Written by Eddie LeShure – This piece was written in February, 2002 when Eddie spent a month traveling in East Africa.         

As our plane made its descent into Jomo Kenyatta airport, the orange hue of the rising sun lit up the horizon beyond Nairobi. I squirmed with anticipation in my seat, as I had dreamed all my life of being in East Africa, of seeing the extraordinary wildlife, the Serengeti Plain, mighty Kilimanjaro, the beautiful people of Africa, exotic Zanzibar. I had read so many books, seen so many movies and occasionally met and talked with others who had been there. And now I was here.

Joined by my equally excited companion Heide, we touched down at 6:30 am and after getting our visa ($50 each) and changing a traveler’s check, we recruited a pair of Norwegian lads from our plane to share a taxi into town. We gave the driver the name of a budget hotel in city center we had heard about, and along the way our driver informed us that it was quite close to Tourist Information.  “You need to get information right away so that you know what to do here. I’ll stop so you can go in, and then take you on to your hotel afterwards…no extra charge,” he eagerly offered.

In Asia, Turkey and Morocco, I had met more than my share of “helpful” taxi drivers who supplemented their income with commissions from businesses they take people to, so I was justifiably suspicious. But after a quick powwow, we all agreed to go along with his idea. So what if it turns out to be a safari company (our guess). All of us wanted to check into that anyway. For sure Heide and I preferred to spend as little time in “Nairobbery” as possible!  Besides, what else is there to do here at 7:30 on a Saturday morning?

About 20 minutes later we stopped, and sure enough, “Tourist Information” was, in fact, Come to Africa Safaris Ltd.  No problem. We sat down and talked with Charity Mbocha.  I had done a little research on Kenya and there were four parks/reserves that kept coming up as recommended: Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru, Samburu and Amboseli. Heide and I were clear about our budget. Due to the drop-off in tourism from 9/11 and to stiff competition, safari companies are in the mood to deal…and deal they did. After some negotiation, we settled on a custom designed nine-day safari in all four parks for $500 each – all-inclusive, except for tips, cold drinks and toilet paper. It was a no-brainer.

We forked over our money, and accompanied by a staff member we headed out for breakfast, plus bottled water and TP. As we walked along the streets we could not help but notice that almost every store of any size had a guard at the door, some brandishing automatic weapons, and we were glad to know that we would be leaving Nairobi soon. Three hours after our plane had landed, we were off in a van to Masai Mara, joined by a British woman and her two young daughters, as well as an extremely shy young Japanese man.

Two hours later we entered the Rift Valley, a 3700 mile series of troughs, swells and escarpments that runs from the Dead Sea in the Middle East to Mozambique, featuring shallow lakes, rolling savannah, and evidence of past volcanic activity.  Now it was starting to look like “Out of Africa”. We spotted zebras and giraffes far from the road and got all excited, yelling “Look, look!”  I’m sure our driver chuckled to himself. After two more hours we entered Masai Mara Game Reserve, the extension in Kenya of Tanzania’s much larger Serengeti National Park, all part of the Serengeti ecosystem between the Rift Valley and massive Lake Victoria. As a game reserve, rather than a park, local people are allowed to graze their animals and kill wildlife if attacked. And these local people are the Maasai.

Just prior to entering the reserve we had an opportunity to enter a Maasai village (for a rather stiff $10/person). We jumped at the chance. We have all seen pictures of these remarkable people – tall and handsome with striking costumes (mainly red), draped in jewelry, and the men have such an unusually braided hairstyle and ears that have been, shall we say, modified growing up. I really cannot describe their ears, nor do I know how they do what they did to them. You just have to see them. The Maasai have maintained their traditional customs and practices as nomadic cattle herders and resisted change more than any other tribe. But they also know how to make a buck or two from the rubbernecking tourists carrying disposable income.

Their village is a compound surrounded by a tall, heavy brush fence. Within are huts constructed of sticks and cow dung, just as they have always built them. At night they bring their cattle within the compound for protection from lions and other predators. We were greeted at the entrance by the brother of the chief, a congenial man with quite good English and the improbable name of Kennedy.  And then we met the chief, son of the former chief, who also warmly welcomed us.

First we viewed the men chanting and dancing with their spears, each warrior taking his turn making several high vertical leaps to demonstrate his strength. It is quite impressive, though I could not help thinking that their height and athletic prowess seemed more suitable in today’s era to slam dunking a basketball than killing a lion, which by the way, is still part of some warrior’s rite of passage into adulthood. It is also claimed to be a prerequisite for obtaining a wife, along with a payment of ten cattle per wife. That’s right – per wife. In many tribes monogamy has not quite caught on here yet. The father of the first president of the newly independent Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, reportedly had 18 wives and 26 children.

