Tsavo East, day 2, and back to Malindi

I woke up today at Voi Wildlife Lodge, ready to continue the safari and see more animals. This is the view I had as the sun was rising:

And here's a picture of the outside of where I was staying. The building closest to the mountain is the one I was sleeping in.

After breakfast, we continued our game driving and I continued my incessant picture-taking. Here are some of the things we saw:

Elephant

Giraffe. This guy was probably less than fifty feet away and seemed quite content posing for pictures for a few minutes. Then he (or she, I don't know) walked away, and I got pictures of that, too, which will be loaded up onto Facebook as soon as the internet decides to cooperate.



And this was what we saw as we left. This picture probably would have been better at the beginning, but I took it at the end, so it goes at the end.

All in all, a pretty good safari, even considering that I didn't speak the same language as my fellow safariers. We chatted a bit, but for the most part they were content talking amongst themselves in Italian, and I was okay with that. I think if I come back to Kenya at some point in my career, I'll probably go on a longer safari, and I'll definitely make sure that I have people with me who speak English.

I got back to my hotel in Malindi a bit after noon and went and grabbed something to eat, then I went to the hospital at two because I was supposed to be meeting with Dr. Katana about the waste incinerator. Someone, somewhere (yes, I know, I'm a fountain of information) is sponsoring an upgrade of their waste incinerator, so he was going to show me the current system and we were going to go over the information the sponsor needs. Well, he (Katana) was busy with something else, so I spent a couple of hours preparing for my presentation on Thursday, and then headed back to the hotel for my afternoon swim. I understand that people are busy and can't always entertain me, but I would have preferred it if he said, "well, I'm busy with x, why don't we just plan on doing this tomorrow?" I could have been just as productive, if not more so, working on my presentation in my hotel room. Oh, well. It's good to show some sort of accountability, I guess.

Tomorrow: ward rounds with the consultant in the medicine ward, then working with Dr. Katana on the waste incinerator and the jiggers patient (who has just been hanging out at the hospital, still infested. Standard of care differences, maybe?)

Tsavo East, day 1

I’m writing this on Sunday night to post when I get back to the land of the internet. Yes, that’s right, I have my computer with me even though I knew the chances of me having internet access while on a safari was slim to none. You would, too, if you were responsible for a government computer and your hotel in Malindi has been known to have things stolen from the rooms. Like government computers.

The day began nice and early with a five am alarm from my phone (thanks, phone), so I could get dressed and be ready to go when the safari people call to say that they’re ready to pick me, any time between 6 and 6:30. It ended up being around 6:15, so kudos to them for punctuality.

I was told yesterday by Alex, my driver, that the group that the safari people are putting me with was an English-speaking group, which I was relieved about. Malindi is primarily an Italian tourist town, so I was kinda expecting to end up with Italian tourists. Well, I found out this morning that either Alex lied to me or the safari people lied to Alex, because I am with a group of Italian tourists. It’s kinda lonely not being able to understand what the other people in the vehicle are saying, but at least the driver speaks English, so he’s able to explain things to me, which as which animal we’re looking at, etc, etc.

After a stop at some overlook that the local children knew we were stopping at—and Italians don’t know better than to give them stuff—we arrived at Tsavo East around 10:30ish, and began our safari through the game park, followed by lunch at the lodge, followed by another game drive. I took many, many pictures (there are 130 or so on my computer right now), so here’s just a random sampling of some of the animals we saw.

This is what happens when you give children stuff. They all want some.

Crocodile

Mom and baby monkeys

Gazelles

Elephants (lots and lots of elephants in this park)

Giraffes

Zebras

The lodge is pretty nice as well, nothing terribly exciting (and lacking internet access), but my view from the room included elephants, so that was kinda cool.

Tomorrow we head out around 7am and begin game drive number 3, which is scheduled to get us to the gates of the park to exit at 10:30. Two day safaris only get 24 hours in the park, so that’s why we have to leave then. Then it’ll be back to the hotel, and depending on what’s going on at the hospital, back to doing what the Army is paying me to do (which, in case you’re wondering, is not going on safari or buying trinkets).