Page 24 - Cape-Camera-March-April-2021

March/April 2021 Cape Camera

A member’s travelogue

Masai Mara – any wild life photographer’s dream

by Nicholas Moschides

In September 2019, I was offered the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by my parents and the managing director
of Wild Eye to go to the Masai Mara and experience the great migration. This experience is still one that I hold
close to my heart and an experience that I would love to repeat.

On 29th September I caught the ‘lovely’ 01h55 flight to Kenya
with one of the Wild Eye guides, Mike Laubscher. Wild-Eye is a
photographic travel and private guiding safari company based
in South Africa. They offer tours to most of Kenya, the Pantanal,
Iceland, Tanzania, India, Asia, North America and Canada. My trip
to Kenya was organized through Wild-Eye – flights and every-
thing else.
After four hours we landed in Nairobi which was hot and humid,
quite a shock to the system after a cold and wintery South Africa
that we had just left behind. We met some of the other interna-
tional guests at the hotel and had quite an exhilarating transfer
through the chaotic Nairobi streets to Wilson Airport (a smaller
domestic airport). One moment you can have a car driving to- All it took was for one halfwit animal to pluck up enough cour-
wards you on your side of the road and then the next moment age to jump into the Mara River, cross it and the entire herd
you are weaving around and between cattle that are crossing it. would rush forward like sheep, kicking and spewing up a mas-
From what I could see, Nairobi was rather built up, houses and sive cloud of dust. From then on, it was information overload;
buildings on top of one another and somewhat run down. How- zebras joining the pandemonium, the splashing of water, the
ever, this was contrasted with impeccably clean streets – which sound of thousands of hooves. Soon the crocs joined in, taking
definitely made the world of difference, and seemed to make out any youngsters that they could find, and hippos blaring at
the buzz of people much more bearable. After a 45-minute flight any animal that got too close. I had to pinch myself that this
in a metal mosquito we touched down on the hot and sandy was for real. It was this that I was here for – the great migration
runway in the Mara Triangle. It really felt like an experience out - a photographic dream of mine ever since my grandparents
of a movie with masses of wild animals standing along the side, taught me to use my first camera when I was six years old.
blurred by the heat of the tarmac. The Great Migration in Eastern Africa is an experience like no
The first day was very hot and we headed in our Wild Eye Land other. Zebras, Wildebeest, giraffe and antelope make their way
Cruisers back to our camp. The landscape was something to get across Tanzania and Kenya every year. They march across the
used to as it is nothing like what we see in South Africa. You are landscape in their tens of thousands, crossing rivers where
utterly surrounded by flat and sometimes undulating grass- crocodiles lie in waiting. The entire event is an extraordinary
lands with single trees dotted about – daring to offer just a little photographic experiences waiting to happen.
bit of shade. The openness can be overwhelming. Animals sat
and stood on little termite mounds scattered across the plains. After a long day, we finally arrived at Wild Eye’s Enkishui camp
– the Masai term for ‘life’ – after the amazing crossing on our
Just before arriving at camp, we saw a massive herd of wilde- way from the airport. We were greeted by the Masai and taken
beest edging closer to the river. Every 20 minutes or so, a sin- around the camp. The camp was unfenced and situated right
gle wildebeest would edge towards the river – some following on the bank of the Mara River. Enkishui consisted of 10 tents
– skrik himself which resulted in the entire heard running back each with a double bed, toilet, shower, wash basin – all over-
up the hill again and further away from where they started. This looking your very own little section of the river – a media tent
was a patience game and continued for some long four hours.

23 Cape Town Photographic Society