Today is the first time I will view Africa from a flying basket exploring Kenya’s Maasai region or “mara”, which I have been told means “spotted land”.
The clock has just turned to 6 A.M.; through the window the sky looks more awake than I am, and as usual my neighbors, the hippos and monkeys, are roaming the camp just like any camp guests. But there is no time to observe wild life on the ground if within the hour I will be doing it from the sky. So I jump in the MICATO safari jeep for the rocky and bumpy ride, suitably named “Maasai massage”. “Micato”, I think, another great name, so suitable for a safari company.
Forty minutes later I arrive at what appears to be a balloonless plain with only wandering Europeans and a few Maasais. I ask the guide if they cancelled the ride and he says, “Of course not, just look over my shoulder.” And certainly enough, a gigantic yellow and red tarp is slowly rising off the ground and in minutes transforming into a colorful ten-story high leviathan with a small basket laying on its side.
I look at the dozen people in our group and wonder how we would all possibly fit into the basket, but soon I see it comfortably swallowing all twelve passengers and the pilote as we crawl into the laying basket. We all huddle to the bottom and hold tight until the pull of the balloon straightens the basket and there we go, into the blue sky.
I see from above the golden glazed landscape and I realize the meaning of the term Maasai Mara or Maasai “spotted land”; the trees and bushes make the savannah resemble the spots of a leopard. The shadow of our balloon scares a herd of elephants, which run away. The biggest one turns around and confronts us with a thunderous roar that would freeze the fiercest lion, raising his trunk and flapping his ears in all his imposing might to tell us: ”stay away from my wives and babies you hear!”; I was happy to be in the balloon close enough to smell their armpits but high enough to be safe. The funny part was after we passed the herd: from a safe distance the younger ones started chasing us, and mimicking what papa elephant did.
With the air on the colder side, I approach for warmth the flames blown into the balloon as Phileas Fogg probably did as he roamed around the world in eighty days. Wait… a crocodile slowly makes his move on a wildebeest crossing the riverbed as part of the herd; I can see the croc a few inches below the water but the wildebeest cannot. The croc, fast as a jack-in-the-box, pops out of the water with his big pink mouth wide open and clutches on both thighs of the unlucky wildebeest. Twisting and turning the croc tugs him into the deep water to drown him. The wildebeest holds strongly but probably not for long as I can see some huge uninvited crocs rushing to the free brunch as we fly away.
The balloon approaches the gigantic herd of thousands of wildebeests and causes a stampede, which opens into two waves like the Red Sea for Moses and closing after we pass.
Next a lion is strategizing his attack from behind a bush on an unsuspecting zebra but chose not to; I am told male lions are lazy, with the female lions doing most of the hunting. It must be true, from my vantage point I can see everything but I don’t see his wife.These could have been episodes of Discovery Channel’s ”Planet Earth” but in 3D, and close enough for glorious Stenchorama.
We are now scheduled upon landing for a most proper and civilized British-type meal with tablecloth, champagne, and caviar on tables placed by the ground crew under a gigantic oak. We descend in the middle of the open savannah surrounded by predators who could easily turn us diners into dinners.
An hour later none of us got eaten so we get in the MICATO jeeps for our way back to the camp. I start wondering if the name “Micato” on the door of the jeep, which sounds so evocative of deep Africa, is after a historic Maasai chief, or maybe a legendary elephant, or the source of the river I just saw, so I ask the driver. Beaming with a wide toothless smile, he proudly replies: It means, ma’m Mini Cars and Tours.
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