Super Tuskers and Gorillas : Kenya/Uganda Feb/March 24

April 15

Here’s a nice video of Craig on Instagram today.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5tvPH9rjAv/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

April 15

Spent some lovely time with Craig in 2018 over three days.

Such a gentleman and very calm.

I was surprised that he is quite small (relatively speaking). This was noticeable during one sighting with another bull and some cows.

The other bull had tusks of about/perhaps three feet long but was much, much larger in body than Craig.

April 17

@AKR1 love that! He looks like he’s really enjoying that mud bath 😂 looks almost like a mastodon!

@AndrewBagreed. Some of the other bulls were just massive. Craig is not particularly large for an older bull ele. Those tusks sure are spectacular though!

Edited April 17 by gatoratlarge

April 19

As for myself, the next stop was the most anticipated -- I've followed Sarara Camp in Northern Kenya's Samburuland for quite a while on their social media channels and it just "looked like Africa" at its best ---the Mathews Range of mountains, the acacia dotted valley, the dry river beds--- obviously Africa is so diverse that many parts "look" like Africa because they are Africa! But hopefully you get what I mean. I'll cut to the chase and say it was as beautiful in real life as in the pictures and the videos I'd seen.

But as I mentioned earlier, some of the most moving experiences at Sarara are ones that you just have to seal in your heart and mind's eye. We had no sooner landed on the airstrip in this spectacular landscape and begun our drive to camp when we pulled off into a dry river bed. John was our guide and also a Samburu warrior, Sonia was our other guide. It was still early in the weather season for the "Singing Wells" to be in full effect----the "Singing Wells" are an ancient practice in which the shepherds that tend the goats, cattle and camels dig deep, sometimes meters, into the dry river bed to reach the water table and pass it up to a wooden trough to their livestock. They sing a unique song that their herd or flock recognizes and thereby know it's their turn for water.

A Samburu family was watering its herd (the water table was higher than usual due to the unseasonal rains that fell in Jan/Feb) so it was much easier to reach water. The camels' wooden bells made a plonking sound and those of the goats and cattle transporting us into another world: an ancient one, where for centuries before the Samburu had sustained themselves and their livestock with the life giving waters in times of plenty and in drought. One in our group mentioned that somewhere in an office tower in America, perhaps some boardroom, a team was discussing getting the color palette correct for the new company logo drawing a stark contrast to the simple but life sustaining ritual we were privileged to see. There's a different "clock" in this part of Africa and it is so very beautiful to witness and experience.

But there was more to come! When we got to camp, the staff (made up largely of Samburu) reported that there had been a wedding in a nearby village earlier in the day and we were in luck! Our timing was perfect! We could respectfully observe the celebration, but again, no pictures. Being as addicted to my cell phone camera as so many of us are, and having my other camera along, it was all I could do to resist and comply. But when we got to the village in the golden hour of day, surrounded by the Mathews Range of mountains, the camels towering over us mere humans, the bells of the cows and goats and their gentle tinking sounds around us as they wandered back into the manyattas from a day of grazing, well, it was a scene I will never forget!

The thrum thrum tribal singing almost like a hive of bees, hypnotic, beads lunging forward as they lurched their necks in concert, and young warriors perhaps in hopes of impressing a bride of their own leaping and yelping, wriggling like a dolphin at the height of their jumps, two ever tightening circles of dancers headed off in different directions disappearing from view into the bush until like an amoeba, a living organism, they circled back together and continued the celebration. Samburu can have multiple wives like the Masai do who they referred to as their cousins, their uglier and less colorful cousins

The butterfly people as they are sometimes known really are beautiful, their bright colors standing out against the dry, arid bush of the north.

So already we had gotten a very special gift and a glimpse into the Samburu culture. Authentic and unplanned...the best kind of glimpse...Culturally we touched all the bases and we learned so much from Telas (a Samburu elder and host at the camp) and all the Samburu staff. Telas one evening with a very powerful torch gave us a tutorial of the African sky and it was an inky black made cloudy white with millions of stars. It was the best place on our trip to satisfy our desire to look up into the heavens into an unspoilt sky devoid of light pollution—-another magic moment among so many!

Four of us shared the Sarara House--- It has it's own pool and we had unexpected guests:

John was a Samburu Warrior (all young males of a certain age are considered warriors) his village was on the other side of the mountains behind camp. It's an eight hour walk which he often undertakes instead of waiting on the less reliable bus:

The only pic I snapped on the way to the Singing Wells...

