Kenya (Day 33)
One of the themes in our trip is seeing animals with the kids, and Kenya was unbelievable for this! We went to 3 game parks in Kenya. They were all wonderful, and we were struck by the diversity of landscapes and animals.
SAMBURU
Samburu is a northern region of Kenya that is arid semi-desert, with fewer animals but lots of beautiful scenery and a strong local Samburu tribal culture.
We stayed in tented rooms, with an elephant family across the river and monkeys in our yard. One night, we even had a scorpion in our shower!
*****
LEWA
The Lewa Conservancy is held up as a model of conservation in Africa. Larger than Boston in size, Lewa works with in partnership with local people to protect wildlife, and Lewa provides schools, teachers, healthcare, women’s micro-credit, water, job opportunities, and more.
They have over 170 rhinos, with many white rhinos and over 10% of Kenya’s critically endangered black rhinos. They also had rhino babies.
Weirdly, white rhinos are not white and black rhinos are not black… They are both sort of brown/ grey. (“White” rhinos have wide mouths, and the name “white” comes from mishearing the Afrikaans word “went” which means wide. And black rhinos have pointier mouths, and they are called black because it is the opposite of white. Confused yet??)
There were animals all over camp, often right near our room. We had lunch and dinner with zebras, giraffes, rhinos and herds of impalas and buffalos. We even had bats in our room a few nights, although that is sort of good since they eat mosquitos, which are more of a threat than bats.
Here are animals by the hotel pool.
One day, we had a monkey sneak attack while we were out! The monkeys had eaten everything they could find in our room: our granola bars, a plate of snacks, and a Tupperware container of cookies. They left wrappers, a broken plate, and a lot of pee pee on our floor! We found them playing with the Tupperware lid in a tree.
*****
MAASAI MARA
The most famous wildlife area in Kenya is the Maasai Mara. It is a huge open savannah that connects with the Serengeti in Tanzania. Together, they are the home to the Great Migration, where over 1.5 million wildebeest, zebra and others travel in a 500+ mile clockwise circle each year across Eastern Africa in search of new grass.
We caught the tail end of the migration and had breakfast in middle of thousands of wildebeests a few times. Amazing to be surrounded by so many large animals. All the little brown dots in the background below are more wildebeests!!
Another day, we had breakfast on the Mara river with a bunch of crocodiles and around 40 hippos, including babies.
Hippos’ mouths make them look like they are smiling, but hippos are sort of the opposite of gorillas: they look gentle but are actually very dangerous. They kill more humans than any other large land animal — more than lions, elephants, rhinos, etc. They kill over 50 times as many people as sharks do!
(What animal in Africa kills the most people? The mosquito - because it carries malaria.)
Hugh thought all of this was all pretty amazing. He declared it was the best breakfast he ever had!
*****
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ASHLEY!!
We were so excited for Ashley’s birthday! We had a special birthday dinner which ended with Ashley getting a 40th birthday surprise/ prank gift. Watch as she finds out her birthday cake is actually made from elephant poop (under the icing)!
Only in Africa, and not as gross as it sounds – but still super funny. Elephant dung is everywhere on safari, and it is surprisingly clean. It does not smell much. We made a fire with it and even tried to juggle it. Many animals eat it!! She also got a real cake after, and it was delicious!
Hey, did you just say you tried juggling elephant poop???
*****
Until next time…
