We spent our last morning in Amboseli driving around one last time. We got one last sneak peek of Mount Kilimanjaro and enjoyed watching some more flamingos. After we watched the flamingos, we started driving to see what else was going on and noticed a hyena running purposefully across the plain. Our driver said that when a hyena is running like that, they are either running home or running towards a kill. Usually, if it’s a kill, there would be more than one, so our driver figured this hyena was headed home. We decided to follow it to see where it ended up and we discovered a large hyena den! We actually beat the running hyena home and saw so many hyenas in their den! We observed them for a bit – napping, playing, and being cuter than I ever thought a hyena could be! We also got to see the greeting once the running hyena made it back home. They are such odd creatures – so weirdly shaped and they run in a strange gallop! But seeing them snoozing in their little hideyholes might have been the cutest thing ever. We also got to see little toebeans from one laying on the ground!

After we visited the hyenas for a bit, it was time to head to the airstrip for our flight to Maasai Mara. We had a short flight and landed in the Maasai Mara, where we would spend the rest of our time in Kenya. The Maasai Mara is a large national reserve and is made up and managed by many different entities. We spent time in two different areas of the Mara, the first being the Mara Triangle. The Mara Triangle is located in the southwestern part of the Maasai Mara and is managed by the Mara Conservancy. We checked into our camp, andBeyond Kichwa Tembo, which is easily the nicest place I’ve ever stayed in my life. I took this video of our tent:

I don’t think I’ll ever use the bathroom in a nicer place! There was a little pass through in our tent which had a locked door on both sides. We came to learn our first night that this was for our wake-up calls. They came around at dinner and asked what time we wanted our wake-up call – I said we didn’t need one and the others in our group said we absolutely needed one. I thought it was just going to be a knock on our tent door or something, but we learned that they bring a tray of either hot chocolate or coffee and biscuits (the cookie kind) and put it in our pass through! The full report of our first morning will be in the next blog post!

The other very delightful part of Kichwa Tembo is their natural groundskeepers – warthogs! I really fell in love with warthogs during our trip to Tanzania and about lost my mind when we entered the grounds and they were just…eating grass right in front of us! Amongst our group, word had gotten out that I was absolutely obsessed with warthogs. I realized this when we were getting our orientation and the manager of the camp said that we needed to stay 5 meters away from the groundskeepers and like 18 people turned and looked at me! I really wanted to pet one, but they were wild and, more importantly, against the rules. Between the wake-up call and the warthogs, I could have stayed there forever!

After we settled into our luxurious lodgings, we went for an afternoon game drive. There wasn’t much happening in the Mara, but we did see several birds that were really beautiful and fun to watch. Our jeep didn’t have any birders, but for that afternoon, we became birders! I took an amazing picture of a bee-eater which might be one of the best pictures of a bird I’ve ever taken!