We were told the Samburu people believe a photo takes a part of them away and that he (John) was fine to take photos of but the locals object...

The butterfly people, the Samburu. We were also told the men dress colorfully to attract the females like the male birds” plumage with their striking coloration...

Sonia was also our guide---it's rare to have a female guide in Africa and she was quite knowledgeable --- the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary also had female elephant keepers/surrogates so for whatever reason, this part of Kenya is allowing opportunities for women that are not common across the continent. Brava for them!

Telas, a Samburu elder, was a fount of information about Samburu culture---here he's giving us a briefing:

Sweet hellos and goodbyes---Kerry was also a host at Sarar and a native Kenyan

The waterhole below the main gathering area was frequented by herds of elephants and journeys of reticulated giraffes...

In black and white...

Four of us stayed in the Sarara House and it had its own private pool. The tents are the same but joined by a large thatched seating area with an upstairs dining area. It'd be great for a family but we loved it too!

Of course we called him Zazu and he was the busiest hornbill and quite a character. He was in perpetual motion and constantly searching for insects and lizards...

This little family of tree hyraxes were so dang cute and had the perfect set up: eating the leaves in an over hanging tree and sprawling out on the rafters and napping in the afternoons...

pool with a view

Some video of our time at Sarara:

Two of the most common animals you'll see at Sarara---it's definitely giraffe and elephant country. We missed the resident leopards. We had hoped to see the Grevy's zebra (they do have a couple orphaned ones that hang out at the stables) and gerenuks but we missed them. I would say the rains thickened the bush and made wildlife spotting a bit of a challenge. The dry river beds and waterholes are the best places to stake out.

The most beautiful of giraffes, the reticulated with their chestnut/reddish brown color and geometric patterns are very plentiful in the valley. We were told there's a pride of lions that comes over the mountains to hunt on occasion. While we were at camp, a pack of wild dogs apparently took out more than a dozen goats and so Telas went to track them but they had moved off quickly. Smart of them as they are not well liked, only tolerated to an extent...

A couple photos of the camp

We saw a couple large leopard tortoises near Sarara, a sign of good luck or the coming of rain I believe I remember...

Open bar in the river bed---we had a lovely dinner under the stars...

A couple of tussling bulls on the wat to dinner

Next episode the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary and a Helicopter Safari to the Jade Sea...

Dusk at Sarara Camp:

Edited April 19 by gatoratlarge

April 19

I like your description "to seal in your heart and mind's eye" regarding the ceremonies of the butterfly people.

It appears you took a dip in the pool fully clothed, is that so?

Dusk at Sarara Camp looks to be a magical time.

April 19

10 hours ago, Atravelynn said:

I like your description "to seal in your heart and mind's eye" regarding the ceremonies of the butterfly people.

It appears you took a dip in the pool fully clothed, is that so?

Dusk at Sarara Camp looks to be a magical time.

@Atravelynni always wear a sun shirt in the pool — my skin almost always burns even when I’m trying to stay out of the sun. The back of my hands, my arms, my nose and my knees all got a little burned. 😆

April 19

Wow, that place looks gorgeous - I need to go there. 😁

April 19

48 minutes ago, michael-ibk said:

Wow, that place looks gorgeous - I need to go there. 😁

@michael-ibk I bet the birding is really good. I loved it. I think wildlife spotting is better in Samburu/Buffalo Springs due to it being a bit more open but I loved our time there at Sarara 😁👍🏻

April 22

I can't think there's many more places on earth as dramatic visually as Northern Kenya! It's not one mono landscape --- it changes routinely from ancient 1000 year old cycad and montane forests atop the mountains to the red, yellow and rich brown colors of the Painted Valley, to desert dunes in the Suguta region (dunes that apparently and alarmingly have only appeared in the last 30 or 40 years due to deforestation in countries in the Horn of Africa), to dry river beds and valleys dotted with acacia trees (home to large numbers of elephants) to year round rivers infested with crocodiles, to lava fields and shallow alkaline lakes with thousands of flamingos and the volcanic craters of the Jade Sea, Lake Turkana...

One of our choppers flew "doors off" which even though we were belted and harnessed was at times terrifying but incredibly thrilling and exhilarating! For me I was perfectly good flying at 170 mph over the dry river beds, but at high altitude crossing the Mathews Range seemingly standing still, that's what creeped me out of course you could fly enclosed too which is what our other copter's passengers chose to do.

