KOPIES.

The kopies are an outcropping of rocks with views of hundreds of thousands of acres of Massai country with Kilimanjaro in the distance.

FOREST.

The ride was long and eventful. Our jeep got stuck on a root going straight up a hill. The wheels spin loudly digging us deeper into a hole as the front of the jeep inched toward the sky. Black lava gavel flies over the back of the jeep and covers us with a fine powder. We can’t stop laughing. Moses has gotten us out of bigger scrapes than this. Without assistance from the other guides who are standing and yelling instructions in Swahili to Moses, the jeep pops out of the rut and we reach the top of the hill with the valley below and Kili in the distance.

The terrain is hillier and even greener than the green pasture that is the view of Massai country from the lodge. Animals migrate here during the heat of summer. We get out to stretch our legs and for tea and soft drinks.

Sandor swings a riffle over his shoulder and says, “It’s very important to stay single file on the path through the forest and be very quiet. If you want to see any animals, you must be quiet.”

We start walking up a short, muddy hill into the dense green forest. Surrounded by tall trees that cover the sky with a thick canopy, Sandor stops short and we listen.

Someone says, “Monkeys.”

Paula spies one but no one else has the trained eye of a zoo keeper so we move on.

Small groups bunch up on the trail talking quietly.

“What part of ‘single file’ don’t you people understand,” Pamela says with a wink.

There is a large pool of water in the middle of the path with large tree roots flowing out of the ground nearby. Electric blue butterflies take off and land at the edge of the water. We gather around as the guides look at animal tracks in the mud.

When we reach the end of the trail, the sun appears and the landscape becomes familiar again. Rolling hills blanketed in tall green grass spill out before us until the bottom of Kili can be seen below the cloud cover on the horizon.

There is a universal tick check and the now familiar awe at the view.

Walking back through the forest, I have to pee and there is no holding it for the 2-hour ride back to the lodge. We try and convince Clare that peeing outside isn’t so bad, but she’s having none of it. Pamela gives me a lesson on trampling down the grass. It’s hard to coordinate squatting, holding your pants far enough in front of you to avoid wetting legs or panties or pants, all the while convincing your bladder to let go. I was never completely successful.

SUNDAY - Africa redux

Relaxing day sleeping in. Clare makes Aztec soup for lunch. It's made with a broth that she put chicken, avocado, corn, tomatoes, onions, homemade chips - pretty much everything that you have in the kitchen. It's an as-you-like-it soup and we like very much.

TUESDAY, 1AM

Clove cigarettes and a chat with Elena on the patio outside our room before calling it a night.

I drop the toilet seat with a bang trying to get a moth out of the bowl. I hold my breath. Paula stopped snoring. I woke her.

TUESDAY. LATER.

We’ve just arrived back at ol donyo wuas and are milling around the entrance when Jonathan, one of our guides, says there are Cheetah outside the lodge. We clamor into jeeps and take off in the dark. By the time we arrive behind the others, we can see long spotted legs disappearing over a small hill among the acacias.

“You just missed three,” Greg tells us, “but one is just there.” I follow where he points and see a long cat lying under a tree. It’s stretched out casually, thin and relaxed. Exquisite.

TUESDAY P.M. GAME DRIVE.

Wattled Starlings—light grey with yellow around the eyes.
Oryx.
Gerenuk.

On the drive home from the sundowner, it’s dark but the sky is ablaze with the Southern Cross. A giraffe appears on the road in front of us. It runs in our headlights as we drive slowly behind it. Curve after curve of the road go under the giraffe’s hooves as it gallops in the dim beams of light. I think that it’s frightened.

ZEBRA.

Grants Gazelles stand in a patch of sun with perfect twisted horns. Moses says that they lose their black stripe as they get older.

We’re a little tired after an afternoon game drive under the African sun. Driving toward Kilimanjaro, Ron yelps as a butterfly flies into his face, searing his cheek. We’re looking at Ron when tiny specks in the distance suddenly grow. Our first herd of Zebra. And Gazelle. Wildebeest. Hartebeest. There were none and then there were many. I know Zebra from zoos and pictures. But they look more unnatural in the wild. Like black and white striped cartoon animals sticking out from the green. Moses points out the Wildebeest and Hartebeest before giving us a lesson.

Kongoni or Coke’s hartebeest can go up to two months without water. On the open plains we see two light brown and white rumps. The one with the bulging sides is pregnant. The other might be the mate. We like to think they are partners.

Zebra are non-ruminant animals like horses, and wildebeest are ruminants like cows. The animals graze together because they eat different parts of the grass. Their teeth grow in the opposite direction so they aren’t competing for the same food.

Zebras live in family groups with the stallions at the head. Their call of flight and call to gather the herd sounds like a donkey’s bray. At least the movie donkeys that I’m familiar with. Zebra stripes are like fingerprints. Moses says that the black stripes have fat underneath them that absorb heat and the white stripes repel heat so they regulate their temperature, making them drought resistant.

