buffalo: before and after

buffalo: before and after, originally uploaded by suddenly.

zebra at lake nakuru

zebra at lake nakuru, originally uploaded by suddenly.

zebras are cool. i love their stripes and sweet faces. do you see how bloated the zebra is? a ranger told me that zebras eat so much they’re full of gas and they fart when they run.

seeing pink at lake nakuru

something pink in the water, originally uploaded by suddenly.

we finally get to lake nakuru national park and pay the exorbitant entrance fee: $60 per non-resident. compare this to the $15 entrance fee for international visitors to kruger park. (remember what i said about nairobbery?) anyway, our first stop is the actual lake. this is what it looks like from the distance. as we get closer, we can make out what all that pink stuff is. FLAMINGOS! like a gazillion of them. they’re attracted to the algae in the water.

pink flamingos, originally uploaded by suddenly.

as you can see, these birds are pink from head to toe. even their eyes are pink.

more flamingos!, originally uploaded by suddenly.

i don’t know if it’s the fish they eat or their poop (or the fish in their poop) but these flamingos are pretty darn smelly.

more flamingo fotos here.

our first walking safari

tendekai the tracker, originally uploaded by suddenly.

we got up at the crack of dawn to go on a bush walk with tendekai, the tracker at the victoria falls safari lodge. they have a huge estate which basically serves as watering holes for the big 4 in the area (elephant, lion, leopard, and african buffalo). tendekai, an experienced tracker, can examine paw prints and turds, and tell you what kind of animal was there, when, and where it was headed.

you’ll want to wear rugged trekking shoes on these walks because it’s just a minefield of poop everywhere: oval pellets of impala droppings, bigger nuggets of warthog feces, and huge thatch-laden elephant dung bombs. we came across saucer-sized buffalo patties and tendekai said “these droppings are still shiny and moist.” he concluded that a lone male buffalo had just walked through there and was headed thatta way.

yee haw! we were tracking a buffalo! however, tendekai warned us that the lone male buffalo is extremely dangerous and will charge if he feels threatened. according to him, the best thing to do is climb a tree. if no tree is nearby, lay completely flat on the ground so that his horns can’t gore you as much. gulp. okay, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

well, after nearly two hours of walking through the bush and having tendekai tell us about all the trees and berries, i was beginning to think it was lame that all we saw were some impala prancing, beautiful as they were.

then, almost of nowhere, we saw him. the lone male buffalo staring right at us not 50 feet away. he was f**king HUGE, about the size of a small elephant. tendekai whispered to us, “move back! move back!” and he raised his rifle in case he had to shoot it. my heart lept to my throat. seeing no trees to climb, i high-tailed it out of there. the S.O. was trying to move back while simultaneously videotaping the action but tripped over a rock. if i didn’t fear for my life i might have snapped a photo of it.

one angry african buffalo

i was really expecting the rifle to go off but tendekai guided us downhill to hide from the buffalo which was now following our scents and sounds. the trackers were now the tracked! all i could think was, “omg. he’s gonna smell my shampoo and come after us!” we had to lay low for a good 10 minutes before the buffalo decided we weren’t worth the effort. whew! my heart was still in my throat and i was pumped full of adrenaline.

i’d say the 2-hour walk was totally worth it to view such an impressive creature that close to you in the wild. and somehow knowing that you could get killed at any moment is part of the thrill of the safari.