Safari

Our team always stays super busy when we are in Kenya.  The days are long with interviewing students, visiting schools,  teaching lessons, leading discussions, planning, checking up on friends and organizing the hundreds of pounds of supplies that we bring with us.  Luckily for us, we do get one day to play tourist as we go on safari to Tsavo East National!

Tsavo is the largest park in all of Kenya but not as famous as Masai Mara.  Two claims to fame are: first in the movie and book 'Out of Africa' it was the destination of  Denys Finch Hatton  (Robert Redford) when his plane crashed.  Second, in the late 1800's a pair of 'man eating' male lions terrorized the Indian and African workers on the railroad that was being built from the port to Uganda.  No one knows exactly how many men they ate before finally being shot by a British officer.  Reports vary from 100 - 30.  No one knows if the high number was an exaggeration or if the number is correct since only the Indian worker's deaths were actually counted.   The deaths among the Africans weren't documented.  

Back in Parliament in London, Lord Salisbury made this statement when explaining the slow down on the railroad construction.

"The whole of the works were put to stop because a pair of man eating lions appeared in the locality and conceived a most unfortunate taste for our workmen." 

How very British is that statement!  

Interestingly the male lions in Tsavo don't have the big manes that are normal for African lions.  The two man eaters of Tsavo were displayed at the Field Museum in Chicago.  One of them was 9 feet long.

We were lucky to see quite a few lions on this trip.  A bit of an x-rated sighting as we saw a couple mating.  

During breakfast there were 12 lions that we could see in the distance, all having a nice little siesta under some trees.  All of us were nervous when a lone antelope started walking right towards the lions.  They noticed him about the same time that he caught wind of them.  I thought we might have some real excitement but evidently the lions had already had their breakfast.  

I saw this lion right by the side of the road.  This photo is taken with no zoom.  When the jeep stopped she turned and walked away.  Too bad but I still love this photo!

Can you see her in this photo looking at the herd of zebra?

Her pride must have already eaten because she was content to just watch.

Later in the day we saw this group of three enjoying another rest. Lions sleep about 20 hours a day.

I think that Mom was a little irritated at her young one, who must not have wanted to take a nap just then.

Watching them, I am always amazed at how their movements are so much like house cats....well except for killing large animals! Look at her grooming herself.  Haven't you seen your house cat do the same?

Lion weren't the only animals we saw.

It's great when you can get several different types of animals in one photo.  George took this one. 

Elephant, zebra and Cape buffalo. 

The last two times I have been to Tsavo, I haven't seen any Cape Buffalo.  The drought has caused them to go farther into the park.  This year we saw a herd of literally thousands.

As they crossed the road right in front of our jeep, they would stop and stare intently.  I understand that their vision is not the best, so they must have been trying to figure out our smell to decide if we were dangerous or not.

Since we were so close we could hear their mooing sound, just like a cow.

Lions kill about 200 people in Africa each year.  Surprisingly, Cape buffalo also kill 200 a year.

There were lots of calves in this group, some only a few month old.  I am glad that the lion we saw just down the road was so intent on watching the zebra herd.

Young buffalo and very old buffalo or the sick ones do fall prey to the lions.

Saw some giraffe the first day.  As Jackson would say, 'They are TALL, TALL!"

And some zebras close to the road.

Something spooked them but we never figured out what.  

Bird lover that I am, I have to share one bird.  This is the Superb Starling.  There were lots of them and they do have superb colors.

Our Kenyan friends think that eating dik-dik is a delicacy. They are such cute little guys.  Again Mbotte, our driver reminds me that I see 'cute' and he sees 'dinner'.

At the lodge they remind us to keep our windows locked because baboons like to 'steal passports'.  This one must be the lookout!

And last, we saw some of the hilarious pumbaas.  Did you know in Swahali the work pumbaa means, 

'careless, foolish, ignorant, lazy, stupid and negligent'? Not exactly a complimentary name. They are an animal that I would describe as so ugly that they are cute.  Maybe they remind me of razorbacks!