Samburu National Wildlife Reserve Safari

This week's adventure is brought to you by the Samburu National Wildlife Reserve. There were more animals out there than you would believe. At first, we were stopping to take pictures of everything, b/c we were amazed to see any form of African wildlife. By the second day, we were becoming much harder to impress. What? Another impala? OK. Let's move on. Funny how quickly what was previously amazing became ordinary. Anyway, we probably saw 500+ impala, 50 or more elephants, 20-30 reticulated giraffes, a bunch of zebras, a couple of secretary birds, a bunch of gazelles, common antelope, a few herds of oryx, 3 ostrich, 2 leapords, a lion, and a partridge in a pear tree. It was a lot of fun, and made all the more fun by being in such a group of goofy yahoos.



When we first got to where this leopard was, the leopard was in the middle of this huge snag of a dead tree, where he was almost impossible to see. It took me a few minutes to figure out what everyone was looking at. One of my friends mused, "Wow, I wonder how they spotted him..." I responded, "They're actually born that way." Oh! Man alive. How can you handle wit like that? You can't, that's how.

Pretty sad that I'm still re-living my witty comment a few days later.


Our guide told us the calf appeared to be about 4-5 weeks old. The day before this, we had been charged by an elephant. I have video of it. Anyway, having been charged by an animal that probably outweighed our vehicle just the day before, I was a little nervous about getting that close to a mother and child. But they really didn't seem to mind our being there too much. It was pretty cool to be that close to an animal that outweighed our vehicle easily, and could probably throw it a few yards without much effort, and watch it graze along and take care of its calf.




This is a reticulated giraffe. I think the only difference between this and other giraffes is that this type has a different spotting pattern. I learned that giraffes don't do much anything other than eat. It's also really funny to watch them drink b/c it's not easy to get that wicked long neck down to the water. Other than that, they don't do much.


Uh...


This is what the front of the monkey from above looks like. It's a vervet. They're crafty little devils. Our last day there, they tried to break into our tent twice. They untied a knot, and unzipped the tent and snuck in, but forgot to hold the zipper still, b/c when it started jingling, I woke up and chased them out. Our friends in the next tent over were sleeping a little heavier than I on account of copious amounts of alcohol they consumed the night before, so vervets got in their tent, stole all their room service cookies, sugar packets, one guy's perscription sunglasses, and who knows what else. Naughty little monkey.


These are oryx. Both males and females have horns, and both males and females are known to initiate mating, which makes them unusual in the animal world on two accounts.



We had to do some hard looking, but we were able to track down a lion (I make it sound like I had something to do with it). As soon as we found the lion and our driver sent out the word of where she was, the cavalry decended in a frenzy of dust, diesel fumes, SUV's, camera clicks, gasps of awe, and admonitions from tourists-turned-African-wildife-experts to be quiet so you wouldn't scare it. (Because I'm sure she couldn't hear or smell or see the 10 diesel engines within 30 feet of her carrying stinky, noisy tourists through the brush and sticks of the area...) It was crazy. In a way, it reminded me of combat fishing in Alaska ;) Drivers jockeying for position so their people could get good pictures. Kind of comical, really. In the blink of an eye, there were more pasty-white Euro tourists snapping pictures of her than you can imagine. (For some reason I've convinced myself that I don't look anywhere near as much like a tourist as the Euros do).

And one final note: Ashleigh, you're gonna LOSE.


So that's Samburu at a glance. Gorgeous place. We also visited a Samburu village, and got to spend a little time there, and got the white-tourist-eye-view of what life is like in the village. I mostly took videos there, so I can't post much of that.

Anyway, I'm not sure when my next adventure is going to be, but I'm working on putting together a trip this weekend to an island called Lamu. It's part of an archipelago that people just kind of hang out and sail around in. Transport on this one is proving difficult, so it might not happen. If not, it might be a while before I have good pictures up again. I'll do my best not to disappoint both of the people who check in frequently though.