Kenya

this is an email I wrote about our trip to Kenya in October 2002

We are home safe and sound! Had a great time. It was unbelievable. We went to some far off places and it took forever to get there. From our house to the first hotel took 24 hours. We saw every animal imaginable. There were whole herds of animals; it must have been like what America was like before the buffalo were knocked out.

In the second park we went to we were in the middle of a plain surrounded by mountains, low grass and a few Joshua trees, but you could see for miles in every direction and there were animals in herds in every direction for miles. Elephant herds, wildebeest herds, hippos, jackals, wart hogs, hyenas, gazelles, etc. And tons of exotic birds. It was unbelievable to be in the middle of it. But it took us 5 hours of driving on the bumpiest dustiest hottest roads imaginable. Then at our hotel, there was a film crew filming Tomb Raider III and we saw Angelina Jolie at our hotel, she walked right past us and smiled on her way to breakfast.

At our first hotel we saw a herd of elephants and the hotel is on stilts and there is a water hole out back. Everything is open and we were sitting having a drink watching the elephants and the baby, very tiny, less than 10lbs went in the water. It was too deep for him to touch and he was swimming around crying. There were about 25 elephants around and the daddy started yelling and tooting and all the elephants backed off. Then momma elephant gingerly stepped into the watering hole. She tried for about a half an hour to get the baby out. Meanwhile Dad was pacing and stomping and yelling on the shore. Finally momma scooted baby to the edge and demonstrated how to put the two front feet on the rocks along the edge and baby copied. Then, Momma was able to lift and push babies back end out with her trunk. There were about 50 people spectators by this time, and we were all so relived we clapped and cheered and momma turned around, not five feet from us and lifted her trunk in what seemed like a salute and then mom, dad and baby joined the rest of the family. It was amazing. The family dynamics, the frustrated father, the communication.

We saw a baboon family. Probably 30 all together. At one point one of the older children tried to get some of momma's milk and she grabbed him by the throat and they screamed at each other, then the littler one came along and she cuddled him and let him breast feed. All the animals with thier families, you could see the communication. We saw a pride of lions. They were 10 feet from our truck and there were 12 of them sleeping in the shade. Then one got up and walked into the distance and some of the others followed. It turned out one of the family was coming back from the watering hole and she had gone to meet her. They stood looking at each other for a minute and then went to each other and rubbed heads. It is a very beautiful country. I hope our pictures turn out good.

We got to experience some of the culture. We went to the village of a Masi tribe, we got to see the rain dance, sun dance and dance of the medicine man of the Pole Pole tribe, we went to a local market and drove thru hundreds of villages. At our hotel at the end we got to know some locals and they would talk to us for hours teaching us Swahili and there customs. We had a great time.