We left the Pat Mase Villas after our 3 nights and headed up to the Mara River Safari Lodge where we were to spend 1 night here...just for the experience. On the way we stopped off in Sanur and had lunch at a café on the beachfront - for the life of me I cannot remember what the name of the café is, but it was very popular and the food was tasty and plentiful. I ordered mie goreng and the guys ordered pizza (of course!!). It was then I probably did a faux pas in the way that I loaded some extra sambal on my mie goreng. Well given that I had just recovered from a weeks worth of gastro, this was to be a bit of a mistake really! Live and learn!
After lunch we headed off back on the road and onwards to the safari lodge. We arrived at around 3.45 and as the park closed at 5pm, we decided we would use our free passes the next morning before check-out. In reality we were not too bothered if we missed out on doing the safari tour as we had done it in Jan/Feb. We were shown to our room for the night, it was a room on the top of the Twiga/Treehouse rooms. The rooms are round (so to speak), plenty of room for two people and a decent enough balcony to fit a couple of chairs out there. The toilet/shower area was also big enough. My only criticism would be the shower has no curtain or doors, so the water really does saturate the bathroom floor which could be a bit hazardous for those who are not as young on their feet! We had a perfect view over the enclosure and were lucky enough to sit and watch the rhino, zebra's, and wilderbeast enjoy their surroundings and at the end of the day we saw the elephants come and bathe in the river below us. One cheeky elephant whilst posing for photos we were taking decided to try and offload his handler into the water by sinking as low as a hippo...it was so funny to watch, the poor guy was screaming at the elephant to rise up.
We had booked for dinner at the Tsavo Lion Restaurant and headed across at 7.30. It was empty...or should I say it was nearly empty. There were only two other tables with people. We had a table right next to the glass overlooking the Lion enclosure. It really was a fantastic spot. The lions however were tired after their full day and were sleeping away peacefully. The young male lion held separately in an enclosure which you can view from the bathrooms, was very much awake and made this known throughout dinner and we also heard him during the night. He has a big roar!
Highlights:
** We got to experience a night in a safari park, probably something that not too many people can say they have done.
** We did the tour around the safari park again, and took more photos...we even had the same guide as last time...and she remembered us!
** I used our discount voucher to buy a small white tiger at the gift shop. They had run out of white tigers in total and were not stocking them anymore but I spotted the very last one hiding in the window...mine!!
** Breakfast in the Tsavo Restaurant with the lions awake and ready for action! We got some absolutely fantastic photo shots and video shots of this. Breakfast was pretty good too!!
Lowlights:
** The tourists that were staying in a room a few doors down who scared off the hippo every time he got close to our building by shrieking and calling to each other. I won't name the race of these people as I don't want to be deemed racist, but it is a common occurrence with them!
** The dinner at Tsavo Restaurant which was unappetizing and small portions for the exorbitant amount of money you pay. In my own personal view - totally not worth it. Unfortunately they do have the monopoly out there as there is no other restaurant close by that you can go to and certainly not one within walking distance.
** The German family. There is one in every holiday! The lady was so rude. She wanted a glass of wine with dinner and was told that they don't sell wine by the glass but by the bottle, if she cared to purchase a bottle. This started her on a roll about how she had been all around the world and never been across a situation where she couldn't buy one glass of wine because she didn't want a bottle she only wanted one glass. This argument went on for about 15 minutes and she chewed through 2 wait staff and the restaurant supervisor. I was gob-smacked. Her husband and two teenage daughters also looked suitably embarrassed. How could you not?? A bad day maybe? Who knows..... We also had the pleasure(??) of their company at breakfast. She rudely cut across the video camera that my husband was holding whilst filming the lions, and started taking photos. I attempted a cough to draw her attention to the fact that she was in our space and basically ruining our footage and she ignored me. So with that, my fiery temper kicked in and I tapped her on the shoulder and in a roundabout and colorful way (too colorful for me to repeat on this forum) I advised her that she had rudely cut in front of our video camera and that we really didn't want her arse in our pictures and could she please move aside until we had finished. Obviously she didn't understand some of the things I said but she got the message, as did her husband and daughters who were again crimson with embarrassment. My darling hubby also looked a bit embarrassed from my outburst but enough was enough I thought especially after listening to her chew out the staff last night and then try and muscle in on our space and video footage. I made sure that when she got up to take a few more photos of the lions in her space, that I shared that space with her just to make sure she got the message...which she did.
** The mosquito's. If you do stay the night here, please come prepared (like we did). The mosquito's here look different - they have much longer tail. All I can say is spray the room, light the mossie coils and douse yourself in aeroguard!
That said Wayan was to pick us up at 11.30am and we were off to bathe in the cooling/healing water of the natural spring water which had been arranged for us....to be continued....