We observed a demonstration of young men starting a fire with two sticks. We also met the women and children of the village and entered a family hut, me barely squeezing through the low, narrow doorway, and we sat inside for a while.  Photographs were encouraged anywhere in the village, as was stopping by their display of locally made handcrafts for sale. It was all a bit contrived, but unforgettable none-the-less.

Moving on, we entered the reserve itself and proceeded on our very first “game drive”. For this the vans, which comfortably seat ten people, are modified with a roof that is raised about three feet, allowing its occupants to stand, enjoying an unblocked windowless view. The reserve is teeming with herbivores (about 2,500,000), including wildebeest (gnus), zebras, giraffes, cape buffalo, gazelles, elephants, impalas, hartebeests, warthogs, topis and others.

Plus there are those that hunt them: lions, cheetahs and leopards, plus the scavengers such as hyenas, jackals and buzzards – plus a prolific assortment of other birds. And the landscape is amazing…sweeping grassland dotted with thorn bushes and distinctive flat-topped acacia trees. We drove the dirt roads that wind through the reserve, occasionally stopping as we encountered big game, in groups or individually, to photograph and just watch in awe.

In times past, big game hunters created a classification called “The Big Five”, consisting of the elephant, lion, leopard, cape buffalo and rhino, these apparently being the most difficult animals in Africa to kill without being killed yourself.  Add the cheetah, hippo, giraffe and zebra, and you now have “The Big Nine”.  Most people going on safari desire to “bag” The Big Nine.  In short time, we had claimed six out of nine (excluding only leopard, rhino and hippo), and in most cases we were within just a few yards of them.

Our hearts pounded as we approached a group of elephants, ripping grass from the ground with their trunks, females moving to block our view of their roly-poly babies. We rubbed our eyes with disbelief as we moved within ten feet of a family of cheetahs, sitting up on a small mound, looking for their next dinner. It all seemed so surreal, almost like a video being played for us. But this was no video, this was for real. These were wild animals going about their daily lives, just as they have for thousands upon thousands of years, and it was like we were sitting in their living rooms, uninvited guests maybe, but seemingly ignored, at least to a degree.

Mara (as it is called) has been either a park or reserve since 1968, and except for the older elephants which can live up to about 70 years-of-age, these animals have known this intrusion all their lives. For us, day-to-day life on the Serengeti Plains was transparently revealed. For the carnivores their “nine to five” consists of the basics: eat, shit, sleep, breed, and kill. For the herbivores, it is eat, shit, sleep, breed, and try not to be killed! That is their “day at the office”. And we were there, up close and personal.

After some time, we came upon a female lion stalking a mother buffalo with her calf, about fifty yards behind them. As the two buffalos moved along, they casually grazed while the mother nervously glanced back from time to time. While the male lions sleep most of the time, females take on the task of providing food and this lioness had selected buffalo from the Mara menu. But nothing much seemed to be happening and we eventually left to go view some elephants. What our driver and guide Lawi knew, but we did not, is that a lone lion has no chance in this situation. It is overmatched.

Eventually, Lawi decided to check back on our little life-and-death drama and when we returned we found out why Ms. Lion had been occasionally stopping and looking around. She had been looking for help – and she had now found it. There were three lions! The plot had thickened. Then all hell broke loose. Two of the lions suddenly leapt on to the back of the mother, digging their claws into it as the buffalo bellowed out in pain and fright and spun around and around, frantically trying to rid herself of them. But once thrown off, the lions would leap on again.  While this went on, the third lion went for her calf, and with the mother too occupied to defend it, the baby had no chance and was quickly killed. It was all a carefully orchestrated attack, teamwork personified. I watched disbelieving my opportunity to witness this first hand.

Most people who go on safari numerous times never see an actual kill. Heide and I had been in Africa about ten hours and were within thirty yards of one, and we would witness a second kill less than two days later.

After the calf was finished off, the lions backed off. With the mother still there they could not feed on or remove their kill. The buffalo stomped around, occasionally lashing out in vain against her assailants, occasionally stopping to check on her dead calf, also in vain of course.  It was getting dark now and I asked Lawi, “What’ll happen now?”

He was quite matter-of-fact about it, “The mother will not leave her dead calf. The lions are resting and eventually they’ll kill her too.”

We returned to our camp, which consisted of tents and basic showers/toilets next to the Mara Hippo Safari Lodge, with its fairly upscale cabins, bar and restaurant and lots of monkeys running around. After stowing our gear in our tent, outfitted with cots, we ate a buffet dinner outside the lodge under the stars and enjoyed another dance performance by Maasai warriors. After some time, the dancers “invited” Heide and the other visiting women there to join them in what looked like an African version of the Lindy Hop.

A Maasai was always on guard near our tents “just in case”, we were told. We always felt quite safe in camp. That night as we lay in our tents, we struggled to fall asleep, well aware we would be up very early the next morning. Our minds and hearts raced with all the images and emotions we had experienced that day. It was so difficult to take it all in. We were on overload – tilt!  It had been barely over 24 hours earlier that our plane had lifted off from the airport in Berlin! We observed, “This was just our first day and we have a whole month!”

