Mombasa, Tsavo East, Africa

Having made it through most of the high-risk piracy zone, we arrived in Mombasa, Africa this morning. We had set up a private safari through the internet (yikes) and were planning to meet the driver as soon as we got off the ship. I had been communicating with the owner of the company and had felt some distrust through our emails and it wasn’t until we met that he realized I (Ali) was not a Muslim terrorist.
In any case, our trip lasted about 11 hours which included about 4 hours total driving on the 2 lane road that serves as the major artery between Mombasa and Nairobi, primarily for trucking. We quickly learned that lanes, center lines and speed limits are merely suggestions.
The 4 of us had all been on safari before, but none of us had been to this particular park. We had a wonderful day seeing dozens of African elephants, giraffe, ostrich (with babies!), cape buffalo, zebra, and lions. There was one point when the guide stopped the vehicle for us to see a lion - Nancy and I had the binoculars saying “where are they?”. It turns our they were lying about 6’ from our vehicle.
We had lunch at an open-air lodge that looked over a large watering hole that about 50 elephants were enjoying. There was a small stairwell that went down to an enclosure that was at the same level as the watering hole so we could see the elephants at close range.
The safari came to a close with an incredible dust storm that became a rain storm as it swept across the park.
The first photo is the road through the safari park as the dust blew on the right and the rain started on the left.
The second photo is a baby elephant - Mom was a little unhappy and trumpeted at us when we paid too much attention to the baby.
The third photo is the lion that was lying just little way away from our vehicle.Read more