Animal Adventures

On Tuesday we went to the Elephant Orphanage. Now there was heavy traffic, so Charles thought he'd take a short cut. We ended up near the home of the president, where the traffic was at a standstill. The president was coming home and the cars were stopped everywhere near his residence. We could see them going in the gated areas, lots of cars, motorcycles and some troops. The orphanage is open from 11 - 12 while they feed the elephants. We got there a little late, but saw just about everything. There were 7 baby and young elephants. They bottle feed them, then let them play in the mud. They keep the elephants until they are 3 and take them somewhere to another part of the park and try to get them reintroduced to the wild then eventually they are set free. It was amazing to be so close.

After the elephants left, they brought out a 3 month old rhino - he was the life of the party. He had been abandoned because he was premature. There was also a FULL GROWN rhino in a cage. They said that when the people left they would let him out of the cage and he'd roam around at night, then he'd come back to his home. Before we left, we adopted an elephant for Christine (she loves elephants). It was the youngest one there. They will send her emails about his adventures and progress. It is good for one year, if she or we continue the contribution, she'll always have info on him. And Lisa and Kristoffer can visit Christine's elephant for a year - if they go in the evening they can watch the keepers put the elephant to bed and read him a bedtime story! (Maybe Christine will come back to Kenya to see her baby elephant and her baby niece!).

Here are some pictures:



Wednesday was our safari into the Nairobi National Park. What a day. We got there about 6:30 and went looking for lions. Kristoffer and Lisa have never seen lions in this park, and this is the park with the aggressive baboons. At 7:15 we are driving down the dirt road and what is before us but a lion. Then we look to the left and there was another one. We followed them for quite a while before they took off into the bush. Never in my life did I expect to be following a lion down the road!!!!! We saw hundreds of zebra and antelope - I would say they had the biggest population there. We saw a family of giraffes, wart hogs, ostriches, wildebeasts, and waterbuffalo. Then we stopped at the hippo pool. There were a couple of armed guards there. One of them took us to the pool where we saw only the head of hippo sticking out of the water. He said there were 5 of them there. Then we walked onto where there were crocodiles - they were huge. He walked us a little further and on the other side of the water we saw Masai people with their sheep, goats, and cattle getting water. They were at the very end of the water because they knew it was safe there. Now walking down this path was very hazardous - you had to walk very carefully - there was animal poop everywhere!!!!!! It was a wonderful adventure and now we are so looking forward to our trip to the Masai Mara. We will be there for a couple of days over Easter weekend, and will have 4 game drives while we are there.

Here are some pictures of our safari:



The trip back showed us what the terrible traffic situation is here. There are rotaries everywhere - no one obeys the traffic signals and the traffic comes to a stand still. It took us 25 minutes to get to the park and about an hour and a half to get back! Since we have been hereI have counted about 6 stop signs, and maybe seen only a very few roads with lane separation lines. As Lisa would say = That's Kenya!

Hope you enjoy our pictures.