We had breakfast in the painted valley, stopped off on the Suguta dunes, waded into the Jade Sea (but not too far as we had spotted some monstrous crocs from above), refueled at a TropicAir camp in the north and ended atop a clearing in the Mathews range surrounded by forest before setting down back near camp. It was a bucket list kinda day and one I'll not forget that's for certain!

Breakfast stop in the Painted Valley:

1000 year old cycads dotting the Mathews Range

Candelabra trees

lWe were told (seemingly hard to believe) but the pilots say these dunes are only a few decades old as sand and dust have blown from the Horn of Africa to the Suguta Valley---due to deforestation....

one of the very few permanent water sources in the north

We flew across arid palm stubbed lands over permanent rivers that flowed through desert, and ultimately reached Lake Logipi just to the south of Lake Turkana.

The ultimate goal was to reach the Jade Sea which we were able to do:

The Turkana People

Landing atop the mountain in the Mathews Range:

Edited April 22 by gatoratlarge

April 22

@gatoratlargeWonderful photos, wonderful experiences!

My collection of books about Africa includes a 60-year-old copy of John Hillaby's Journey to the Jade Sea. There's not a single picture in it, unlike most of the other books, but it tantalised me. Thanks for the images.

April 22

12 hours ago, John M. said:

@gatoratlargeWonderful photos, wonderful experiences!

My collection of books about Africa includes a 60-year-old copy of John Hillaby's Journey to the Jade Sea. There's not a single picture in it, unlike most of the other books, but it tantalised me. Thanks for the images.

Thank you @John M.I just ordered a copy of the book---I had not heard of it

April 22

5 hours ago, gatoratlarge said:

Thank you @John M.I just ordered a copy of the book---I had not heard of it

I think you'll love it. Hillaby was a special travel writer, a journo like me, only more game. About the time he was journeying to the Jade Sea, I was hitch-hiking across Australia from south to north and back. About 6,000 km all told, but I had trucks and trains to help me :rolleyes:

April 23

14 hours ago, John M. said:

I think you'll love it. Hillaby was a special travel writer, a journo like me, only more game. About the time he was journeying to the Jade Sea, I was hitch-hiking across Australia from south to north and back. About 6,000 km all told, but I had trucks and trains to help me

That sounds like a good book too — have you written it up? I hope to do that one day if I can ever retire 😁 (traverse Australia with loads of time)

April 24

16 hours ago, gatoratlarge said:

That sounds like a good book too — have you written it up? I hope to do that one day if I can ever retire 😁 (traverse Australia with loads of time)

I didn't get into the travel-writing style until I retired many years later and went to Africa. And then I needed photography to illustrate or complement what I wrote. I didn't have a camera when hitch-hiking in my youth.

'Loads of time'? That would have been nice. I had 3 weeks annual leave to go south-north-south, and that included 48-hour and 72-hour waits in the middle of nowhere for the next lift. Still, I'm glad I did it. A sightseeing adventure in which nothing much happened.

April 24

Namunyak Wildlife Conservancy in Samburu County of Northern Kenya is home to the first community owned elephant sanctuary in Africa.

The Reteti Elephant Sanctuary was officially opened in August 2016. It was my second visit to Reteti and like Sheldricks does such a wonderful work with elephants. It's community owned and operated and several of the keepers are women which is unusual in African culture.

https://www.reteti.org/who-we-are

The musician Dave Mathews is a big supporter of the sanctuary:

It's a beautiful drive to Reteti from Sarara and, in fact, they have a Reteti House in their portfolio where you can stay in walking distance of the sanctuary.

Elephants are the primary mission though they've raised a baby rhino that was released in a neighboring community conservancy -- but other orphans are there: eland, gerenuk, zebras, reticulated giraffe, ostrich:

But eles are clearly their focus and I love the songs of the keepers which directs the elephants to their surrogate, similar to the Singing Wells and the Samburu people's song unique to their herds...

Sweet little fighter Long-uro who lost much of his trunk after falling into a well and attacked by hyenas---he's quite the spoiled boy at Reteti

https://www.reteti.org/blog/longuro-story

Friday at 12:01 PM

Really enjoying this report @gatoratlarge. It's nice to see what Reteti looks like, I just finalized a trip to Kenya for next year and it came up in our discussions with our TO.

Sunday at 03:29 AM

Am continuing to enjoy your report @gatoratlarge- I have fond memories of the scenic Mathews Range when I visited Samburu in 2007.

You might also enjoy Another Land, Another Sea Walking round Lake Rudolph by Stephen Pern

Also I'm sure you'll enjoy The Turkana Bus - Journeys to the Jade Sea by @Soukousin the Historical Trip Reports section

Sunday at 04:12 AM

39 minutes ago, Caracal said:

Am continuing to enjoy your report @gatoratlarge- I have fond memories of the scenic Mathews Range when I visited Samburu in 2007.

