A Day Full of Animals!!

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So I’ve been away for a number of days, and a LOT has happened, so I’m going to post each day separately so you can read a little bit at your leisure. I’m writing this in our hotel and will post it either when we get to Kisumu again, or at our school one day, but if it’s at the school, there will be no pictures as it’s pretty slow out here in the country. But I promise to add pictures as soon as I get to a more moderate-speeded location.

Now where did I leave off? Day 2 in Nairobi. Okay so Todd had some more business to take care of on Thursday, so Simon took Heather and I to a few places. First off was the David Sheldrick Trust where they take in orphan elephants and rhinos. At the moment, they have 27 baby elephants ranging in age from 1 week to 2 years. Elephants are extremely social animals, and are completely dependent on their mother to survive for the first 2 years. These animals are kept in the Nairobi National Park, but have 24 hour keepers that stay with them for physical care (warmth and bottle feeding every 3 hours). They’ve all been orphaned for man-made reasons: poaching, man-animal conflict, and as there’s a drought in Kenya, there’s lot that have fallen into open wells, irrigation ditches, etc. They came in groups of 5-8 based on age. The youngest came first. Oh were they cute!!! As I said, the youngest one was 1 week old, and she was found in a well when she was only 2 days old. These guys they put blankets on because they can’t regulate their body heat enough. And they bottle feed them with a big grey blanket to mimic their mother until they’re more familiar with the bottles. So these ones were super sweet, the next groups were a bit older and so darling. Much more playful, rolling around in the water hole. I videotaped the whole talk which was about 30 minutes so didn’t get many pictures or a chance to touch them, but it was well worth it. They only bring the babies up for an hour a day so they don’t get too habituated. Once they’re 2 years old, they’re moved to another park in Kenya and are slowly reintroduced to the wild. It can take until they’re 5-7 years old, but they’ve had great success. They also have a few orphaned rhinos and brought one up to visit. Super cute as well. I was completely on cloud nine for the whole time we were there.

After this bout with orphaned animals, we went to the Animal Orphanage. Here is where we got to… duh duh duh……hug the cheetah. And yes they were alive!! I super promise to send pics as soon as I can. But trust me, I was super close, and it was purring loudly. They have several cheetahs, because the mothers tend to lose their babies when chasing prey and then can’t find them again. After a couple days if their mother hasn’t returned, the rangers bring them in to the orphange. They just got a pair of new cubs a few days ago, but they’re still not habituated enough to put out for visitors. But back to our up-close encouter, it was so surreal. He was purring so loudly I thought it was a growl, but the keeper assured me it was fine. Then we had a couple final pictures and had our backs to them when one found something nice-smelling in Heather’s backpack and started to nuzzle her in the back. That was when we called it quits.

Then we got to pet a leopard thru the chainlink fence. And then we got to play with a monkey named Barack. We had a special guide, another “friend” of our driver Simon’s who works there - Wesley. He let Barack groom him, and then when Heather went in close, he grabbed at her hair and her shirt. Quite a touchy feely kind of monkey!! I was a bit more hesitant, everything in my head saying “you’re not allowed to touch the animals” but finally I jumped over the fence too. Got to see a few more animals, even in the “Strictly no Entering” zone and then it was off to meet up with Todd.

So we got to talking of what needed to be done, and I was told how much money we needed to clear up all our bills - I had lots of Kenyan shillings, but we had to pay the travel agent in US dollars for some crazy reason. So we rushed to the bank at 2:30pm, thinking it closed at 3 to make a withdrawal on my Visa, and after waiting for 20 minutes to talk to someone, was told I needed my passport which was, of course, in the safe at the hotel. I figured I wasn’t doing any banking or exchanging travellers cheques and I could pay the travel agent with my visa card, so I didn’t think to bring it. But the nice man informed us the bank closed at 6 so I had plenty of time to go get it, stand in line again, and wait forever for a teller to get my US cash. A bit stressful, but all is well. A little emailing time, and we were off to meet up with the travel agent, then supper and an “early” evening so we could be at the bus stop by 6:30am for our bus to Bumala.

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Comments

[sharon Klancar]

Great Animal Day
Jennifer I am so enjoying to hear about your awesomw experiences. Is your hotel nice, is the food good? Am anxious to get some pictures. Hi to Todd from me. Love Sharon

[Mona]

Keep em coming
Me likey!! Stay safe, but have a great time! Keep blogging - this is great!