Shortly after arriving on our mission in Douala, President and Sister Jameson came to visit us. They told us that they had been on a safari on their first mission here, and they highly recommended that we go on one too if we could afford it. Pres. Jameson even mentioned that the General Authorities had said that a safari would be a wonderful opportunity since we are so close and may never be this way again. Since that day early in our mission we have planned to make it happen. We decided to go on our 9 month anniversary which would be half way through our mission. This week, the long anticipated day finally arrived.
Our good friend Pam Atwood, in Morgan, helped with the arrangements and everything went very smoothly. Here we boarded a Kenya Airways 737 for a 4 hour flight to Nairobi Kenya. Sister Whitesides is sitting behind us. She and Elder Whitesides from Yaounde and Layton Utah, have shared everything here in Cameroon with us and we were so glad that they were on the safari with us also.
We spent the night in Nairobi in a Hilton Hotel, and then got on an 18 passenger plane and flew to the Mara Intrepids where we would spend 4 days and three nights. We made two stops and let passengers off and picked up new passengers at two other camps along the way. We flew over some beautiful country and could see wild life as we came into the dirt landing strips near the camps.
After a brief orientation and a fruit drink, we were taken to our tent. It was very nice inside and had this nice deck that overlooked the river below. The tent had a hardwood floor, a four poster bed with a mosquito net, and a nice bathroom with a large shower. More pictures of the inside will be coming later.
As soon as we arrived at out tent, we looked down at the river, about 30 feet away and there was this huge hippo sunning itself. He was there most of the time we were there. An elephant also walked down the river bank one afternoon while we were watching.
Every morning at 6:30 we would go out on a game drive until 11:30. They would pack a breakfast for us so we didn’t have to come back to camp. The first animal we saw was this Gazel which had just had this baby. She was still licking him clean and we saw him take some of his wobbly first steps.
Coming into camp after getting off the plane we were greeted by this baboon.
We saw a lot of Elephants just grazing in the meadows. They are so huge when you are only about 10 feet away. This one started walking toward our Land Rover and Jan was ready to bail out the other side. They seemed so much different in the wild than they do in the zoo. They just roam free and don’t seem to have a care in the world.
Many of the pictures we took were while bumping along the road and some of them are a little blurry. The ostriches were running away. They are even bigger than they look
.
One of our favorites was the Cheetas. They are so pretty. We saw a mother teaching her son how to hunt. They caught a small gazell and the little one kept pouncing on it and then letting it go and then catching it again. They eventually ate it. The food chain is very evident in the wild.
This is a hyena. They are scavengers. They hang around a kill until everyone else is finished eating and then clean up the bones and scraps that are left.
This is a wilderbeast. There were only a few left because every year 11/2 million of them migrate to the Serengeti for new grass lands. Then in 6 months they migrated back to the Mara for the new grass here. Our guide said this one was left behind and now he is a bewildered beast.
These are the strangest animals we came across. We rode in these open Land Rovers and could stand up and see all around us. This is us with the Whitesides and the Gills who were with us for the 4 days. The Gills are from England and we loved their accents.
The giraffes were some of the easiest to spot. With their long necks we could see them from miles away. They are so majestic. Jan thought I should have posted one with him looking at us.
We drove up to the river and looked over the edge and there were 20 hippos swimming together right below us.
There are 1/2 million Zebras in Kenya, but they also migrate every 6 months. There are a few that stay behind and we saw about 30 of them. They have very weak backbones and the lions sneak up on them and jump in the middle of their backs to bring them down.
There are a lot of beautiful birds and a lot of vultures. This is one of the prettiest birds we have ever seen. It has brilliant blues, purples and greens. There were 3 of them on this tree.
Many crocodiles live in the Mara River. They can go for up to a year without eating and when the wilderbeasts migrate they hide and attack them as they cross the river. This one was probably 15 feet long. His head is by the tree.
This little baby Hippo was so cute that I had to include it on our blog.
Rhinos are very rare. There are only 30 left in the whole park. Poachers have almost killed them off, to cut off their horns to sell. We were very lucky to find this one and to get within 30 feet of it. He just eventually wandered off after resting in the shade for w few minutes.
We crossed this river a lot. One morning as we crossed, we looked upstream and saw all of these elephants getting their morning drink.
This has to be one of our favorite finds. We were a couple hundred yards away from a small tree. We saw a male lion stand up and stretch. We drove over to the tree and there were 4 huge male lions sleeping under the same tree. They would yawn and stretch and roll over and then go back to sleep. We parked 10 feet away and watched them for 1/2 hour. By the time we left the tree was circled with other Land Rovers that had come to see our find.
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