Last day of Safari

Last safari day. This may have been the scariest, most nerve racking day of the whole trip, lol! We headed out for a very early game drive, maybe get a glimpse of some stalking cats or something. First we saw 7 hot air balloons floating off in the distance, showing off the landscape to those that are willing to pay the hefty fee. Then we saw the wildebeest lined up in packs on the top of the hill. Packed together for as far as the eye could see, keeping a look out for predators, quiet an awesome sight. We happened upon a couple of Jackals, looking for breakfast, one was nice enough to stop and pose for me as we went by. And with great excitement, a pride of lions was spotted and every truck, from all directions, went to see them eat their morning kill. We got there as the pride was finishing up and gnawing on bones and a leg (got a picture of that). The pride moved off to the river, just below where we were, to relax and wash down what they ate. So of course us and other tucks followed them, great spots for pictures and watching these beautiful beasts. We kinda laughed a little at a truck that got stuck in the sand of the riverbanks, while trying get close to the male lion. We commented that it would be a horrible spot to have to evacuate a vehicle with all the lions around. We moved our bus down onto the riverbank, following one of our other buses, and I got wonderful pictures of the male lion drinking from a puddle next to the river and a hyaena that was coming to see if the lions left anything for him. The moment we turned the bus around, to make our way back up the hill, our back wheels spun and spun and sunk into the wet sand. Who's laughing now huh, we were stuck worse then the last truck, oops! The lions perked up and started watching us very carefully. I was so thanking for what I now call the sacrificial wildebeest the lions had eaten around 20 minutes before. They had no real intention of making us the second course. As soon as our driver and guide exited the vehicle, many of the lions scattered. It was explained to us later that they are curious cats, but are frightened by humans, yeay! As another truck attempted to pull us our with a cable, the sand held us tight. Our driver attempted to shovel the sand in front of the back tire, on the "dry" and the tire fully emerged in the river on the other side. No luck, their efforts to keep us passengers in the bus was failing, next step, evacuate quickly to the two other buses. But of course, not before I got some great pictures of 3 lionesses fleeing up river and across, looking back at us on occasion, probably laughing! 6 people from the stuck bus, gingerly exited on the river side, careful not to get our feet wet, as only the back tire was submerged, we had a little sliver of sand under the front passenger door. We scurried to the other buses as they shuffled people to make room for us. With less weight and a little more force, the bus emerged from the riverbanks grasp and was moving on its own. We traveled in the crowed buses for about 1/2 a mile, where we felt it was safe to reload our bus again! Whoa, talk about adrenalin rush, we then made our way back to camp for breakfast and to calm down a little. However, we did pause a couple of times to to get shots of elephants and a really pretty bird that had been eluding us in good sunlight. After a short break, we loaded up again and went to a Massai Village. Greeted by male dancers, we watched as they demonstrated again the jumping "dance", apparently it's a matting dance and its supposed to attract a female. We then got to participate in a woman's dance too, a blessing dance. It was very interesting to see how the nomadic Massai live, in little huts, built in a circle, made from tree branches and cow dung. They bring their cows into the middle courtyard at night to keep them protected, which also means, they live amongst the dung and it smells horribly. We all got to go inside a home and see the cramped quarters and how they cook and sleep, they stay outside during the day. I took some pictures of some mothers with children, the babies are so cute! If they live past 5 years, they are likely to reach adulthood, but malaria and typhoid fever take most of the babies. It's also a polygamist culture and the chief of this tribe had 10 wives, but the village seemed way to small for that to make sense, but what do I know. After a few of the ladies in the group did some shopping, we gave another soccer ball away, to the same amount of excitement as the schools had, it was great. Finally, we headed out for our very last game drive, happy with what we had seen so far, we weren't really in any hurry or anticipation to see anything new. We visited an area where the hippos were "swimming" (they don't really swim, they walk on the bottom of the river), but this spot was safe to take of foot. Gave us a chance to get out of the buses and get a little closer. Our guide kept a close eye on me, not allowing me to get too close to the hippos, as not to let my anticipated death by hippo fantasy become reality. Not that I would really jump into a rive of hippos, but I did almost slide down the steep hill the lead to the water! Haha! Back in the buses, and slowly driving around, looking for animals, I spotted 3 lionesses! Yep, that's right, I got the be the first from our whole group to spot a cat! They weren't very far form the road, but in the shade of some bushes enough to not be seen by the 2 other buses, or 7 other people in mine. We called to the other buses and slowly, very slowly the whole paparazzi was there snapping away, other buses included. Storm clouds were building on the horizon and the wind picked up a bit. This made the lionesses stir and they moved from the bush cover into an adjacent open clearing. Made for wonderful viewing of these fabulous cats, but also kept us watching them until the rain came. We were forced to have to scurry back to the camp, before the roads got to slick, plus we couldn't see out the side windows anymore and the pop top had to be lowered. It was a nice ending to a magnificent trip! I will miss Kenya, our fabulous drivers and guide and all the other people. This country is very beautiful, very accepting, and very giving. Yet it's still developing, poor in a lot of areas and ready to take from anyone. I guess as visitors continue to come and give their leftovers, the people here will take it. Tomorrow we travel back to Nairobi, board a plane and work our way back home. Hopefully I can get these post uploaded to my blog soon, with pictures. I thank you for following another one of my expeditions and I look forward to sharing again soon. Asante Sana (Swahili for thank you very much).

