So the bell went off this morning at 12:45 am and I rushed to the window to see a huge bull elephant walking towards the waterhole on our side of the Ark! I pulled on a fleece and more or less ran to the open deck on our floor where the elephant stopped in the light of the building. I took some amazing photos as he dug out stuff from the muck with his tusks and trunk. It was pretty awesome. Then, I ran down to the bunker where we are on eye level with the animals and took a million photos of the elephant from there. It was amazing! I was so super excited to see an elephant that close!!
After the awesome elephant sighting the rest of the
night pretty much sucked! The floors of
our amazing hotel were really squeaky and the group that was above us got up
around 3:30am and was really loud! Kendra
and I thought we were the only ones with noisy top neighbours, but turns out it
was our entire group! Too bad – but
other than that the hotel was amazing!
We had a great sunrise and awesome view of Mt Kenya this morning as
well. It is the highest peak in Kenya at
about 17500 feet. It was totally clear
with clouds near the base this morning as the sun rose, which was spectacular!
We got back in our vans and drove off towards the
hotel where our bags were stored overnight for us. We then proceeded to drive to Kigio Wildlife
Camp which is located between Nakuru and Naivasha in the Rift Valley. We passed through several towns and got some
great people shots. I had a great nap
(on pretty much the roughest road possible!) which was awesome considering how
little I actually slept last night!
We had a rest stop at the equator, which was really
fun! There was a little shop there and I
bargained hard for these three wooden bowls that have different animals carved
into the bottom…they are serious bargainers here – way more so than in India or
Central America! I think I am going to
hold out for a salad bowl or something else…and not waste my time on any more
little things. It is serious work
here! I am happy with my bowls,
however! And, besides, now I can say I
went shopping on the equator! Pretty
cool.
As we approached the wildlife camp, we saw our first
wild (ie not on a reserve) zebra! It was
so cool! They are just hanging out
there…totally random! Like deer would be
at home, I guess! Then, as we turned off
the highway we were able to see a bunch of baboons which was unexpected and
also totally awesome. As we continued
into the park we saw Thompson Gazelles (2 big pointy horns), Dick Dicks (small,
and in pairs as they mate for life), Elans (another version of an antelope but
the biggest in the family), and Waterbucks (hairy creatures that look like
antelopes too). We also saw a lot of
warthogs including a bunch of tiny piglets as they crossed the road in front of
us. There were a bunch of herds of
zebras (who break off into groups of 9 animals when the heard becomes too
large), and giraffes. Sooo awesome.
We are staying in these straw huts. It is an eco-tourism camp and there is a
central dining area and individual cabins for rooms. There are solar panels and wood-burning for
hot water. Overall, it is a really cool
system. Us four were relocated to
another adjacent camp because they ran out of room for us at the original camp
(which is kind of a pain, but it does provide some peace and quiet from the
group!).
After finding our rooms we headed back to the lodge
where the rest of the group is staying and saw a bunch of monkeys climbing
around in the trees. I heard a funny
noise and thought it was a hippo and sure enough a while later a hippo climbed
out onto the bank of the river! It was
so awesome. We also saw two or three
hippos playing around in the water further downstream while we were up at the
lodge. It was sooo cool!
A group of women make paper beads for a living and we
had a demonstration brought into the lodge.
They brought a tonne of the products they had made and we all did some
damage. I only bought one necklace, but
I know that Kendra and mom bought a few as well. It was really cool because they are all
handmade and require only paper and eucalyptuse glue to make and they look
awesome.
We then went on a short “nature walk” where we went
over a bridge to try and see the hippos…there was a mother and a baby sticking
their ears up out of the water, but unfortunately, that’s all we were able to
see of the hippos today! We walked
through the bush and kind of followed a few giraffes around – they are so
amazing. I didn’t know they actually
didn’t have any vocal cords! Go
figure! We also saw some little monkeys
(that I don’t know the name of) scampering in the trees near the lodge before
it became dark. It was really cool.
We have our first game drive tomorrow and I am
seriously wiped from yesterday/this morning, so it’s off to sleep I go!
Night!
-Allison
No comments:
Post a Comment