Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine April 2017 | Page 125
Travel | Masai Mara
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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.