Indescribable

Friday, July 4, 2014 22:00KST/19:00UTC/15:00EDT

I consider myself to be a pretty capable wordsmith - an alphabetical acrobat able to craft together words, phrases, sentences, and stories in a cogently complete, and exhaustively explicative manner to convey my thoughts and ideas.  Usually, succinctness is the unwitting victim of this effort, but brevity is not a friend to details.

And yet, as I sit to describe what I have seen in the past 24 hours, I am totally without adequate words. I could construct a partial list the animals I've seen: elephants, giraffes, zebras, lions, a black rhino, a cheetah, but that would rob you of the thrill of seeing them in their wild, native habitat, and give short shrift to the other dozens of inhabitants of the Masa Mara preserve we saw.  Our fabulous guide, Paul, was excellent in his deftness in finding these species, and was full of great insights as to how the kingdom of animals coexist and actually support each other.

One simple example is this: teams of termites, boring into the earth, cause rises or mounds, in the earth.  These small plateaus only ascend three or four feet at the most, but are the salvation of many Thompson Gazelles, or as Paul called them, "Cheetah Sandwiches".  From this vantage point a designated look-out can survey the grasslands around his fellow grazing companions and provide an early warning of spotted predators on the prowl.  In time, and with the rains, these mounds will collapse creating mud bogs that provide a spa-like mud bath for the water buffalo, wildebeests, and others that enable them to ward off the oppressive heat of the scorching sun.  Yes, even the lowly termite is a vital part of the eco-system.  This is an experience that, if you ever have the opportunity, you must have.

Our group stayed in a "luxury tent camp", Masa Siria that I must say was much better than I imagined.  The rooms were large, clean, and they had flush-toilets.  They also had hot showers, but by reservation only... upon request they would bring a 10-gallon container of hot water and transfer it to a canvas bucket that they would hoist up into the air with ropes and pulleys on a pole. Then, your gravity-fed hot shower was ready. So far, it was the best bathing experience I've had.

On our flight into Masa Mara, I had a chance encounter with a celebrity athlete that I wish I could have gotten to know better.  David Backes, "winger" and the captain of the St. Louis Blues NHL hockey team (and member of the 2014 US Olympic Hockey team) and his wife Kelly, sat in front of us.  They were such an unassuming couple, I had to research them on the Internet to appreciate the true honor I had just had.  Our entire conversation was focused on their foundation, Athletes for Animals, and the fact that they split their lives between Minnesota and St. Louis.  Kelly was so passionate about the foundation and David was so quiet, he was nothing like I would imagined for a hockey player aside for his size; he even had a full set of teeth!  I think I must now change my allegiance from the Bruins to the Blues! Raise that cup in 2015 David!

At dinner the night we were there I had an unexpected treat.  Some of our fellow campers were at first blush a bunch of rowdy college frat boys. As it turned out, they were the Whiffenpoofs, the world-famous men's Glee Club of Yale University.  They graced the diners and staff with a pair of songs at the end of dinner and were fabulous.   I called Eileen to tell her, and she didn't believe me. I held my phone out to the group and said, "Guys, this Eileen, my wife. She is a big fan of yours as well, and doesn't believe me." They then with out hesitation broke into perfect six-part harmony and sang "Hello Eileen".  What a great group of guys.  They were off to South Africa in the morning and then on to Asia as they continued their three month World Tour.

As you can read, the people I met were much easier to describe than the sites I saw. I took a whole bunch of pictures, and they will have to suffice.  The flight home was a much more "exhilarating" experience than the flight out.  A Cessna Caravan came to pick us up, a one engine, two pilot, nine passenger plane.  Actually it was only one-and-a-half pilots because it became quickly obvious that the rights seat pilot was still in training.  He did a fairly good job of getting us off the ground and, since I could clearly see all of the instrumentation in the "cockpit", I'll have to say he did a pretty good job of guiding us homeward, following the straight line on the navigation screen pretty faithfully.  We were on finally approach to the runway, and were on target over the outer markers and the inner markers; all was looking good until we got to the stripes at the end of the runway and he realized that he was still about 50' too high and a little too fast.  The senior pilot took over and we immediately dropped 35' and cut our airspeed by about a third.  We landed and rolled out without any more drama, but there was about a second or two where I was certain we were going to have to wave off and fly around.  My final thought on that leg of the adventure is that I owe someone a bottle of Bonine. If I hadn't had two of those magical pills before takeoff, I would have a much different experience.

Finally back at camp, we were treated to an all-American cook-out, complete with hamburgers, s'mores, and ice cream.  It was a great meal. In the morning we are off to Naivasha to visit the Strong Tower Children's Home, an orphanage for street children.