A rare find

Samburu

On the second day, the morning highlight was a Leopold sitting in an acacia tree. Leopolds are very elusive and to see one was indeed very special. They are also the most dangerous of all the cats.

Leopold

A few years ago with another company, our guide was climbing a rock to take up photographic gear for a client for a sunset drinks session and walked into a Leopold. He managed to ring his boss to say he was about to die, don’t move his boss advised him. He had been preparing to throw himself off the back of the rock to save himself! The Leopold bluff charged him three times coming to within less than arms-length away each time. After quite some time, fortunately a troupe of baboons came through and scared the Leopold away. The Leopold is the most dangerous cat in Africa. Cheetahs won’t hurt you. Lions will. Baboons are capable of killing a leopold which is why it ran.

Morning tea with the crocodiles

Dik Dik

Vervet Monkey

Orange billed crane

Reticulated giraffe and orange-billed ox pecker

Eland and orange billed-ox pecker

black faced sandgrouse

Before going back for lunch we visited Lisa’s school. Brian started this school for two to six year olds, of which there are now 60 students. The children come from very poor families and usually only eat what they are fed at school. The school is run by donations usually from Brian’s own pocket, which I’m sure he would like to change. When we arrived all the kids welcomed us with a few songs and then went into their classrooms and they sang to us again. The wish list is for running water, electricity and an additional toilet block – the children have to be given toilet training as they don’t have one at home. A UK charity has been set up to gather donations and a number of clients organise charity events to raise funds.

http://www.lisasschool.org/

In the afternoon we came across a herd of elephants with a couple of babies. One of them stretched out her trunk and nearly touched our car – it was one of those magic moments. There were about 27 elephants in the herd.

Some of the Samburu houses are like these

We saw four Somali ostriches, two dark ones and two light ones which are only found in this area. Also, dik dik’s - cute small looking little antelopes, Jackals which always seem to be in pairs, a Butler eagle and herds of Grant’s gazelles

Vulcherine guinea fowl

Somali Ostrich

Jackals

Grant Gazelle's fighting

Right at the end of the day we came across a herd of elephants with a little one, who was so cute, he looked like he was just getting used to having a trunk and kept swinging it around.

Happy elephant calf

It was overcast all day again, so there was no sunset and night came early.

Not long after we arrive back in camp each day, we would hear “Jambo” (hello) from behind our tent, “shower is ready”. They would have 20 litres of water at the right temperature for each of us to have a shower. As Lindsay and I are used to only using 9 litres between us when we camp in Jamieson, we never needed our second tub of water!

We would have pre-dinner drinks around the fire down near the water and as it wasn’t raining our dinner table was down there too. A porter would escort us from our tent with a torch down to the fire and we would eat our three course meal under the stars.