Kenya Travelogue - June 24, 2006

We got another day's entry from our Africa travelogue posted on our site over the course of the weekend. This was our first full day at Amboseli National Park, famous for its elephant population. Patrick and James took us on an early morning game drive. We saw a large elephant lumbering by with a gorgeous sunrise in the background. It was amazing how light the elephant's footfalls were. It walked very close to our vehicle, yet barely made a sound. I don't know whether I expected the earth to shake or what, but if you had your eyes closed you probably wouldn't have even noticed that it was passing by.

After the game drive, we went on a bush walk with the lodge naturalist, Julius, and a Maasai warrior named Saitoti for protection. We learned a lot about the plants and wildlife of Amboseli, including the fact that the water which sustains life there actually comes from the runoff of Kilimanjaro's glaciers, 50 km away. We saw birds, bats, and a pearl spotted owlet. After the walk, we shared drinks with our guides and went back to the lodge for lunch.



After lunch we had a nice chat with Saitoti. I gave him a digital watch, and he gave me a nice beaded bracelet right off of his arm. We showed him some pictures of home and chatted with him and some other employees until it was time for our afternoon game drive.

On this game drive, we saw some buffalo (arguably the most dangerous animals you can run into), some elephants sparring with one another, a young zebra, and a herd of 52 elephants all together! It was amazing. We saw a wonderful sunset. Just like the sunrise, there was an elephant silhouetted in front of the gorgeous light.



I had some stomach troubles during the game drive, so I opted out of dinner and rested instead. Craig went with Patrick and James to the dining room for an East African buffet.

Read all of the details of this day here.