Two months in the Mara

I’d never been here before, but I’d seen it everywhere — Instagram, social media, wildlife documentaries. I’d also seen the other side of it: the videos of thirty or forty vehicles surrounding a sighting, cars blocking cats, blocking kills. That was the side I wasn’t particularly looking forward to.

The places I’d been before with my family were quieter on purpose. We’d chosen camps that were a bit more off the beaten track, because we didn’t want that crowded version of safari you see on social media. So when this opportunity at Governors’ Camp came up, I was excited, and I was also pretty unsure about how it would actually look.

I also had this slightly ridiculous picture of the Mara in my head, as if you’d have a lion on the right, a leopard on the left, a cheetah just there. Big five every day. Multiple cats every drive. I don’t even know where I got that from.

I arrived at the start of August, which is peak season here — peak migration and peak visitors. It was busy, and we were very busy throughout August. That isn’t necessarily an issue, because the Mara is a popular place, and August had some incredible sightings.

My first afternoon I took one of my favourite photographs of Djodjo, one of the Topi boys. Through the rest of August, we saw Djodjo mating with Nusurika, one of the Marsh pride females. We saw lions feeding on multiple different kills, a few cheetah sightings, amazing elephants, buffalo, general game, and even a migration river crossing. It was a pretty incredible month.

September then started to get a little quieter on the guest front. Still very busy, but a little less so. I did a few more things around camp, a few more camp shoots, a few external ones, and in general the sightings have been a little less dramatic by Mara standards. Fewer lions, fewer cheetahs, and I’m still yet to properly photograph a leopard here.

I’ve seen one, fleetingly, just as the sun was setting. He walked between two bushes, a long way off, but I don’t have anything photographically. That’s a pretty crazy thing based on what I thought this place would be. You see these videos of lions chasing leopards and all these photographs of leopards, and I haven’t had one I could work.

Even the river crossings are the same lesson. Some guests come solely for a crossing, for three days, and it took me almost three weeks to see my first one. Being on safari is truly unique in that way. You can never predict what you’re going to see, or when you’re going to see it, and you can’t expect to see anything at all, because you never know what the day will bring.

I had never seen a serval before I came here. It wasn’t even really on my radar. Then one morning this resident female walked out in front of the car and I couldn’t stop smiling. They’ve become one of my new favourite animals, and one of my favourite things to photograph. I’ve been lucky enough to see her twice now, only twice in almost two months, but every morning we still check her territory, and we’ve had no luck since.

Looking back on these two months, it’s been an incredible time and an incredible opportunity. A new place, new people, a new country, completely on my own, and I’ve had so much fun. I’ve loved being able to spend time with the camera, spend time in the wild, and not have to rush. I can spend three hours with elephants, and I have done on some afternoons.

October is the last month of my 3 month stint at Governors’ Camp, and I’m looking forward to seeing what it brings.