When Julie's new employers told her she would have to go to Nairobi for training, we knew it could mean only one thing.

It was safari time.

We got the requisite vaccinations for cholera and yellow fever, and began our regimine of foul-tasting chloroquine to ward off malaria. The khakis and pith helmets were dusted off, and we were ready to go.

Only two airlines fly from Cairo to Nairobi: EgyptAir and Kenya Airways. Both have had unexplained crashes in the last few months that killed all aboard. Eenie, meenie, meinie...

After a grueling four-hour session with the travel agents in Nairobi, we took a room at the Oakwood Hotel downtown, conveniently located within blocks of the US Embassy that was razed by extremists on our wedding day. The Oakwood described itself as having "classic furnishings," which apparently means it looks like the Brady Bunch's rec room. The volume of the television set would not rise to a comprehensible level, but nor could it be shut off, even when the television was unplugged - a baffling phenomenon.

The next day, a single-propeller, nine-seater Air Kenya plane took us on the 45-minute journey to the Maasai Mara National Park. It was less an airplane than a Volkswagen with wings. The pilot draped his jacket over the empty co-pilot's seat and passed around a dish of candy prior to taking off. It was necessary to fly because the roads between Nairobi and the Mara are poor; the rumor is that they are kept that way because the owner of Air Kenya has influence in such matters. We landed at a dirt airstrip just outside the Mara.

Kenyan jumbo jet: the two-propeller, 13-seat aircraft that took us from the Mara back to Nairobi.

Our camp was surrounded by an electric fence to keep out predators, but baboons and monkeys could jump the trees over the fence with impunity.  For this reason we were warned to tie the flaps to our tents shut.  The baboons had learned how to unzip the tents in order to ransack them for tasty treats.  "They haven't figured out how to untie knots yet," the desk clerk told us, "but it is only a matter of time."

After lunch on that first day, we were treated to a demonstration of what he meant.  A troop of vervet monkeys invaded the camp, and quickly discovered that our neighbors had not closed their tent flaps.  The mischievous simians took to frolicking in the unoccupied tent, occasionally emerging with artifacts from within to chew on.  Another neighbor had to chase one of his arboreal cousins to retrieve a t-shirt it had purloined.  The monkeys were clearly used to humans; not only did they have a taste for t-shirts, but two of them groomed each other right in front of our tent and paid us no mind at all.

"You simply must tell me what you use for conditioner!"

Solomon, a driver with ten years of experience doing game drives, took us through the park in what I came to think of as the Big-Ass Safari Vehicle (BASV).  Solomon's BASV could kick the crap out of your yuppie neighbor's SUV.  Further, unlike your yuppie neighbor, Solomon actually knew how to use his vehicle.  He did not have a choice: he plied his trade a hundred miles from the nearest patch of asphalt.

Rob, Solomon, and the BASV

There is something about watching elephants graze on the savannah, giraffes chew on high-hanging leaves, and vast herds of zebras dot the hills that is a world apart from seeing these animals in a zoo.  Having to stop your BASV because there are cape buffalo in the road makes a zoo seem hopelessly suburban.  With the engine off, you could actually hear the grass being ripped out of the ground as elephants fed, and it made you realize that these were real animals, feeding themselves because nobody was going to do it for them.  When the gazelles took up strategic positions to watch for predators as they grazed, this was not an academic exercise: the predators were out there, and would find them eventually.  There is nothing that happens in any zoo to prepare you for the sight of a half-eaten zebra next to the napping lion and lioness that took him down.

The lioness napping. Click here for the photo of the lion and the remains of his lunch. WARNING: the photo is rather gory.

The Maasai Mara lies in a part of Kenya inhabited predominately by the Maasai tribe.  The Maasai are herders, keeping vast holdings of cattle and sheep.  They rarely eat the animals, instead feeding on their milk and drawn blood.  This diet, and a number of unusual decorative perforations, gives the Maasai an otherworldly appearance.  They believe that all cattle are a gift from God to the Maasai, and so often raid cattle from neighboring tribes in order to reclaim their rightful property.  Maasai who had made the leap from traditional herding to the shirt-and-pants working world within the park or in the tourist industry could generally be spotted by the large chunks missing from their ears. On our way back from dinner one evening, we were startled in the darkness by a man carrying a large spear.  He greeted us.  We greeted him back and introduced ourselves.  His name was Daniel.

Maasai tribesmen (Corbis photo)

Daniel was a local Maasai charged with patrolling the camp at night.  Should any predators or bandits make it past the fence, Daniel's job was to make kebab of them.  He explained the many ways in which a spear was superior to a rifle, and we were not inclined to disagree with anything whatsoever he might say.  We returned to our tent, tied the flaps securely, and vowed not to emerge again until morning.

There are more photos from the Mara.

Part II >>