behaved kids. I have read reports on a German forum how the tall grass presented some challenges this year in the Mara. But to have a Buffalo disappear in tall grass? Must have been an experience. 
looking forward to your report 

 

[TravelMore]

We are going in September so I'm especially eager to hear and see more!  Lots more!  Great pics!

[madaboutcheetah]

Can't wait to hear more!!!  That sounds like an epic Mara itinerary! and Emakoko - Hope you went on drive in the Nairobi national park with Rihaz. 

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @Atdahl, @KaliCA, @TravelMoreand @madaboutcheetah for the comments and for following along!

 

@madaboutcheetah, we did not have a chance to go out with Rihaz, our guide was Elizaban (spelling?).  He told us he had been with the Emakoko from the time it opened, and he really did seem to have a good knowledge of the park.  Our goal was essentially to get our fill of rhinos, and he did a good job of delivering that for us.  But that's getting much too far ahead of ourselves. 

[Zubbie15]

I always start these reports with some logistics, so let’s get those out of the way, maybe with some words about the travel itself. I’m a bit of a plane travel geek, so if that’s not your thing maybe skip ahead.  We live just outside of Boston, and historically we have found that our kids, and in particular our younger daughter, really struggle a bit with jetlag the first few days.  So we decided to take advantage of the morning flight from British Airways that goes Boston to Heathrow, which then gave us ~14 hours in London to sleep at the Sofitel by Terminal 5 before continuing our trip.  This really worked well for us, and is something we’ll continue in the future - I highly recommend this if it is an option for others from North America, even if it does add the cost of an extra hotel.  

 

Our flights between Nairobi and London were on an A350, the first time I’d been on one of that type of plane.  They were quite comfortable I have to say, the two issues was BA really didn’t give us much food, and on our flight to Nairobi we were sitting underneath the overhead bins that hold the materials to attach bassinets to the bulkhead. This wasn’t great because I had to put my big camera bag 10 rows behind me, upon arrival in Nairobi I ran and pushed my way back pretty quickly!  It would have been nice if there was some type of note on BA’s website… We got to test the fancy new electronics of the A350 on our return to London, as it was sufficiently foggy that we were told we were going to land on fully automatic mode.  All went well, but it wasn’t the most confidence inspiring when we were told that we had to put away everything handheld (books, phone, tablets) as soon as we started our descent at 30K+ feet.  

 

One last thing to mention, during our travel period (and it seems to still be the case as I write this) planes weren’t flying over Sudan due to the civil war. This typically meant planes were heading further east, and coming over Greece and Egypt and the Red Sea.  For some reason on our day instead we headed due south over Spain, then head east over Algeria, Chad, Uganda, etc.  It was an interesting deviation, I have to admit a small part of me was worried the flight computer destination was wrong!  On the way back, we went the more common route, and eventually drifted over Saudi Arabia.  Since I don’t sleep well on planes, it was interesting to watch the bright lights of SA pass underneath.

 

Congrats to anyone that read all that... here are a few pictures as a reward. 

 

 

 

[Zubbie15]

Since it’s often a question that comes up, a quick word on camera equipment.  We ended up taking three Canon R5 cameras (one owned, two rented).  On those we had mounted a Canon RF 400mm f/2.8 (my main camera), a Canon RF 100-500 (my wife’s camera) and a RF 70-200mm f/2.8 (backup camera and for wider shots).  Our son had his bridge camera, and my daughter a GoPro for videos.  Fairly early in the trip my daughter decided the GoPro wasn’t good enough for her, which led to most of the remainder of the trip the two kids sharing the camera with the 70-200.  It wasn’t the end of the world, but limited my ability to take wider shots at times.

 

 

One kind of odd situation happened at Offbeat Mara.  Our guide and tracker had an extensive habit of grabbing our “extra” camera for themselves to take pictures with.  I was generous in thinking they wanted to help us out, while my wife thought they were looking to play with the fancy “toy.”  It wasn’t the end of the world, but they didn’t know how to use the camera so none of the pictures were in focus, so just a lot of deleting.  The worst part was one morning we had a brief leopard sighting, and while I was trying to take photos our tracker was trying to get me to help him fix the settings on the camera.  I was rather short with him at that time, I definitely wasn't stopping to take photos to help him out!

