Back to Alaska

In a month we take off for a week in Alaska. We will be spending time with my son who moved there just before we took our Africa trip. This will be our second time in Alaska, the first was an Inside Passage cruise, this time we're off to the interior around Fairbanks. We should get some spectacular pictures from that area. If you want to see some current shots, check out Bobb's blog wakingupinalaska.blogspot.com

More to come.

The Final Safari

Relaxing with a glass of wine.

The room at Oserian.
They had a fire with treats at the midpoint of our final drive.
This painting hung in the lodge, I just liked it.

Cow Buffalo with calf.

Topi
My favoirte Elk in Africa, the Dik-Dik

Standing only 12-18 inches tall.

Compare the Dik-Dik to this guy,

About the same body size.
Spotted Hyena with warthog's head.

Bird shots from Oserian.

This shot of a flying fish eagle turned out very good.
Kingfisher type bird.
Flamingo's in numbers.
Ostrich male, check out his mating dance in the next posting.

The Ostrich dance

The Ostrich above was on a mission. Check out his dancing style in this short video.

Sweetwater continued, then on to ARC

When we returned from Safari, the fireplace in our cabana was lit for us.

Me getting ready to eat again.
As I indicated earlier, I like all the animals.

This little guy was on the porch of our cabana.

Most of our safari rides were in vans with tops that popped up.

Here's a shot of Sue standing in the van.

The living room of our cabana at Sweetwaters.

Our next stop will be the ARC. The access to the ARC is from a resort Abadaire, which is an old golf club. They quite using it as a golf course many years ago changing it to a wildlife sancuary.

The Clubhouse and resort cabims are still used.
As is the bar, We had a couple waiting for the bus to the ARC.
From both Sweetwaters and the ARC we had views of Mt. Kenya.

Mt. Kenya is the second highest peak in Africa at 17, 000 ft.

The Arc is a hotel designed to imitate Noah's Arc, only the people go on two by two, and you view the animals from the ARC. It has four Viewing levels that look out over a watering hole. The park rangers spread a salt mixture the animals use to enhance their diets, which brings a number of animals by the watering hole on a regular basis.

These are a different hog that frequented the watering hole. Note the Birds.
Shortly after we got there, a whole family of elephants trouped up out of the ravine.
There were also three old male buffalo who were there constantly
To give you an idea of how close we were to the animals,

this is the full picture of an elephants side.

Elephant Orphanage Video

Promised video from our orphange visit.

These elephant babies , in order to be able to return them to the wild, only get two one hour visits a day with people. From 11- 12 for the general public, and from 5-6 for Adoptive parents. Other than that they only see their handlers, which is a group of people. No one person attaches to any particular elephant to assist in their ability to return to the wild.

Anyone interested in more info can check out the orphanage's web site at sheldrikwildlifetrust.com

Sweetwaters

The story about Sweetwaters is, the place used to be owned by Gun runners and was taken over by the government. The house is huge, the bed in the master bedroom is a big as two or more King size beds. We stayed in a side bungalow, very nice.

Here are some afternoon shots.

This is an old Buck here. Elands are the largest of the antelope group in Africa.

I light snack from the treetops.

There must be a female in heat near by for these guys to be showing off like this.These two Jackels were out looking for a scap to eat as well.

We saw them a bit later with a Thompsons Gazelle leg.

Morning animals at Sweetwater.

Could this be, an African Swamp Donkey?

No, just a Water Buck
Mother Baboons carry little ones on either the front or the back.

The graceful Impala

This Lion couple was, just that, a couple. This was our first few of them.

Good looking fella.
I didn't need a reminder to stay in our vehicle after seeing this.

We took a lot of pictures of big and small game, but I like the birds as well. There were very beautiful birds in all of the parks. Here is just a few we saw at Sweetwaters.

Start of Week 2.

The next couple of days we didn’t have much planned. In fact, the plans didn’t include a place for us to stay. The hotel we had been in was now totally booked. They were having a reception there for the Kenya Olympics athletes. We moved in to a 100 year old club, Parklands Sports Club.

Remember skeleton keys?


There was a welcome home lunch for the new couple Friday. We spent most of Friday and Saturday with Prema and PK. First was a greeting by Shilpa’s Aunts, then her folks. Final Picture before family flew home was of the whole family that were there.





Next stop, Sweetlands, where we get some of the best pictures of the trip.