Tanzania

TANZANIA & KENYA Cheeseman Safari continued
The Ark in the Aberdare Mountins & Samburu Game Reserve, Aug 6-8
On 6 Aug we met up with our Kenyan drivers: Peter, Zack, Geoffery & Titus. We drove to the Aberdeen Mountains Country Club. We had a spare hour before we had lunch there so I and Susanne took a walk! We were not allowed to walk or get out of car at all these parks & reserves, so we spent all day inside a car. It was fantastic to move my legs again & work up a sweat. Susanne and I ended up getting very very close to 14 Giraffe and got some great photos.

After lunch we took the bus up to The Ark. Here its all about observing animals close up from inside the hotel. There's a water hole and mud hole with salt so the animals come by to get some of both. You can sit in rooms with huge windows or go ouside on large balconies and there's special lighting to view the animals at night. We went to the bird feeding and saw: Streaky Seedeater, Hartlaub's Turaco, Mousebirds, Fleeting Suni. After dinner once it got dark we saw constant action and got very lucky, 3 of the big 5! Elephant, Black Rhinoceros, Spotted Hyena with very playful and curious cubs (were very interested in what a rihno was, never mind its 10x the size of them), Cape Buffalo, mongoose, and a total of 13 Giant Forest Hogs (very rare). Even saw the forest hogs challenge the rino.

Because many animals are nocturnal there are buzzars in each hotel room which ring in the middle of the night (if you leave it on) to let you know if something has appeared at the water hole. The system of rings is: 1-something special, 2-elephant, 3-rino, 4-leopard. We left the buzzar on when we went to sleep and at midnight it rang 3 times and not 4 so we didn't bother to get up and go see the rihno since we had already seen one.

The morning of 7 Aug, Aaron woke up sick and skipped breakfast that morning. As we left early from the Ark we saw a bit of Mt Kenya on the way to Samburu, but not much. We had a long, hot drive ahead of us to Samburu. In spite of that, Aaron got out of the van to haggle with the locals for some great metal bracelets. Samburu is very hot and dry and is the only place we saw Gerenuk. They were wonderful, everyone fell in love with them at first sight.

So Aaron could rest we stayed in that afternoon drive, and of course, they all saw a lepoard with her cubs walk right next to the van. Oh well. We did catch the afternoon Samburu (cousins to the Masai) dance performance, which was very colorful and loud. Then Aaron rested & Laura went to the pool. We bought flute for Aaron's friend & even had a little music lesson thrown in. At 4:30pm they hotel had a crocodile & lepoard feeding (two separate locations with two different food sources, they didn't feed one to the other). We saw a very acrobatic Palm Nut Vulture swinging on the goat left out for the lepoard eating before the lepoard arrived. And later we saw a rare Striped Hyena waiting for scraps to fall while the lepoard was eating.

On Aug 8 Aaron needed to get better so he took the whole day off. I went on the early morning game drive. It was so spectacular that I filled up all three memory sticks of the digital camera (80 some pictures) even after deleting ones that didn't turn out. We saw six Gerenuks up on their hind legs eating, Spotted Eagle-Owl very close up, Oryx, Grevy's Zebra, Reticulated Giraffes. Interesting point, USA zoos only have Reticulated Giraffes, yet they're the most uncommon of three kinds in eastern Africa. We also got lucky enough to see a lepoard wandering around. After breakfast, I took a break from the game drives and learned some new embroidery stiches from Irene (an embroidery guild member back at home) and then went on the game drive after lunch. I had a great wildlife and took tons more pictures.

Laura very close to a Giraffe

Mousebirds hudling together to keep warm at The Ark

Cape Buffalo & Rhino at the saltlick area at night. We saw all of the big five that night!

Elephant by moonlight

Laura straddling the equator

Aaron wheeling and dealing for metal bracelets

In Samburu park, various ages of young elephants drinking from the river

Young Samburu women & men getting ready for their dance performance. The women keep their hair very short and the men grow their hair, then dye is red using ocre.

Men dancing & singing. One dances at a time and he jumps up very very high. The man in front is just about to jump up.

Two Gerenuks eating in the morning. They're very special in that they stand on their hind legs when eating.

Beautiful Oryxes grazing. They can go very long periods of time without drinking water.

A pretty bird, forgot its name