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