On the path unwinding
August 24, 2013 3:16 AM Subscribe
My vacation to the set of Disney's "The Lion King." Via reddit, the real pictures were taken at the Mara Bushtop at the Masai Mara Manyatta Camp in Kenya.
the real pictures were taken at the Mara Bushtop at the Masai Mara Manyatta Camp in Kenya
Nope. Those are two separate places, both of which are just two "hotels", outside the Masai Mara National Park/Reserve where the photos will actually have been taken.
And otherwise, yeah, these are the basic holiday snaps any tourist here gets; anyone who wants to safari should come visit.
posted by Hobo at 4:47 AM on August 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
Nope. Those are two separate places, both of which are just two "hotels", outside the Masai Mara National Park/Reserve where the photos will actually have been taken.
And otherwise, yeah, these are the basic holiday snaps any tourist here gets; anyone who wants to safari should come visit.
posted by Hobo at 4:47 AM on August 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
Ah, the circle of tourism.
posted by chavenet at 4:54 AM on August 24, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 4:54 AM on August 24, 2013 [3 favorites]
So you're telling me I can see the "set" of the Lion King, and it's basically a package vacation deal? Hmm... very tempting.
posted by sixohsix at 4:54 AM on August 24, 2013
posted by sixohsix at 4:54 AM on August 24, 2013
I can't help myself pointing out those are banded mongooses as there are no meerkats in the Mara. The baboon is a different species too.
posted by devon at 5:40 AM on August 24, 2013
posted by devon at 5:40 AM on August 24, 2013
I can't help myself pointing out
also, the movie was animated. The set of Disney's The Lion King looked more like this ...
posted by philip-random at 8:44 AM on August 24, 2013
also, the movie was animated. The set of Disney's The Lion King looked more like this ...
posted by philip-random at 8:44 AM on August 24, 2013
Neat set. I can't help but notice how much greener the land in the movie was...I guess the color pallette would have been fairly monotone if they hadn't done that.
posted by nevercalm at 9:20 AM on August 24, 2013
posted by nevercalm at 9:20 AM on August 24, 2013
I just got back from 5 weeks in Kenya for work, and - like the article linked by Segundus - if you go, I strongly strongly recommend researching where and how you stay. As a tourist, it's your responsibility to ensure your dollar, where possible, is going to the right places, and is part of the solution, not part of the problem. It's honestly not that hard.
I also recommend avoiding the Maasai Mara itself. We were staying in one of the conservancies mentioned in the Guardian article - and everything we saw in the Mara, we saw there, but without hordes of tourists, with guides that gave a shit and weren't hassling the animals and kept a respectable distance, and knowing that are money was helping fund the local Maasai community.
The Mara itself was quite an unpleasant day, I found. The number of tourists has to be seen to be believed, and there is fucking rubbish everywhere. Our group spent every break just going around literally picking up trash. One our way home there was a cheetah; there would have been at least forty vans surrounding the poor bastard. It was not nice.
posted by smoke at 4:19 PM on August 24, 2013
I also recommend avoiding the Maasai Mara itself. We were staying in one of the conservancies mentioned in the Guardian article - and everything we saw in the Mara, we saw there, but without hordes of tourists, with guides that gave a shit and weren't hassling the animals and kept a respectable distance, and knowing that are money was helping fund the local Maasai community.
The Mara itself was quite an unpleasant day, I found. The number of tourists has to be seen to be believed, and there is fucking rubbish everywhere. Our group spent every break just going around literally picking up trash. One our way home there was a cheetah; there would have been at least forty vans surrounding the poor bastard. It was not nice.
posted by smoke at 4:19 PM on August 24, 2013
wait so are you telling me the Lion King was based on real referents and wasn't a masterful work of speculative bio-fiction
posted by threeants at 7:38 PM on August 24, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by threeants at 7:38 PM on August 24, 2013 [1 favorite]
I'm just finishing a year in Kenya. (heading to Canada in about 1.5 hours, in fact....... sigh.) There's so much awesome wildlife stuff here. And I've never been to the mara, because jesus what a tourist trap. I've had a great time at Lake Nakuru (flamingoes! so many awesome birds! lions!), and Kakamega forest, the last stand of rainforest in Kenya.
I think the moral of these pictures is that Maribou storks are incredibly ugly.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:29 AM on August 25, 2013
I think the moral of these pictures is that Maribou storks are incredibly ugly.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:29 AM on August 25, 2013
Also, there's such a thing as rainy season and dry season; though I haven't been to the Mara, I can attest that things are waaaaay greener during the rainy season. All that grass gotta grow sometime.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:31 AM on August 25, 2013
posted by kaibutsu at 1:31 AM on August 25, 2013
Neat set. I can't help but notice how much greener the land in the movie was...I guess the color pallette would have been fairly monotone if they hadn't done that.
Yeah, I haven't been to this specific place but having lived in similar environments I'd bet this is due to differences in seasonal rainfall. There is often a shocking difference between rainy and dry seasons.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 4:33 PM on August 25, 2013
Yeah, I haven't been to this specific place but having lived in similar environments I'd bet this is due to differences in seasonal rainfall. There is often a shocking difference between rainy and dry seasons.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 4:33 PM on August 25, 2013
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And blinking step into the sun... ♫
posted by sixohsix at 4:17 AM on August 24, 2013