Mara Expedition Camp’s safari style, Maasai Mara

By Roxanne Reid
Sometimes Africa whispers softly, revealing her secrets with slow subtlety. And sometimes she bellows and whacks you in the face with her wild bravado. We got a little of both when we stayed at Mara Expedition Camp in Kenya’s Maasai Mara.

​The bravado was there from the start, even before we got to camp.

At a river crossing, we found the stomach contents of a herbivore spilled on the sand – a clear sign there was a kill nearby. Since we were on conservancy land rather than in the Maasai Mara National Reserve itself, where driving off-road isn’t allowed, our guide Nick Ratia could go off road to find the kill, but not close enough to disturb the animals.

​Two young male lions were chomping on the remains of a wildebeest, the sound of bones and tendons crunching. Resting nearby were a lioness and two one-year-old cubs. Nick thought there might be more, but we couldn’t see them snoozing among the bushes.

That started things off with a bang. We teased him that he’d have to work hard over the next 48 hours to match the highs of our first hour. A skilled professional with a good sense of humour, he just laughed.
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Live like an explorer
Mara Expedition Camp was more subtle, a gentle whisper of African charm. It’s an intimate little place with only five tents looking out over lush riverine vegetation and the muddy Ntiaktiak River. All around are forest mahogany, magic gwarrie and African green-heart trees, with orange-leaf croton bushes sparkling in the early morning and late afternoon sunlight. I felt like a child again, discovering a magic forest loud with the calls of birds.

Our tent had a wooden deck with safari chairs and wine-barrel tables. Inside, old-fashioned safari cases posed as tables, tree branches as hooks in the bathroom. Brown leather seats or a writing desk here, brass light fittings or an old campaign chest there – the style was what it may have been like on safari a hundred years ago. This extended to the brass bucket shower, filled by hand outside your tent with water heated on a wood fire.

The common living area was serene with white couches and red kelims, and a long wooden table under the trees where we ate lunch. Safari chairs sat in a circle around a fire in the early evening, where we could soak up the sound of zebras laughing, the nasal grunts of wildebeest.

We ate a three-course dinner at a communal table overlooking the river, a chance to share stories with charismatic camp manager John (JP) Parmasau. Despite the romantic expedition-camp ambiance of the place, which made me feel I was on an adventure, no effort was spared when it came to our comfort or taste buds. A quick peek into the kitchen tent hinted at the true genius of chefs who can produce meals to rival a quality restaurant from a small and rustic space in the middle of nowhere.

The ethics
Great Plains Conservation cares about things like the environment and conservation, so if this camp were removed tomorrow, the site would quickly return to its wild state. Touch-the-earth-lightly thinking means everything in the wood-and-canvas retreat is ‘green’ or recycled, and the energy comes from the sun.

The company’s name is a clue that its founding principle is conservation. Less obvious is its commitment to communities. Mara Expedition Camp and its sister, Mara Plains, stand on the 14 000-hectare Olare Motorogi Conservancy. The Maasai who own the land earn an income from lease fees that support some 1000 families and preserve the land for wildlife and tourism.

Hat-trick on our first afternoon drive
But of course it’s out on the plains where the magic happens for visitors. Whether it’s a small band of dwarf mongoose rippling across the veld, a colourful rock agama wooing his drab brown lady, a tiny dik-dik (one of Africa’s smallest antelope at just around 5kg) or one of the sought-after Big Cats, the sightings are always rousing.

​On this drive, we saw the lions on the kill again because it had happened so close to camp. But we pushed on to see what else the Mara would reveal to us.

​Our reward was a cheetah with her four-month-old cub on the plains in the late afternoon sun. Mom was lying down resting, the cub wriggling before it settled to suckle. Sadly, Nick said its three siblings had been killed by lions or hyenas just a few weeks earlier.

​After a long time watching mom and cub interact, my heart squeaking with happiness, we moved on. Nick hoped to find leopard and make it the three Big Cats on a single afternoon drive.

He wasn’t joking. We found a leopard patrolling some bushes. Another two vehicles arrived at the sighting and she climbed a dead tree trunk, three legs and her tail dangling. ‘She has twin two-month-old cubs hidden somewhere around here and is being cautious,’ said Nick. 

​The sun sank lower till she was almost invisible through the encroaching darkness. We were so rapt that no one gave a thought to sundowners. You can have a drink and watch the sunset any day in Africa, but it’s not every day you see a leopard.

 And that’s the bravura magic of the Mara – lions on a kill, a cheetah with her cub, and a leopard climbing a tree, all on a single afternoon drive.

Note: I was a guest of Great Plains Conservation’s Mara Expedition Camp for two nights, but I was given free rein to write what I chose.

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