After dropping Suzanne off at her conference, Graham experimented with driving on the wrong side of the road, and got us safely to the park! Practically upon entering, we saw giraffes (twiga in Kiswahili) and zebras grazing in the distance. Knowing that we were about to take a walking safari through the park, we left the animals to graze.
If the walking safari had been marketed as a guided hike, we would have all felt better about it. Although Chris was excited to be getting some exercise, it was perhaps a tad on the strenuous side for those of us still recovering from malaria. At least Amari was a really good sport.
Anyway, the only animals we got up-close and personal with on our walk were the water buffalo (can kill lions if provoked) and the warthogs. To be fair, we really were comforted by the ranger with a gun when we were close to the water buffalo! The other thing worth mentioning on the walk was a beautiful waterfall.
After our little hike, we ate lunch before venturing off on our own (with the car). This was much cooler! First of all, we went the wrong way out of the parking lot, and just as we were about to turn around, we spotted more twigas literally right next to the road. We were so excited!
Once we found our way, we saw a whole little community of animals, including warthogs, twigas, water buffalo, zebras, and water bucks. We got out of the car (but not too close!) and noticed that they were just as interested in us as we were in them! A mari did a cart wheel at some point and sent the zebras running. They are beautiful.
Next we headed toward the lakes. There we saw flamingos and hippos! On our way to the crater, and then out of the park, we saw 3 kinds of monkeys - colobus monkeys, baboons, and one unidentified species - and guinea fowl, as well as many more twigas just chillin by the side of the road. It was so majestic!
We headed out of the park, picking up Suzanne along the way, and going home for a short time before heading back out to the Colobus Club (again with Amari) to see a Russian guitarist play. In reality, although the guitarist was quite talented, it was overzealous of us to go after a loong day of safari-ing. We didn't even make it through the first third of the performance before we all started falling asleep. Luckily it was Amari's bedtime, so we all had an excuse to go home. Sometimes it pays to hang out with a 12-year-old!
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1 comment:
Watch out for those hippos, they'll eat you as soon as look at you.
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