Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine April 2017 | Page 125

Travel | Masai Mara 1 123 2 1 Normally among the most elegant of creatures, the regal giraffe is at its most cumbersome when trying to drink. 2 The Bila Shaka pride ‘boss’ gazes out across his Masai Mara territory. We loaded the rented Land Rover Defender and drove south to Amboseli National Park, where Lucia was astounded by great herds of elephants and charmed by fat, waddling hippos. When we saw our first lions, I spent more time watching Lucia, revelling in her gasps of awe, than I did watching the pride. At dusk a few evenings later, a lone male lion charged, with a great roar, towards our open-sided vehicle. It was a mock charge and he skidded to a halt just a few metres from us. I instinctively pulled Lucia down into the floor of the vehicle and received a verbal mauling for accidentally pulling her hair. “Anyway,” she said, “we could all see that he wasn’t really going to attack!” It seemed that she was learning about Africa in a way that books or movies could never match. Lucia had travelled enough in Asia not to be fazed by cultural differences, and I was pleased to see how easily she related to our Maasai guides, with their outlandish warrior regalia. In a few days she learnt how to shoot a bow and arrow, how to milk a goat and the basics of tracking wildlife. She had utter faith in Maasai bush skills. Sunrise one morning found us a couple of miles from our camp near the Masai Mara Reserve. We were walking with two Maasai warriors armed only with their heavy assegai spears. We’d been following the huge tracks of three lions that had walked that way in the early hours of the morning and we realised that, superimposed on the lion prints, were the pugmarks of a big leopard. “Chui kubwa sana,” whispered one of the guides – ‘a very big leopard’. The Mara and its surrounding conservancies boast the highest concentration of big cats in Africa. The local super- predators were at the forefront of my mind 5 Senses – Sight LION SIGHTINGS Catch your first lion sightings within 20 minutes of arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Nairobi Tented Camp – the only camp in Nairobi National Park – is one of Kenya’s best-kept secrets. Avoid the notorious city traffic jams and start your safari by making a bee-line straight into a wilderness boasting big cats, rhino, buffalo, giraffe, hippos and countless antelope. Anda bisa melihat penampakan singa hanya 20 menit setelah tiba di Bandara Internasional Jomo Kenyatta. Nairobi Tented Camp—satu-satunya perkemahan di Taman Nasional Nairobi—merupakan salah satu hal menarik di Kenya yang tak banyak diketahui. Hindari kemacetan kota dan mulai perjalanan safari Anda dengan mengambil jalan langsung ke padang belantara tempat kucing besar, badak, banteng, jerapah, kuda nil, dan antelop yang tak terhingga jumlahnya.