Finally, the elephants! and more!

Samburu Game Reserve, Kenya



Okay, this is not an elephant, but, it was still exciting to see grevy zebras! We were on our way to our home for 2 nights (the Simba Samburu Lodge) when lo and behold, a herd of grevy zebras started crossing the road in front of us!!! What a very nice welcome to Samburu! Notice the stripe pattern on the grevy, the stripes are skinny and their bellies are white! Grevy zebras are only found in the northern hemisphere. We were lucky to get up close to a herd! Can you imagine our excitement at that point? It was shaping up to be a great day for animal sightings!!!

    

To be fair, the grevy zebras was not our very first animal sighting in Samburu... We saw a bunch of impalas and oryx! After that, we saw the zebras, and then finally, our very first elephant! The elephant was a bull by itself and it was kind of far so I didn't get a good photo of it... Har-har!




Once we were in our rooms at the lodge, guess what we saw from our lanai's.... You guessed right, elephants finally!!! Can you see them? It's a family of elephants! We also saw some baboons but, again, it was too far away for me to take photos... We were using our binoculars to look at the baboons... =) It was great that we could see animals even from our rooms!




We were on our way to our very first game drive, and look at what we saw while waiting for everybody else, a couple of horn bills!





Here's more oryx! Aren't their horns gorgeous? I think somebody said that the "unicorn" may have originated from people seeing an oryx from the side, notice how straight their horns are and if you look at their profile, you'd think they only have one horn, hence, a unicorn. Interesting, isn't it?




Have you noticed their butts? Gorgeous isn't it? And, do you think the pattern sort of looks like the letter "M"? This is a harem of impalas, or as we were calling them there, the McDonald gazelles! Hee-hee! The owner of the harem (bull/ male impala) was off to the side so you couldn't see him in the photo... Our guide asked us, what do we call a group of male impalas if the group of females is the harem, he said, "the losers"... Hahahha! Losers because they don't have any females/harem. Our guide was a hoot and a half!




More elephants!!! Isn't the baby a cutie? There was a herd of elephants crossing the road in front of us! It was close, a little too close for comfort for one elephant! There was this one elephant who was looking at our vehicle, and then trumpeted at us! It even lifted it's leg and we thought it was going to step on our windshield!!! Our guide floored the gas and got out of sight of the mad elephant as fast as he could! =D


    

Here's more photos of elephants! When we saw the bull, and then a family of elephants, we started telling our guide we want to see a herd! Wish granted! (Or, we are getting greedy huh? Hee-hee!)





More elephants crossing the road! These are different elephants from the one we saw before!!! It's unbelievable how many elephants there are! Our guide said that if we see an elephant by itself, it's usually a bull. If we see a herd, he said it's mostly females and juvenile males. Once the juvenile male reaches sexual maturity, the matriarch of the herd kicks out that male to prevent in-breeding. Isn't it smart of the elephants? Hee-hee!





Are you tired of seeing more elephants? Here's an elephant with egrets(the white birds on the ground) following around! Our guide said that the egrets are following the elephants because, when the elephants uproot grass on the ground, the egrets does not have to do much anymore to get their grub! Aren't the egrets smart? Or maybe lazy? Hee-hee!





I love the blue color of the guineafowl! Our guide said that the meat of this bird is sweet! And no, I did not try guineafowl meat. They're too pretty to eat! Har-har!





Our very first African lion!!! Did you know that the swahili word for lion is "simba"? Yes! Like the lion character in "Lion King", Simba!!! So, there you go, you learned another Swahili word! =) Oh yeah, we also asked for the Swahili word for elephant: "tembo". We're learning all sorts of things on this trip, aren't we? =D





It was funny when we saw our first giraffes... My friend was trying to spot animals and she suddenly started jumping up and down in the vehicle, excitedly shouting, are those giraffes? The funny thing is, we can barely see the giraffes she was pointing at even with our binoculars! When our guide started driving away, she was like, we're leaving already??? It turned out that our guide spotted a couple of giraffes a lot closer! Hehehe! It was a couple of reticulated giraffes! Our guide said we would see at least 3 types of giraffe in Kenya, and this, is one of them!





What a lovely African sunset! What a day too! We got to see lots of animals! I should mention that they say on the trip that animal sightings are not guaranteed!

So far, from the big five, we have seen the cape buffalo, the elephant, and the lion! Three down, two more to go! Of course, we also loved all the other birds/animals/plants we have seen so far! We are very thankful for all that we have seen!!! Of course, we still have like a mile long wish list of other animals to see! Har-har!

We're on our way to see the Big 5!

Nairobi, Kenya



Woohoo! After spending 20 hours on different planes and many more hours at various airports, we finally arrived in Nairobi! We didn't stay long though, since we were just there to spend the night to be able to leave early the next day for the official start of our safari! Apparently, "safari" is a Swahili word that means "journey" in East Africa. Of course, one of the first words we learned to say in Swahili, is, "Jambo" or hello in English!




