Jambo Followers,

Today I would like to take you to Nairobi National Park. The park is very near ANU in fact on the edge of it as you will see in the pictures. ANU was purchased from the Masai and is at the edge of their land. The fee to get into the park for Mazoongoo's is $50 and for our driver $5 yes we support Kenya with high fees, but it is worth it.

At the entrance to the park the lady says there has been a kill over night and the lions are at #8 and stay to the left all the way. Well as soon as we got into the park we saw animals, which I was surprised at. Yes, that is Nairobi in the background. Hard to believe you are in the middle of a game reserve. The park cover 29,000 acres and is one of the smallest parks in Africa.

The giraffe you see is a Masai Giraffe and is only found in Kenya & Tanzania. The male is about 18 ft. high and the female about 16ft. high. The pattern of there coat is very distinctive as it is a jagged effect and the color is deep rich copper brown. The other two Giraffes are the Reticulated and the Rothschild with a distinct different pattern and color. 
      

                                                         

As we pulled around a bend there was a pond with all these varies birds, but the one that stood out was the Grey Crowned Crane standing at about 5 ft. tall what a site only God could make something this beautiful. There were also spoon bills, egrets, ibis. Then we saw a crocodile and as you see the one is looking into the water and they started to move. What a beautiful wing span. We never did see the crocodile again. Good thing for the birds. There a 3 kinds of crocks in Africa this one was a Zaire which inhabits small ponds. In the pond there were several hipo but the were under water most of the time and hard to get in a photo.
These elegant beast are called Coke's Hartebeest
and are part of the Antelope family. We saw many as we drove through the park.
                                                          

Hartebeest

This is what part of the park was like driving through it narrow dirt roads. There were not many cars on the road. I guess the natives look at the park as a good place for all these bad animals to be as they are mostly there enemies as  eat or ruin there crops if they are farmers. Yes the whole park is surrounded by electric fence and is almost impossible for them to escape. You see I said almost. Last year when I was here a lioness escaped and causing quite a stir in Karen. Karen is a very well to do area with million dollar homes. They did finally tranquilizer her and get her back to the park. Have no idea how she got out maybe just went through or over the electric fence.

This to me was so unusual to see there were many breeds of animals all congregated in this area I mean probably 75 or more. Here were Hartebeest, Zebra, Gazelle and Impala all together.

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 Zebras are probably one of my favorite animals because they are so unique. Did you know that no two Zebras are alike with there stripping? Pretty amazing that is there DNA. Above a mom and her baby. The female is more brown than black on the stripes. This is the Plains Zebra. The other breed of
Zebra is called the Grevy's which are found in northern Kenya and Ethiopia. The white stripes are very narrow and they have big ears.

 Can you believe this one, right in front of the car look at him prancing. The female is a gray brown color and not very pretty as far as color and markings. The male stands at between 7-8 ft. and weighs 150 lbs. The Masai has a pink neck and legs. The Somali's have blue necks and legs.
The worlds fastess bird that can run 40 mph.

This is the Nyati Bufallo and I believe this is a female. They weigh about 1500 lbs. and don't look freindly. We were very close to them and I thought I hope there not upset with us taking pictures.

I have just found out I have run out of space so this is to be continued on the following blog which I will atempt to do now as I want you to see the finale of our trip.


TO BE CONTINUED................