Blogston, Mass: Samburu Views: Day 3

Day 3 started with breakfast and then a morning game drive. We left the resort and headed to the other preserve in the area, Samburu. We passed a bunch of small villages on the way end, with their combination mud and plastic huts. They are made either of mud or corrugated metal and often have thatched roofs either interwoven or covered in plastic bags, presumably to add a little more water-proof-ness to them.

Maasai village on the reserve

We entered the preserve and fairly quickly spotted a herd of elephants making their way across the hills. It was a pretty large pack of pachyderm with babies and adults. We also saw a bunch of warthogs trotting about. They are so funny with their tails sticking straight up in the air as they run. There were families and some even had little birds on their backs, like you see in the movies. We liked to refer to them as Pumbas, like from the lion king (which apparently was the basis of our knowledge of Africa to this point - did you know Simba is Swahili for lion?!).

funny little guys with their tusks and antenna-like tails

just like Pumba!

River going through the reserve

We saw loads more antelope (deer) of all sorts. There was this funny one with a long neck called the Gerenuk - he wasn't very tall but tried to eat the leaves at the tip top of some of the bushes around using his long neck. We saw lots of impala (not the car), more oryx, some waterbuck. There is this cute, teensy-tiny antelope called Kirk's Dik-Dik. No joke, it's like the size of a rabbit, but looks like a little deer. It mates for life and lives with it's little family. So cute, if you're into deer. I got pretty good at being able to tell all the antelope apart.

Gerenuk - look at his funny, long neck

Oryx

Impala - cool side-view of his horns

Kirk's Dik-Dik - look at this little guy

We saw more lions, this time several adults napping in the shade. We went on a long, hilly trek to find a leopard (which we never found). More giraffe - did you know there are lots of different kinds? Here we saw the Reticulated Giraffe; he's the guy you usually picture when you think of giraffe and he lives in northern Kenya (other varieties to come). We even saw a little (ish) baby giraffe. Muli thought he was probably 2 weeks old because the umbilical cord was still there (you could barely see it - not too gross!).

Tree with weaver bird nests - so neat

mommy and baby

The landscape here was arid with sparse shrubs and thin grass. There was a river that ran through the preserve where we saw more elephants later in the day, cooling off in the river. And in a different section of river, we saw giant crocodiles lazing in the sun.

landscape - dry, arid, scrubby

bathing elephants

Crocodile smiling in the sun

sykes monkeys with a little baby

During our drive that morning/afternoon, we temporarily got stuck. You read how bad the roads are in Kenya; well, the preserves don't necessarily have roads, more like commonly used trails. Some of them are fine and fairly smooth. But some have giant ruts in them from all the tires, and this one had a giant dip. Apparently our two-wheel-drive Nissan van hit it at exactly the wrong angle. We sat there spinning tires in the dusty dirt for a bit. We all offered to get out and push, but Muli would have none of it. After forward and reversing a while, he got out himself and located some wood to shove under the slipping tire. More back and forth to no avail. More wood, some team-work in rocking the van side to side and finally success!

We weren't really supposed to get out of the van in the parks, but sometimes you really need a pit stop

We headed back to the resort for the afternoon. We ate lunch and took advantage of the awesome pool and relaxed. That evening we went on a short drive to a viewpoint. It was really nice, with mountains in the background and hills all around. We took some group photos and packed it in for the day.