Circle of Life—An Amazing African Day

9/8

Today was quite the African bushland day.  My car betsy had broken down, so my field assistants and I took Kermit to go tow it back to the centre.  Along the way, we saw a heard of about 85 giraffes, which was amazing.

In the later afternoon we went out in search of the wild dogs.  We found them right as they finished killing a baby Eland (Eland is the largest antelope and looks a bit like a majestic cow with spiraled horns).  It was quite the sight to see and hear the pack eat the eland, but what made it so interesting was all the other action going on as well.  The dogs were of course yipping and squealing happily and crunching on the bones.  But the mama Eland kept coming back and driving the dogs off the carcass, obviously heartbroken that her little one had been taken.  It was actually hard to watch just how sad the mom was.  She stayed there with the dogs for over an hour, looking mournful and at times trying to drive the dogs off the carcass, even when only the head and some skin was left.  There was also a hyena lurking that the dogs had their eyes on.  There was a family of elephants quite close as well who were trumpeting angrily at all the commotion and the fact
that the hyena was close to their baby.

In the late afternoon, we headed back out to see the greet.  The full and giant moon was rising over the beautiful landscape, which is now lush and green from all the rain, and Mt. Kenya was peeking above the clouds with its glacier shimmering in the afternoon sun.  On the drive home, we crossed over the bridge and there was a dead zebra in the rapids that must have drowned in the high water.  There were 2 hyenas trying to figure out how to get to it without following the fate of the zebra. 

As we drove home, the rising moon was the backdrop to giant acacias, herds of graceful giraffes and regal grevy’s zebras.  I wish a camera could capture the moment or my words could do it justice, but it’s just impossible to do so.  But let me just say that it was stunning, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of it and wished that the drive would never end.


---
We found out the next day that on this same day in which we had a great African day, our friend George in Nairobi had a most terrible African day.  He was staying in Nairobi working on getting permits.  On his way back to his hotel at night, he was attacked in an attempted mugging.  A brick was thrown at him, but luckily he was only 100m from the hotel gates and was able to make it back to the hotel without further injury and without losing any of his possessions (he had had his new iphone stolen a few months ago in Nairobi already).  He ended up getting 12 stitches and having his nice new shirt destroyed by all his blood, but he is back at Mpala in good spirits.  He was actually staying in the same hotel that Elisha and I stayed at, a very nice, but budget hotel.  Elisha and I are very familiar at where he was attacked, Globe Cinema Roundabout.  The problem is he was walking across this giant roundabout (with bridges, underpasses, and a bit of forests) at 10pm when it was deserted.  Elisha and I only crossed the roundabout when it was light or there were still lots of pedestrians and cars around.  When we came back late at night, we took motocabs as a safety measure.  Nairobi is not a safe place at night, especially "across the train tracks" as Matt calls that part of Nairobbery, so it's best to always take cabs by night.

hyena sneaking in

the mom Eland