We arrived in Lewa Wildlife Conservancy on Friday, July 27th. Though we had expected to be camping, we found ourselves once again in nicer accommodations. This time, we were put up in the research dormitories. For 100 Kenyan shillings (Ksh) a night and 25 Ksh per meal (we bought the groceries), we didn't have to spend a lot to have a comfortable stay. To get an idea of how cheap it was, $1 = 70 Ksh. For five nights and 10 meals, it cost us just over $10 per person.
After we'd dropped our things in our room, we were treated to dinner at the house of one Muya's friends, named George, who was also one of the security guards at the conservancy. True to Kenyan culinary standards, we had boiled meat (not sure which kind, but it wasn't chicken), ugali, and some boiled greens. Ugali is basically a starchy cake that tastes similar to rice, but has a little less flavor. Traditionally, it is eaten with your hands, rolled up into a ball, and eaten in the same bite as a piece of meat or some vegetables so that the ugali soaks up the flavors of the meat and veggies.We headed out to a local bar after dinner with George, Muya, Tony, and Edwin, Lewa's resident rhino-guy, after dinner. Interestingly, the bar was called "Camp David" and we enjoyed drinking our Tuskers by candle light. Since the research camp and staff housing is all located within the conservancy, we got to do a little night game drive while singing along to some African tunes on our way home.
On Saturday, most of the Lewa staff had the day off, so Lindsey, Muya, Tony and I headed out on our own to fetch some black rhino dung samples. Before we could even leave the camp, Muya had already battled it out with a feisty vervet who tried to steal our only loaf of bread off of the breakfast table. A split second after the monkey had grabbed the bread, Muya grabbed the monkey (who still had the bread), and shook her just long enough for her to drop the loaf before tossing her to the ground. The four of us couldn't stop laughing.
We headed out to an ecolodge called Il Ngwesi, run by the local Maasai community, to collect a dung sample from the lone male black rhino, named Omni, who resides in a boma (enclosure) just down the hill from the lodge. After a quick tour of the lodge, which is absolutely beautiful, in case you were wondering, and a small bite for lunch, we headed back to Lewa just in time to avoid a huge thunderstorm. The roads, however, did not fare as well and we were forced to drive into Isiolo to avoid getting stuck on the dirt roads. We arrived at the Lewa main gate just as the storm was clearing and the termites were beginning to emerge after the rains. Termites are considered a tasty delicacy by Kenyans and are usually hunted just after a big rain when they come out from their large castle-like mounds to do some hunting of their own (we didn't try any).
On Sunday, Lindsey and I did some dung hunting with Tony, our driver, Patrick, and a Maasai named Suberi, who served as our guide. After the previous day's rain, we had a few slippery moments in the mud, but were still able to collect a few fresh samples. That afternoon, Muya and Tony had some errands to run, so Lindsey and I headed out with Patrick and Suberi on our own. We were a little nervous about having to accurately identify "fresh" black rhino dung, but headed out with confidence. Not 20 minutes after leaving the camp, after watching a male ostrich successfully court and then mate with a willing female, we spotted our first (confirmed) black rhinos - a mother and her calf - clearly visible in the grassland (pictured above).
Patrick and Suberi did some cleaver strategizing with the roads and we soon found ourselves parked less than 50 meters away from the pair waiting for them to poo. After quietly watching them for about 20 minutes, Patrick started to make some noise to try to get their attention. As a result, the rhinos took off a quick jog and thankfully decided to drop a few pieces of dung each as they ran away. These were definitely our freshest samples of the trip.Once we'd seen the first two, black rhinos were suddenly everywhere! After leaving our first pair, we stumbled across a sleeping rhino (in Kiswahili, "lala kifaru") who we initially drove right past thinking he was a rock or a termite mound and then shortly after another mother-calf pair. Then, just before the sun set, we came across a mating pair who were grazing (despite the fact that their browsers) in some tall grass. Our first day seeing black rhinos and we saw 7 of them!!
We spent all of Monday dung hunting in the field and were able to collect a fair number of samples. Of course, a day in Kenya can't pass with some excitement. On Monday, after being kicked out of our picnic lunch site by a rapidly approaching herd of elephants and having to push our little 4WD Suzuki up a rocky hill, we completely ran out of fuel and had to wait for some to be delivered. Apart from a couple of cape buffalo that were enjoying a meal a few hundred meters away, we were in a pretty safe area and just had to wait it out.
