Chris Kinoti is not a man to be beaten. His whole aim was for us to see at least one crossing during our time in the Mara. Though he did allow us brief stops to photograph the young giraffe we saw being groomed – probably by an older sibling – and the mongeese I thought were meerkats.
Everywhere we went there were zebra and wildebeest – the two main migration beasts -but the groups were not huge until we got to within a few yards of a known crossing place. Hundreds, if not thousands, of wildebeest were gathering, ordering themselves ready to run at the agreed time.
Cars are instructed to hold back when viewing a crossing to ensure that animals are free to go through without hindrance. So we did just that as the herd gathered to our left. Then the cars moved and suddenly we had a clear view of the wildebeest running and jumping, jostling for position as they crossed the river to reach new pastures.
Chris had told us that a crossing lasted a very short time – and I had found that hard to believe until I realised that he was talking about the crossing of an individual beast: the one we saw took more like ten minutes with the numbers involved. The one disappointment, if there were any, was that there were no zebra in the group. Often they are first to go.
The car in front of us had seen a couple of lions waiting and we suspected there were crocodiles in the River but the first evidence was when I looked on the back of the camera and found a photograph of crocodile teeth snapping at the wildebeest as they passed. Look carefully in the picture above…
All along the riverbank, on both sides, are areas where steep banks have been adapted by animals over the years which can now be used as crossing points. I was reminded of firm sandunes when human beings have worn paths through by repeating the same route visit after visit. The principle is the same!
( and I think there’s a croc at the bottom!)
We were amazed that there was so little sound, no hammering of hooves as there would have been with horses and no sound from the water as the animals splashed their way through.
When the whole herd was safely through to the other side of the river we moved to look for the lion. She had tried to snatch a wildebeest and had failed so was sitting near the top of the bank looking as if she had not a clue about what had just happened. “Where have they gone?” She seemed to be asking herself.
Once that was over Chris was keen to get back to the Camp as quickly as possible: getting lost in the Mara was not on our itinerary!
Living the Journey 