Kenya, Part Five
Once again, the magic of Kenya is not to be underestimated. Let's see what the fifth of December had to offer...
5 Dec 09 - Our morning drive began after a 6:00 am breakfast. We headed out at 6:30 and Japhet (our driver, guide, and all-around main man) said, "Who wants to see elephants?" Unsurprisingly, the four of us replied with childish glee. So he took us to see elephants.
I may or may not have had the Babar theme song running through my head all morning.
Fifteen elephants later, we continue on our hunt. We soon come upon the scene I dubbed CSI: Kenya...
...a dead and bloodied buffalo,...
...and some fifty feet away a male lion, and fifty feet behind him a flock of vultures.
In the opposite direction, two lionesses sat around with bloody jaws. As per lion culture, the lionesses do all the hunting, and then the male lion goes to eat, and then the lionesses eat too, and when everyone’s good and done, the vultures have at it. As far as lifestyles go, it’s hard not to envy a male lion.
And there’s still more to see. A neverending supply of zebras and gazelles and impalas fill the preserve. We encounter another batch of elephants, just munching away in a thicket, and they were then joined by yet another mob of elephants.
This began our experience with animals peeing, as one elephant unloaded in front of us. No, correction: a buffalo earlier that drive started the trend. A zebra would follow later in the morning. Titan saw a vulture drop the bomb. And we’d continue this trend in the afternoon. But an elephant's urination is not unlike the gushing of a fire hydrant: EXTREEEEEEEME. Anyway, no, we did not get pics of animals answering the call of nature. Just... trust us.
Cue the Tree of Death, a tree completely laden with vultures.
Cue also the Sausage Tree, so named because its fruit resembles, no lie, sausages.
We came back from the morning drive and then headed out to a Masai village, where we learned a bit about traditional Masai culture. It’s not exactly a tourist trap, since there are dozens of such villages around the area, and all tourists are encouraged to go spend money visit the villages and learn about culture. It’s interesting that people still live in this fashion, making houses out of mud and wood, sleeping five people and a cow in a hut the size of a typical living room. Still, despite the sales pitch, it was educational, so I’ll chalk that down to “learning”.
Boss declared that if she saw a rhino and a giraffe and a cheetah or leopard in the afternoon session, she would sleep through the next morning’s drive. This is called foreshadowing. We head out and immediately encounter our usual complement of zebras, gazelles, impalas, buffalos, and wildebeest. I can’t tell if they are the same animals each time; I can’t imagine that always to be the case. We very quickly find some more giraffes and elephants, and see two male impalas fighting for dominance. We also return to CSI: Kenya, and at this point the male lion is sitting right next to the buffalo carcass, which has been hollowed out cleanly. A party of vultures still waits nearby, and two fatter-than-before lionesses are lounging in the grass. Verdict: OM NOM NOM.
A bit later, we encounter three male lions doing what male lions do best: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The pictures really speak for themselves.
We also find another solitary cheetah doing mostly the same thing, although he was polite enough to look at the cameras.
The above is a Secretary Bird. You might be saying WTF, but that's what it's called. It's about three feet tall and just struts around doing its thing, whatever that might be. EDIT: bending_sickle corrects me and points out that this is a Kori Bustard, which is also fairly large, but not quite the same as the Secretary Bird (see comments below). I guess I got all my birds confused. I tend to get lost somewhere after "ostrich".
We saw giraffes fighting. Giraffes fight by swinging their necks at each other. It is slow and gentle looking, and the end result is that one of them gets their neck broken. All I can say is… wow.
As the sun was setting, we were getting ready to head back, when the driver gets a call on the radio and spins the wheel. A quick drive over brings us to a rare sight: a single rhino wandering around, eating the tall grass. Titan’s camera runs out of charge at this point, which is a shame because she has a better zoom level than I do, and because the rhino chose that moment to spray out a tremendous whiz. But still, we get some good pictures. Big Five Mission Accomplished.
As a bonus, we almost run into a hyena. He looked like he was going to jump into our window, but then instead wandered away. And, towards the end of the drive, we saw a jackal attacking a secretary bird.
Oh yeah, one last thing: Mongooses. Or mongeese. Mongi? Something like that.
After dinner, Plotter and I go to Boss’s cabin for a bottle of wine, while Titan retires for the evening. Somewhere around four in the morning I wake up because there is a lot of noise at the watering hole. Something fighting something else? Playful snorting? Murder most foul? I can only hypothesize, but whatever it was went on for a few minutes before settling down. Crazy nature.
Little did we know that Titan was being eaten by giant insects. Oh well.
To be concluded next post! What crazy things will our hero see next time? I'm guessing zebras and impalas, because there were about thirty hojillion of them.
