Sweetwaters Ol Pejeta

Signing in from Sweetwaters tented campnear Mt Kenya! And what an amazing, beautiful place this is!! When I arrived here around lunchtime the first thing I got to see was a waterhole in front of the restaurant were gazelles, impala, zebra, waterbuck and warthogs were roaming around! The warthogs

and gazelles being very playful and the males fighting each other.

When I was walked to my tent N°18 I was lucky enough to actually have a waterhole view!! Pfff I think I could just sit here forever and watch the amazing thing that mother nature was showing me.
At this very moment I am a bit pissed-off though and a double G&T might help a bit.. but than again, I don’t think it will. More about that in a little while.
After the most delicious lunch, once again lunches here in Kenya have been well, yummy. That counts for all meals I must admit, it was time for my first Kenyan safari on this trip.
The animals Ol Pejeta, which is here in Sweetwaters, is known best are the chimpanzees and the rhino sancuary. Now chimps aren’t indegenous to Kenya I must tell you that. They were brought in during the war in Burundi where the little once had been orphaned. My guide David talked to me about the fact that normally a chimp in the wild would need about 1km² to roam around it. Now, they have 42 chimps..no need to say that they don’t have 42km² to themselves.

They have limited grounds of 250m² and that’s devided into 2 parts as the chimps come from 2 different regions. Mixing them might cause trouble. All the females have birth control inplants as they don’t have a breeding permit. That said..3 or was it 4 baby chimps have been born here. Sometimes birth control doesn’t help.. The chimps that were born can stay here too of course. We walked for a bit into a forested area when we came to the border between the two camps, which are seperated by a river and an electric fence. if they happen to touch it they won’t be deadly struck but they will get a warning. Having that said.. a few chimps were walking our way on the other side. One male, Safari stopped in front of me so I crouched down and he let me get to about 10cm from him, with the fence in between us though.. OMG!!! What a feeling!! Those pearcing brown eyes went straight through me that’s for sure. Even though he was much smaller then I am, I fell very small!! They do are very human-like!! Safari, Zee and Iso the three males that stayed close to us I got to photograph really well as well as one female, Judy.

Victor from the Born Free Foundation had asked me to report back to him about the chimps living conditions. Well, all I can say that things looked ok from their outside enclosere but I have no idea what their indoor’s are like. I wasn’t taken there. The chimps always stay inside during the evening.
After the chimps we drove on only to come across a HUGE herd of elephant. And when I say huge I do mean HUGE. They were all over the place. There were very small babies as well as many mums and aunts. We did see a few bulls as well.

 
Other animals we came across where: all the once mentionned above, a 17-head family of reticulated giraffes, an enourmous pack of Buffalo (didn’t even bother to count them), some zebra with baby, 2 jakals that were trying to hide in the tall grass (I spotted them but Justus my guide/driver couldn’t see them, a tawny eagle and … no lions 🙁 no hunting dogs..

I had so set my hopes on the lions tomorrow as I had already emailed them here to tell them I was going on a lion tracking expedition with them tomorrow. Now I have just learned that they are completely booked!!!!!! Can you understand now why I am totally pissed off!! Let’s just say I told them here at reception that I won’t take this. I have my email which states it all and now they are telling me it’s no go!! No way, they have it up with management and will get back to me. I am going to be so disappointed if I can’t go on this lion tracking. This is one of the reasons why I chose this place to come to and now it may still not be possible to do it. Writing this while I take another sip of my double G&T…
I do have a night safari booked for tomorrow night though, at least if that’s not completely booked.. They haven’t told me antyhing about that just yet.
I am about to go to dinner now but I have a feeling I won’t eat too much. Still full from dinner so I might just settle for some soup. And maybe dessert if I have room left.
Hopefully, when I get online to publish this, I’ll be able to show you some pictures..
Siging off from a beautiful spot on mother earth!!

Kwaheri!