Maasai Mara - home of the safari. Subject to availability.

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Mornings around the Maasai Mara nature reserve are a little more 'back to nature' than we had become accustomed to. The guards told us that there had been a leopard in the camp overnight (highly feasible since the wooden fence is not really adapted to keep out a tree-climbing cat... or anything else, for that matter), but we felt quite safe in our flimsy nylon tent. Charles however, informed us that the Maasai people were particularly good wind-up merchants. I guess we'll never know if our lives were in danger, or if they were taking the piss. I suppose there isn't much difference.

After another wood-heated shower (this time in luxury - even the squat toilets were porcelain. If not for Aaron's scare when he found a giant hairy spider in the toilets and my encounter with the largest flying insect I've ever seen, it could have felt like a holiday.)

The great big buzzing monster of an insect gave me 'stage-fright'. No one in their right mind would expose sensitive parts of their body when that was in the vicinity. So, with a distended bladder, we left on the extremely bumpy road for the nature reserve.

While Charles paid up at the gate, we were harrassed by locals selling traditional tourist goods. Having successfully haggled to a level we didn't expect, we became the proud owners of Maasai masks. Excitedly, we drove into the park, awaiting herds of wildebeest, elephants and giraffes... but instead found a great expanse of nothingness.

The Maasai Mara, Kenya and Serengeti, Tanazania are two massive, open country areas that connect to eachother, with no border fence. The animals that live in this part of the world have a traditional routine of travel, migrating from one to the other regularly each year. The influx from Tanzania, where each species comes to together, involves crossing the Mara river, a slow and relatively shallow river running roughly along the border. It'd be nice and easy if not for the crocodiles waiting in the depths to pull unsuspecting Wildebeest to their demise. In fact, if you remember the famous pictures of that exact act of nature happening on David Attenborough's BBC wildlife thingie, they are all taken in this very park. Normally, the influx happens in late June, so we were anticipating seeing the newly arrived herds settling in. If we were really lucky, we hoped to witness the river crossing. However, we were really unlucky, and due to union action, the animals had decided to extend their Tanzania holiday indefinitely, meaning we had arrived when only the dregs of Kenyan society were at home.

As depressed and lonely Wildebeest dotted the occasional hillside, and giraffe heads bobbed among trees, we were starting to feel a tad ripped off - if I wanted to see fields, I could have gone to Yorkshire.

However, things were about to change.

After a toilet stop (which could simply not be postponed any longer), we descended deeper into the park. Just as we were about to give up hope, Charles noticed a lone jeep, stationary and a long way from any of the normal dirt paths. Under no circumstances are vehicles allowed to leave the paths (in order to preserve the park), but in case this jeep was in trouble (honest), we followed it's track, through the high grass.

As we got near, we couldn't believe our eyes. The American visitors (who were quite safe and well), had come across a fresh kill - a pack of eleven young lions had killed a fully grown buffalo, and just metres from the two vehicles, were eating their fill. No fewer than four of the lions' heads were actually inside the buffalo, while others worked on the outside, or ruefully eyed up the impatient vultures, or lay in the sun to digest.

I couldn't believe the contradiction; on the one hand, their barbarity and sheer brutal manner was clear - as lions came out for air, their faces would be blood stained, teeth showing. On the other hand, those lions that had eaten lay down, tails flicking away flies, to clean each other's faces and to schmooze each other, just like domestic cats. When two came to sit in the shadow cast by our van, and stared through the window at us, just inches away, I had the urge to reach and stroke them, not to run and hide!

We waved goodbye to the vociferous Americans in their jeep (no doubt happy that their 4th July was so memorable) and headed back to the track. As we drove, we came across all the 'big five' - that is, the most exciting five animals - lions, elephants, hippos, giraffes and zebra. We made the bogus decision to get a little too close to a baby elephant. When big brother started to charge at us, we braced ourselves for a rapid retreat, until he chickened out. But, when big momma started to run at us, trumpting to boot, we quickly went into reverse. She wasn't looking for a fight though - just a good personal space. When she change direction and ran into a bush, we all gave a little sigh of relief.

After a brief incursion into Tanzania, we headed to the Mara river, the only part of the park where you are able to leave the vehicle and walk on foot (subject to an armed guard). We stood on the crossing point, still covered in wildebeest footmarks from last season, and looked at the crocs resting on the waterside, and hippos slowly walking along the riverbed, with just their backs and nostrils showing. Perhaps the most unusual sight was the elderly Australian man who had wandered to the river by himself, unaware of the dangers, or need for a guard.

After a picnic lunch that was disturbed buy obnoxious bavet monkeys keen to steal our cucumber, we carried on exploring. Aaron and I had no idea that we had travelled so far until we saw a sign to our exit, reading 150km. So, we had a long drive back. En route, we came across more than a dozen vehicles blocking the track, each packed with tourists all leaning out to try and get a picture of something. As jeeps squashed in front of each other and people took out ever-more-powerful cameras, we finally saw that the attraction was a bog-standard lion sitting at the edge of the path, bemused by all these stupid homo sapiens fighting for a quick look. We became acutely aware of just how fortunate we had been to see what we had.

If there was a moral to the story of the day, it would be this - quality is more important than quantity. We missed the giant herds, but our one to one encounters with lions, elephants and monkeys was as much as we could ask for.

At the edge of the park, we quickly visited a Maasai village, where we once again spent our time strategically dodging the tourist traps and people selling overpriced jewellry that I knew would never ever see the light of day if I bought it. I discovered that walking right by a moving bus was a good way to take cover from incoming souvenirs.

After our last dinner with Maina and Charles, a fantastic vegetable stew, cabbage (and lamb for Aaron), we chatted for a bit, and discussed the day. The photos we took were testimony to the quality of the safari; but keen to compensate for the long drives that we had had, Charles planned another morning safari for the next day, before we left for Nairobi.

We went to bed happy and content from a great day, and apart from one scare when a monkey landed on our tent in the middle of the night (we relaxed again when we saw four little feet walking over our heads) we slept well.