Walking with Zebras at Acacia Camp

  Acacia camp has a special place in my heart, as it has become our base for baseball4africa and a wonderful stopover for any Kenya driving safari. It is located in between Amboseli and our next park in the Aberdare Mountains. And while the old tents that I used to stay in are now gone, in their place new thatched huts have gone up. Changes are underfoot here at Acacia camp, although a pool is still planned for 'next year', which I hear every year. Check out another recent visit to Acacia Camp here.

Roomy interior

The new bandas

  The real beauty of Acacia camp isn't the chill vibe, regulation dart board, or even the wonderful staff (which they are truly wonderful), it is the ability to walk the roads and the plains which surround the camp that are filled with zebra, ostrich, wildebeest, hardebeest, jackals, elands, and giraffes. Fences keep out the big predators, although cheetah have been seen from time to time. This opens the possibility for morning walks or jogs without the fear of being stalked by lions.

"Go walk towards those zebra"

Swara Acacia Lodge

  We were only here for a night this time so we really wanted to take advantage of all the options. We arrive around 2:30pm and all relaxed until it cooled down around 5. Then I took Becca, Erica, and David out for a walking safari while Deedee and Chris tested out their dart skills and Tusker drinking. It is a wild feeling to be walking with all of these animals here in Africa after driving through a few parks where stepping out of the vehicle is not allowed. I urged Erica, Becca, and David to get a bit closer so I could get a picture with them and a herd of zebra and wilderbeest behind them.

  We let the animals decide which direction we would take. Eventually we made past the open plains to a populated corner of the property where all the ranch workers lived. Sunset was near and it seemed that the cows sensed it as well. A line of a few hundred cows came wondering our direction. They were headed right for an open pen where a couple of locals were waiting. Surprisingly we could only see one person walking with the hundreds of cows. It did look like keeping them going in the right direction was pretty easy, at the moment at least.

Cows coming home for the night

Becca and her zebra

  After the beautiful sunset over the acacia and yellow fever trees, and after a hearty dinner, we loaded up into a couple of beat up mid size SUV's for an exploratory night drive. It didn't seem like something that they did often here, but I've had success driving myself around at night here and they offered so off we went.

   During night drives you go around shining a big spotlight all over, hoping the light reflects off the night vision eyes of nocturnal animals. Erica, David and I were in the lead car which was equipped with some heavy duty forward facing lights but no spotlight. Luckily we had a couple of little headlamps which did surprisingly well. We spotted bat eared foxes, black back jackals, and lots of springs hares, which look like a kangaroo and a rabbit had a baby. It was a big day so we all fell asleep hard under our mosquito nets.

    I was up for the morning walking tour bright and early but it seemed that I had worn out the group who took advantage of a sleep in morning which are far and few between on this trip. Sunrise over the swara plains was worth the early morning wake up though. Next its off to the Aberdare Country Club and the world famous Ark in Aberdare Mountain National Park.

  As always check out the photo website for high quality print options from Africa and beyond. www.daimartamarack.com