No Man-eating Lions for me

4-13-2011

Tsavo West National Park

The day begun really early, and as M.O.D (modafunsi of the day or student of the day), I was in charge of wrangling up all the students to load up the cars, eat breakfast and help prepare to leave camp. Once in the jeeps we headed towards Tsavo. Normally only a 2.5-3 hour drive we made several stops along the way for travelling lectures. My car was Erica, Courtney, Mikayla, Greg, Nicky, Jess, and Alice with Daniel driving us and mama J (a cook) in the front seat. The first stop was a hill with a beautiful view over Kuku group ranch near a secondary school. Shem, our Wildlife Management teacher lectured us for an hour. Shem is my favorite teacher, although I’ve heard he is a very hard grader, and he has a very dry sense of humor. He looks like Bill Cosby… and when he wears a sweater it is unreal how canny the resemblance is. Elliot has this plan of bringing Shem to D.C., going to Ben’s Chili Bowl and trying to pass him off as Cosby so we get a free meal. Shem already agreed to the plan LOL.

After the lecture we got back in the jeeps and headed towards the national park. 30 minutes away from the hill we stopped to pick up our armed guards. The government requires that every tourist/white person travelling to and in the park must have an armed guard per car. This requirement is a result of lots of armed raids against tourist cars and to protect tourists from wildlife in the park. At the site to pick them up we were sitting in the jeep waiting, minding our own business and we were bombarded by people selling carvings, beaded jewelry, knives and so much more. They come up to you in the car, and god forbid your window is open because then they actually stick the object and their arms through your windows and grab you or force you to hold onto the item, and harass you. They are yelling prices and just trying to get your attention and if you show them the slightest interest, even if it is just looking at them they won’t go away until your car drives away. I had no intention of buying anything, but then I saw this beautiful carving of a hippo and I just had to have it. I bargained it down from 8,000 KSH to 1,000 KSH= $12 and he handed it over. The hippo was so heavy that I dropped it on my lap which really hurt and my first thought was, how on earth will I get this home with me? I’ve decided I’m going to leave my school books here and that’ll equal the weight of the hippo. Then I saw a rhino and I also had to buy it. Normally the carvings look very cheap and not worth my time, but these two were something special. I made friends with the carver, his name is John, and Jess asked him to make her a lion for when we returned on Saturday. I also normally am strongly against buying carvings just because they illegally harvest wood from the forest and it is very unsustainable. For example ebony: Ebony trees take 80 years to grow and reach maturity and in times of stress, such as drought, it can take them 100 years. But it only takes one person five minutes to cut it down for their own purposes. Ebony is a beautiful black wood, but not worth knowing I just endorsed the destruction of a 100 years worth of growth. Ebony trees are also very important for their environments, so it’s devastating to the forests to lose these trees. Ebony has become so rare that they now make carvings out of other trees. My rhino is rosewood and he wouldn’t tell me what the hippo was made of but it’s very clearly painted black so I’m not worried about it being ebony.

I had perfect timing, because after I paid for the rhino we sped off towards the lava fields. Tsavo West National Park and Chyulu Hills are composed of many dormant volcanoes, with the most recent explosion 500 years ago. The last lava flow is still very visible and it covers the whole landscape with hardened black basalt. We were driving surrounded by bushes and trees and dust under the hot sun when we rounded a corner and as far as we could see there were black lava fields. We stopped for 15 minutes and walked all over the dried lava, it was unreal. The rock is very hollow, but has razor sharp edges. Daniel, our Maasai program assistant who drives and helps organize our events, compared it to the sharp edge of a Machete. Of course I was stupidly wearing flip flops that day so I had to be super careful walking over the dried lava. I took pictures, but of course it can’t compare to seeing it in reality. I took an Archaeology of Pompeii class where we learned how the city was covered in ash and lava… It was so easy to see this lava and picture it covering an entire city. It was creepy too knowing the volcanoes are only dormant and could go off at any time. We got back in the jeeps and stood up for a game drive. That is why I was wearing flip flops, because when we do a game drive we lift off the hatches of the roof and stand on the seats, and we have to be barefoot so we don’t ruin the seats. We saw these adorable animals jumping and climbing all over the sharp rocks, klip springers, they are little antelopes that are really agile and their heads are so cute and look like baby foxes. After struggling to climb over the lava myself it was so cool to see these springers just hop and run so easily across it.

