Tsavo National Parks, Kenya

Here are a few more photos from our time in Buhoma that were just sent to me. I thought they would be of interest.

One is of Me and Mark with Anivious, the Batwa girl we are sponsoring through school. She is 20 years old and has a year and a half to go to complete her high school education.

There is also a photo of me pointing to LaVonne’s photo that will be used in the garden named for her.

And another of us in the refugee camp. Our driver, Julius, spoke Swahili with the refugees.

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Yesterday was an all day travel day. After saying good bye to Scott, Juliana and Julius, we flew to Entebbe, waited several hours, flew to Nairobi and arrived at the Norfolk Hotel just in time for dinner.

On the 13th we flew SE from Wilson, the domestic Airport in Nairobi, to Tsavo East National Park in a Cessna Caravan 208 with our Kenya guide, Claire Jones. She will be with us the whole time we are in Kenya.

When we reached the landing strip at Little Galdessa Lodge, the cross wind was 27 knots, forcing the pilot to do a go around. The second effort was successful and I congratulated the pilot on his excellent pilotage. Shortly, we arrived in the Lodge and were soon enjoying the benefits of the place.

Our tent is immediately on the banks of the Galana River, with the usual collection of crocks and hippos and a number of resident baboons, that need to be kept out of the tents.

Over lunch of tilapia, green salad and delicious sweet potatoes, Claire talked about the area and the Sheldrick Trust which owns this lodge and several others. The trust was started by a woman named Daphne Sheldrick, who started the trust after her husband, who had been the warden of Tsavo Park, died.

https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org

The Trust’s aims are to rescue orphaned and injured elephants and they play a huge part in wildlife conservation and management. She kept them in an orphanage in Nairobi for the first 6-12 months and then transferred them to a stockade where they continued to improve until they were able to be released into the wild. There are hundreds of elephants in the program and each has its own keeper. We will visit the Stockade, called Voi, which is a couple hours from camp. The trust is well funded with many major donors. Clients, like us, each pay $50 toward the upkeep of an orphan, who is assigned to us. Our two adopted elephants are called Baraka and Manda and we will see them at the milking station at Voi tomorrow and learn more about the program.

After an afternoon break, we reconnected at 4:30 for the evening game drive. The Big Five were not on the program, but we saw many of our favorite creatures including: impala, black faced sand grouse, Maasai giraffe, Lilac breasted rollers, 2 cute dik dik, a red and yellow barbet, a red chested sunbird, white headed vultures, an indigo bird, an emerald-spotted wood dove, two bat eared foxes, several crocks along the river bank, and a monitor lizard, all before dark.

From our sundowner stop near the river, we could clearly see Mt Kilimanjaro.

Returning to camp in the dark, we were very surprised to spot not one or two, but 20 Spotted Eagle Owls alongside the road.

Happily, we also saw many night jars sitting on the road and a few other bird I cannot name. Back at camp we said good night to our driver, Rollem, whom we will see in the morning, and went to bed.

Wednesday, May 14,2025

We woke up to the sound of the river roaring and saw and heard that the water level had risen considerably during the night due to a rain storm in the mountains. Coffee was served to our tent at 7am and at 7:30 we departed on a game drive with Claire and Rollem.

We saw our first elephant in a dry river bed also known as a Lugga. During the course of the day we counted over 200 elephants. Other creatures included: a dwarf mongoose in a termite mound, thousands of Ipomoea, a morning glory like flower in bloom everywhere in the early morning, several hartabeast, impala, and zebra, and millions of cabbage white butterflies sucking up moisture from the muddy roadside.

At 9am we stopped under a shady tree for a picnic breakfast of sparkling wine, fruit, sausage, bacon and toast. Back on the road we continued driving to the Voi elephant stockades where the orphans are fed milk every day at 11am. We arrived just in time. Pretty Superb Starlings were drinking spilt milk meant for the elephants. The red dirt even makes the elephants look red.