5 Dec 09 - Our morning drive began after a 6:00 am breakfast. We headed out at 6:30 and Japhet (our driver, guide, and all-around main man) said, "Who wants to see elephants?" Unsurprisingly, the four of us replied with childish glee. So he took us to see elephants.
I may or may not have had the Babar theme song running through my head all morning.
Fifteen elephants later, we continue on our hunt. We soon come upon the scene I dubbed CSI: Kenya...
...a dead and bloodied buffalo,...
...and some fifty feet away a male lion, and fifty feet behind him a flock of vultures.
In the opposite direction, two lionesses sat around with bloody jaws. As per lion culture, the lionesses do all the hunting, and then the male lion goes to eat, and then the lionesses eat too, and when everyone’s good and done, the vultures have at it. As far as lifestyles go, it’s hard not to envy a male lion.
And there’s still more to see. A neverending supply of zebras and gazelles and impalas fill the preserve. We encounter another batch of elephants, just munching away in a thicket, and they were then joined by yet another mob of elephants.
This began our experience with animals peeing, as one elephant unloaded in front of us. No, correction: a buffalo earlier that drive started the trend. A zebra would follow later in the morning. Titan saw a vulture drop the bomb. And we’d continue this trend in the afternoon. But an elephant's urination is not unlike the gushing of a fire hydrant: EXTREEEEEEEME. Anyway, no, we did not get pics of animals answering the call of nature. Just... trust us.
Cue the Tree of Death, a tree completely laden with vultures.
Cue also the Sausage Tree, so named because its fruit resembles, no lie, sausages.
We came back from the morning drive and then headed out to a Masai village, where we learned a bit about traditional Masai culture. It’s not exactly a tourist trap, since there are dozens of such villages around the area, and all tourists are encouraged to go spend money visit the villages and learn about culture. It’s interesting that people still live in this fashion, making houses out of mud and wood, sleeping five people and a cow in a hut the size of a typical living room. Still, despite the sales pitch, it was educational, so I’ll chalk that down to “learning”.
Boss declared that if she saw a rhino and a giraffe and a cheetah or leopard in the afternoon session, she would sleep through the next morning’s drive. This is called foreshadowing. We head out and immediately encounter our usual complement of zebras, gazelles, impalas, buffalos, and wildebeest. I can’t tell if they are the same animals each time; I can’t imagine that always to be the case. We very quickly find some more giraffes and elephants, and see two male impalas fighting for dominance. We also return to CSI: Kenya, and at this point the male lion is sitting right next to the buffalo carcass, which has been hollowed out cleanly. A party of vultures still waits nearby, and two fatter-than-before lionesses are lounging in the grass. Verdict: OM NOM NOM.
A bit later, we encounter three male lions doing what male lions do best: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The pictures really speak for themselves.
We also find another solitary cheetah doing mostly the same thing, although he was polite enough to look at the cameras.
The above is a Secretary Bird. You might be saying WTF, but that's what it's called. It's about three feet tall and just struts around doing its thing, whatever that might be. EDIT: bending_sickle corrects me and points out that this is a Kori Bustard, which is also fairly large, but not quite the same as the Secretary Bird (see comments below). I guess I got all my birds confused. I tend to get lost somewhere after "ostrich".
We saw giraffes fighting. Giraffes fight by swinging their necks at each other. It is slow and gentle looking, and the end result is that one of them gets their neck broken. All I can say is… wow.
As the sun was setting, we were getting ready to head back, when the driver gets a call on the radio and spins the wheel. A quick drive over brings us to a rare sight: a single rhino wandering around, eating the tall grass. Titan’s camera runs out of charge at this point, which is a shame because she has a better zoom level than I do, and because the rhino chose that moment to spray out a tremendous whiz. But still, we get some good pictures. Big Five Mission Accomplished.
As a bonus, we almost run into a hyena. He looked like he was going to jump into our window, but then instead wandered away. And, towards the end of the drive, we saw a jackal attacking a secretary bird.
Oh yeah, one last thing: Mongooses. Or mongeese. Mongi? Something like that.
After dinner, Plotter and I go to Boss’s cabin for a bottle of wine, while Titan retires for the evening. Somewhere around four in the morning I wake up because there is a lot of noise at the watering hole. Something fighting something else? Playful snorting? Murder most foul? I can only hypothesize, but whatever it was went on for a few minutes before settling down. Crazy nature.
Little did we know that Titan was being eaten by giant insects. Oh well.
To be concluded next post! What crazy things will our hero see next time? I'm guessing zebras and impalas, because there were about thirty hojillion of them.