Lamu and Hippo Pond

After spending the first part of this trip in the highlands of Kenya, we finally made our way down to the coast.  It’s a three day drive between the projects, which means long days in the car and quick stopovers in hotels along the way.  We finally arrived at FOL Manda Bay late in the day and got settled into our SouthWest Asia (SWA) huts, which are no more than glorified plywood bunkhouses.  

The next morning we left the base and stopped by the Hindi school, where the USDOD has a contracted out to have a set of latrines built as well as installing a cistern system and repairing the current well pump.  The headmaster was nice and very appreciative.  As the work will begin in the next months, I will be spending a lot of time at this location.

The next stop was into the town of Lamu, which is on an island.  We had personnel at Manda arrange for a launch to take us from the docks to the town.  Our boat is the closest in the picture. 

Here is one of the traditional dows along the waterfront, sitting on the bottom as the tide was coming back in.  They bring the boats close, the tide goes out, then they load the boat and wait for the tide to come back in, hoping that it will float free.  As a naval architect, I was truly worried about this one tipping over, and learned that often the cargo loading become overzealous and boats tip as the tide comes back in. 

Here is what downtown Lamu looks like from the water.  The town’s streets (alleys) are only about 5-8 feet wide.  There are no real vehicles, everyone uses donkeys to get around the town.  We met the contractor at one of the restaurants next to his office and discussed the two projects that he is supposed to do.  We are still working through the design process with him, as he fired his structural engineer for poor performance just before Christmas and is playing catch-up.

After the meeting we went to the Lamu museum which was in the old colonial governers mansion on the waterfront.  A guide showed us through the exhibits, which were much nicer than I expected for a museum in Lamu, Africa.  Here is a map of the coastal region showing the towns, their period and cultural influences.

Carvings on doorframes was a real status symbol in this area and each culture had its own designs and methods.  Kate ended up buying a set of carved door frames from a local vendor.  She will have fun trying to ship them home.

This is the set of silver jewelry worn by an African bride from the coastal tribes.

The maritime part of the museum was my favorite part.  

This is the rooftop view from the museum, each home tries to build slightly taller than the neighbor so they catch more breeze.  In that same regard, after viewing some of the construction techniques employed here in Africa, I am always hesitant in entering a 2 story building. 

Here is Kate and another HOA member bartering with Masi tribesmen for a couple of rungu sticks.

That evening we went just outside the base to a pond where hippos gather.  We waited until curfew hoping that the giants would come out for their evening feeding, but they never left the water.

A series of shots at the hippo pond of a heron catching and eating a snake.  It worked very hard to unwind the snake from its face before quickly eating it whole and alive. 

There were two large families and a handful of solitary males in the pond.  This guy was the closest at about 50 yards away. 

He began making some grunting sounds that were echoed by others in the pond.

 

Then he began to open his mouth wide.  It was very exciting to see since those teeth are about 8+inches long and the mouth opens nearly 3 feet wide.  But, a later investigation determined that the noises were the first warning, and the opening of the mouth repetitively was the second warning sign of a hippo that is very unhappy with you in its territory.  I also learned that the hippo kills more people in Africa than any other animal. 

The next day on base I was introduced to Larry, the base's African Monitor Lizard mascot.  He was chilling around the trashcans outside of the galley, picking through the stones for pieces of mango and pineapple that were dropped.  Very wary of people too close, he would puff up, get high up on his legs, and make tail whips aimed at anyone coming out of the galley to throw their trash away. 

The next evening we returned to the hippo pond, but they were all far away and doing nothing exciting (worth photographing).  This one heron went by and I grabbed these shots.

 

Lake Nakuru National Park Stop

   After leaving Eldoret at ‘oh dark 30’ in the morning Kate and I arrived at Lake Nakuru national park at just after sunrise.  We paid the $90 entry fee and drove into the park’s main gate.  Even before entering the park, the first animals greeted us, in the form of a small Vervet monkeys. 

   The drive around the park took us slightly over 4 hours which included many photo stops along the way.  I was taken back at the beauty of the park and of the animals.  The following pictures are in the order of what we saw as we encircled the lake.  I took roughly 530 shots, and the processing of these 43 took me many hours, so I hope you enjoy.  I would like to thank BUC Chamberlain for his birding ability to find the names of almost all of the birds.

These are the Vervet monkeys at the entrance parking lot.  The sun was still low and made the faces really pop out.  And yes, the one is scratching its rear, and yes, it did smell its hand.

This is an olive baboon, one of thousands in the park.  Their large brow makes mid day shots of them difficult since the shadow hides their eyes, which are often filled with expressions that I want to capture.   

This is a Pied Kingfisher.  I have been trying to get a good Kingfisher shot for about 4 years, spending time along rivers and ponds trying to capture this small, agile bird.  This one was perched on a solitary branch on the side of the road overlooking a pond.

Another Olive Baboon, my lens was reflecting the morning light onto his face and distracting him.  I got the shot as the dot was directly in his left eye, probably upsetting him.

A Steppe Eagle.  These are absolutely massive birds, and appear to be much larger than a Bald Eagle.  The thick entangled branches make focusing on the bird extremely difficult, many shots of the series show a perfectly in-focus limb and fuzzy bird. 

A Thomson’s Gazelle, but I like the shot because of the bird in flight. 

A Water Buffalo with an Ox Picker on its neck.  The Ox Pickers would go into the animal’s mouth, nose, ears in search of the ticks it eats.  Some of the Buffalo had 6 birds working them over without the brute even caring.

In the lake were a variety of birds, including the White Pelican, Rosiet Spoonbill, and Flamingos.  Unfortunately we never took a road that got me close to the lake edge.  Also, the pelicans were tough to shoot since they were so white, even some underexposing was not enough for them not to flare out. 

 

The real gem of the day, a mother White Rhino and her calf.  We watched these two for about 20 minutes as they grazed and drank.  They even wandered very close to our vehicle and we waited for them to back away before we drove out. 

I was happy to grab this shot of two of the large mammals of Africa in the same frame. 

Captured this buffalo as it plowed through the water, especially liking the fact I caught the splash of the water.  The second shot was just a close-up of its surly face. 

After driving by the lake edge, we ventured up onto some cliffs overlooking the Lake.  I found this Red-cheeked Cordon Bleu in one of the scraggly trees. 

The views were amazing, providing some good landscaping shots.  The zoomed in shot shows a group of buffalo and white rhinos lounging around the ruins of a lodge by the lake.

On the cliff were these small animals that looked much like a Marmot.  From a reliable source, the guess is that this animal is a Rock Hyrax. 

Also there were lizards gorging themselves on the insects emerging as the morning warmed up.

Giraffes are never in a position to take a good picture since they are always tangled into the trees eating the leaves.

A Dik Dik that ran onto the road, I leaned out the window to grab this picture, hoping a lion (or angry baboon) wasn’t going to grab me.

We came across a small freshwater pond/bog that had three warthogs around it.  They are more skittish than any other animal we saw in the park, my one shot was as one of them ran off into the grass.

The mesmerizing zebras staring straight at me.

This is a blue helmeted guinea fowl, another BUC find.  These animals were running by, never stopping for me to compose a good shot.  Their blue heads were just too funny looking to pass up.

Another surly Buffalo that came close to investigate the truck. 

Majestic Zebras; they are everywhere in both the park and the rest of Africa.

 

This is a Waterbuck, an animal about the size of an elk with some really nice looking horns/antlers.

A young Olive Baboon in the arms of its mother.  Its face was so animated and happy.

The last zebras we saw before leaving the park.  This included a foal, the only one we saw the whole day.  Our drivers said that young end up as meals to hyenas and lions.