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| Erin's Journal for Tsavo West (10-29-02 to 10-30-02) This morning we were a little delayed in departing for Tsavo West, as we had to wait for a large caravan of other vans to assemble. Due to its proximity with the Tanzanian border, the road to Tsavo has been frequented by robbers who ambush safari vans and rob and evict all the occupants before taking the safari vans into Tanzania and stranding the people they've robbed. It is now required to bring an armed policeman when travelling that road, and preferable to go with a large group of vans. We had both. Richard didn't like the speed with which most safari drivers navigate the horrible dirt roads, so he opted to be the tail vehicle of the caravan of 9 vans, which meant we carried one of the 2 machine-gun armed policemen. We finally got underway around 9:30am, and sure enough the other vans raced away ahead of us. I was stunned that none of them broke an axle or something - even at our speed, we hit some bumps hard enough to jar my teeth and make me check for whiplash! We stopped after about 2 hours at a curio shop to use bathrooms and shop for trinkets (Glenn and I had decided to wait for Nairobi, as prices out there were ridiculously high). Then we got back on the road and were soon entering the driveway for Tsavo. The policemen got out here and we continued into the park on our own. The other vans went on to the lodges, but we got to head straight to Tsavo West's main attraction, the Nzima Springs, which houses an underwater viewing station on the river. First we ate lunch near the van. The lodges all packed these huge picnic lunches on request, and we each picked out a few things from the huge selection of fruits, breads, and chicken. Afterward we were joined by one of the park rangers (armed with a rifle as all rangers have been on this safari) on the 1km walk along the springs. The Nzima Springs shoots out from an underground waterway coming from far-off Kilimanjaro, giving onto a river that houses over 1400 hippos and many crocodiles and provides drinking water for a large number of villages further east. When we reached the hut housing a glass viewing station under the river water, we saw a huge number of fish for water that was only about 2 feet deep at that point! Then we continued on to the lower pool, where we saw a large croc swimming away and more hippos all along the river. The ranger gave us some interesting facts about the river before continuing back to the starting point. We then went on to the lodge, also run by the Serena hotels group (same as Samburu and Amboseli lodges). This lodge was set up around a couple of water holes, so you could watch the animals coming to drink from your room and the restaurant. We felt lucky, as we had the rest of the afternoon off while the rest of the vans went out in the afternoon to visit the Nzima Springs! I napped until dinnertime and Glenn read out on the balcony while watching some baboons play near the water. After dinner, we met some couples from the other vans, from Finland. We chatted with them until bedtime, then crashed. Sometime around 2am, I heard loud snorting and grunting and splashing from outside, and looked toward the water holes to find a huge herd of Cape buffalo enjoying the ponds! They stayed out there for several hours, eventually waking even Glenn, who is a sound sleeper. It was great. The next morning we had another early game drive, our last one. Tsavo West is exactly the opposite of Amboseli, in that it has so much bush and tree growth that you can rarely find animals out there. We'd seen a family of giraffes on the drive in, and a few zebras as we first left the lodge, but other than that we just drove around in the bush and climbed some rocks for a good panoramic view. Just as we finished the drive, we saw some female kudus off in the bush, which is a very rare sight! We were pleased with this last drive, and went to pack up for our trip with a satisfied feeling. We were very tired and ready to stay in one place for a while, so we both looked forward to getting back to Nairobi. We drove for most of the day, stopping only to pull off the highway for lunch around 1. Then, just as we were passing the airport on the way into town, we started hearing some awful sounds from the van's undercarriage. We had to pull over and couldn't find the problem! Luckily, we were within cell phone range of the office, and Richard called us a cab to take us to get our bag and drop us at a hotel while he waited for a mechanic. We hated to leave him sitting out there (we hadn't the cash to tip him yet!), but we exchanged contact info and promised to call him the next day to arrange a last meeting. We checked into the Comfort Inn and immediately had dinner and went to bed! |
| One of my favorite pictures from this safari was in Masai Mara - a group of elephants piled under a lone tree |