A Day on Safari

A day Safari! Out in the vehicles for a day drive away from camp, this means we have a picnic lunch and our pit stops are called "checking the tires". It was a fabulously overcast day, nice temperatures and nice light for our photos. As we start out, I'm amazed at the number of zebras and wildebeest there are on the Mara. At some areas of the vast landscape, it reminded me of the illustrations of what the Wild West looked like, covered in Bison. As far as the eye could see, there were spots of animals. A couple of new animals to this leg of the trip are the wildebeest, part of the great migration, Topeys, Hippopotamus, Secretary birds, Janet cats and lots of people . Repeats here, but still awesome to see are a pride of Lions, Cheetahs, Elephants, Giraffes (but the Massai Giraffes now), Impala, Thompson Gazelles, Grants Gazelles, warthogs, Olive Baboons, Black-faced Vervet Monkey, crocodile, and zebra. It was incredible to see all these animals in one day, 8 hours. Lunch, as mentioned, was a picnic. Under a huge acacia tree, on the open planes, for us to enjoy the views of the animals, rolling hills, mountains in the distance and to keep an eye out for predatory animals. It could have been a scene in a move it was so beautiful. After shooting as many pics as we could, we made our way back to the hotel/camp. Before dinner a lady named Georgia, also on my previous Panama trip, met me on my porch that overlooked a river and we did yoga, amongst some baboons, birds and gorgeous trees. Once done with yoga, the power was about to be turned on for the night (they save energy by turning the power off during the day, so no wifi) so I grabbed my iPad and climbed the spiral stairs case to the deck built around a huge fig tree. I sat in a tree "fort", watching the sunset on the Mara while using wifi, pretty cool stuff! More excitement came during dinner, when I was asked by a Massai girl to join the nightly dance demonstration, and of course I did. No direction was given, I just had to watch, quickly and try to follow along. It was a parade dance through the restaurant out into an open area, were the Massai men demonstrated hoe high they could jump. Latter finding out, it's a traditional matting dance. But, they made me jump as well, even though I wasn't a male, haha. It was a lot of fun and we all got a good laugh out of the whole experience. To me, it was a magnificent day on the Mara.

To the Masai Mara

To the famous, Masai Mara (the Masai Planes)! This was to be our major travel day, long distance and an extremely difficult dirt road stands between us at the Lake Nakuru Lodge and the Masai Mara Fig Tree Tent camp. Roll out was at 7:30 am! We were all eager to see some more animals, but today was NOT the day for stopping, at least not for animals. Not a lot of exciting things to mention about the drive there. We stopped for a bathroom break, and at each of these rest stops there are sales people ready to pounce and convince you to buy the goods at this store, same goods as the last stop. But today's store was a little different, prettier, cleaner and nicer, so I looked around. Well, I ended up buying an African mask, orange colored, a zebra head mask and a painting direct from the artist. My salesman was the artist, trying to get his style noticed in the difficult market of curio shops, and still working to pay the bills. He was a charming young man and I really liked his work. He even convinced me that he would give me a better price, if I traded him my flashlight also. I had brought my favorite flashlight with me, but I knew that it was important to him and I'm sure it would be used more by him than me. Win win! The rest of the drive was rushed and tiring, but we did get to stop at another school to five out 2 more soccer balls. Today we made sure the other 2 vans had balls too and we passed them as they were giving theirs away. We stopped at a gated school and visited the head teacher, gave her 1 ball for the school, then found out the school consisted of almost 500 kids. We made a quick decision to give a 2nd ball, this one was the the girls! The kids loved it and instantly started kicking it around! Some of the other kids wanted their pictures taken and to see the photo. It was very funny to me that since I had a tank top on, and my arms were exposed, a few of the girls actually stroked my arms and one gave me a little squeeze, I think they wanted to see if my pale skin felt the same. As one of the other buses drove by our school, they said it was thrilling to see a blue soccer ball fly straight up into the air, they could tell we're we had been there. A few hours later, we made it to the dirt long rough dirt road. I don't know for certain, but it was probably 50 miles or so, and as rough as you could guess, I felt like I was back in my 4 wheelin days. We thought we were done when we got the main gate, but we still had 8 miles to go, ugh. It was a great relief to get out of the vehicle and be on steady ground. As relieved as we were, there is only one way I to the Massai Mara, which means we'll be on the same road again in three days and I feel like I'm covered I 7 layers of dust. Once settled into our tents and fed lunch, we headed out for a long walk with 2 men from a Massai tribe, to learn about animal dung and what they do with it, hear about the vegetation in the area and were taught some of the the ways of the tribe; very educational. Rest was in order for the remainder of the night, as we head out for an all day game drive tomorrow.

