Blogs from Central Province , Kenya, Africa

We have quickly fallen into a pattern of being on safari - early morning wake up with tea/coffee and cookies followed by a morning drive and breakfast out somewhere. Then back for lunch and a rest before the evening drive and a sundowner. After the excellent start we’d made, it was difficult to see how we were going to better things, but some highlights of the last few days: - white rhinos fighting because the male wanted to mate - he lost and she chased him away - breakfast stop with black rhinos wandering around on the edges of the plain - lots of giraffe, zebras, buffalo, jackals, warthogs including babies - a new selection of DTWS including large groups of elands, steinbok, waterbok and some beautiful oryx - lots of hyenas including a den with ... read more

Up at 5:45 this morning to depart at 7:00 – we have to get up with the animals! Ducking out of my tent at 6:30 was a delightful surprise, because the sun was shining across the plain where animals were walking towards the small waterhole in front of the tents. Out on the game ride, we learned about Black Rhinos , relatively uncommon here, Southern White Rhinos , commonly seen, and Northern White Rhinos . There are only two Northern White Rhinos remaining in the world, all at this Conservancy; they were collected from the zoos where they had been kept. They live in an enclosed, highly secured area of 700 acres. It is highly visible because it glows with an unusually lushly green, ... read more

Our morning started at 7:30, early enough to avoid the closed roads and traffic for a big charitable marathon. The beginning of our drive followed the route from yesterday, which I sort of recognized. Our destination was the up-scale “Karen” district and the Karen Blixen Museum . The writer’s long-time house has been preserved and restored more-or-less as she left it. A young guide told us the history while we gazed at the long, low house set in a park-like garden. Karen Blixen still evokes a lot of respect here; before leaving, she ensured that “her Kikuyu” were settled on reasonable land. Inside the house (no photos allowed), the rooms displayed a surprising number of her artifacts, considering she sold up when she left, an almost bankrupt farmer and coffee-grower. Natural and person... read more

We spent the day today visiting a chimpanzee sanctuary and learning more about the conservation efforts in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. We had fun with chimps, and saw lots of animals today, including two very sleepy lions! We woke up quite early, in time for the sunrise, and had quite a good view of Mount Kenya. It was a beautiful clear, sunny morning. We both had slept well, falling asleep wondering what animals were making all the various noises we could hear. Before I fell asleep though, as I was putting my e-reader down I brushed against something that moved, on the side of the bed. I used the light from my reader to illuminate it, and it was a good sized, light coloured spider. Anyone who knows me knows I am a complete arachnophobe, so ... read more

Us & the team were all picked up from Meru Bandas at 7am after watching a beautiful dawn and driven down the track through the bamboo and hardwood forests and out of the National Park. Sadly we didn’t see any elephants on the way. We were driven through lots of coffee, tea & banana plantations and tall grass for cattle feed. We had a brief stop to show us a tea plantation and were told how they just pick the top two leaves every 7-10 days - after hiking the mountain our legs did not appreciate the steep loose soil slope up to get there! We also passed the tea market and coffee processing plants in the village. We then headed to Chogoria where we waited for Moses in a café that had amazing fresh juice ... read more