Safari Journal: Day Two, Land of Water

Nairobi - "land of water"

Early the next day our safari guide and driver, Albert, arrived to birdsongs in the soft, grey morning light. He was right on time, which we took to be a good omen for the week ahead.

We headed north toward Mt Kenya, the second highest peak on the continent, to our first destination, the Ol Pejeta game reserve and Sweetwaters tented camp. Albert, a Kikuyu from the Mt Kenya region gave us his commentary along the way.

The lushness of Nairobi continued through the surrounding hills for many miles. We passed plantation after plantation of coffee and tea, banana groves, papaya, mango, pineapple. As we continued north the landscape opened up into a vast savanna, sheltered and shadowed by the great Mt Kenya. Mt Kenya provides something like 50% of the country's water: through snow pack, 6 (formerly 12) permanent glaciers, and the winds and water vapor that combine at the top of the peak to form a regular blanket of rainclouds.

From the patio of our tent, we had a completely unobstructed view of the mountain--that is not including the occasional elephant, giraffe, or herd of zebras or water buck that came through and distracted our attention.

We were so enthralled that we sat on the veranda and filmed from our tent for a good hour before we could pull ourselves away to go explore. There was no visible fence, just a ditch with an electric wire in it that kept most of the animals out of the camp. Baboons were a problem, though, and we did see an elephant just tromp right on through a section of the electric wire--getting shocked repeatedly--so that she could get through to some delicious greenery on the other side.

That afternoon we had our first game drive. We headed first to a chimpanzee reserve started by Jane Goodall. They're not indigenous to the area, but it was still pretty cool to see them being cared for and protected--especially since we found the newest member of the community, a six-month old, who posed for some funny pictures for us. Then we went cruising for rhino. We spotted lots of zebras, impala, warthogs, baboons, giraffes, water buck, cape buffalo, gazelle, hartebeest, and lots of birds, until finally, we found a group of white rhinos with one young one. We learned that to differentiate between white and black rhinos, we could check for:

1. wide mouth? - if yes, it's a white one ("wide" is actually the cause of the white rhino's name)
2. head down? - if she's grazing, it's a white one (black rhinos are "browsers" and eat from bushes, keeping their heads at the level of their shoulders)
3. young walking alongside? - white rhinos protect their babies and always have them walking parallel to the parents, black rhinos have been called the worst animal mothers because they let their young walk behind and therefore risk having them taken out more easily by predators

In the evening we returned to our tent to find hot water bottles pre-warming the sheets. It was a great first day in the field.

I almost forgot to mention - just before dinner we had a downpour of rain! Not surprising, considering our surroundings, but it had been a while since we'd been in a rainstorm and it felt so good. We just stood there and let it come down . . . and then we made a run for the tent, but not before getting foolishly drenched.