Kicheche Mara North
Mara North Conservancy
This camp is located in the heart of the Mara North Conservancy. It is situated above a stream, and each of the eight tents overlooks a corridor teeming with birdlife and roaming plains game.
The schedule here followed the same pattern as Kicheche Laikipia: early morning game drive, relaxing lunch, afternoon tea, evening game drive, gourmet dinner.
Getting There & Settling In
We traveled to the airstrip at Laikipia for our next KenyaAir flight.
We received a warm greeting from the camp staff....
....and from a persistent monkey who wanted in our tent.
Main Lodge/Dining Area
View from Our Tent
Kate and me with George, our Maasai Guide
One of our morning drive breakfasts. Everyone staying at the camp enjoyed dining by the riverside.
The Animal Gallery
You will see some new animals at this camp, but fewer photos of them. It reflects the difference in the geographies and I started to ease off the camera shutter a bit.
If you want to see even lions and some Cape buffalo, though, scroll down to the story linked below: “Three Cape buffalos decide to crash a lion prides’ dinner”.
Baboons
Elephants
Leopards
Wildebeests
Hippos
Cheetah
Other Ungulates
Monkey
Birds
Dik-Dik
Hyenas
Giraffes
Zebras
Lions
Warthogs
The Rest
Three Cape Buffalos decide to crash a dinner party…..
That’s how it started. On an evening game drive we were alerted that a lion pride had killed an Eland (you’ll find pix of living examples by clicking on “Other Ungulates” above) on a rocky hillside. The photos below were taken at a distance, including when three bachelor Cape Buffalos crashed the gathering…
The pride dining
The Party Crashers Arrive
There is no love lost between “bachelor” buffalo and lions. Following the humiliation of being outcast from their herds, aging Cape Buffalo make for great lion dining.
The Standoff Ends….We Think
The conflict seems to be over. The buffalo move down the hillside. The lions resume eating. We head back to camp for dinner.
But the conflict wasn’t over…
There was another group from our camp on the hillside that evening. They stayed longer than us. When I made a comment about “the three Cape buffalo” one of them replied, “There aren’t three now. Just two.”
The next morning…
The pride was enjoying a new feast
After we left the scene the evening before a lone lioness charged one of the buffalo and brought it down herself. For the next 24 hours, the pride would feed on, play around, have another stand-off with the two remaining buffalo and protect the kill from scavengers until they had their fill.
I took A LOT of photos—perhaps too many—but it was an incredible scene that underscored the very wild place we were visiting. There are some great photos below and some gruesome ones, too.
