February Trip through Tsavo East

In February, BUC Chamberlain and I went through Tsavo National Park just as I did with Kate the month before.  Luckily these pictures were still on the card and were not lost when the PC failed.  On the prior trip through Tsavo, I did not have my 150-500mm lens due to some mix-ups in our travel schedule.  This trip is when my 150-500mm lens broke; Tsavo and my big lens do not get along well….

This flock of birds was running around the road a few kilometers outside the park.  I am not sure what it is, but they were a difficult subject in the low light.  I know BUC told me the name, but I forgot it.  He took about 300 shots of these birds.

This is a Gerenuk, which I had seen in Djibouti, but I was able to get a far better shot this time.  This young guy was inquisitive, frightened, but also hungry, alternating from about to run, to watching carefully, to eating in rapid succession.

This small lizard was running around the gates to the park while we paid, I had to snap a shot of him.

The elephants were not cooperating with us today.  Never a good close, clear shot.

Hippo point was far more interesting, especially with the LARGE croc making his way to the water, they are an impressive animal.

Here it is sliding into the water, at which point a backed up about 10 feet from the water’s edge thinking of all those National Geographic shots of a croc leaping from the water to drag down a wildebeest.   I am much smaller than a wildebeest.

Another small croc sunning itself on a small rock island.

This large eagle was sitting on its nest and then flew to a nearby tree, a very impressive raptor that was larger than any other I have seen.  The fact that it was able to fly was almost shocking.

An elephant nestled into a small valley surrounded by acacia trees. 

This herd was huddled under the trees trying to hide from the building heat. 

Two nasty vultures sitting on a dead tree, extremely ominous, then we saw the carcass they were feeding on.

A roadside zebra with the rolling Tsavo hillsides in the background.

A lone bull elephant, you can see the size and age of the tusks.  Unfortunately it the signature African butt shot as the animal wanders away, but I had to post on picture of this giant.

February Trip to Teremi/Chwele

I have gotten a lot of questions/complaints about how it seems that I never do work, and that all I do in Africa is go on safaris and see wild animals.  That isn’t true, but I have never had a way to back it up especially since I was always at the wrong end of the lens.  In February I had BUC Eric Chamberlain as my travel partner, and as a fellow Nikon SLR user, I was finally in some pictures worthy of posting. 

The February trip started by heading to Eldoret, to see two of most important projects.  This contactor is a very fast mover and has quickly prepared the site for the foundation.  These two projects are each for a 100 student open bay dormitory, one at a girls high school and one at a boys high school. 

Chwele is the girls school and its dormitory is being placed on a difficult hillside.  Over 10 meters the foundation had to be built up over a meter in height.  This is the admin building at the school.

Here is me and the contractor, Anwar, overlooking the trenching for the foundation.  Four trees had to be removed to make room for this dormitory.  All the work you can see has been done by hand, no backhoes or excavators, no mechanical equipment whatsoever.

Overall view of the jobsite, you can see the two trenches on the left are for the main and veranda foundations.

Here me I am taking a photograph of the foundation walls.

A Kenya worker placing a large bluestone onto the foundation wall.

Walking the jobsite with Anwar.

We ate lunch at the jobsite, with the drivers Alex and Sam.  We are looking at a map deciding how to get to one of the new sites that the embassy wants me to check out.

Teremi Boys School is slightly behind the girls school, but is being built on flat ground, so its construction should be easier.

All the excess soil must be moved by hand, a truly amazing feat when you are used to seeing bobcats and backhoes.

The overall foundation view.

Anwar and I looking at the foundation trenching.  The rich, compact soil allowed him to dig the trenching without any shoring and make it look like he cut it out with a knife.

BUC Chamberlain, myself, and the headmaster in front of the school.

Apologies for disappearing - Tsavo East NP

I apologize for not posting in the last month, but taking over as Kenya Country Engineer has been very time consuming. In the January trip, the last pictures I posted were of a day off in Nairobi at the elephant orphanage and giraffe park, the only other interesting things that I took pictures of was a stop in Tsavo national park. The February trip was extremely busy for me, and though I took many pictures, many of my pictures were lost when my laptop burned up on one of the last days there.   Though I thought that was as bad as it could get, on the same day my large (150mm-500mm) camera lens broke.  That was a very bad day for me.  I lost roughly 4000 pictures from the February trip. 

In January, the last trip was a pass through Tsavo East National Park.  It’s an awesome park, full of history.  A movie, The Ghost in the Darkness, is based upon true events that occurred in Tsavo. 

The most special part of Tsavo was the elephants, they are so different than elephants in a zoo.  These elephants are wild, wary of humans, and know they are the biggest animal in town.  

Kate and I stopped at one of the washed out bridges.  The road now snakes further upstream and crosses the wadi.  I can only figure these are all impassable during the wet season. 

A beautiful bird that landed on a branch next to the road.

A water buffalo calf with its heard; the rest of the herd was very protective. 

These were two of the males that were interested in defending the young, even if it meant going head to head with a Prado.  They were grunting, pounding the ground with their hoofs, and making a range of other gestures.

This male was so agitated, he had snot dripping from his nose.  He just made a gurgling sound as he stood there staring us down. 

These two elephants were hundreds of meters away, but were very aware of us and were not comfortable with our presence, moving off into the trees as soon as we stopped.

 

A flock of egrets passing from the river, in the bright morning sun, they were basically glowing.

Another bright bird in the park. 

These two elephants were cooling themselves in the river and wandered out of the valley right past us. 

These ostriches were a trio of females that were close to the road.  All others I saw were far off in the distance and running away.  This was the first close ones that I could get a decent picture of, but the sun was moving overhead and did not provide good light.