Being Tourists (Part 2)

Episode 2: On to Dry Land

After struggling with our aquatic side, we decided to return to our natural environment and take a quick drive to Tsavo East National Park. This park is huge! It covers about 4% of Kenya and has an area of 13,747 square km.

No, this bull reticulated giraffe was not sticking his tongue out at us but was instead picking his nostrils.

The park is famous for its mane-less lions that have a nasty, but justified, reputation of snacking on the occasional human being. And when I say nasty, I mean "Scare the British back to England" nasty, well almost. Two males gave it their best shot in the late 1800's by eating their way through over a 100 railway workers and native Africans. Aptly named "The Ghost" and "The Darkness", the poem below written by a Tsavo railway worker describes the sheer terror and chaos caused by these lions:

Hundreds of men fell victim to the savage creatures,

Whose very jaws were steeped in blood.

Bones, flesh, skin, and blood,

They devoured all,

And left not a trace behind them.

The pride we saw, performed in a more usual lion way, sleeping. Except for the lioness above who climbed a tree away from the rest of the group.

Tsavo is also known for its 'red' elephants, which are actually grey like any other African elephant, but its the red soil that the elephants cover themselves to keep cool and deter parasites. We saw dozens of family herds composed of cows and calves that often span several generations.

Family Bums!

A Gerenuk antelope that is specially adapted to grazing shrubs by standing on its hind legs. This species of antelope have long necks and hips that can rotate well beyond the range of other ungulates.

Need to throw in a monkey pic of course. This is a juvenile Olive Baboon.

Giraffe Geometry

Tsavo also has large herds of cape buffalo that can number over a thousand individuals. Most of the `buffs` we saw were lone bulls. Cape buffalo are another of Africa`s wildlife that has a nasty reputation, especially when wounded. We didn`t wound any so the ones we encountered were quite skittish. The individual above had a particularly nice set of horns with good curl and heavy boss.

Just as we post this blog entry, we head out to explore western Kenya. Places we will be visiting include: Aberdare National Park (to hike the highlands), Lake Nakuru NP (to experience the Nudist Pink Flamingo Safari, which we`ve been dying to see - right Mom and Lisa), Hell`s Gate NP (interesting geology), Masai Mara (see how the migration is going) and finally explore Nairobi.

Kwa Heri! See you later! 

Next Episode: Lazy in Lamau

Being Tourists (Part 1)

Episode One: The Gasp for Oxygen

Since we are living in a tourist area...and we can't be always working, we're posting some fun pictures in the next few blogs.

We went snorkelling with a few other tourists staying at Mwamba Guest House (yes it's a research centre and guest house) just off the beach where we live. The reef we explored is part of the Watamu Marine National Park, the oldest marine park in Africa. At low tide we went out on a glass-bottom boat (not as cool as it sounds but you could see a few fish though it) and dived off the deep end. I'll be honest right from the beginning....I (Ted) am not a strong swimmer....actually, I'll clarify that statement by saying I can't float. I seem to have lost that skill over time and now perform an excellent intrepretation of a sinking rock. So I had to resort to a Personal Floatation Device, that lacked clips, causing me to put trust in my rope knotting ability. Anyways, here are few pics...

I'm FLOATING!

These fish were quite accustomed to humans and they would come
very close to investigate us odd finless creatures.

The were many colourful fish, of all different sizes.
The species above was quite captivating.

Mary is a much better swimmer. Observe no lifejacket.

She always gets back to the boat faster than me too.

After snorkling we went onto a sand bar that is roughly 700m off shore.

It was neat to stand in really shallow water that far out in the ocean.

Both of us have slightly uneasy feelings about the ocean, since we have littlevexperience with it, coming from land-locked Alberta. The sheer scale of the ocean is incredible and the weather can change remarkably fast, especially during the winter. Even playing in the surf by the beach was a little unsettling at first because the waves can be quite high and after a big set, you can sometimes really feel the tow from the undercurrent trying to suck you out to the ocean. On one of the first occasions we got our toes wet, we nervously walked deeper into the water, until we were about waist deep. Of course, many of you readers may know that I'm full of interesting(some say useless) information. I happened to remark at that moment, "Hey babe, did you know that most shark attacks happen in less than 2m of water!" She gave me a look of utter disdain. But then I clarified that we don't need to worry about sharks, since the chances of being struck by lightning are far greater than being bitten by a shark; its the jellyfish at this time of year that are much more concerning. Which at that moment we bolted for dry land. Since then we have been taking evening walks on the beach rather than many dips to be perfectly honest.

On a different occasion my comment on the chance of meeting a jellyfish came true...well sort of. Mary and I decided to take a real swim. We got pretty deep and were enjoying ourselves when Mary started yelling "MY NECK IS ON FIRE, MY NECK IS ON FIRE!" I calmly instructed her to swim to shore since she was some distance away from me. As it turned out Mary unknowingly swam right into the tenticles of a Portoguese Man O' War. Now technically a Man O' War is not a jelly fish. According to Wikipedia:

"While it resembles a jellyfish, it is in fact a siphonophore – a colony of four kinds of minute, highly modified individuals, which are specialized polyps and medusoids. Each such zooid similar to other solitary animals, are all attached to each other and physiologically integrated rather than living independently. Such zooids are specialized to such an extent that they lack the structures associated with other functions and are therefore dependent for survival on the others to do what the particular zooid cannot do by itself."  While they look small (about the size of a golf ball) they can have 10m long tentacles.

The pictures of the Man O War were taken at a later date once they had been washed up on shore.

Here's some huge pictures of the tentacle burns so you can see it. Mary had these lines for a few days but the pain and burning thankfully went away after a hour.

Next Episode: Onto Dry Land