Safari in the Maasai Mara

By Maya Karlan

          I had a fabulous safari with my family including my grandma. We saw so many animals! There were three things which I liked the most: being with Grandma, seeing animals, and watching animals doing things.

          My grandma came to Africa for the first time. We played a game and made a bet on how many times she said, “awesome.” My brother won. My brother, sister and I slept in the same tent as Grandma.

          We saw so many animals; it was crazy.  I was most excited to see a black rhino because it is the rarest rhino, and I studied it in 2^nd grade. The rhinos are usually in bushes but they were out in the open, and there were two of them. Seeing the rhino made it so that we saw the Big Five: rhino, buffalo, lion, leopard, and elephant all in one day! We saw 5 leopards, 3 playing and 2 resting in trees. We also saw one cheetah lying down. It was very cool. We all got in the safari jeep, and we said, “We’re going to see a cheetah. We’re going to see a cheetah.” And then we saw one.

          We saw animals mating and eating. We saw two types of animals mating, the ostrich and the lion. Before the ostrich mates the male dances and waves its wings. Then the male gets on top of the female and they mate. The lion mates every 5 minutes for a few hours. When the lion mated the male got on top of the female and shook his butt. Then the male peed, but that’s not part of the mating. We also saw an eland that died of old age, and vultures were pecking at the eland. They stuck their heads up the eland’s butt and mouth. Then a hyena came and scared the vultures away. The hyena started ripping out the eland’s guts and made a hole in the tummy for the hyena to eat. We went back three hours later, and the vultures were still there! We saw four vultures come out of the tummy that the hyena had made.

          We had a fabulous safari because of how much we saw. Also it was fun because Grandma was there.