Some time
ago, a trip to Africa, and in particular, a safari in Kenya was one of
those dreams of mine.
Now all dreams
are gone and, unfortunately, I made the trip in the wrong mood and/or state
of mind.
But that
is nothing that should be blamed on the country, the country is beautiful
and certainly
impressive,
it is just that this time I did not participate in that beauty as much
as I should.
Anyway, here
are some pictures.
This is the Treetops hotel. It is placed by
a waterhole where animals go at dusk to drink water and lick salt stones.
It belongs to Aberdare National Park.
Here you can see the waterhole at dawn. The
white spots on the water are sacred ibises.
The morning mist at Aberdare National Park.
I took the picture of this woman at Nankuyu,
a small city that lays right on the Equator line.
The next bunch of pictures were taken at Samburu
National Park.
An orix.
Zebras. To be precise, these are Grevy zebras.
Giraffes. These belong to the subspecies called
reticulata. There are two other subspecies, the Rotschild and the Maasai,
all living in Kenya.
A gerenuk, also known and gazelle giraffe.
Its peculiarity is, apart from the long neck, the ability to take that
vertical position in order to reach the leaves.
I am sorry, I forgot the name of this river.
It crosses Samburu Park.
A marabou has started breakfast by the river.
Of course, no need to explain that these are
elephants, the african variety.
No, these are not maasai, they are Samburu
warriors performing the traditional dances.
Not less spectacular are the Samburu ladies
when they wear their traditional jewelry.
Now, next pictures were taken at Nakuru Lake
Park. This is a lake with salty water, one of the various that exist
along the Rift Valley.
The lake is famous for the thousands of flamingos
that live there.
A white rhino and a black friend.
It was a cloudy day.
Finally, this last set of pictures were taken
at Maasai-Mara National Park. It is to the south of Kenya, right at the
border with Tanzania. Its continuation in Tanzania is called Serengeti.
There you can see enormous herds of gnus (this
is the variety called white-bearded blue gnu) and zebras (this
time Grant zebras).
And where there is prey, you have predators,
like these cheetahs, that are having lunch, to the envy of the many vultures
that came to have a look while patiently waiting to get the remains of
the game.
This little lion had already had lunch. And
in fact a really abundant lunch, according to the size of his belly. He
could hardly move.
Even the small animals, like this lizard, were
spectacular. The light reflection doesn't allow you to see it, but the
tail was bright metallic green.
This is Maasai land, so its not strange to
meet Maasai people.
A real Maasai village
An African sunset.