To Lake Nakuru

Day 5, Sweetwater to Lake Nakuru Sweetwater was an incredible place, I could have stayed there for days. But, after watching the sunrise over the hole and being told I missed a black rhino and baby a little earlier, breakfast was quick and we were shuffled off to make our long drive to Lake Nakuru. Along the drive, we kept our eyes open for another random school to give out another soccer ball. As we pulled into the school yard, the teacher wasn't sure about our intentions at first, but was happy to take two balls and let the kids know they were for the whole class. we could see that the adjacent field, students were kicking around some rolled up cloths, wrapped in rope, so it was so much fun to give them a real ball. who knows how long the balls will last, but at least they know we care enough to give them out. 1st bathroom break area was on the Equator again, this time for a water demonstration. It is true that in the Northern Hemisphere, the water swirls counter clockwise, and the Southern Hemisphere swirls clockwise, while on the equator, it drains straight down. We then had a brief stop at Thompson falls to see a beautiful waterfall area. The difficult thing is the local people that work booths close to all these stops, they are very pushy to sell their goods. Some even crowd the buses as we stop for gas or at road side check points, I'm not a haggling shopper so I just can't handle it. After another long stent in the bus, and some very rough roads, we arrived at Lake Nakuru lodge! A break and lunch was the 1st thing on the agenda, meeting up at 4pm for a game drive. Caped Buffalo visited a small watering hole outside the restaurant, as our lunch entertainment and we saw them again shortly after the game drive started. Also viewed was a Black-chested Snake Eagle, a group of White Rhinos, Zebras, a ton of different birds and a leopard!! It was a splendid cat, just out for an afternoon stroll, before a little dinner hunt. Lastly we visited the actual lake, Lake Nakuru! 10,000 Greater and Lesser (pinker ones) flamingos! Down from a number in the 100,000's but it was still amazing. There were a bunch of pelicans as well, beautiful scenery as the sun was setting. We stopped one last time, as the shadows lengthened, to watch a rhino family, the baby looking like a "mini me" of the parents, so cute!

Sweetwater Tented Camp

To Sweetwater tented camp. We left Samburu with a full day of driving ahead of us again, and no intentions of stopping in the reserve on our way out. I'm not one who likes to not be prepared for picture, so I left the telephoto on until we got to the main road. Of course, as we drove the dusty, bumpy road, we happened upon a group of Oryx,

they are only seen in the North, so it was a nice treat. Then, expecting to swiftly leave a large trail of dust behind is, we came upon one Grevy's Zebra, thought to be special to this area as well, amazing. As we finally left the park, I got a chance to catch up on the blog and watch some scenery, it really is a beautiful place.

Snapped some pics along the road and even got some shots of camels, brought from neighboring Somalia. At one point of the journey, we noticed a group of school kids out in a soccer field with their teacher. Our driver was very accommodating and stopped so we could give away one of our soccer balls. Wen the kids saw us, they came running as fast as they could, excited and yelling. We made sure the ball was given to the teacher, to be sure no one felt we gave the ball to only them and not for everyone to share. The teacher was very happy and proud, and the kids were ecstatic to get a new ball. A bunch of the kids were asking me to take photos and then ask to see it. The excitement and joy on these kids faces was priceless, it warmed our hearts and brought tears to my eyes!