On Tuesday, we did some more dung in the morning, and then were restricted to the camp in the afternoon due to some threatening rain clouds and the prospect of more bad roads. Muya took this opportunity to teach us a game he called "poker." It was a fun game, though rules seemed to gradually emerge as we played (or as they were convenient, I'm not really sure which), and by the end of the night we'd accrued about 8 or 9 different players. It was a lot of fun and certainly kept us entertained while we were stuck in the research camp.
Wednesday morning, we headed back through Nanyuki, picking up some miraa (a local plant chewed as a stimulant) to try on the way to Ol Jogi Game Reserve - the last park that Lindsey and I would visit before returning to Athi River to await our departure to the States. We also stopped at George's daughter's house to say hello and Lindsey got to have her first baby feeding experience. We commemorated the event with a few photos (see above).
We arrived at Ol Jogi in the early afternoon and were quickly assigned a guide, named Subeki, who took us out to find dung that afternoon. We soon linked up with another pair of rhino folk (sadly, I didn't learn either of their names) who took us to track a pair of black rhinos. Lindsey and I had been told that Ol Jogi had strict rules for students and that we wouldn't be allowed to get out of the car, so we were especially excited when they asked us to come along.It felt like being in a National Geographic video. Lindsey and I were both super giddy, but did as we were told, crouching down when necessary and keeping our eyes peeled for suitable trees to climb or hide behind. We very quickly discovered a mother named Malaika, which means angel, and her calf, Manuela. Although the wind was blowing very strongly in our direction, masking our scent, Malaika still sensed our presence as we were just under 50 meters away (luckily, rhinos do not have very good vision beyond 30 m) and gave strong "humh" in our direction (you could even see the steam coming out of her nostrils in jets) before the two of them took off through the bush. Not long after splitting from the two rhino guides we'd met, we happened upon yet another mother-calf pair of black rhinos. This pair was Mama Kali (37 years old and probably pregnant with her last calf) and an older calf named Kasa. We got out on foot again and followed them for a bit, the direction of the wind still in our favor, and then left to set up our camp before ever being detected by the two rhinos.
That night we set up our camp and celebrated our final night in the field with some a bottle of delicious cabernet sauvignon (called GatoNegro if you can find it) and some delicious cheese that we picked up at the grocery store in Nanyuki while we were passing through. The wine seemed to make our spaghetti and fortified pasta sauce (with spinach, tomatoes, and onions) taste so much better. After finishing what was left of our Tusker, Lindsey, Tony and I hudled around the campfire and talked while Muya and Subeki headed out to find some Tusker.
Two hours later, they returned with a crate of Tusker and a live chicken that was to serve as a midnight snack for Muya, Tony and Subeki. For Kenyans, a meal without meat just isn't quite complete, it seems. It was somewhat of a process to prepare the chicken for boiling, though luckily they spared Lindsey and I from having to witness the animal being slaughtered. After the chicken was de-feathered it was cut up, skin and all (minus the feet), and boiled with some salt and garlic over our little portable gas stove. It was still cooking when Lindsey and I finally crashed a little after 1 am , but it certainly did smell tasty.
The next day, we went out with Subeki for a final round of dung collection, which was relatively uneventful. Although we saw a few Grevy's zebras and impala and a fair number of gerenuk (my favorite of the Kenyan ungulates that we saw), by far the coolest sighting of the morning was a black mamba snake that I spotted in some short bushes while looking for dung (the picture to the left is almost exactly what I saw).Luckily I had no idea what it was when I saw it, because I probably would've freaked out a bit more since they are the fastest and one of the most venomous snakes in the world. Instead, I stayed where I was and called for Lindsey to come check it out (knowing how much she likes snakes), but it had slithered back quickly into the bushes before she could get there. Looking through her book of African animals a few days later (when I remembered the experience) I spotted the snake I had seen in the pictures and was a little bit shocked when the caption read "black mamba." In hindsight, it was pretty amazing that I didn't get attacked. If I had, chances are I wouldn't be here to tell you about it.
Thursday afternoon we headed back to Nairobi. The car ride seemed long and silent, though we did stop for Muya to purchase two very large (I'd say at least 15 inches long, maybe 20) tilapia at one of the river towns, which were tied to the windshield wipers for transport so that they wouldn't stink up the car. It was a pretty brilliant move, but it did get quite a few stares once we returned to the city.
No comments:
Post a Comment