    

Here's the view on our way to Mt Kenya! Does it look familiar? A lot of people who grew up from different places mentioned to me that it looks just like home for them! Hee-hee! On the right is our home for the night! The Serena Mountain Lodge. When we got there, we were all excited because we saw a lot of elephant poo on the road to the lodge! =) You know what we are expecting to see there now, right? Tee-hee! We had a very nice welcome at the lodge with hot towels and juice!




This is one of the very first animal encounters we had in Kenya! (Well, we encountered tons, and I mean, tons of I think grasshoppers at the hotel in Nairobi, but I am not counting that as our first animal encounter! Hee-hee!) It's a sykes monkey! They may look very cute, but they're really naughty!

So, there's four of us who went for the trip... Once we got to the Mountain Lodge, 3 of us signed up for a walk on the slopes of Mt Kenya and my other friend decided to chillax at our room. She decided to go out on the balcony to see the animals at the watering hole behind the lodge and as she was standing there enjoying the view, a sykes monkey used her shoulder as a jumping board!!! Another trip mate also had an exciting encounter with the sykes monkey... She was reading a book on the balcony when suddenly, a monkey tried to grab her book! They ended up in a tug of war with the book until the monkey decided it wouldn't be able to get the book! Talk about cute monkeys huh? =D


    

Here's a couple of photos from the walk we talk on the slopes of Mt Kenya. Of course, we were not climbing to the peak, just walking around to see the flora and fauna... =D

Can you see the tree hangings on the left that looks like it has been chopped? Our guide said that that was done by elephants passing by the forest to get to the watering hole behind the hotel! Guess who got more and more excited by the minute? Hee-hee! It's not like we haven't seen elephants at the zoo, it just felt really exciting for us to see elephants in their natural surroundings... Hee-hee!

Once we got close to the lodge again, we had a really pleasant surprise, they prepared cookies and tea for all of us! Whodduthunk? Me and my friends, drinking tea and eating cookies in the forest, in Mt Kenya! Well, we didn't really drink the tea, because we really had to go to the bathroom (After just around an hour of walking around)! Hehehe! We did eat a lot of the cookies though!

The trees and plants there is beautiful! We did see some animals, but most of them were far off (a rock hirax and a black and white colobus monkey way up on the trees) or just bones... Hyuk-hyuk! Our guide showed us a few cape buffalo and elephant skulls/bones that they collected and put in the forest as part of the lecture on the walk. Did you know that elephants have six sets of teeth? Our guide said that the teeth falls off after ten years and gets replaced. We asked what happens when their last set of teeth falls off? Our guide said that by that time, the elephant would be eating only soft grasses instead of the thorny acacias. There are actually places there that they call an "elephant grave" simply because a lot of old elephants go to that area because of the soft grasses and die there(so there's a lot of elephant bones in those areas, hence, elephant graves). Our guide was great! We learned a lot of things about animals and trees and plants in Kenya that I wouldn't have known or tried to learn by myself, if I hadn't been there. Hee-hee!

There was also a lecture that night at the lodge about animals found in Kenya. It was very informative and nicely presented, except, I think we were still getting adjusted to the time zone, and I found myself dozing off more than a few times!!! I was still able to remember a few of the things mentioned at the lecture... except for the parts when I started dozing off... =D




After the walk, we started really looking at the animals at the watering hole behind the lodge... This is one of the animals lounging there, a cape buffalo! Doesn't he look like he's looking at me too? =) Look at the ears! It's really hairy! Hee-hee!




Caught in the act!!! A sykes monkey trying to enter our room!!!




Look, a cute kitty! Hee-hee! Well, it looks like a cat with a really, really long tail! It's a genet! The people at the lodge puts out some food at the ledge and I guess the genets just come there! We saw 2 of them! Cuties!

Oh yeah, the lodge has this really interesting sign-up to be woken up in the middle of the night if an animal of your choice is spotted at the watering hole! Of course we signed up to be woken up for any and all animals that goes to the watering hole! Well, except the cape buffaloes since we already saw a ton that afternoon... Hee-hee! So, it was probably 1 or 2 in the morning, when there was a knock on our door telling us there's hyenas outside! It was hilarious! My friend and I were like drunks getting out of bed... My friend got to the balcony door first, went out, then came back, telling me we need our binoculars, and of course, I went to the bathroom first before I went out... Hehehe! During the commotion of us trying to get our binos, we hear a bark! By the time we got out, we can only make out the antelopes who seem to be frozen, staring at one direction... We followed the direction they were looking at, and we saw a hyena!!! We can see our neighbors from the balcony and asked them what they saw, we missed seeing the family of hyenas at the edge of the watering hole! We stayed out for a while and saw the hyena try to get at one of the antelopes... I guess the antelopes knew they were safe because there was only one hyena there, and they didn't really care about the hyena! Now, you wouldn't see that type of behavior at the zoo! Exciting isn't it?




