Paradise persists. We’re settling into our routine now after Day 3; our service wizard Cedrick wakes us up at 5:30 a.m. With coffee and cookies through the Vanishing Cabinet; I shout thank you and roll around a little bit more while Kevin is already in the shower; we eat out of a veritable cornucopia filled with breakfast treats and venture over to the egg station if we’re still hungry, and then we head out on our first drive of the day at 6:15. Business as usual today, only we unexpectedly witnessed the wildebeest river crossing to end all river crossings.
If you aren’t in the habit of pouring yourself a glass of wine the size of your head and then watching 6 to 7 hours of African nature documentaries in a row, I’ll fill you in briefly: each year between July and September usually within a more specific window dictated by rain patterns and pasture availability, millions of Wildebeest and their fellow Zebra buddies migrate not only from the Maasai Mara back to the Serengeti but across the great Mara River. Driven largely by instinct and a desire to literally seek out greener pastures, thousands will huddle up to the river’s edge and wait to follow one brave leader into the water and across the river. The crossings happen on both sides of the river and result in a virtual waterfall of zebra and wildebeest that tumble down one edge, swim through croc-infested waters with lions waiting on the other side (we’ll get to this), and then scramble uphill. It’s a miraculous Mother Nature shit show.
Now that we’re caught up, I’ll mention that with the timing of our trip, we were lucky enough to catch the millions of wildebeest on the very edge of The Mara rounding up the tail end of the annual migration to the Serengeti, but we had missed the river crossings; or so everyone thought. After a morning of black rhino spotting (4 of the big 5 now!) and croc scouting (those things are MFing terrifying), Erick took us over to the south side of the river to look for more lions but quickly changed course when he realized something else was up. Apparently a huge herd of wildebeest and zebra were gearing up to get river crossing again, and we’d arrived exactly on time (ish) for the show.
What transpired next was 3 hours in the Land Cruiser waiting, literally watching animals walk back and following each other in horizontal lines near the river bank, and I’ve not been more riveted since Kings Quest 6 came out.
The wildebeest and zebras can waffle back and forth between crossing and not crossing the river all day, and Erick still told us to be patient and watch. It is absolutely insane watching these guys in their river dance; in our case a thousand or so of them would gather up together like white walkers at the wall, crowd up to the edge where there looked to be a more manageable drop in, and then slowly dare one or two brave wildebeest (also sometimes zebra, those guys are badass) to edge down toward the river drop and test out being the first to cross.
They’ll all wait, the brave leaders will do a lot of staring at the water with their slightly-less-brave deputies right behind them… and then…. the entire herd will get bored and start moving half a mile down the river bank in the opposite direction. Sometimes a few hundred would break off and you could hear them say ‘meh screw this’ and the’d go walk away to join some beest pack way down the other way; sometimes disparate crews would merge together and become a mega crossing crew.
But for three hours, always the same result. Dramatically edge up to a river crossing point and huddle up; stare incredibly resolutely at the water; peer pressure a few daredevils to go down a little further; disperse and walk away again. It was like waiting to find out what 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 was supposed to mean in Lost. EVERY preview says it’s gonna be this episode, and then you slowly realize the idiot writers/wildebeest have no idea what should happen next.
We almost gave up at the 3 hour mark when a bunch of disrespectful and not-trained-or-experienced-at-all guide vans carrying tourists from Nairobi came literally screaming into the waiting area, shouting and scaring all the wildebeest on our side, and then PLOWING through a huge group of wildebeest after they got bored waiting for 6 minutes (6 MINUTES!! We waited for literally 3 hours!!! Get out of my LIFE!!!) and basically ruining everything, but then in a crazy ass turn of events all of the action set into motion right after that.
Watching a giant file of maniacal creatures with grasshopper heads, scrawny cow bodies, goat legs, buffalo horns, and horse tails launch themselves down the river bank and into the water to swim to the other side is the best it gets out here in the bush, if you ask me. It’s a daring, messy, weirdly graceful, wild, unpredictable storm of wildlife.
It’s nature, and I get it, but the whole crossing adventure got a little too real for me when a baby wildebeest made it to the other side before realizing it’s mom didn’t and when it tried to swim back, a crocodile put an end to the trip really quickly. I would have preferred not to watch this happen and still think crocodiles are terrible, but I also understand it’s a privilege to be able to experience something like this and it’s the way the world works. The Maasai Mara is spectacular and beautiful, and it is also brutal.
All for now even though we saw much more today; the wild wildebeest and zebra compatriots take the blog cake! We’ll be back for Day 4 tomorrow with some roundup thoughts on safari-ing and how in love we are with Bataleur Camp, updates on any good adventures from our last morning drive, and (OH, WE HOPE!) a final completion of the Big Five with just one leopard sighting please safari gods, please!