Experiencing Amazing Wildlife on a Safari in Kenya

Taking a safari was not something I expected to do in my lifetime, but one never knows what will happen. As we planned for this summer, a safari in Kenya became an option. In the end we added it to our summer plans. Since my daughter Andrea had experienced safaris the last two summers, she made the reservations for us. It was time to take the plunge.

I arrived in Kenya from Malawi on a Sunday night. Silvette and Andrea had arrived early that morning. A driver from the safari company, Spirit of Kenya, picked me up and took me to our hotel in Nairobi. Our safari started the next morning at 7:00.

Our driver and guide for our safari was Rafael. He was a knowledgeable guide with 25 years of experience. He was a congenial man, but at times his English was hard to understand. After a breakfast at the hotel, Rafael loaded our stuff into his Land Rover, and we were off.

The journey to our residence for the next two nights took about five hours. The first hour was mostly getting out of the city, and the roads were good. It seemed we were making good time.

Our first stop was at an overlook of the Great Rift Valley. This is a large region of Africa that extends into other countries including Tanzania. Unfortunately it was a cloudy day so our view of the valley was not all that great.

Along the road in this section we saw some baboons including a few babies on their mother’s backs. Rafael said they lived below but came up to the road to scrounge food that people threw out of their car windows. Smart animals.

We also had an unexpected stop. Rafael pulled off on the side of the road near a corn roasting stand. He said the lug nuts on his rear tire were loose. Not sure how he knew that. While he was fixing the tire, I walked over and talked to the gentlemen roasting the corn. They offered me some, but I declined. Maize as it is known in Africa, is a major crop. I saw it being grown in Zambia and Malawi as well as here in Kenya.

Back on the road we passed through a town whose name translated to Hot Water. A nearby volcano provides geothermal activity that has created some hot springs in the area. We passed through a number of towns and cities along the way. Most had concrete storefronts painted in faded colors and hand painted signs There were a few professional signs in some places.

The other thing we saw a lot of on our journey was livestock. This included sheep, goats, and cows. Usually there would be herders with the animals. Sometimes it was one lone man. Other times it might be two or three boys. Occasionally all three animal would be herded around. The cows in particular would often wander into the road. One rather large herd of goats also made their way into the road.

We did stop at one other shop along the way. A persistent salesperson convinced us to buy a small painting. Silvette did a good job of bargaining him down in his price.

Occasionally the paved roads would have areas of potholes, but the worst was yet to come. The last 30 to 40 minutes of our trip was over dirt roads which were very bumpy and had a lot of ups and downs. This part of the trip was not enjoyable. Rafael did not take the road slowly. In fact he seemed intent on proving he was the fastest driver and would often pass other safari jeeps.

Finally we arrived at our resort for the night. We were greeted with a warm washcloth and a glass of juice. Lunch soon followed even though it was around 2:00. It was a buffet and quite good.

Our room turned out to be about a quarter mile walk from the main area. (Silvette clocked it) It’s a glamping style tent with its own bathroom. It was hot inside but otherwise nice.

At 4:00 we took out first safari drive. Even before we got to the park, we saw some animals. Zebras were right outside the gates of the resort, and we saw some buffalo as well. Once we entered the park we began to see other animals. The area was generally dry and didn’t have a lot of trees so I wasn’t sure what we would see. I was surprised by the number of animals we enountered.

One of the first highlights was seeing giraffes, three adult giraffes and one baby. Rafael thought the baby was only a day old as he could see some placenta remains on its legs. It was really cute.

Our next big find was elephants. It was a small herd, but it also contained a baby as well as some teen elephants. We watched them for quite a while, and they got really close. One got so close to our Land Rover that I ended up taking a picture of its eye.

From the elephants we headed to a place that was attracting a lot of jeeps. It turned out that two cheetahs were lying in the grass near a bush. We watched them for a long time. They never stood up, and the grass hid them somewhat, but every once in a while they would stick up their heads to look around, and we could see more of them.

We finally continued on. After passing animals peacefully grazing, we discovered a lone cheetah nearby who was clearly visible even though it was lying down. After watching the two cheetahs for such a long time, this was an easy photo and a beautiful creature to see fully.

Our final big moment involved a leopard. Earlier in our safari we had seen a crowd of jeeps around a tree. It seems a leopard had killed a gazelle and taken it up into the tree. The fact that it dragged its food up into the tree was amazing enough. The leopard had left, but everyone expected it to return to eat its prey so they were waiting for it to reappear. We came back to join the crowd, and within about five minutes the leopard appeared. We drove around to see it better, and at one point it walked very close to the Land Rover.

Despite the nearly 60 jeep vehicles around, it slowly made its way to the tree. First it sat and looked at the tree. Then it lay down an the side of the tree opposite of where we were. Then it moved a little farther from the tree and lay down there. By now 70 jeeps or more were all watching it with bated breath hoping to see it climb into the tree. However, we were ten minutes from sunset, and Rafael decided it was not going to happen for us to see. It was almost as if the leopard knew everyone was waiting for him to eat, but it wasn’t going to do so until after dark. Rafael pulled the Land Rover out of the crowd, and we drove back to our resort and had dinner.

The big cats are the animals most people really want to see as they are hard to find. We felt lucky to have seen cheetahs and a leopard today. However, it became apparent to me that while these are wild animals, they are accustomed to humans. The fact that the leopard walked through all the vehicles indicated to me that it wasn’t afraid of the humans in these vehicles. The presence of man has changed the animals to some extent. The question is does it matter?

Tomorrow is another early day. Who knows what we will see then. Look for some more excitement in next week’s post.