The morning dawns red on the horizon and we walk up to the main lodge for a few cups of Kenya coffee, always served with hot milk, and some small cakes. Ben has readied the van and we are off for our first morning game drive. Not far from the lodge we see the silhouette of a giraffe against the sunrise. Then we see another. The camera is out and I am happily capturing memories on a memory card.
We drive back down toward the river and we hear that there is a leopard resting in a tree. When we arrive I prepare to take a picture and the van moves. The picture is one big smear. Now the leopard turns his face away from me and all I get are pictures of the back of his head. He is one of the few animals that seems to prefer not to have his picture taken. Later that morning a lion, a herd of oryx, and four gerenuks properly pose for my camera resulting in wonderful shots. The gerenuk, or giraffe-neck, is a long necked gazelle that is found only in this area.
Other animals only found in this area are the reticulated giraffe, which we have seen many of, the Grevy’s zebra, which we saw later that day, and the blue necked Somali ostrich. We never saw the blue-necked ostrich. I believe it was because we ate ostrich meat at the Carnivore Restaurant and they smelled it on us. On the way back that day we saw a goshawk eating his prey on a large dead tree and a pygmy falcon watching us pass. Finally we stopped in the road to allow a female lion to pass by our van just feet below as Dusty watched through the window and I from the opening of the raised roof.
Mount Kenya is the second tallest mountain in Africa after Kilimanjaro. The three peaks are usually shrouded in the clouds that bring much needed water to the center of Kenya. On the day that we departed from Samburu Reserve to our next stop at the Serena Mountain Lodge the sky was clear and the peaks were clear to see from over fifty miles away. Reversing our course from two days before we came to the base of the mountain and found muddy roads leading gradually up the slopes. Once we entered the national forest that contains the highlands of Mount Kenya the roads were improved and the air began to cool.
Against the gray sky we saw another type of hornbill that seemed to wear one large hat over the top of his bill. In a huge tree there was a troop of black and white colobus monkeys. They looked like chimpanzees with white feather boas around their necks and tails. When we left Samburu it was around 85-degrees. By the time we get to the Mountain Lodge it was closer to 65-degrees at over 7000 feet elevation. Dusty has a little cough. The Mountain Lodge was a four story V-shaped building that was as deep as the rooms plus a hallway along the back. The outside was rough-cut lumber painted dark green to blend in with the lush forest around it. The room was nice enough, but the whole point of the place was a ten foot wide four foot deep balcony with a padded bench and type of counter in front to set your camera, binoculars, drink or whatever while you looked out on the watering hole in back of the lodge.
For those who wanted to get closer there was an underground tunnel that went to a small bunker just a few yards from the watering hole. Looking out you saw a grassy island in the middle of the watering hole in the shape of Africa. To the right was a group of buffalo just sitting in the mud. (I realized this made four of the “Big Five” of African wildlife). You ask, what are the Big Five? They are the lion, elephant, leopard, buffalo, and rhino. Yes, only the rhino was left. There are a number of reedbuck and a stork, but not a lot of traffic there yet.
Over dinner they bring around a sign-up sheet with room numbers and a list of animals. The idea is to mark the animals that you would like for them to wake you for if they should come to the watering hole at night. By the way, the whole area has lights on it for animal viewing. I check off some of the more interesting ones and we go off to our room. Setting up the tripod for my camera I experiment with settings to get a few good shots of a 400-lb bushbuck in our new backyard. The effects are interesting, but we are getting a light rain and conditions are less than perfect.
When we do decide to go to bed we find a welcome surprise. In our now chilly mountain lodge we have a hot water bottle warming our sheets for a cozy bedtime. During the night there is never a knock on our door because animals do not come to a watering hole when it is raining. They do not need to. Well rested, we eat a hearty breakfast with lots of Kenya coffee and hot milk before our journey continues. On the way down the mountain we see a white-eye and a cordon bleu. Both are birds.
Our next destination is in large part the reason for my choosing the route that I did. Lake Nakuru. This lake has a reputation for large number of flamingos. About two years ago there was a problem with the runoff into the lake that threatened the population of flamingos and made world news stories. The numbers had dropped from over a million to only about thirty thousand. I e-mailed the manager of the Sarova Lion Hill Lodge at lake Nakuru to inquire if it was even worth traveling to the lake. He sent me back a copy of the local paper showing a huge resurgence due to people cleaning up their acts and nature rebounding as it does. The numbers were estimated at three million flamingos. Dusty likes birds and this was birding on a world-class level. For that reason Lake Nakuru had to be on the safari and today we were on our way.
The drive took us through more incredible African countryside. We passed large numbers of long legged athletes running along the road that Ben told us were long-distance runners from some of the training camps in the area. The high elevation and natural abilities of the Kenyans have turned out some of the great marathon runners of all time. Thompson Falls was another tourist stop like the equator stop. There were a few little shops and a small group of natives dressed in tribal costume. After a few pictures and a little uncomfortable bartering we were on our way again.
Comments