Day 4 - Samburu NP
Door: Elke
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Elke
15 Oktober 2013 | Kenia, Samburu
Zipping open your tent and overlooking a river with impala’s drinking on the other side is pretty cool, although I’m not quite sure whether this morning would not have been just as cool if I had opened the door of a lodge and seen the same thing.
After a quick cup of coffee or tea and some cupcakes and after putting monkey-proof locks on the zippers of our tents, we started our game drive as early as possible. In the Samburu park there are dik diks everywhere, while interestingly we have not seen a single dik dik in any of the other parks and neither have I seen them last year in South Africa. It’s nice to see such small and delicate creatures in such harsh environments. Another difference with the game drives last year is that we blatantly drove past tons of birds without stopping. The bird fanaticism of my fellow group members clearly was a lot less this year. We drove past the giraffe carcass of yesterday and to my surprise there was still a large number of birds feeding on it. Somehow I always thought a carcass of any kind would be completely eaten clean within 24 hours, but clearly it takes several days at least.
After the game drive we enjoyed a nice brunch from the cook and then we walked to the resort 10 minutes down river. Yes, we walked. Yes, we saw the crocodiles in the water. And no, I still did not understand how this is okay. Anyway, the resort had a swimming pool and (at that time even more important) a real and clean toilet AND a shower. It did not even matter that at the end of the afternoon our shampoo was warmer than the water from the shower.
The last few hours before sunset we went for another game drive. We saw many dik dik, zebra and various kinds of deer, but close before sunset we ran into a young male lion that was laying in the shade of a tree, right in the middle of the road. It was laying right there and appeared to be unaffected by the big truck that pulled up next to it and the big-ass camera lenses that were directed towards it. It was just lying there and we were just watching it. At some point during that impasse the clock hit ‘snack time’, so we took some time off watching the lion and focused on the potato chips and popcorn. It’s a bit decadent, I admit.
That night I wanted to be sure that I would get some shut-eye, so I tried some benzo-induced sleep which of course never fails.
After a quick cup of coffee or tea and some cupcakes and after putting monkey-proof locks on the zippers of our tents, we started our game drive as early as possible. In the Samburu park there are dik diks everywhere, while interestingly we have not seen a single dik dik in any of the other parks and neither have I seen them last year in South Africa. It’s nice to see such small and delicate creatures in such harsh environments. Another difference with the game drives last year is that we blatantly drove past tons of birds without stopping. The bird fanaticism of my fellow group members clearly was a lot less this year. We drove past the giraffe carcass of yesterday and to my surprise there was still a large number of birds feeding on it. Somehow I always thought a carcass of any kind would be completely eaten clean within 24 hours, but clearly it takes several days at least.
After the game drive we enjoyed a nice brunch from the cook and then we walked to the resort 10 minutes down river. Yes, we walked. Yes, we saw the crocodiles in the water. And no, I still did not understand how this is okay. Anyway, the resort had a swimming pool and (at that time even more important) a real and clean toilet AND a shower. It did not even matter that at the end of the afternoon our shampoo was warmer than the water from the shower.
The last few hours before sunset we went for another game drive. We saw many dik dik, zebra and various kinds of deer, but close before sunset we ran into a young male lion that was laying in the shade of a tree, right in the middle of the road. It was laying right there and appeared to be unaffected by the big truck that pulled up next to it and the big-ass camera lenses that were directed towards it. It was just lying there and we were just watching it. At some point during that impasse the clock hit ‘snack time’, so we took some time off watching the lion and focused on the potato chips and popcorn. It’s a bit decadent, I admit.
That night I wanted to be sure that I would get some shut-eye, so I tried some benzo-induced sleep which of course never fails.
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