Ndoto Hills

Ndoto Hills: Kenya's Natural Beauty, Part IV

Somewhere between the hot dusty desert of the north and the savannahs of the south, rests some of the richest land in Kenya. The central highlands of Kenya are home to most of the country's agriculture, including the world's largest area for rose cultivation. Just north of this fertile delta area yet south of the Chalbi Desert are the Ndoto Hills, whose landscape seems to be trying to blend the best of those two environments. In the winter dry season of our visiting time, the cracked, clay-bottomed river beds crunched under our feet while the hills surrounding the camps where we stayed appeared green and somewhat lush. These hills provide ample adventure opportunities for travelers who like climbing and hiking. Natural water sources remain unpredictable yet, at the same time, support leafy trees, plants, and birds of many varieties. Herds of domesticated animals dominated the landscape but tales of wild animals, particularly predatory cats, abound. We saw few wild creatures in this region but grew fond of the neighbors' cows, camels, and goats who liked to come visiting each morning at our camp.

In a reference to the belief of the Nuer people that the tree "still stood within man's memory in the south of Sudan," Peter Matthiessen named his book, The Tree Where Man Was Born (Penguin Classic, 2010), after imagining a large baobab standing solitary and majestic in the desert sun. We came upon such a mighty tree in our Nguranit neighborhood. The canopy of the tree stretched wide and far from its gnarly tangled trunk. Such trees are believed to be as old as 2500 years. It now seems easy to imagine both its age and wisdom.

Laurel























































































Photos:
"View from Ngurunit Campsite," Claudia Daggett
"Dry Riverbed, Mpagas," Claudia Daggett
"Ngurunit Landscape," Muddy Waters
"Mountain Slide," Muddy Waters
"Sunset, Marsabit to Ngurunit," Claudia Daggett
"Goats," Claudia Daggett
"Camel with Bell," Claudia Daggett
"Trunk" Claudia Daggett

Our Feathered Kenyan Friends

Our Feathered Kenyan Friends:
Kenya's Natural Beauty, Part III

While the large animals certainly hold great appeal, we found that the winged friends, with their stunning plumage and vociferous chatter, kept us just as entertained. Who knew that we would come to recognize four different types of vultures? We even chased a bustard (a pheasant-like bird) around in our bush car as Sam, our Maasai guide, became excited at the rare sighting of this shy bird. Luckily for us, the winter landscape of dry bush and barren trees in some places enabled us to spot the colorful birds quite easily. Our zoom lenses and binoculars came in especially handy at these moments. When we returned home, however, we discovered that none of us had recorded the names of the many birds we had seen. In another stroke of good fortune, we had picked up A Photographic Guide to Birds of East Africa (Richards, D. Ralph Curtis Publishing, 2001) in Nairobi, which helped greatly.

To continue the pleasure, we discovered a lovely novel, A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008). With a sanguine writing voice similar in style to Alexander McCall Smith of #1 Ladies Detective Agency series fame, Drayson gives us Mr. Malik, a gentle bird-loving soul and member of the East African Ornithological Society, who is infatuated with the equally lovely Rose Mbikwe. If you can't travel to Nairobi via plane, traveling in your armchair with a book, a Kindle or a Nook turns out to be very satisfying, in this case.

Laurel






















































































































Photos:
"Little Bee-eater," Maasai Mara, Claudia Daggett
"Flock of Vultures," Maasai Mara, Claudia Daggett
"Going for a Stroll," Bustard, Maasai Mara, Claudia Daggett
"Northern Red-billed Hornbill," Ngurunit, Claudia Daggett
"Stork," Maasai Mara, Claudia Daggett
"Taita Superb Starlings," Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, Claudia Daggett
"Secretary Bird with Plumage Extended," Maasai Mara, Laurel Seid
"Ostrich," Maasai Mara, Claudia Daggett
"Red Beaks," Ngurunit, Claudia Daggett
"Yellow-necked Spurfowl," Maasai Mara, Laurel Seid