Then not long after that, we made a visit to a private girls boarding school. It's encouraging to hear the government helps these schools when it takes in girls sold off to early marriage or were in bad homes. They live in and are educated in a "compound" that is under construction, and they are there from 5th grade to 8th grade, the are tested to continue into Secondary school. The conditioned there are very rough, but the girls looked happy, healthy and well mannered. We visited the 7th and 8th grade classrooms, with 35 students in each class. Each class sang a beautiful spontaneous song about Jesus for us and we handed out ink pens to them and gave the teacher a soccer ball for the group.

The rest of the school supplies we brought, colored pencils, crayons, markers and paper were given to the head mistress Teresa so she can give them out as they needed them. It was amazing to hear of Teresa making this career a whole lifestyle for herself after she was widowed. It only cost $400 dollars a year per student for the cost of room/board and education, but to a Kenyan, it's more then most could afford. The construction of the building has been a slow process as well, since there is little extra money to go towards the building cost and they have to rely on donors. Directly next to the school is a weaving factory for women, where they spin, clean, dye and weave beautiful rugs and shawls from Marino wool.

While walking around the grounds of the factory, we noticed a kindergarten class at play, so we got permission to give the teachers soccer balls there too. These kids were much smaller then the last group and SO cute. They ran up to shake our hands and welcome us to there school. Everyone here in Kenya have been taught English in school, as well as Swahili, secondary to their mother tongue from each of their tribes. This made it extremely easy to talk with the kids and visit with the teacher. Again the kids were very grateful for the ball, and wanted their picture taken to see the images. It's fantastic to see their gratitude on their faces. Lunch was provided at the Mount Kenya Safari Club, quiet a plush British club, but a little too stuffy for our group. But, a cool feature of the club was that it was built on the Equator. So half the place was on the North Hemisphere and half on the South. The food was magnificent as well and the view of Mount Kenya was amazing, but the clouds were dancing on the top of the peak, hiding it from our sight. Finally after the extremely long drive and the multiple diversions, we arrived at the conservatory of Sweetwater. Just shortly after entering the park, we spot several Zebras, a Roan Antelope, a common Waterbuck, more Impala, an elephant and a lioness. Before we could spend a lot of time looking at the lioness, we headed off to the

Jane Goodall Chimpanzee conservatory. It was a little late in the day, so we only got to see a few chimps before they headed off into the trees to the feeding house. They are kept inside at night to keep them safe. We walked around the Chimp area (they are fenced in, so weren't close to them), and got to see an African Snake Eagle, looks like our bald Eagle. Lastly, we had about an hour of daylight left, so we popped the top of the safari bus and drove around the park. This is when we returned to find the Lionesses,

at a closer view, probably about 50 yards from us, maybe even closer. They are beautiful and being in a pride is the perfect name for them. We decided to move along and found other lioness, just laying in the grass, basking in the sun, not really interested in what the buses are doing alongside her. As we drove on, a blacked-backed Jackal crossed the road, away from a group of zebras, warthogs and further on we saw a Caped Buffalo and a Cokes Hartebeest.

An additional visit to a Rhino Conservatory gave us a chance to meet Baraka, meaning blessed, a blind Black Rhino, that was brought into captivity when found struggling and wounded. He was a sweet beast and he is humble enough to accept food from people, most black rhinos are stubborn and would rather die. By now, the sun was sinking fast and we were ushered to our best hotel yet, the 1st tent camp!!!! It's a wood foundation and basic structure, inside walls and thatched roof, with canvas tent enclosure. My tent had 2 rooms, bedroom and bathroom (probable one of the best bathrooms yet). All tents were positioned to face a watering hole for the animals, (our camp was fenced in) and we were in constant awe of the animals that came to visit. We also had free wifi, this is when I updated my blog last and posted to Facebook for the first time to say hello to my friends and family. After dinner I watched to watering hole while enjoying some tea, but it had been such a long day, we called it a night pretty early. What a day!

3 game drives in Samburu

Day 3, 3 game drives The first game drive was before breakfast, but I was awake even before the sun, again! As the sun was rising, you could hear baboons across the river from my room. An alligator perched himself on the river bank for the evening and the birds were coming waking with cheer.

Our first game drive of the day, started out viewing large cat tracks, unfortunately this cat was no where to be found, but it was very close to the lodge gates. There was a lot of chatter at breakfast about the noises people were hearing throughout the night, some were saying it was a little scary, we haven't even made it to the tent camps yet! We headed off into the brush and came across some more Impalas, 2 that were enjoying a morning sparing session, Gerenuk, Dik Diks, lots of birds and a Vulture covered Giraffe, which also had a Hyaena having its way at it.