 

One other note as I get started on the report, for some reason the processed files from this trip are all mixed up and not in chronological order.  I'm not sure what I did, but this may mean some random photos get in out of order.  Oh well, I'll do my best!

[Zubbie15]

Ok, with that out of the way, let's start all of the way at Mara North.  Our trip there was surprisingly easy - minimal Monday morning traffic in Nairobi somehow, nobody weighed my camera backpack, and we were the first stop off the plane!  So life was good, and we were back on safari.  We didn't see much worth photographing on the way to camp, although we did take a brief detour to some bushes to see a few random limbs of some sleeping lions.   So we got ourselves settled in at Offbeat Mara, had lunch and relaxed, before heading out for the afternoon drive.  Initially things were rather quiet, because it was quite hot. We were impressed at how bumpy the roads were from recent rains.  

 

Eventually we came across a small breeding herd of elephants, and spent a bit of time with them.  My daughter is a huge fan of any baby animals, and they had a couple of really small babies in the herd, but while they seemed comfortable in our presence they clearly shielded the youngsters from us. 

 

 

 

 

Once we were satisfied and they had moved on, we did the same ourselves before quickly finding our first giraffes of the trip. 

 

[Towlersonsafari]

I do like your Cat photos-and how you got them all-apart from the cheetah-to slightly raise one paw!  looking forward to the rest of your report @Zubbie15

[Biko]

that’s rather weird - a guide grabbing and using your camera. Very unpolite, to put it mildly. 

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @Towlersonsafari, the high-speed of current cameras certainly allows you to pick from a variety of poses, I guess the one leg up pose appeals to me.

 

@Biko, yes it was kind of odd.  I really do think they were trying to be helpful, but it was rather interesting especially when they were asking how to adjust the camera!  I probably should have told them to stop, but my Canadian politeness didn't allow it (and to be fair whenever I needed the camera it was quick to get it back from them). 

[Zubbie15]

Eventually we located the Offbeat pride of lions, who at the time were still doing their best rock impressions by all lying around.  Luckily they were out in the open, and as the sun started going down they became active. We remained with them until it was completely dark, enjoying their antics even though by the end it was hard to see much of what was going on.  Here's a minor lion photo dump!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[janzin]

Wow, a guide or tracker grabbing one's camera without first asking permission is definitely out of line. In fact I'm not even crazy about a guide using his own camera, unless they are very cautious about not being in the way and not in any way interfering with a sighting. I would have put my foot down about that in no uncertain terms. Honestly I've never heard of such a thing happening on safari!

 

Your daughter looks like a pro photographer already

[Atravelynn]

"Where's the action?" could be the Quote of the Trip!  The action was the photographer(s) choosing the proper settings, composing and snapping.  Lovely shots.  We all like your topi.

 

Your actions with the camera grabbing guide were fine and hopefully conveyed an important message. 

Edited June 25 by Atravelynn

[John M.]

6 hours ago, janzin said:

Wow, a guide or tracker grabbing one's camera without first asking permission is definitely out of line. In fact I'm not even crazy about a guide using his own camera, unless they are very cautious about not being in the way and not in any way interfering with a sighting. I would have put my foot down about that in no uncertain terms. Honestly I've never heard of such a thing happening on safari!

 

 

   What a strange situation. Somebody or something in the past must have encouraged the guide/tracker to think that was OK.

   Our experiences were ones of teamwork and companionship, no need to discuss do's and dont's with any of our guides. For example, one  helped me when I needed a heavy lens in a hurry; another time, I operated the spotlight so the guide could concentrate on the steering wheel at night; and my wife and her guide exchanged letters months later about his progress with photography.

   I'm sure such small things have enhanced the trips of many STers. I'm gobsmacked by your experience @Zubbie15

[HeatherY]

Wonderful shots so far and can’t wait to see what follows. I’ll patiently wait to hear about your time at Lion Camp, which started the day we left. 

[Biko]

I love your lion pictures, they arouse in me a feeling of longing to return to the Mara ecosystem with it’s numerous prides

[TonyQ]

An excellent start, beautiful Lion photos!

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @janzin, @Atravelynn, @John M., @HeatherY, @Biko and @TonyQ for the comments. 