The next day we were up at 6:30 and Heide quipped, “I NEVER get up before 8 am when I’m working, and now I’m on holiday and wake up before dawn!” After breakfast, we left in the van at 7:30 for a game drive. This was typical: game drive at dawn and another in the afternoon leading up to dusk, as this is when the animals are most active.

There were images on this trip so vivid and remarkable to me they will forever be indelibly imprinted in my mind. Certainly seeing the lions clutching the back of the spinning buffalo is one. I will never forget watching a group of giraffes strolling single-file, framed by acacia trees against the backdrop of the early morning sun. How can an animal so awkward at times, also walk with such elegance and grace?

We watched groups of impalas, always a male with a harem of as many as two dozen females. He sometimes chased off another impudent, young male wandering too close. The zebras, so muscular and high-strung, pranced about and snorting to each other in their little groups. The beautiful and diminutive Grant’s and Thomson’s gazelles fed and rested, sentries carefully watching for cheetahs, their greatest threat. The hyenas were seen slinking around, opportunistically waiting to steal another’s prize kill. The ostriches, strutted along eight feet in height, the largest birds in the world. And so on. It was all a mind-blowing spectacle that just would not quit!

Our drivers are remarkable. They are extremely knowledgeable about all aspects of the land, the flora and fauna, filling you in on anything and everything concerning their country and the people who live there: politics, tribal makeup, culture, economic issues, conservation, you name it. And they are unbelievably patient. At one point I asked our driver Elly, “What’s the stupidest question anyone has ever asked you?”

His immediate response, “There are no stupid questions in this trade.”

They certainly have eagle eyes. While negotiating what bear little resemblance to actual roads, simultaneously answering stupid questions, he might suddenly bark out, “See the lions?”  We peer out and barely see a tiny brown spot amidst a sea of brown vegetation about five hundred yards away. “Looks like a female with two cubs.” he will confidently add. Off we race, and sure enough: a female with two cubs! And so we park, turn off the engine and watch them yawn, stretch, scratch, lick each other and then maybe slowly get up and wander off to see what is on the Mara menu today. For lions it is usually wildebeest or buffalo, occasionally a young zebra or giraffe.

Each van is normally equipped with a CB radio which allows the drivers to check in with each other on what is happening game-wise, or to help each other out of a jam. Later in Samburu we went to help pull out a van that was stuck up to its axles in sand. One day in Mara, Lawi told us we needed to go help another driver who had “a lion problem”, as he put it.

When we showed up a few minutes later, we discovered another van with a flat tire. Normally not such a problem, quite common in fact, and if you saw the driving conditions you would easily see why. But in this case, the van was within about 30 yards of lions, not the kind of place any sane person would choose to jump out and grab a jack and spare tire. But Lawi positioned our van blocking the view of the lions, and while one driver watched the lions very carefully for signs of agitation (they can cover 30 yards really fast), the other changed the tire.

These guys are virtually fearless, but then again, most have been doing this for a long time and have experienced just about everything. Lawi told us about getting stuck once while crossing a river and a nearby elephant got really pissed off about them blocking its path, so it started smashing the van’s windows with its trunk. Fortunately about the time it started pushing the van over, help arrived and the elephant decided it had proved its point and moved on. He also shared with us that, against his advice and firm insistence, a man once got out of the van (which is just NEVER done anywhere near these animals) “in order to get a better photo of an elephant”. That was the last photo that guy ever took. An elephant can run up to 40mph and that tourist was quickly trampled to death.

From time to time, one of us or all of us would beg for a pee break, our driver would carefully look for an appropriate spot. One time when we stopped along the road, some of us bolted for some bushes. “Hold it! Don’t go in there!” Lawi advised. When asked what might be in there, he laughed and said, “You never know!”  So it was girls on one side of the van, boys on the other.

To be continued next month……..

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Eddie LeShure is an insight meditation teacher and substance abuse counselor whose primary passion is bringing mindfulness practice into the realms of addiction recovery, trauma relief, and self-care. He teaches and leads groups in various treatment and recovery settings, as well as in series classes, workshops, retreats, conferences and conventions.

Eddie began meditating in the early ‘80s, regularly teaches at Asheville Insight Meditation, is a NAMI Family Support Group Facilitator, and is co-founder of A Mindful Emergence, LLC (amindfulemergence.com).

These days, Eddie’s writing centers around his teaching and presentations, but in the past it was quite different. He chronicled and displayed his adventures around the world for several years under the banner, “On the Road With Fast Eddie,” and in more recent times numerous articles on the local jazz scene were published in Rapid River Arts & Culture as “WNC Jazz Profiles.”

Eddie is now co-authoring a manual for treatment centers which focuses on integrating mindfulness practices with stages of addiction recovery.