Thought Overflow

So, like I wrote in my previous post, we went to Samburu National Park this past weekend. It was a great trip! Samburu National Park is not really very famous for having lots of animals, so we went there mostly for the experience. And needless to say, I wasn’t disappointed, in 2 regards:

1. We did not see many of the big game. No lions, no leopards, no cheetahs, not even a bloody wild cat!
2. Even though we didn’t see the predators, I still enjoyed it tremendously.

Well, here goes the report:

So we left on Friday morning at about 0640 hours. We had a very friendly driver and one of those 9-seater combi-vans with the roof thingy that opens up (you’ll see it in the pictures). I had my old Sony MP3 player (which dad was using here), and a good classic book (To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee) to pass the time (a roughly 6 hour journey), but I didn’t really need the book. The country-side here is spectacularly beautiful for at least the first half of the journey, and I spent a considerable amount of time looking out the window.

We stopped at a town called Nanyuki on the way, through which the equator passes. We got a demonstration of the Coriolis effect, which causes water to spiral clock-wise above the equator, and counter-clockwise below the equator when being drained out of a bowl with a little hole at the bottom… pretty neat to witness, but useless to try and capture on film. Nanyuki was cold with pretty strong and very cold winds blowing in our faces. Anyway, after a short bathroom break there, the journey continued.

We reached Samburu National Park at lunch time, had some lunch, and went out on our first “game drive” - a game drive is basically a drive into the park to see the animals. We saw plenty of African Elephants and loads of deer, mostly Impalas, Grant’s Gazelle and Grenook (these are species of deer, the pictures will explain more ). We didn’t really see much else on the first day. Oh yeah, almost forgot the Oryx, which again is basically a type of deer which is unique (in Kenya) to Samburu National Park.

The next day, we left for a game drive at around 0600 hours. It was quite cold for the first half-hour, but become a lot more comfortable later. Though early morning is a great time to see animals (for that’s when they’re mostly active, the heat not being too much for them to find shade and become lethargic), we again didn’t see much except for the deer and the elephants. But apart from that, we did see some Reticulated Giraffes, which are extremely beautiful animals.

After breakfast, I read a book by the river that flows in front of the lodge. It’s a really peaceful place, and I was also listening to my favourite music. More than an hour passed without my realizing it, till it was time for lunch. We went for one more game drive after lunch, and this time we drove to a spot of the park where someone had seen a lion in the morning, We spent the entire game drive there, but didn’t see the damn king of the jungle. Dad was of the opinion that he was probably lying in the shade of some bush sleeping like a typical spoilt royal lazy brat. Oh joy. We did see some vultures and a really old eagle, though.

We were scheduled to leave on Sunday morning after breakfast. So we had an early breakfast and loaded up the combi-van. We decided to take a small game drive and then drive out directly. On this game drive too, we saw nothing new except a solitary zebra sharing the shade of a tree with some other deer. After that followed the drive back to home.

Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention the leopard. The Samburu Lodge (where we were lodged) drops leopard bait on the opposite side of the river, and leopards occassionally come there if they haven’t had a kill. Well, on Saturday night, someone caught a glimpse of a leopard as it went into the bushes. During dinner, dad got lucky and saw it too as it got up to shift position. Me and my sister weren’t so lucky though

All in all, we didn’t see many of the animals I really wanted to - lions, leopards, cheetahs, etc. But I did have a great time here at Samburu National Park . The lodge was great with the river flowing in front of it, the food was excellent, and the experience was something I’m looking forward to again the next time I come here.