ABERDARE NATIONAL PARK – Life and Death at the Watering Hole

As if the surreal 23-hour, eight-time-zone flight to Kenya weren’t enough, our out-of-body state of mind seemed confirmed by the hubbub of black faces and the third-world vibe awaiting us at the Nairobi airport. Sally and I were both thinking the same thing: I hope this is going to prove worth the effort.

Our hotel gave us our first clue. The cosmopolitan Ole Serene Hotel, which served as the interim U.S. embassy after the 1998 terrorist bombing, is situated right next to the 45-square-mile Nairobi National Park. Its restaurant, bar and about half its rooms look out directly over the park’s broad plain of scattered scrub bush, reportedly home to nearly every species of wild game we’d come to see.

When, at some distance, we spotted our first giraffe, we were already thinking Wow, does it get any better than this?  It does.

After another day in the Nairobi area visiting the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife’s wonderful Giraffe Center, the Karen Blixen (Author of Out of Africa under the pen name Isak Dinesen) estate and a few other nearby attractions, we headed 150 km north in our nifty little Nissan safari minivans to the first of four national parks or wildlife reserves encompassed by our safari.

Aberdare National Park, established in 1950, comprises 475 square miles of varied landscapes, ranging from 7,000 to 14,000 feet in elevation. Its rolling, wooded hills and dales, trout streams and cool weather shattered yet more of assumptions we’d had about Kenya’s climate.

                   

NO, BULL!
We stayed at the amazing Ark, a game lodge situated on the edge of a busy animal watering hole and salt lick. Suggestive of the place’s priorities, each room features a light-and-buzzer code system at the head of the beds to alert guests when any of five key animal species shows up—even if it’s in the middle of the night.

Our first glimpse of the watering hole—from the Ark’s broad second-floor deck—saw about a dozen water buffalo, several water buck and wart hogs, a few impala and a marabou stork, all leisurely partaking of the water, the minerals in the soil, or just the relative security of being in an open space where predators have no cover in which to lie in wait for them.

Suddenly, the largest of the bulls began posturing his foul mood with aggressive lunges at the others.

Then, as we watched all these “extras” doing their quiet thing, a few of their heads lifted and turned toward the heavy thicket surrounding the clearing. Slowly, magnificently, the stars of the show parted the foliage curtain and strode deliberately onto the stage.

The elephants—a family comprising seven adults and a baby—made their way down to the mud hole, where they toed the earth with massive feet, then deftly probed the loosened soil with their trunks.

Suddenly, the largest of the bulls, presumably the calf’s sire, took issue with something and began posturing his foul mood with aggressive lunges at the others—directed eventually toward the baby. Then, just like in all those Nature programs I’ve ever watched about the lives of elephants, the rest of the family circled around to protect the baby.
        

The brute realized he wasn’t going to win this one, and strode off to recharge his ego. A poignant reminder that the importance of family extends to all creatures.

EYES IN THE DARK
Even more dramatic was the episode we experienced that night. Along with a few other diehards, Sally and I had stayed up late to observe the nightlife at the floodlit watering hole. The elephants had gone, leaving just a dozen water buffalo and a few warthogs calmly milling around.

We noticed movement at the dim edge of the pool of light. A single hyena scuttled furtively around the perimeter, eyeing the other animals for a weakness, his snout raised to sniff, perhaps, for the easier meal of carrion. A scout, I guessed out loud, wondering what he’d have to say when reporting back to his pack.

A few awestruck human beings could muster no words—just silent glances and subtle, knowing wags of the head.

No more than a minute after the scout turned back into the bush, a chorus of hyenas’ excited, bone-chilling laughter erupted from the pack. From just the rising fervor of their shrieks and the faint glow of their eyes as they darted between clumps of undergrowth, it was obvious they were converging on something.

Then all the glowing eyes were together, and, as the insane cackling rose to a crescendo, so did another sound, the terrible bleating of some poor little gazelle
or dik-dik.