Another exciting day is awaiting us! When we woke up, there was a bunch of defassa waterbucks behind the lodge and a few of them were in the water!!! Can you see the white rump of the waterbuck? =) (I think that is a waterbuck... Hee-hee! I'm a little fuzzy now on animal names...) We were a little disappointed that we didn't see any elephants at the lodge the day before, but then again, we thought we have seen plenty and it's a new day with lots more different animals to see!!




We are now on our way to the Samburu Game reserve and we were lucky to get a glimpse of the peak of Mt Kenya! Our guide told us that even though Mt Kenya is not as high as Mt Kilimanjaro, the climb up to the peak of Mt Kenya is harder because it's a little bit technical. Isn't the peak beautiful?




Here's a few more sights along the way to Samburu... I love the flat-top acacia trees there in Kenya! It looks like they have gigantic gardeners there to trim the tops but we were told that it is natural! Hee-hee!

    

Our guide joked with us about the flea market on the right, that if we have donated some clothes for Africa, we may find it there... Har-har! Notice that they drive on the left there! I guess they got that from the British... I learned something new that day, Kenya got their independence from the British around the 60's.



I didn't know they have camels there in Kenya!!! Although, I think the camels there are smaller than the camels from Egypt... What do you think? =)

So, you're probably wondering what I meant by us on our way to see the big five. The big five, are the five game animals that are hard to hunt! We said we wanted to see the big five, the elephant, the lion, the cape buffalo, the rhino, the leopard! At this point, we have seen one of the big five, the cape buffalo! Don't forget we also saw elephant poop! We're getting closer to seeing an elephant! Hee-hee!=)

Southwest Deserts

Arizona-New Mexico

Correction, some of the Southwest deserts. Hee-hee! Have you ever taken one of those China Bus Tours/Go To Bus Tours? It's those super cheap tours that takes you to different places by bus with the hotel and most entrance fees included!!! Let me just say too, that the hotels you stay in are not bad at all. Well, we took this one tour that would take us from the China Town in Los Angeles, CA all the way to AZ and NM! Talk about a long drive huh? The tour is nice but, the downside is you'll be on your butt for a long while! Hehehe!!! Oh yeah, I should also mention, that the guide conducts the tour in multiple languages. Luckily for us, the tour we were on was only done in 2 languages, Mandarin and English. Hee-hee!




Anyways, this was our first stop on the bus tour, Phoenix, AZ! This is the capitol building, and guess what we saw? Another replica of the Liberty bell!!! Well, this is the second replica I have seen... hehehe! (First one I saw was in Honolulu)

We didn't really do much here but take photos and a brief lecture from our guide about Phoenix... We were here like, 15 minutes, 30 minutes tops. So does this still count as me having been to Phoenix? Hee-hee! Well, I have been at the airport here in Phoenix at least a couple of times before for a connecting flight... =)

From here, we had a long drive to our hotel for the night in Tucson, AZ.


    

Our next stop was the White Sands National Monument, NM. On the way though, we were lucky enough to be let inside the White Sands Missile Range to gape at all those planes/missiles!!! We saw the Patriot missile used in the Gulf war! The place is really cool!




Here we are at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico! I have to show the sign somehow, so here it is. Tee-hee!



The white stuff you see is not snow, but really, really white sand! (Guess where the place got its name? Hee-hee!) Don't forget to stop by the gift shop to purchase those round sled thingies to slide down the dunes! That purchase was worth it! It was fun sliding down the dune! The not so fun part is getting to the top though, my feet kept sinking in the sand while trying to get to the ridge!!!





The next day, on our way to Carlsbad, NM, we stopped here at the visitor center of Guadalupe Mountains. I didn't realize before that there's a lot of hiking/camping trails here in New Mexico/Texas! Hehehe! From the brochures we were looking at, it looks like there's quite a few trails out there. The mountain you see at the back is part of the Guadalupe Mountains!


More Caves!



Who doesn't like caves? Here we are at one of the most famous caves around, Carlsbad Caverns! The caverns is impressive!!! It is big, so it's just fitting that they named the biggest area in the caverns, the "Big Room".



For some reason though, I think I like the stalactite and stalagmite formations in Luray Caverns and Shenandoah Caverns better... For me, the formations here at Carlsbad Caverns were not as impressive... Looking back on it, it's probably because there's less lighting there to highlight the formations... Don't be discouraged with my impressions of Carlsbad Caverns. I know some people who have been there and they were really impressed with the caverns! I, am also still very impressed with the size of that caverns! It's Ginormous!


    

Is there somebody standing in the distance? Here, we saw a lot of one of my favorite cactus, the saguaro!!! I love the protrusions on it, it looks like arms!!! Hehehe!





    

We stopped by the Desert Museum in Tucson, AZ to see other types of cactus in the area. (What? It's not just saguaros growing here? Hee-hee!) Disregarding the nice cactus specimens they have there, the view was just amazing! Different cactus and brushes on the foreground against the mountains and endless blue skies in the horizon! The deserts here are just beautiful!