Chasing the Leakeys

Chasing the Leakeys: Kenya's Natural Beauty, Part II

After several miles of rugged road in a landscape which struck all of us as moonscape, we rounded a corner of a rocky, barren outcrop to see the beautiful jade waters of Lake Turkana spread before us. With little to no foliage of any kind and a beating sun, it felt hard to imagine how people and animals thrive in this environment, but this region has sustained life for all of the recorded time known to man. The Leakeys maintained their camp along the northern shores. Lake Turkana, the world's largest alkaline inland lake and one of the saltiest, rests on the edge of the Chalbi Desert that stretches from northern Kenya into Ethiopia. We stayed in a true desert oasis fed by hot springs.

Peter Matthiessen chronicles his travels throughout Eastern Africa in the early '70's in his book, The Tree Where Man Was Born (Penguin Classic, 2010). He delights in his great good fortune at joining a small group traveling to the area known then as the Northern Frontier District, which stretches from Isiolo north into Ethiopia, the very same area in which we ESHA travelers spent the greatest amount of time. Like Matthiessen, we definitely felt lucky to be led by Steven, who steered our bush car, Taita, expertly through all manner of terrain and road condition and made countless introductions to the people living there. Matthiessen begins by lamenting that the life and landscape he is witnessing is likely disappearing. Forty years later, his descriptions of his travels around Lake Turkana, including the people and their customs, sound very familiar, especially the way in which the landscape simultaneously inspires awe and wonder while being challenging to travel.

"There is no road around the south end of the lake, only the foot trails of the few Turkana who pick their way over the lava flows to Loiyengalani. A bad track climbs out of the Rift and heads for South Horr across a region of black boulders, cairns, and strange circles in the sand..." (p. 71)

The landscape, the people and even the road remain very much unchanged.

Laurel

Photos:
"Laurel Admires the View," Lake Turkana (Claudia Daggett)
"Sunset over Lake Turkana" (Jamie Waters)

Anthills of the Savannah

Celebrating natural beauty forms a critical part of the Kenyan economy and formed a crucial part of our Kenyan journey. We hope you enjoy this visual display of the physical wonders of Kenya.

Anthills of the Savannah: Kenya's Natural Beauty, Part I

Although Chinua Achebe wrote his well-regarded novel of this title about a fictitious country in western Africa, it is not hard to imagine why the anthills could be a source of inspiration. They so fully dotted the landscape of Kenya, especially in the south, that from a distance, we often mistook them for animals. And animals there were! Imagine our delight at the unbelievable physical beauty of the savannahs and the species and varieties of all animals. We enjoyed the benefit of sunny days, warm red sunsets, and fortunate timing of our trip with the Great Migration of wildebeest from Tanzania. We saw so many four-legged hooved animals that we became adept at distinguishing a hartebeest from a gazelle from an impala. We learned the distinctions between the two types of zebra. We spent countless minutes observing elephants. In the end, we realized a shared hope for a lion sighting with a private audience with a resting lion couple who were thankfully very sleepy and, thus, uninterested in the close proximity of our bush car.

Laurel









































Photos:
"Termite Hill," Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary (Laurel Seid)
"Colors of the Savannah," Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary (Claudia Daggett)
"Taita Heaven," Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary (Claudia Daggett)
"Maasai Mara Giraffe and Wildebeest" (Laurel Seid)
"Face to Face with a Wildebeest," Maasai Mara National Park (Claudia Daggett)
"Hippo on the Banks of the Mara River," Maasai Mara National Park (Muddy Waters)
"Taita Impala," Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary (Claudia Daggett)
"Zebra Pair," Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary (Claudia Daggett)
"Bath," Salt Licks Lodge, Taita Hills (Claudia Daggett)
"Lioness," Maasai Mara National Park (Claudia Daggett)
"Lion," Maasai Mara National Park (Claudia Daggett)