 

Just to clarify a bit about the use of the camera, what would happen is we would stop at a sighting, and after we got set up if they noticed that there was a "free" camera at that point they would offer to take photos with it.  So it wasn't as if they were depriving us of a camera, there might have been a few times where I might have considered switching from the 400 to the 70-200 to try something out and didn't bother asking for the camera back.  The main issue for me was really the fact that we obviously have our cameras set up we want (I use dual back button focusing, and shoot in full manual using the viewfinder histogram to adjust ISO and/or shutter speed as needed).   That's certainly not the way most people are setting up their cameras, so they didn't really know how to adjust settings or to focus, so we ended up with a lot of out of focus shots.  So for example with the leopard in the morning, the last time I had used that camera was after dark the night before and I hadn't readjusted it, so all the photos were horribly overexposed due to the ISO being too high, and they didn't know how to change it.  At more sedate sightings I would change things for them as needed.   As John says, I really think this was a situation of previous guests requiring help from them, and this leading their attempts to help us use a camera that wasn't otherwise being used.  But maybe I need to have a little more New York in me, like Janet! 

[Zubbie15]

I'll be able to get through the next day pretty quickly, it was a lot of searching without much luck.  Not far from camp a mother giraffe staring into some bushes and barking jackals made us sure a leopard was in there, but extensive searching didn't produce anything.   Then we headed over to where the river pride was expected to be, but again extensive searching led to nothing but us getting stuck in some mud and waiting half an hour for rescue.  Breakfast was by the Mara River, where we watched a very young hippo sunbathe (somehow, I don't have any photos).  Returning back across the conservancy, we really didn't see much.  

 

My wife developed a headache during the morning (for anyone who's followed my reports over the years, she always gets a migraine on one day of any trip - this one just hit early!), so the afternoon drive was just me and the kids.  There were extremely dark clouds everywhere but right above us, along with strong winds, which made the animals rather scarce.  We did see some giraffes under a rainbow while searching for the leopard Ndoto, but she didn't show.  Not too far from that area we found the Offbeat Pride.  One of the older females, Kiki, had three young cubs, and they were out but hard to see in the long grasses.  And... that was it for the day, back to camp in the dark with lightning all around. 

 

Impala in the early morning light

 

Another topi image I am quite fond of...

 

Giraffes with rainbow, unfortunately we couldn't get a great angle.  The storm clouds are quite obvious here.

 

One of Kiki's cubs showing through the grass

 

Mom and baby, about the best the situation allowed us unfortunately. 

[Zubbie15]

Maybe this is a good time for a brief interlude about our first camp, Offbeat Mara.   It's a nice little permanent camp down in a valley.  It seemed to be fairly removed from most other camps, as we were often out with minimal other vehicles around unless we headed pretty far out.  Our guide was Muli, with Benson as our tracker.  We were in a family tent, which was separated from the rest of camp by a small bridge over a little ravine.  It was nice and peaceful, we never heard anyone else.  The front of the tent looked out, at an angle, over the wider plains, and we would see elephants and giraffes at times. There was also a resident bushbuck that if we were quiet would walk by during the afternoon.  It was a very friendly camp with a relaxed atmosphere, from our arrival (when everyone came out to greet us) to our departure.  The camp manager, Jennifer, was an absolute gem, such a fun and happy person who always ensured we were happy.  I particular appreciate that she is still looking out for us - I have one photo in particular that gets stolen a lot, and recently she saw it posted with the wrong attribution by a big Instragram account and she called them out about not crediting the correct photographer (it's not relevant for this camp, but when we were at Naboisho it came out that I was the photographer who took that particular image and everyone was very excited - apparently it's been all over in Kenya, I had no clue!).    Food was good and high-quality, and we had a special Valentine’s Day meal here.  The family tent was essentially two bedrooms (one with a queen, the other two doubles), connected by a short hallway, and with a bathroom off each bedroom.  The only minor issue we had was the hallway had a bit of a lip in the ground at each room entrance, and on our first day my daughter tripped on it and banged her head pretty hard on the bed frame.   So it’s worth being careful if staying in that setup.  I also mentioned already the odd situation with the cameras here.  But overall a nice, small, well-run camp that I would happily return to visit.

 

We never remember to take photos of our tents, this is the best I have. You can see the hallway.  Fans in the tents were definitely helpful midday.

 

But sometimes after dark a fire was really appreciated.

 

We had bush breakfast one day. 

 

The offbeat pride was visible on the opposite ridge.

 

Playing Uno with Mama Jennifer while we waited for our ride at the end of our stay.