Amboseli to Samburu

We arise early, 5:30am, for 6:30 breakfast and 7:15 departure for the Amboseli airstrip. On the way, another guide alerts us to a cheetah, far off in the distance, laying down so she looks like a log on the ground. We arrive at the Amboseli airstrip, whose main reception room is quite nice with a leather sofa and two leather chairs, and that’s all. Likely people do not wait here long. Our last two flights were on an 11-seat Cessna Caravan, but this flight to Nairobi is on a 50-person Dash 7, with four propellers, which feels like a 747 by comparison. Because there were no new passengers to pick up in Nairobi, the pilot changed the flight plan and went direct to Samburu – we learned this after we landed. When we saw the red dirt runway instead of a paved runway, we all wondered where we were landing, thinking we were picking up passengers, as multiple stops are the norm here. Then Joel said we were in fact in Samburu, so we should deplane, and off we went. This is the most rustic of the airstrips we’ve seen so far: red dirt runway, pit toilets, no other buildings. They did have about 10 Maasai women selling traditional beaded items, displayed on tables made of sticks lashed together with colorful scraps of cloth. Wanting Barney to have some bargaining experience, I sent him off to get a bracelet for Madeleine, and he did very well. The woman were dressed in multiple layers of different colors and patterns, two with young babies, and the ubiquitous beaded neck collars and large earrings.


Because of our early arrival, we are off for a game drive. In the distance from the airport is Mt. Kalama, which looks a bit like the Rock of Gibraltar. We load up, and for a while we are on a paved road, which feels exceedingly smooth. We go through a village which also seems to be a truck stop, with large trucks parked, petrol and car service stations, and metal and wood small shacks and general stores. And camels, which are apparently imported here. Now on a dirt road, we see both stone and mud houses with metal peaked roofs, and smaller huts with walls made of vertical sticks lined with cardboard and fabric, with rounded roofs made of clothing, tarps, and cardboard. 

We come to the gate to Samburu Game Reserve, and Joel tells us the story of the mural on the gate of a lioness who adopted a gazelle and protected it (until the gazelle was killed by a male lion). Near the road we see three gerenuks, a type of antelope with very long necks, which look quite elegant. They stand on their hind legs, front legs tucked under, to reach leaves on the upper branches. As dry as Amboseli was in parts, Joel tells us that this is much drier, with about 6 inches of rain a year. During the rainy season, all the grasses and trees which look brown and dead now, will green up entirely. We see a pair Dik-Diks, a tiny antelope which looks quite delicate but must be the tough to live out here. Several Guijnea Fowl are on the road,  both sides, with bulky bodies, slender necks and fluorescent blue head markings, and nearby is a red-billed hornbill. We can see the weavers’ nests up close, with their entry holes at the bottom. Under a tree we see an Oryx, a lovely antelope with beautiful markings, black and white angles and bracelets on a dove gray base, with dramatic long horns. Then a rare sight: a male ostrich with a flock of chicks about 3 months old, and the mother is away . The ostrich are fully grown and colored at age 2, and then they pair off. But suddenly these chicks all arise as one, loping away, then stopping. We have a sighting of the Grevy’s Zebra, very different than the zebras we’ve been seeing, with a white belly and much thinner stripes, a white tail and tan hair at the end (vs. a striped tail with black hair on the plains  zebra).

Soon we see some Reticulated Giraffes. Slightly  smaller than the Maasai giraffes we saw earlier, with spots that are sharper-edged rather than flower-like. While the Maasai giraffe had large irregular tan areas between their dark brown spots, the Reticulated giraffe has pale beige narrow spots, almost like grout, between lighter brown spots. We go down into then up from a gully which carries water during the flash floods. Right now, though, it is very dusty.  Suddenly we see what the giraffes were keeping an eye on, a pair of elephants. One was stripping a tree of bark, a monkey climbing above him, and a Martial Eagle in a nest in the top of the tree. A young elephant, about four years old, is about 10 feet away from us, lifting branches to get at some palm fronds below. He is so close we can see into his eyes. There is a lot of elephant dung here, in softball-sized chunks.

A whole herd of giraffes are on the left, 9 in all, and they are also watching something. Our guide, Joseph, thinks maybe lion, but we do not see any nearby. A hill in the background is a perfect pyramid shape. We continue on, arriving at Larsen’s Tented  Camp about noontime, tucked away under a grove of trees. We have a lovely lunch, and there is wifi in the restaurant, which is a large tent. Now for a rest, and the wildlife viewing at 4:00pm.