You might also enjoy Another Land, Another Sea Walking round Lake Rudolph by Stephen Pern

Also I'm sure you'll enjoy The Turkana Bus - Journeys to the Jade Sea by @Soukousin the Historical Trip Reports section

I love these suggestions and I’ll definitely check them out. I’m finishing The Impenetrable Forest by Thor Hanson, Journey to the Jade Sea arrived in the mail yesterday and now I have another to add! Always struggle to find a good book to read and now I have several 👍🏻👍🏻 Thank you!

2024-05-01T04:14:58Z

Apologies for the length of time this is taking to complete---still have quite a bit left to finish the report :wacko: ! Next stop after leaving Sarara Camp was a trip back to Nairobi for a short span of hours and then an evening flight to Kigali. I was plenty good with it because we were able to book the 3P private visit to Sheldricks which was booked solid for the first two night of our trip when we were in Nairobi. I had really wanted to meet Raha the baby rhino and the other elephant orphans...two elephant orphanages in one trip might seem excessive but any opportunity to get close up to elephants is worthwhile as long as it's ethical and the work to re-wild these elephants in both places is extraordinary and exemplary. The sad part is that it is needed at all but both Reteti and Sheldricks are busting at the seams with babies either orphaned due to the prolonged drought, poaching activity, human wildlife conflict or simple acts of nature...the lives of the babies are well documented as to how and why they got there and then the stories of successful return to the wild is also well documented.

We stopped off at the Giraffe Center adjacent to the famous (and famously expensive) Giraffe Manor. Our visit was brief but always fun to feed a giraffe and this case Rothschild giraffes. An interesting side note is that in 2016 I made a point to try to find Hog Ranch, Peter Beard's encampment in the Karen suburb of Nairobi. Surprisingly, I was able to find it and wander around for a bit (I had hoped to meet Beard) but found out then that he had not been there in several years since a bad encounter with an elephant that nearly killed him. Since his death in 2020, I wondered what I would find. Turns out he donated his property to the giraffe center which was next door and his encampment has been dismantled and the land is returning to as it was. Admirable, actually.

The next stop was of course Sheldricks. At the time of our visit, it was 1200USD to visit which spread among our nine travelers wasn't so bad and also a donation to a great organization and cause. Here are some pics from both visits:

Sheldricks visit:

Edwin, legendary keeper, surrogate and an excellent spokesman for Sheldricks:

And for me, the star of the show, baby Raha, the brave black rhino calf that has battled the odds for survival. She was abandoned by her mother during the drought perhaps unable to produce milk...Raha was found badly injured likely by hyena attack with her tail taken off and serious injury to her backside....Sheldricks has done yeoman's work to save her life and get her on the road to re-joining the wild in the years ahead. It'll be a long road but she is exhibiting that famous rhino obstinance and beligerance that shows she's up for the fight to survive and thrive.

We hit a nice restaurant (Tamarind Restaurant, I believe) where we saw this cool chameleon with a horn like a rhino :

Next we headed to the airport for a flight and overnight in Kigali and then onward to see the gorillas of the Impenetrable Forest.

Edited yesterday at 04:21 AM by gatoratlarge

2024-05-02T03:36:12Z

If there was one mistake in the planning of the trip it would probably be reaching Uganda and Impenetrable Forest via Kigali. I was trying to recall why we were approaching it this way and still am not 100 percent sure. I remember we were going to try to visit the genocide museum which I've visited before. It's a moving experience and a must to understanding the horrors that went on in the 1990s in the region and what led up to the carnage and how to prevent it from happening elsewhere. But due to the change in flight time of our Nairobi to Kigali flight we weren't able to do visit the museum at all.

So what transpired was an extremely long day overland in a safari vehicle on the smooth roads of Rwanda and then the pothole filled rough dirt tracks of Uganda! It was beautiful and exhausting. We drove a half hour off course to eat at a restaurant that sat high overlooking Lake Bunyonyi, the second deepest lake in Africa we were told. I think honestly that we were possibly going to track gorillas in Mgahinga NP and instead combined Sanctuary Olonana Camp with Sanctuary Gorilla Camp in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest which is farther north. At any rate, flying to Entebbe and then a short flight to Bwindi would be preferred I'd think for most. It's a much more manageable drive of an hour and a half v an all day affair with a border crossing.

Lake Bunyonyi