As we moved around in the safari bus, we came across several Reticulated Giraffes, having their morning breakfast. At one point, we thought that 2 giraffes were courting each other or showing loving affection, however, it was revealed to us that they were 2 males and they starting knocking heads. Banging their horns against each others heads, necks, and even knees and other sensitive parts before they decided it wasn't worth the fight. We then went back to the lodge for breakfast and a little break before our second drive. While at the lodge, we saw a Nile crocodile resting on the far banks of the river, some Striped Skink (colorful lizard like), a Nile Monitor (looks like a mini comono dragon), and I was pestered by the little Black Faced Vervet Monkey.

Towards the end of the break, a couple of ladies in the group sprinted by my room yelling "Tess, there's elephants in the river", so of course I grabbed the camera and sprinted after them, and it was worth the run! So beautiful to see these giants in the wild. When we headed out on the second drive, we were less then a mile away from the lodge and we were forced to stop since there was a single bull elephant walking swiftly in our direction. So incredible to get photos that close, so far they are my favorite pictures. After that encounter, we went a while before seeing more animals, a few Gerenuks and birds, but then we saw another pack of elephants in another area of the river, with 3 babies, it was amazing! And we continued to encounter more and more elephants, it was great. An additional treat was to see a solo Beisa Oryx!

Another fun thing that was pointed out to us by our guide was a carcass in a tree. Leopards will take there kill into trees as to not be bothered by other animals for the fresh kill. We were taken back for another break, and I sat and watched more elephants playing in the river, just across from my room, what a life! A bunch of the group took advantage of some cool pool time before our final game drive at this lodge. Our final drive was the least eventful, at least for animal sightings! First stop was to watch a few Olive Baboons collect their dinner. I was fun to watch the little baboons play and try to imitate the elders, then hop on their mothers backs as they all left the scene. We didn't see hardly any animal after that, but one of our vehicles got stuck, axel deep in some really loose sand. Thank goodness for a newer Land Cruiser to come by and pull them out, but all the passengers had to evacuate, even though the first rule of a game drive is "never get out of the vehicle". We all had a good laugh about the chances of a lion coming, and it was funny until we had to evacuate our vehicle too, to be sure our bus didn't get stuck too,

that's quiet a vulnerable feeling! Our last sighting was a pregnant Reticulated Giraffe, with a big ole belly, she could have it at any time, it was cool. Back at the lodge for one last night, we ate dinner, debriefed about the next day and retired to our rooms. I was out again at 9:30, the bumping, jarring and hanging on in the safari vehicles really wears you out, I think there'll be some bruising too!

Samburu, Kenya

I initially assumed this was going to be just a travel day, and for the most part it was. We left Nairobi at 8:30 am, for an 8 hour caravan bus ride (in 3 safari vehicles) to an area north of the Equator, called Samburu. This is an area we are supposed to see reticulated Giraffe, elephants.... About 4 1/2 hours into the drive, we made a special trip to the base of Mt Kenya off our path to a place called "KentTrout Restaurant". The food was incredible again and we were visited by Black & White Colobus Monkeys, in the trees above the outdoor seating area.

The restaurant was located on a really rough road, I think if we had a regular bus, we would have never made it. Yet once there, it was a lush green tropical oasis, if you will, resting next to a small river and gorgeous farm land. Everywhere outside of the city is very basic and poor, our waiter responded to someone's question of how far he lives from work with "5k's", that's roughly 3 MILES, one way!!! From the looks of the number of people walking along the roads, everyone walks everywhere. We were actually surprised more people weren't killed each year by car accidents, it was ridiculous. I digress, after another couple of hours, we pulled up into the Samburu Game Lodge area at 4:30pm, ready to pop the tops on the vehicles and make our way through our first game drive. This is were the action was!!!! Within 2 hours driving throughout the game park, we saw, Gerenuk (a long necked gazelle), Impala (long necked antelope), an ostrich or 2, lots of guineafolw, a couple packs of elephants, a bunch of birds, reticulated Giraffe, a bunch of Dik Diks, a leopard (not very visible) and a cheetah!!!

The cheetah and elephants were the most exciting, but I guess I also have to mention the Puff Adder, a VERY poisonous snake that feeds on small animals, like the Dik Dik. This game drive stretched the sunset as thin as it could and we arrived at our lodge in the dark. Literally in the dark, for the generators went out the moment we stepped off the buses and we were escorted to our room via flashlight. Made it very mysterious, haha.

Fortunately, it lasted only about 10 minutes and we all met back at the restaurant for dinner. I was so exhausted from all the driving that I was asleep at 9pm!!! And we all know, I'm never asleep before 11 at home, wow.