Mercifully, the frenzy soon quieted down, and the chill night air was still again. And a few awestruck human beings could muster no words—just silent glances and subtle, knowing wags of the head—at this stark reminder of reality in this unsentimental domain of predator and prey.

(Just as we were about to turn and go back indoors for the night, another movement down in the light caught our eye. Again, a single hyena was sneaking out of the bush, right where we’d seen and heard all the drama. He slunk across the mud flat, passing just below us, in his mouth the still warm leg of the animal he and his pack had just killed.)

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On a lighter note, here are some of the other beautiful—albeit less dramatic—things we saw in and around the watering hole at Aberdare.

RELEVANT ELEPHANTS – A Serendipitous End to a Kenya Safari

(This is the first in a series of posts about my just-completed trip.)

A few days before my wife, Sally, and I took off for Kenya, I walked into Barnes & Noble for a book to take along. I wasn't looking for anything necessarily pertinent to Kenya, nor even to Africa.

Naturally, I headed the Nature section. (The first thing that caught my eye was the three copies of my own book, Under the Wild Ginger – A Simple Guide to the Wisdom of Wonder—which I slid out just couple of inches so the next browser couldn't miss them.)

The story turned out to parallel many of 
the places and species we were seeing. 

All I wanted was a nice adventure story, something involving real people, Nature, survival against the odds (or at least redemption) and, of course, wonder. Scanning the twenty or so shelves of titles, I narrowed it down to three possibilities and then settled on a book about a woman whose parents settled in Africa in the 30s and who grew up and spent the rest of her life in intimate contact with animals.

Barely noticing the title or author's name, I dove right in. To my surprise and delight, the woman's story just happened to be set in Kenya, and, as we made our way around the southeastern quadrant of the country, turned out to parallel many of the places and species we were seeing.

OF PENS AND PENS
Flash forward to the last day of our incredible 13-day safari. We'd returned to Nairobi, where we had the afternoon off before heading to the airport for the first leg of our 21-hour flight home. Maria and John, the very nice young couple from New York City we'd been traveling with asked us to join them on a visit to a center for orphaned baby elephants and rhinos just outside of the city.

The Orphans Project of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust was an absolutely enchanting place. Our visit was timed to coincide with the daily round-up from the grounds and retirement to their pens of all 20 or so baby elephants currently in residence. In ones, twos and threes, they all came trotting dutifully around the bend and paraded right past us on their way "home" for the night.

Once they were in their pens we were able to meet them up close, petting them, talking to them and, if we were lucky, getting to shake a soft, yet bristly, little trunk or two.

Sally "adopted" Narok, one of the babies named 
for a town we'd driven through the week before.

Sally "adopted" Narok, one of the babies named for a town we'd driven through the week before. And, while signing the paperwork, she happened to notice a book for sale in the shop, a book written by the Trust's founder, Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick—a signed copy, no less. Feeling sure I'd like it, she bought it for me.

When Sally handed the book to me it dawned on her; "Isn't this the same book you're reading?" she said. I looked at the cover, and, though the design was quite different, the title, Love, Life and Elephants – An African Love Story, looked eerily familiar. And guess what. I now have two copies of an amazing, wonderful book, one with which I now feel a powerful personal connection.

MORE TO COME
This little story exemplifies the wonderful, often truly magical, character of our experiences in Kenya. I invite you to stay tuned here, and on my travel blog, El Viajero Contento, for a serial account of the unforgettable people, places and natural wonders we encountered.

        

ON SAFARI - Off the Screen & Into the Scene

Hey, friends and followers: I'm off to Kenya tomorrow and plan to divert as much as possible of the attention I usually expend here to being in the moment with the amazing things I'll be experiencing there. 

I'll see if I can post a few images while there, but can't promise my gumption—or the technology—will cooperate. If not, look for some good stuff when I get back.

