If you go to Africa, you have to see the animals, no matter what the original purpose for your trip. After all, God gave us this great variety of animals on the planet; we ought to view and appreciate what God has done. Our team did this on a couple of occasions. Trips to see the animals became the bookends for our Kenya experience this year.
The first opportunity was on the Saturday after we first arrived in Kenya. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust maintains an animal orphanage which focuses on orphaned elephants. Visit at noon and you can observe the feeding of the little pachyderms plus learn tons of information from the affable, experienced handlers. The babies are not terrified of people and will come up to the crowd looking for interaction. One learns quickly that squatting before a baby elephant is an invitation to play, and they think that play involves pushing. It's good not to wear your finest clothes when you make this trip.
Next we stopped off at the twiga farm. Well, at least that's what I call it. I can't remember the official name, but it is a preserve for a certain type of giraffe. The crowds love to feed these majestic beasts with long, sticky, purple tongues. Some of the giraffes have learned to open their mouths so visitors can throw nuggets of animal feed in. The giraffes approach visitors strictly for the food. To get a good photo of a giraffe head near your face, you have to turn your back on the animal and hold food out in front of you so the giraffe's head comes over your shoulder.
We ended our experience in Kenya with a safari to the Masai Mara, a massive wildlife preserve in southwest Kenya. This savanna continues south into neighboring Tanzania where it is known as the Serengeti. Normally the herds of wildebeests and zebras migrate north (into Kenya) with the start of the rainy season in August. But the rains started early this year, so there were plenty of animals to be seen. We saw lions (very close) and a leopard (who just finished a meal), hippos (mostly submerged) and giraffes (with babies), elephants, wildebeests, zebras, hyena, gazelles, impalas, topis, and one eland. I will just display a few photos to give you an idea. Click on any of the photos in this post to see a larger version.
Oh, yeah, did I mention the birds? Here's a male ostrich.
Next post I will display some more animal photos.
3 comments:
Cool photos David! Isn't it amazing, the creativity of our Maker, with all these different kinds of animals? I think I like the photo of the mama and baby giraffe the best.
Love the leopard in the tree!!!
It was SO cool seeing the leopard run up that tree. I wish I had had the camera set to "video" when that happened. He just ran up the trunk like a teenager ascending stairs. Then he plopped down with his legs dangling to get ready for a snooze. I am just imagining the view from that height.
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