Mount Kenya

 

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Jambo! We left Nairobi heading north with our new found travel companions. A couple from Saskatchewan and two women from Los Angles. Three and a half hours later we found ourselves at the equator surrounded by the Mount Kenya Safari Club. After checking into our room which had a commanding view of Mount Kenya from our balcony, we set out to spend a wonderful afternoon at the animal orphanage. Fortunate enough to be present at feeding time we had a vast array of animals, including ostrich, hippopotamus, birds and monkeys, literally perched on us and feeding from our palms. The highlight without doubt was when our guide invited us into the cheetah compound to pet the cheetahs while they ate. Quite unnerving to say the least. The most pleasant surprise that evening was to crawl into bed to find a hot water bottle warming our bedding, while a fire had been lit in the fireplace of our room. The curtains were drawn back and a clear night of sparkling stars was the back drop to the second highest peak in Africa.


Today we embarked on our first game drive into the Sweetwater Animal Reserve and Chimpanzee Conservancy which was founded by Jane Goodall. We were not to be disappointed. This 90,000 acre protected area is apparently just a teaser of things to come. It reminded me of Donali National Park in Alaska where all the animals are left to roam in their own natural habitat. I don’t know how to start when trying to express how it felt when we first encountered our initial animal sightings. I’ll expand upon it further in a future blog but today our appetites were whetted with sightings of zebras, elephants, giraffes, gazelles, rhinoceros, impalas, wart hogs and many other different species too numerous to mention. What a day!! Truly remarkable and which I had envisioned prior to our arrival. It will take some time to absorb what was experienced today