This morning we awoke to a baboon alarm almost right on time at 5:00 AM. The grunts and barks echoed down from the hill above us. We climbed that same hill after walking yesterday; nothing like a good steep hill climb after a day of walking! Once on top, the scenery was incredible, with views of where we would be walking today. A double rainbow when we got to the bottom warned us of the rains to come last night.
While we have been walking in Kenya, the drovers have shown us many things, one of which is how to read the many tracks on the ground that we see throughout our days. Which animal? How many? How long ago? Are there babies? How fresh are the droppings? These are all questions that we are starting to be able to answer ourselves, and of course, the drovers use this information to understand what wildlife is in the area for everyone’s safety.
Today’s walk told a different story that we aren’t accustomed to seeing…
Not far into our walk we started seeing lion prints. Now we’ve seen lion prints on other days, but today there were A LOT of lion prints filling the path we were taking. The drovers were very surprised by the number and with a noticeable lack of game in the area it certainly made sense. What quickly came to our attention was a set of giraffe prints which looked somewhat sporadic and unorganized amongst the lion prints. Barabara quickly pounced on the opportunity to tell the story and he, Bev, and Kathy started following the prints. Bev and Kathy followed the two sets of lion tracks and Barabara followed the giraffe. They could see the giraffe running as well as the lions, one beside and one behind the giraffe. Suddenly they could see the rear set of lion prints dig in then disappear which Barabara said showed that the lion was jumping on the giraffe’s hind end. This continued for quite some time, with very frenzied giraffe prints and marks in the soil where the lion had fallen off. Finally we saw the giraffe prints veer to the side of the trail and into the bush. At that point we concluded a happy ending for the giraffe or an unhappy one for the lions. The lion prints continued throughout the day, so needless to say we are camped 18 kms later in lion country after a very entertaining walk.
Our weather is very hot 36 degrees so enjoying some rest time in the shade before our final push to Kasigau tomorrow.
