Interested in experiencing the most "genuine" wilderness of the world, Ben, Julie, Steve and I spent the last weekend on a safari at the Masai Mara (Mara) National Reserve, which is around 185km away from Nairobi. We departed right after teaching, and after a 5-hour drive, we arrived at our camping site, which was very close to Mara. Although sitting in a car for 5 hours was tiring, we were all so excited to see animals such as lions, leopards, cheetah, etc. We woke up very early in the morning and were all ready for the visit to Mara. 
This is the van tourists sit in while visiting the park, and the roof of the van can be lifted up so people can actually stand in the car and take photos of animals.
After entering the gate of the park, the first thing we saw were a group of gazelles peacefully having their breakfast. We were hoping to see gazelles running, given the fact that they are such swift animals, who can run at a speed of 80km/hour.
The second thing that caught my attention was several vultures eating a already dead wildebeest. This thing made me think about the food chain system in the wild. Some animals are just meant to be enemies, such as lions vs. zebras.
On the other hand, there are also animals who live together to defend themselves in case of attack by other animals. As our driver told us, zebras and wildebeests are very good friends, because zebras have a very good sense of hearing and vision whereas wildebeests are good at smelling enemies. As a result, it's very often to see these two kinds of animals staying closely together almost everywhere at Mara.
Talking about enemies, here is a photo of a wildebeest and a female lion facing off each other. The story was that when were were driving back to the gate of the park, our driver noticed a lion secret waiting for something along the road. Then we found there was actually a group of wildebeest around, so we assumed the lion was waiting to hunt. Suddenly, the wildebeests all started running, and we discovered that there was actually another lion on the other side of the road chasing a wildebeest, then this "waiting lion" joined and the two lions were together chasing a wildebeest. However, the wildebeest ran really fast, and turned his head facing the two lions. Having a very sharp horns on his head, the wildebeest used its horns as weapon to defend himself. After all, the two lions gave up, because it was very difficult to get a wildebeest when it's facing you, because the wildebeests can use its horn to protect himself.
Here comes the another surprise we received at Mara - we saw many vans parked in front of us, so we thought some van got stuck in the mud. All of a sudden, a male lion slowly walked by our van, and we all rushed to take out our camera to take a shot of the King of Jungle. I think lions must be very confident animals, because they never seemed to be scared of anything. Although there were many vans parked beside him, he was still taking his own pace, and slowly walked by.
We also saw a lonely but very elegant ostrich slowly moving on the grass and a group of elephants. Although elephants are ginormous animals, I think they are really cute when they use their long noses to grab tree branch and then send it to their mouths. When I was enjoying looking at elephants eat, a baby elephant appeared. I quickly took out my camera and started taking picture of him/her. Then an interesting thing happened, the baby elephant walked behind his/her mom, and the mother elephant was protecting him/her. I think mother nature is just something universal, doesn't matter if it's human or animals.
Continue on this "mother nature" topic. On the second day of the safari, we also watched a mother lion teaching her four kids how to hunt. The five of them were slowly approaching a group of wildebeest. We first thought the mother was hunting food for the four kids, but it turned out that the mother let the kids go in front of her and approach the wildebeests first. The driver introduced to us that there is actually strategy involved in almost every single hunt, and sometimes the hunt can take hours. Unsurprisingly, the four kids did not even get the chance to touch a wildebeest, but they must have learned something this time.
This is also a very cute picture of the baby lions playing with each other, while their mother is leading them at the front.
Although there was a disappointment that we didn't see any cheetah nor leopards, we saw another very very rare animals - a black rhino!!! The driver said rhinos often hide behind bushes, and almost no visitor ever had the opportunity to see them. Luckily, we found a rhino very close to our car, and we drove to a closer place and took photos of him. The driver joked with us that we should never mess with a rhino, and we should take the photo quickly and leave, because a rhino can easily flip a van haha..
The trip to Mara is definitely something I would never forget in my life. If any of you ever have a chance to visit Africa, remember to personally check out the wilderness, because it's absolutely worth it to see them in your life time! Lastly, here's a picture of our team except me, because I was the camera lady!
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