Headed out before sunrise, everything packed and loaded I.e. our breakfast and lunch. In hindsight, this was one of the best games drives for me. Also loved how the food was packed, everybody had their own box and labeled.

We realized that hot air balloon rides are quite popular here. As we started driving through the park, we saw so many. From what we saw, people do the balloon ride, land someplace when a safari driver picks them up and they continue the game drive. Pretty cool. I’m glad we didn’t do that as I’m sure we would have had to wake up even earlier. We got wonderful photos on the balloons and sunrise 😍 as soon as we entered we saw thousands for wildebeest. That’s what this park is known for, to see millions of wildebeest in their migration path. The sights were pretty awesome.

We saw a pack of hyenas early on and watched as they ran along our jeep. Next we saw a lioness having her breakfast of wildebeest. Some pics will show you how close to the wild animals we get. I was nervous and then noticed people filming or watching from open jeeps, no option to close if the lioness changes her mind. Rithvi was a bit grossed out watching the lion 🤷‍♀️

Throughout many of our game drives we noticed that the drivers are tuned into stations or walkie talkies to hear where there are animal sightings. It’s all in Swahili. We then came to a place wondering what we were going to see here. It was a bit strange but all worked out. Our driver told us there is some animal in a restricted area of the park, pointed us to a jeep with rangers. He mentioned we may have to pay a bribe, and quickly go in and out of the restricted area. There are heavy US $ fines and prison time for violating park rules. The adults quickly decided we were ok with the bribe and handed 1k shillings. The kids were not happy to which Arun uncle said that such transaction should happen without kids knowing 😝. We agreed with the kids and said it won’t happen again. There were 2-3 jeeps just waiting near the rangers jeep. Then the rangers drove away which was our signal to quickly get in and get out. It’s debatable if this was worth it but we got to see a mamma leopard and her two cubs 😍 Rithvi forgot all about the bribe and was ready to take the cubs home. It was sooo cute but we got back into the unrestricted area quickly.

After that we drive to a spot where there 5-6 cheetahs. This one was amazing too, so close to the animals. One walked almost up to our jeep before walking alongside it 😅 I absolutely loved this.

After this sighting we drove to a spot where there was a massive herd of wildebeest near a river. Typically they wait long times, one nudging the other to go first before it becomes a stampede situation. Our driver had told us to be patient, this could take a while. While there wasn’t any movement yet, we drove a little away to have our picnic breakfast. Set a mat on the ground and had our breakfast. Pretty cool and well organized.

After breakfast we headed back to the spot with wildebeest. This was a decent amount of time, maybe couple of hours almost. This is why you need a lot of snacks 😝 we finally decided to drive away. We got to a spot near the Kenya-Tanzanian border where we saw herds of wildebeest and zebras running across. Was pretty cool.

After this we headed for our picnic lunch. We could do a nature walk with a ranger here and tip them. The walk wasn’t much, walked along the river and saw hippos. We then settled down for picnic lunch. Lots of baboons around,which you had to watch out for in case they came for your food. At one point, Tanush and Rithvi jumped out of picnic mat before I even realized what happened. The baboon was 10 feet away!

After this it was heading back to camp. Our driver had heard of a lion nearby and drove around a bit but we couldn’t spot it. We got back to camp. I felt pretty good about our last game drive of our trip. I was honestly ready to be back on paved roads.

At camp, we rested and the rest of the evening was relaxing, caught up with family over video, backed up of our pics and videos. Dinner was good and our drive back to Nairobi was going to be another long drive. Had a restful night. Showers and amenities in both Malu lodge and the Masai Maara camp were good.