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| Game Driving In Kenya | ||
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by Mike Grundon (13 Apr 08)
The Maasai Mara - a vast game reserve in the bottom left hand corner of Kenya that forms the northern tip of the even more vast Serengeti. You'll know it from the telly for the famous wildebeest migration and the BBC's Big Cat Diaries. For me, it's a place where I would happily spend the rest of my life. Eric has been a game driver for 15 years and is currently employed by the Mara Serena game lodge, a modern and comfortable place with stunning views, built on the fringe of an escarpment, sympathetically designed to blend into the scrub that surrounds it on three sides.
The drivers run twice-daily game drives where they find animals for the tourists but avoid feeding tourists to the animals. The first drive of the day leaves before daybreak. The first cool grey of pre-dawn is bringing a silvery light to the acacia trees that punctuate the grasslands and scrub-covered hills. Eric neither needs nor wants the headlights on. He stops his adapted Toyota J7 Land Cruiser at the gate in the lodge's protective electric fence and he signs a sheet for the guard who counts all the cars out, and counts them back in again. If we don't return fairly soon after we're expected and there's no word of where we are, a search will begin.
The front of the car is fairly standard but the back is almost totally open. Seven passengers can be taken in canvas-covered seats. The sides of the car only come up to elbow height, above which is just a skeleton frame supporting a roof that has a full-length rising section in the middle. It gives you uninterrupted views of all your surroundings while being shaded from the equatorial sun. It also means there's no protective barrier between you and the wildlife.
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