Africa is an evolution soup.

Bethlehem skies flood the plains as light filters through the clouds. We are surrounded by hundreds of Zebras. Two little ones wag their striped tales against their striped butts. We drive closer and a group of black and white heads looks up and walk toward us.

Everyone can’t help but squeak, “They’re so cute.”

Another mighty and goofy wildebeest shows up and bucks and twists as he runs. It’s a crazy, energy wasting way to move, more like be-wilder-beast, comic and outrageous. Legend has it that the wildebeest was the last of God’s creations so was made with the spare parts of other animals. Its head is a buffalo’s. The lump on its back is a cow’s. And it runs like a horse.

The herd is on the move as a low thunder of hooves surrounds us like wind would sound if it landed.

Moses tells us that the Burchell zebra, or common zebra, were named after the first naturalist to visit South Africa in the early 1800s, William John Burchell. The Grevy zebra was named after the President of France in 1882, Jules Grevy. I have lots of questions, but I let them go not wanting to break the spell the zebras have over me.

On our way to the lodge, back to the now-familiar trees of the Chyulu Hills, we see a bright blue roller and an orange bird with a long beak. Moses picks up a dung beetle for Ron.

From the elephant to the beetle, it’s as if the baffling worlds of cosmology and molecular biology surrounds and confounds us at every turn.

Just for Lowell - Kenya

We no sooner drop our things at the lodge than a jeep ride is arranged. Paula, Pam, Craig, Ron, Clare and I clamor into the open Range Rover. Our guide and tracker, Moses, stops to show us plants and birds along the black lava road winding through the hills thick with Acadia trees and brush. Clare and I immediately start using the rough leaves from the sandpaper bush to file our nails. We chew on bark from the toothbrush tree. It’s also good for treating malaria we’re told. There’s a peace tree that the Maasai place around their homes when there is conflict with family or neighbors.

Ron spies what he thinks is a small animal but turns out to be a pile of elephant dung. We stop the jeep and look down. Dung beetles are working on the pile rolling the dung into perfect balls. They use their back legs to push the balls of dung down the road until they find a good place to lay their eggs.

Ron accepts the beetle as his logical totem.

We approach another Land Rover and Moses talks to the driver who has seen elephants. After driving in small circles over bushes and trees trampled by an elephant and littered with dung near by, we turn a corner and stop short. 100 yards away stands an elephant. He raises his trunk in alarm and a trumpet of anger and warning comes our way.

I’m terrified. Moses turns off the engine.

Clare wants to know if the elephant is mad. In a loud whisper, Pamela tells Clare to be quiet. I’m thinking that if it’s like a dog, the elephant knows I’m scared. Will it charge? It’s so close and my heart is pounding so hard I think the jeep is rocking. Suddenly there is a rustling from a tree that I didn’t notice until it starts to make noise. Another elephant emerges aggressively rubbing the tree with his body. Once he clears the tree in front of us, he backs up and shits. Great, two elephants to attack us. I see two tusked elephants on the day of arrival and we’re tragically stampeded to death.

I’m thinking how ironic this is when the elephants start butting into each other.

Clare asking Pam in a loud whisper, “Are they playing or fighting?”

“Are they playing or fighting?”

“Are they playing or fighting?”

Pam says, “Fighting.”

They push their enormous bulk into each other, clashing tusks and flapping their ears. Their mighty legs push first in one direction and then another. Acacia trees tremble. Their movements are strangely quiet except for what Clare later describes as the hollow sound of tusks cracking together like baseball bats. Moses says they are adolescent males fighting for dominance. This becomes a theme during our trip.

We can’t take our eyes off the slow motion battle of bulk. One of the elephants grabs a chunk of tree and throws it.

Ron whispers, “He just threw a tree at him!”

My fear changes to excitement as the elephant battle moves further into the bush. When separated, their heads roll around, their ears flap and tusks rise and fall in circles in the air. The fight continues.

Moses starts the engine and we move closer.

Kenya Journal May 2006

I've decided to publish my journal from a trip to Africa. It's summer but travel seems out of the question, so I wanted to remember a special trip in May of 2006.

Day One. Elephants.

Kenya, Africa.

My terror of flying was exhausted after 18 hours in the air, so I was almost calm on the 45-minute puddle jumper from Nairobi to ol donyo wuas in southern Kenya even with the wind taking fierce stabs at the plane.

Twenty-five hours to get here and what a here to be. Green and noisy with life: birds, bugs, green plains stretch out dotted with trees and then the hills. The pilot, James, says the hills are covered with green Acacia trees and bushes because of a steady cloud cover. Where the clouds end on the Chyulu Hills, the tree line ends abruptly and the plains begin. It’s nothing like I expected Africa to look. It’s the end of the rainy season and the earth is full.

Africa. The cradle of civilization. The mother of us all. With one exception, the dominance of Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance is Africa’s son (it’s in Tanzania).

Africa

These photos remind me of my trip to Kenya, gosh, a couple of years ago now.