NATURE'S NIGHT SHIFT – Seeing Through the Darkness

Darkness brings on Nature's night shift. Cicada's relieved by cricket; oriole by owl; squirrel by skunk.
Let senses better suited to dark than vision regard the new crew 
as they take their turn in the urgent business of being.                               FROM UNDER THE WILD GINGER – A SIMPLE GUIDE TO THE WISDOM OF WONDER, BY JEFFREY WILLIUS

THE OTHER SIDE OF DARKNESS
How far can you see at night? Okay, it’s kind of a trick question. We tend to think darkness means we can’t see very far, or very much, at all. So it’s easy to believe Nature pretty much goes to bed when we do.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

PHOTO: John Fearnall

When I was about ten, my family spent summers in an enchanting little settlement called Franconia, on the St. Croix River about an hour’s drive from Minneapolis - St. Paul. I’d spend all day exploring the woods, fields and waters, nourished by all sorts of little discoveries. Nothing escaped my gaze.

But one of the most magical discoveries of those summers completely escaped me...until after dark, that is.

All across the fields thousands of moving, winking pinpricks of light punctured the black shroud.

I’ll never forget that sultry, cricket-pulsing July night when, just before bed, my parents, my brother and I first walked down to the river after dark. Groping our way along the narrow dirt road, we could barely see where we were going.

What little starlight there was was swallowed up by woods on either side. Then, suddenly, the landscape opened up onto broad alfalfa fields. And all across them thousands of moving, winking pinpricks of light punctured the black shroud.

VIRTUOUS VISION
When’s the last time you spotted a firefly during the day? Or a star...the northern lights...or a distant thunderstorm? 

Yes, it’s a whole new cast of characters at night, and it takes a whole new mindset—not to mention a few clever tools—to observe them.

Of course, those after-dark wonders involving light are easy. Fireflies, biolumines-
cent plankton, the moon and stars, man-made satellites. In a sort of perversion of showmanship, they wait to strut their stuff for the curtain of darkness to fall, the perfect backdrop for their virtuosity. 

Sometimes you have to provide your own light. Scan woods and waters for telltale signs of waking life: shapes, movement, exhalation’s vapor, eerie reflecting eyes. Turn your beam down for all the creepers and crawlers. Look under rocks and logs. Gaze into water for all that alien world's denizens and dramas.

THE BREEZE OF MOSQUITO WINGS
The thing about Nature at night is that the very darkness that so limits our sense of sight challenges our other senses to stretch and grow. Bats do it with their sonar-tuned hearing; snakes, by smell; moles, by touch. And we—we lucky humans—can use all three...and then some.

LISTEN for bats listening for you with those barely audible, high-pitched little ps-s-sts. For the munching of pine beetles boring deep inside their woody hosts. For Canada geese soaring south each fall a thousand feet up. For bard owl’s rhythmic question, Who? Who?, perhaps carrying a mile over still water.

SMELL fragrances you might not fully appreciate during the day, or those released only at night, like night-blooming flowers, sweet, dewy grass, or just that unique blend of perfume, engine exhaust and hot frying oil that’s the signature scent of a city after dark.

Feel the warmth of a two-year-old's hand, 
reaching for certainty in the dark.

FEEL the cooler, calmer air of night. The infinitesimal breeze of a mosquito's wings as it settles. The warmth of a two-year-old's hand, reaching for certainty in the dark.

SENSE the urgency of hunting and hiding, the industry of building and burrowing, the intricate plan of procreation…and your primordial connection with all of it.

Darkness should no more dampen our awareness of wonder than time dampens love. In fact, it should awaken it, deepen it, enrich it. You, your curiosity, your open, generous senses, your faith in creation can be the light that shows you the way.

At night, while level eyesight obeys the dark, the upward glance 
defies it, stretching a billion-fold to behold the stars. 
FROM UNDER THE WILD GINGER – A SIMPLE GUIDE TO THE WISDOM OF WONDER BY JEFFREY WILLIUS

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Little Tips

TIP #75 
Make a quiet entrance.

Nature's a wary host…when she knows you're coming. 

In the wild, declare special times for slow, silent movement. Be still; walk or paddle lightly; peer slowly around the next bend.