Laikipia

Friday, July 4, 2014 Laikipia Plateau

This morning we said goodbye to the wonderful people at Leleshwa and were driven to the local airstrip where our charter plane was waiting for us.  How decadent is that!  It was Oren’s turn to sit in the co-pilot’s seat, and was he ever prepared.  Over the past year or so, Oren has been serious using the Flight Simulator software on my computer.  He was full of questions for the pilot, and his questions revealed so much knowledge that the pilot allowed him to take the controls once we were airborne:

Oren consulted with the pilot:

We were flown to a landing strip on the Laikipia Plateau, a semi-arid part of Kenya which nevertheless has much game.  On the way to our camp we passed many Grevy’s Zebra, a kind of zebra we had not seen before, with narrow stripes which are vertical all the way back to the tail:

There also were a number of dikdik, a tiny antelope with wonderful ears:

There were many other animals and birds, most of which we had seen before.  Our camp, Sabuk Lodge, is located high on the edge of a canyon with a river, the Ewaso Nyiro, below.  Each room is actually a rondavel with one open wall facing the canyon and a large fireplace.  Here’s ours:

 The view of the canyon from our room:

And our wonderful bathtub:

 After a delicious lunch we hiked down to the river for rock climbing and swimming, which included leaping from a high rock into a pool in the river.  Here’s Gil:

The lodge employees who accompanied us brought tubes, and some of us tubed a way down the river.  Here are Dan and Ben:

We had a delicious dinner and went to bed early for tomorrow’s camel safari!