At this point we were almost entering the park and we all got really excited. We couldn’t wait to see the maneless, man-eating lions and rhinos in the rhino sanctuary. We all stood up out of the hatches with our binoculars and cameras at the ready. I kind of assumed before getting here that I would never use my binoculars… little did I know how useful they would be. The only thing I can think to compare it to in order to properly explain the difference it makes would be wearing glasses. When I don’t wear glasses everything far away is really blurry and I can usually only see outlines, but when I put glasses on every detail is sharp and clear. This is the same with binoculars, you’re probably thinking DUH, but when you are looking at an animal like a cheetah that is really far away and your camera can’t focus on it and you’ve lost all hope of seeing it, having binoculars is a life-saver. Being able to see the cheetah’s tear-drop face is SO COOL or every detail of a hippo’s mouth when it yawns, indescribable; especially now that I can successfully identify sex, age and species of most large mammals in Tanzania and Kenya.

Immediately after we entered the park, around 11am, we reached the Mzima Springs. Remember the hippo video I watched before leaving where I saw hippo infanticide? Well these springs are where those hippos live. Most of the water I’ve seen in Africa is dirty, not clear, and looks really gross, but these springs are completely pure. They come from Chyulu Hills, a huge water catchment, and it is pumped so fast (totally naturally) into the spring that the water is purified by the pressure. It enters the springs by a small hole in the ground on one side and on the other side it exits the spring and goes underground through another small hole. Very cool! The springs are home to hippos and crocodiles. So when we got there we expected to see hundreds of hippos, little did we know that the severe drought of 2009 wiped out almost the entire population and only 5-10 remain. We ate lunch surrounded by begging vervet monkeys, which can be really aggressive although they look super innocent (one jumped through the hatch into a jeep where Elliot was sitting and we had to scream at it to get out). After lunch we had to walk as a group down to the springs where they have this lovely stone trail from one of the springs to the other end with funny signs on trees. One sign said “please do not engrave your initials on my trunk”. It was really nice to hear the sound of rushing water, and to see water that was actually clear, but we didn’t see a lot of animals. Farther down the trail we stopped at what looked like a small hut resting on the water, turns out it has an underwater looking point where you can see everything that is in the water. The water is so pure that you can see quite far, I imagine when the springs have lots of hippos this spot must be really cool. All I saw were fish… But upon exiting we looked across the spring to the other bank and saw the fattest crocodile ever. It looked like it had just eaten a zebra, it was that fat. That was awesome. Finally at the very end of the trail on the other side of the springs we saw hippos really far away so basically all we saw were their ears and nostrils. What I really liked, and I usually see at every tourist stop, is the skulls of different animals. At the springs they had hippo skulls which are huge and as big as half my body.

Our game drive began again and we headed towards our campsite in the park. Unfortunately we didn’t see any animals, a huge disappointment after our Serengeti expedition, but the landscape was beautiful. Since we are in the wet season, and it has been raining despite the drought, all the animals have dispersed outside the park because resources are more abundant. While the lack of animals sucks, the landscape was really gorgeous. Everything was green and there is just more vegetation than in Serengeti. It’s also harder to see the animals because it’s mostly very dense bush on either side of the road. The road itself was cool. It kept changing colors from black dirt, to grayish dirt to bright red dirt. In the park where we did game drives the road was a bright red color, which meant that after every game drive we all got out of the jeeps covered in red dust and completely filthy. We reached the campsite after a very uneventful but beautiful drive and set up the tents. Of course my tent was right on top of an ant hill so every time we left anything outside our tent it was immediately swarmed by ants. At least they weren’t safari ants; those were near the bathrooms and one bit Austin’s big toe because he got too close. After we put up the tents we got back in the jeeps and went to the top of a hill and watched the sun set over Chyulu Hills, so gorgeous. In the car while waiting for the sun to set my car played riddle and logic games. I think being in Africa has taught me so many games. I need to write them all down before I forget them. 


Will tell more later,


-Julie