El Karama and Ol Pejeta

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Blog 3!! I have finally made it!

I left off on the morning walk at El Karama on our first morning. We walked for a good hour an a half with frequent stops to assess a track or observe an animal. It was truly amazing being out in the wild without a car. When everyone started talking all you could hear was the wind and the occasional chirp or snort of an animal. When we got back from our walk we had breakfast. The breakfast at El Karama was very interesting. All the food there was absolutely fantastic. We started off with fruit such as passion fruit, papaya and guava along with this cereal bar thing that you put milk onto and it separated. Then the nice man took your order for eggs. I got scrambled the first time and fried the next and then scrambled the next. I barely like eggs but this were fantastic, and they were completely white, including the yoke, which I found fascinating. They were served with a cooked tomato a piece of sausage and a piece of bacon that is similar to what they serve in Canada. It was all really good though.

Dinners ranged, but they were all really yummy. My favorite was the last night where we had Boran cow steak, a fresh salsa of tomatoes and onions, kale of course, and this Kenyan starch bread that tastes just like grits and is made of corn meal. The desserts were always fantastic and showed up after dinner without fail. Most of them had cream, which was lovely but horrible for you. The best was my far the passion fruit mousse that we had on the first night. Delicious is an understatement for this mousse.

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SEVERAL DAYS LATER

Ok, sorry for the scattering of these things, its hard to keep track of everything. Anyway, I am just going to give up on the daily advertisement of my adventures, because it is impossible at this rate. El Karama was wonderful, minus the no electricity thing of course. But I saw a lot of animals there, both on the night drive (those bush babies are unforgettable) and the day drives. From elephant, reticulated giraffe, jackals, impala, etc etc.

One day we drove south and went to Ol Pejeta Conservancy where we saw black and white rhino for the first time, but still no big cats. The one black rhino we saw was old and blind, which was very sad. They also cut off his horn (which slowly grows back) to keep him save from poachers. They said that because he is in a small confinement it is easier for a poacher to come in and kill him because they know where he is located. Smart, but still the fact they have to do that is scary.

Africa in general is a little scary. Besides the poachers, people like squatters are an issue. They come and live on old farmland that has not been occupied for sometime. They are then kicked off by people such as the KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service, which provides about 90% of the countries economy so nobody really messes with them, including the government) and forced to leave. At one place, the people who were kicked off came back and killed two of the guards. Such friendly people. Anyway, we are now going swimming at Lord and Lady Delamere’s house so I shall return later with more on where I currently am until Saturday (Soysambu). Later.

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