Through the Foothills of Giant (Mt.Kenya)





Mt. Kenya in the distance

  


Our first time crossing the equator on land



We woke up in the morning feeling quite well rested considering we slept in a tent, had tree hyrax's bellowing at the top of their lungs, and there was a party going on at a local bar down the road.  We packed up, at breakfast and were now off to the northern semi-arid park of Samburu. On our way we finally caught a glimpse of Mt. Kenya off in the distance.  Marlene quickly noted that it is a very oddly shaped mountain with 5 separate peaks.  The significance being, we had initially pondered about hiking this mountain, with five very large peaks, getting to the top one would have proven to be quite painful.  There are options to just climb one peak, but what's the point in that? During this drive we found ourselves crossing over the equator (something we'd do SEVERAL times before this trip was through) and since this was our first time to ever do this on land we decided to make a stop and watch the legendary water demonstration. You know the one where they claim that water will drain in a clock-wise direction in the north and a counter-clockwise direction in the south? Well what I didn't know is that if you stand directly on the equator the water will drain straight down!  In order to prove this all we had to do was walk approximately 20M to either side of the equator and the water began to change directions as it filtered through a hole in the bottom of a bucket, pretty amazing.  Marlene took videos of this to show to her science class (geek!).  After the demonstration we were ushered to some local shops where the shop keeper tried intensely to convince us to buy something to remember him by.  Talk about the best way to put a damper on an otherwise unique experience. Back in the van!  Our next stop would be a town called Isiolo, which is dubbed the gateway to the North (and Ethiopia).  The look and feel of this place was quite different from anywhere else we had seen thus far in Kenya, and we quickly realized why, it is a predominantly Muslim community mostly made up of Somali and Ethiopians migrants.  It took us about 4 hours to get from Mt. Kenya to Samburu park.



Gerenuk



Once in the park, it was clear we were nearing desert territory, officially it is semi-arid, either way its very very dry.  There are large bushes sparsely populating the sands, with desert palms shading the riverbed.  They are nearing the end of the wet season in the portion of the park and it certainly shows.  The beauty of Samburu is that it is as natural a park as you can imagine.  I say this because the park has no physical boundaries and the animals are free to roam where ever they choose.  This means that the animals are not in this park all year round like they are in other parts of the country.  Once we arrived at the campsite, I was eager to go wandering around since our campsite was located directly inside the park (this gave us mixed emotions...mostly for sleeping purposes, you never know what can wander in at night!).  We took a walk down to the river where there were dozens of monkeys and baboons just hanging out in the shade, close to the waters edge...it gets very hot here in the mid-day sun. We also came across a group of gazelles and a greater Kudu (a very rare deer looking animal with stripes).  We had never seen one of these Kudu so we asked our guide later what sort of animal it was by describing it to him.  He told us that it sounds like we were describing a greater Kudu but that it would be impossible since these animals are usually very shy and very very rare.  We confirmed the next day that it was in fact a greater Kudu that we had seen that day when we came across another one in our guide's presence...he could not believe how lucky we are!  This seemed to be a reoccurring theme so far in our early days of travel in Kenya.





river drying out

 

At this time of year, the river is very low and we were told that as the dry season continues the river eventually dries up completely above ground, but continues to flow underground.  Apparently the large population of elephants in the park help out all the animals at this point since they are able to dredge huge holes in the soft river bed to get at the water.  As per our guide, lots of animals would die of dehydration if not for the elephants. We were also informed that not more then 3 weeks ago there were heavy rains which caused massive flooding up stream.  These floods were so severe they eventually resulted in the breaching of 3 dams and massive flooding and destruction to roads and bridges in Samburu.

elephants drinking from river




the large bull elephant charging us

 

Later that afternoon (its far too hot mid day) we went for a game drive and much to our surprise, there wasn't a whole lot of activity, we began to think that perhaps our luck was changing?  We did come across a couple of lionesses just lounging in the shade, but they were not very active so we continued onward toward the river.  This is where we had our famous meeting with a very large bull elephant.  We were just riding in the van minding our own business when a male elephant decided he didn't like us being so close (at this point we were about 30ft away). He turned to face us directly and began to wiggle its giant ears (a sign of aggression) and proceeded to slowly stomp toward us.  At this point Marlene got very nervous and shuffled to the other side of the van and pushed me into direct line of sight (thanks honey!). Mike turned to her and asked "are you scared?" "yyyess!" so he started the van and began to drive off...at this point the elephant was no more then 10ft from us and was definitely not changing its course! Rather then cower I continued to snap photos of the mamoth beast!  The next most entertaining thing we saw on our first game drive in Samburu was a large family of elephants who were hanging out by the river drinking and eating.  We watched them for quite some time, I am still amazed at their size and grace.  A point on interest in Samburu National Park, and the animal that is unique here is something called a Gerenuk. This is a gazelle or antelope looking creature but it stretches upright on its hind legs to reach the leaves and berries of the tall bushes!  Very neat to watch these guys in action.

 Back to the camp for a much needed shower (its super dusty here!) dinner and early to bed as we had to get up at sunrise for our 6am game drive!  Our accomdations are very simple, heavy canvas tents again and a millitary style kitchen area.  But this IS Africa, here we are in the middle of a national preserve with no electric fences or barriers...at night when its really quiet you can really here the animals!