“There is never enough life. Never enough time, never enough power to consume it all.”— Danny Lyon
"How many days are enough for Masai Mara?"
I would say an entire lifetime is not enough. My daughter would say three days max as by then you have seen all the poses a lion can make. This is probably the dichotomy of tourists that travel to this last great wilderness on earth.
Mara caters to both - selfies with a lioness - in your best designer safari attire as well as a sense of calm and rekindling of the spirit as it unwinds to the natural rhythms of an untamed, unchained ecosystem, devoid of human interference. You can make it about yourself and check boxes off your travel list or you can give centerstage to the inhabitants and surrender to the wonder.
Recently, I returned from my second trip to the Mara and I am already missing it. No other place leaves me so attuned with the cycle of life and death and the endless possibilities within. To witness the prancing gazelles, galloping giraffes and the playful lion cubs and then assimilate how undefined they are by the predator looming over them is a master class in "living in the moment".
Within moments of entering the park gates, I am hypnotised by the beauty of the Savannah, the golden grassland that envelops you and allows for an unhindered gaze to the horizon feels luxurious to the eyes trained by ugly cityscapes. The land, dotted with Acacia trees and its gentle grazers, is used to the ogling tourists. It shows unending patience and generosity towards the invaders, unlike the immigration control in civilised society.
There is a thin layer of dust that stains the land, the colour of red rust, smooth and earthy, wet from the recent floods, it slips beneath the tires. The roads, bumpy and wide don't even begin to tell the story of these soils. The dust skims over a bush only to dip, without warning, over the edge of the blue horizon, where a Secretary bird sits atop a tree, feeding its chicks, against the low hung, red ball of an African winter sun.
The moments of joy, struggle, rebellion, trust are all visible to the beholding eye. For a cub, each day starts with a tail raised walk beside it's mother - tugging, licking, pulling - holding the sun in its eyes along with a fire in its belly to grow big and strong. The mother lives up to this trust by hunting, chasing water buffaloes and wildebeest to make a kill that can feed herself and her cub. She stays alone with her small cubs in a thicket by a water hole till the time they are big enough to be introduced to the pride. This means she hunts and fends alone for herself and her cubs - nature's pyramid of prey is not cruel, survival of the fittest cannot be debated - just as I see the lioness chase a wailing bison calf, I cannot unsee the little lion cub I saw a while back, walking with a swag, next to the lioness.
Survival is paramount here, it is visible everywhere, from the hyper alert head turns of the gazelles and zebras to the unbelievable speed of a bison and the wildebeest. To fend and hunt for yourself and your young is primal, not cruel. Hunting is not a sport here, unlike in our part of the world.
Africa gets in to your blood and adjectives fall short for what we experience on so many levels.
