The Safari Begins

During dinner at the Mountain Lodge in Mount Kenya National Park, one of the employees came around and asked us if we wanted to be woken up if animals came to the watering hole while we were sleeping that night. He had a list of every possible species that might be expected, but we felt only two of them were worth being woken up for ---  elephants and leopards. Sure enough, right around 5AM there was a knock on our door and someone said “elephants”. We were both sound asleep but bolted upright and Bill repeated “ELEPHANTS!” We tore over to the balcony and saw at least 10 down by the water hole. We sat out there watching them for about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, the lighting wasn’t good enough for photos, but the memory is burned into our brains!

After breakfast the next morning (Wed) we had a 4-hour drive to Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserve. As we left the main road on the way to Samburu Simba Lodge, our home for the next 2 nights, the (dirt) roads took us through areas that looked like this:

                  

We immediately started seeing wildlife! (We were so excited, because we thought we’d have to wait for our first official game drive later that afternoon.) We saw giraffes, zebras, lions, impalas, and oryx before we even arrived at our lodge!

  

                         

When we checked into our room, we were thrilled to see elephants from our back balcony!

                        

Our 4PM game drive didn’t disappoint. Again, we were immediately awed by the abundance and variety of animals that we saw. One very impressive sight was when a l-o-n-g line of zebras paraded right in front of our van. Here are just a few:

We also saw some interesting birds, including a whole flock of ostriches and a crowned crane family.

                          

I’ll end this post with a photo of Grant’s gazelles who entertained us by standing on their hind legs to eat from an acacia tree very close to our van. It was a great ending to our first game drive.