Tsavo East: Getting the Safari Started

  Enter the land of the man-eaters.

  Tsavo National Park is one of the oldest, and biggest parks in Kenya. It is located between Nairobi and the coastal city of Mombasa, and is as close to the coast as we will get on this safari. The park was split in two by the construction of the Kenya-Uganda railroad. One of the most famous stories from this area was during the construction of a bridge over the Tsavo River, two maneless male Tsavo lions stalked and killed many of the workers.

    The project was led by Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson. During the next nine months of construction, the two lions stalked the campsite, dragging Indian workers from their tents at night and devouring them. Crews tried to scare off the lions and built campfires and bomas, or thorn fences made of whistling thorn trees around their camp for protection to keep the man-eaters out, all to no avail; the lions leaped over or crawled through the thorn fences. After repeated attacks, hundreds of workers fled from Tsavo, halting construction on the bridge. Patterson set traps and tried several times to ambush the lions at night from a tree. After repeated unsuccessful attempts, he shot the first lion on 9 December 1898. Twenty days later, the second lion was found and killed. The first lion killed measured 9 ft 8 in (2.95 m) from nose to tip of tail. It took eight men to carry the carcass back to camp.

  It was a long, but interesting drive here from Nairobi. We passed through many small towns where the concrete buildings are splashed with colorful paint and ads for cell phone providers. The people are all dressed just as colorful with many entrepreneurs hawking things like fruit, nuts, and even slingshots to us as we drove through. We made it to our camp, called Tsavo Sentrim Camp, just in time for lunch. Everyone was blown away by the animal activity just on the other side of a small electric fence. The dining room faced out over a waterhole that had nonstop elephant action the entire day. One elephant family group after another ambled out of the woods and across the small plain to splash themselves with the muddy water.

  We enjoyed out Tusker beers while watching a few very big tuskers at the waterhole from our camp. There was even a viewing platform built up so we could get a better vantage point. It was hard to pull ourselves away from such a show but the afternoon game drive was calling so we loaded up into our safari vehicle, a decked out land cruiser with a pop top, and our faithful driver James, and headed out to see what else we could find.

  And find things we did. We saw zebra, giraffe, all kinds of antelope, more elephants, cape buffalo, waterbuck, and beautiful birds of all sizes. Day 1 on safari is always pretty fun for me because I never know how people will react to seeing these animals in the wild for the first time. Today's reactions were pretty priceless. There were some tears, some expletives, and a lot of amazement.

Inquisitive Chanting goshawk

Verreaux's Eagle Owl

 Large birds like ostriches, kory bustards, secretary birds, and ground hornbills walked through the brush looking for food, while pygmy falcons, chanting goshawks, and a rare Verreaux's Eagle-Owl looked down from the trees above.

  The Masai Giraffe was one of the big hits of the game drive. They are a wild and wonderful creature to see in person. The certainly defy the norm of what we think an animal should look like. We were all feeling like it was a hugely successful game drive as we turned back towards camp, but it wasn't over yet.

  On the way back we got a beautiful African sunset. I think there is something about being right near the equator plus all of the dust the gives Africa some of the best sunsets in the world. Even after that, Tsavo had one more surprise for us, a lone lioness napping just off the side of the road. She woke up and gave us a few glances before falling back asleep in the same spot.

  We all enjoyed the traditional gin and tonics back at camp and more elephant action at the waterhole during dinner. A hyena surprised everyone by strolling by the dining area, just on the other side of the fence. Now its time to catch up on some sleep and get ready for more animal tomorrow. I wonder what animal sounds we'll hear from our beds tonight... click here for Tsavo East part II