I adore lions. I am fascinated by them and always wanted to see them in the wild.
In 2014 I was fortunate to receive a Lilly grant in order to take a sabbatical. In addition to a trip to Israel, I went to Kenya and met Shivani Bhalla and her team at Ewaso Lions in the Samburu region of Kenya. The mission of Ewaso Lions is to promote Human-Wildlife Co-existence with an emphasis on lion conservation. I thought I was going on a trip of a lifetime. Little did I know that I was making life-long friends.
Kenya became part of my soul and I have returned several times. I began this blog on my sabbatical as a way for the parish to follow me. I have kept it up on each return trip to Kenya. It has become a diary of journeys to a special place and special people.
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There is only one other group here (2 families together= 8 people). We eat dinner very late (8:45 pm last night) & so everyone gathers at the bar beforehand. Last night we were visited by a bushbaby!
The owner fed her honey.
Then she came about two inches from me & tried to get some of my drink!
I’ve been drinking a wonderful concoction of lime juice, fresh ginger, simple syrup & soda water.
We are here until this afternoon. 😎👣👣
Then we leave Kenya. 😰😰
We have two long days of traveling ahead. First a speedboat. Next a short wait. Then a small plane. Then a car. Then a long wait, a huge plane, another long wait & and a large plane. 😩
We ❤️ Kenya!
We are already planning our next trip! 😀
We are coming back! 😍
We have found a little piece of paradise–on an almost deserted island!! The owner of Manda Bay resort, Fuzz, came to get us in a speedboat and brought us to Manda Island. We have a hut on the beach all to ourselves.
This is the view from our hut.
We had a delicious lunch of fresh shrimp, vegetables and homemade rolls followed by a nap outside. Being bounced around in a safari vehicle for 12 hours/day is hard work and we are tired!! 😂😂 We had a nice walk on the beach and our only big plan for tomorrow is to swim in the Indian Ocean.
Every travel story has a snafu. We hit ours today. Until today everything has been perfect. Our flight from the Mara was perfect. Our flight out of Nairobi was perfect. Then things came to a screeching halt. But we found a guardian angel in Abdul.
We flew into Manda Airport. Someone from our resort was SUPPOSED to meet us and take us by boat to the island. No one was there. Abdul asked us where we were going and informed us the resort had not opened for the season– though we had prepaid.
Abdul called the owner and found out she is in London. He called our safari company and got them working. Abdul stayed with us 1 1/2 hours and made numerous calls.
So finally a boat came to take us to Kajani House. We got worried on the trip because although it is an island there is not a beach everywhere. We got more worried when we had a wet landing.
The people at this hotel opened the hotel for us. They are gracious and welcoming. We have a suite & are the only guests. They are creating a menu for us.
But we don’t need our swimsuits… Or our shorts because we are not on a resort and it’s a Muslim Island.
The hotel we are in is very nice ; the food is good and the people could not be more gracious, but we are moving this morning. Our safari company came through and we are moving to Manda Island. We are moving to a big resort on a beach. Our original reservations were for a small place on the beach. We are staying in a small place but we have discovered the beach is more important. We have no idea what the place is like but they are sending a boat for us in 45 minutes!!
A fabulous end to a great safari. We saw hippos walking back to the water after a night of grazing and a lioness and 4 10-month old Cubs at a distance. The highlight was seeing a mom and her two 6-week old Cubs up close. We saw her carry them. Then they passed by our car about 2 feet away.
It was special to me to end the trip with Olbramoti. He was the first male lion we saw here two years ago and his picture hung in my office, so I have seen him every day since. He is very handsome and he and his brother reign over the conservatory.
We are off to catch a flight from a grass air strip to Nairobi, then another flight to the coast and a boat to Lamu Island. There are no cars on the island. We are going to spend some time on a beach on the Indian Ocean and are hoping it is sunny and warm.
It’s cold and windy here. I am dressed in 5 layers!
An update to yesterday: we went to Lookout Hill where we could see Tanzania. There was a row of fires burning. The Tanzanians have set fires near the border in an effort to prevent the wildebeests from migrating north. They still come, but they have to make a long detour.
This morning we found 9 lion 1 1/2 yr old Cubs playing. Just like our Cubs at the zoo, a stick is a valuable possession-worth tangling over! They jumped on each other, pounced, and ran around. It was great fun. One of the boys reminded me of Aslan.
Then we found more of the pride- 3 moms and 5 6 month old Cubs. The moms played with the Cubs. A cub climbed a tree and then one of the moms did, though she wasn’t very coordinated! This is the third time we have seen lions in a tree! The grass is so high, lions are nearly completely hidden.
We got very close to a raft of about 20 hippos.
They are entertaining! We also saw a tiny hyena following its mom and though adult hyenas are pretty ugly, this little guy was adorable! We were within 10 ft of a cheetah & her 3 large 10-month old Cubs.
We saw a crossing of about 2500 wildebeests over a small river.
This afternoon after a picnic lunch in the bush we saw many more lions including a mom & 2 adorable 3-month old Cubs…
… were within 15 ft of a couple on a date…
… and a female lion who let it be known to a male that she was very interested- and he turned her down and actually walked away!
Current lion count (number of DIFFERENT lions seen)
Total-76
Males- 10
Females-21
Subadults-21
Cubs-24
It’s cold here! Especially coming from the heat of Samburu! We spent 12 hours out in the park, eating both breakfast and lunch in the bush. It was a wildebeest day. They are here! We saw hundreds of thousands.
The wildebeest are migrating. To do so they have to cross a number of rivers. It’s dangerous. We watched a crossing of the Mara River of about 50,000 wildebeests with about 25 zebras thrown in. It took about 2 1/2 hours. It’s amazing to see. They wait around the bank awhile until one gets the nerve to start. They cross in a line, leaping off the bank and swimming to the other side. They go single file and keep coming and coming. We saw only two get snatched by a very very large crocodile. Two out of 50,000 is pretty good odds.
The hard thing to watch is the young foals who get separated from their mothers in the rush. These little ones swam back across alone looking for their moms. Most don’t find them and then their chance of survival is small. It is heart breaking to see.
We saw many more lions…
… and we visited again the pride we had seen last night. They were sleeping with very full bellies. It’s very interesting because we saw the subadults in the pride 2 years ago as Cubs!
We came across a pretty small river in a kind of ravine. It’s where we had lunch.
The black dot in the middle at the back is a Cape buffalo.
We saw a tower (group) of 26 giraffes, a pack of 6 hyenas, & and a tiny baby hyena in its den.
A little further the river is a lot wider and the ravine steeper. A young foal was trapped in the ravine having been separated from her mom when the wildebeests crossed the ravine. It was panicking a bit trying to find a way out. It was being tracked by both a leopard (BTW we have seen leopards 8 of 10 days!) and a lioness. The leopard saw the lioness and gave up the hunt. The lioness started down the bank of the ravine & then made a very smart move. She realized she could move faster along the top. She ran up the bank, raced across the top, came down the ravine opposite the foal, ran across the river ( it was not deep) …. And a film crew was there–she got distracted, looked at them and the foal got away, ran out of the ravine and back to the herd. That was one very lucky baby wildebeest.
Tomorrow is our last full day here so we will be spending another 12 hours out. I’m hoping we can find the Monoco pride. Their pictures were hanging in my office so I have been looking at them for two years!
Current lion count (number of DIFFERENT lions seen)
Looking Out Seeing Within 