Safari 2023

We went on safari in Kenya for two weeks at the end of October, beginning of December. I am beginning with our last week which was in Amboseli and Masai Mara.

That is Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background. These images were taken in the Kitirua Private Conservancy by Amboseli National Park.

We were able to step out of our Land Cruisers and lay down in the dust of Amboseli to get pictures because we were in a private conservancy (and because there were no predators around).

We were gone for a little over two weeks. The last week was with Drew Doggett on a photographic safari in Amboseli and Masai Mara.

It was amazing!

Our last camp with Drew was in Masai Mara. The focus for us here was the big cats. My favorite had to be the mother cheetah and her two young cubs. We went to check on them daily. The rangers in the conservancy did too. They were protecting them from the hyenas who were hoping to have baby cheetah for dinner. The rangers will monitor them until the cubs are big enough to outrun them.

Lots of lion here. Amazing how much they sleep! Happy to catch his guy awake, alert and looking right at me. I stayed inside the Land Cruiser!

We spent a lot of time with leopards here. This was a treat because they are usually so elusive and hard to spot. The leopard below seemed to like the attention and kept posing for us.

Going back to our first week in Kenya

Our first lodge was in the Lewa Conservancy. The landscapes here were breathtaking. I took as many landscape images as wildlife images. That is Mt. Kenya you see here.

The managers at the lodge, Jonty and Sarah were wonderful. They made us feel at home. Our guide, Joseph, taught us so many things about this beautiful part of Kenya.

We saw many endangered wildlife species here and were encouraged with the care the conservancy provides them. Grévy's zebra, also known as the imperial zebra, is the most threatened of the three species of zebra. They are beautiful. Loved their "Mickey Mouse" ears.

Black Rhino are also endangered and live in this conservancy. It was amazing to see them.

Reticulated Giraffe is another species that is endangered and lives here.

Our next lodge was Tumaren Camp in the Laikipia Plateau. Laikipia means treeless plain. The landscape is dominated by rocky outcrops and hills. A very different landscape than Lewa. Here we went on walking safaris with camels. I took the background image here while riding on my camel. It was just my husband and I on the walking safari along with William, our guide, LeLialo, the camel guide, Adon,our security guide and our tracker, Shalingi. All are Masai.

And my camel, Lorok. I loved him!

Our time here was focused on the people who guided us and took care of us. That included Charles, our chef at the tented camp and Nathaniel, our cook when we were camping in the bush and Pon, our driver when we were in a Land Cruiser. They shared their culture with us and made our safari much richer as a result.