Our planning started a year ago. Going back to Masai Mara, Kenya was already decided when we last left this wonderful place. So, our journey started on March 12, 2020 by taking the train to Copenhagen and as soon as we got to Malmö we received information that the Öresundsbridge had been closed due to a storm. The timing couldn’t be worse. This meant that we would miss our flight from Copenhagen to Amsterdam. After several hours waiting in Malmö we finally got on the train again and headed for Copenhagen airport. Since we had missed the flight, we had to arrange for a hotel night and rebook our flight to the next day. This also meant that we would arrive late in Nairobi and therefore miss the domestic flight to Masai Mara. So, once again we had to arrange for an extra hotel night, this time in Nairobi and rebook our domestic flight. We finally arrived at lunch time on 14 March (should have been 13th).

The lodge we had decided on is called Ashnil Mara Camp. It’s a tented camp just by the Mara River and 1 hour drive from Talek River. The camp itself is really nice except that no tent really has a good view over the Mara River because of all bushes. The service and staff are top notch.

We knew we took a bit of a risk going abroad in these worrisome times. Since our state department didn’t have any restrictions, we thought that it would be ok to travel. But we were wrong… On 17 March we got a message from KLM that our flight back home was cancelled. No information about a new date, new flight, nothing. And it was hopeless to get in touch with KLM. Then we tried contacting our state department and embassy, but they more or less said that you are on your own. Try and get home as fast as possible was the message. So, we spent more or less the whole day trying to find a flight back home, which wasn’t easy. At this time most airports had already closed down. But luckily we found available seats on a British Airways flight to London and then onward to Stockholm. This meant that we had to pay the air ticket once again. KLM did not refund us in anyway. Changing the flight back home meant of course that we had to book an extra hotel night in Nairobi. When we finally got onboard the BA flight, we knew that we would at least get to London. The problem didn’t stop there. When we arrived in Heathrow airport we got a message from BA saying that our flight to Stockholm was cancelled. So, once more we had to book an extra hotel night and arrange for a new flight to Stockholm, which we did the day after luckily. We arrived in Stockholm Arlanda on 22 March. We were finally back in Sweden!

Despite all the travel problems we had we managed to have a couple of great days in Masai Mara. Here are some photos I took during these days.