When I was 13 years old, the Olduvai Gorge and the Great Rift Valley was the first entry on Life List, a dream of walking in the footsteps of Mary Leakey, where she discovered the fossilized bone fragments of one of our most ancient human ancestors. Come back for that story. It would take over forty years to actualize that inspiration, to take it from my mind and make it happen in the real world.
I finally took that journey, but planning a trip to East Africa was very different than making my life list. First step, order adventure travel catalogs. Soon one arrived that described a “Walk With The Maasai” with Iain Allen of Tropical Ice Adventure Travel headquartered in Nairobi. What follows is that month long journey. A few months later I touch down in Nairobi, but my luggage was lost in Amsterdam. It will take three days to catch up with me. So I awaken to the unusual cawing of african birds and explore the city that started as a clonal railway settlement in the 1890's. Worried my luggage won't arrive by the time my safari departs, I buy a journalists jacket as cool nights are expected on the Maasai Mara.
When I remember Africa, the first images that fall from the cumulonimbus clouds of memory are the sparkling smiles of the Maasai.
We visit a menyatta, (village),
surrounded by a boma (a circular wall of heavily thorned bushes).
Photo credit: Toby Manzanares, (all photos except as noted otherwise.)
Celebrating a Maasai Wedding a days drive west of Nairobi.
We are granted permission to set up camp not far from their village, where we stay for three nights.
Two Maasai warriors jump as high as they can for the joy and pleasure rather than in competition.
Photo credit: Tropical Ice
Prior to our departure one of our Maasai hosts asked if I’d send back photos when I got home. Back at home, I wrote to Iian Allen, our Tropical Ice guide asking if he’d give my village friends the link to this web page.
Cows are brought into the boma each afternoon to protect them overnight from prowling lions.
Maasai wedding: the father of the bride is seated.
When a teenager when he survived a lion attack.
The boy that saved his life was my Maasai guide. That story coming soon.
Photo credit: Tropical Ice
Seated here is the father of the bride, childhood friends with one of our Maasai guides. When they were kids, their job was to graze and guard the village cows.
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