This past weekend, thanks to Mashujaa (Heroes) Day here in Kenya, we had Thursday and Friday off. We wanted to get out and see some of the country that we hadn't seen yet. We also have a student-teacher, Morgan, living with us until Christmas, and it was her first weekend in the country, so we took her with us. We had lots of close encounters with animals both common and rare!
Our first stop was
Kembu Cottages near Nakuru. They're named for the chameleons in the area, which are called Kembu in the Kikuyu language. We had heard about them from a neighbor of ours who went there in September. We stayed in a cottage originally built in the 1920s that was right next to the owner's house. The Cottages are right next to a working farm that the family has run continuously since 1910. They have a herd of milking cows that produce about 6000 litres of milk a day (almost 1600 gallons), chickens, and very friendly racehorses. They also host a
knitting project called Kenana Knitters.
The girls loved spending time trying to make friends with the various animals that we met while walking around the farm. We really enjoyed our time there, and Andrew (the owner) made a special effort to make our time special by inviting us over to his house to see the orphaned baby antelope that he is feeding in preparation for a return to the wild. We also got fresh milk every day from the dairy, which was a special treat!
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| Meeting some of the racehorses. They sell about 40 a year all over Africa. |
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| John, our guide, showing us the horses. |
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| Many of the horses followed us around, which was a bit unnerving at first! |
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| Claire and two horses trailing her. |
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| A one-day-old calf. |
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| The girls in one of the houses for the calves when it rains. |
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| Claire was very persistent in trying to feed them. |
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| Some local wildlife. |
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| Warm milk by the fire. |
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| Andrew feeding the orphaned Duiker. It's 5.5 weeks old here! |
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| Cecily dwarfs it; who's the baby now? |
After two nights in Nakuru, we headed East to Nanyuki, a town at the base of Mt. Kenya. We have been hearing about a restaurant called
Trout Tree since we moved here, and wanted to finally see what the hype was about. Conveniently, there's a cottage on the property called
Creaky Cottage that we were able to stay in. It was a funky, sloping house built around a tree with almost no right angles. Still, the girls were excited to sleep upstairs in their own room. However, they ended up on the couch downstairs after hearing the Tree Hyraxes calling to each other at night. If you don't know what a tree hyrax is, picture an ROUS (Rodent Of Unusual Size) from The Princess Bride, and then give it overgrown vocal chords. It sounds like somebody is being tortured.
Here's a link that has a recording of them, but to truly appreciate it, put on headphones, and turn it up to max volume (you should hear the crickets in between the calls).
Other than the furry 'friends', Trout Tree was great. Really good food, a fun playground for the girls to play on, and the restaurant itself is in a giant fig tree!
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| The restaurant overlooking some of the trout ponds. |
One of the highlights of the weekend was definitely going out to the Mt. Kenya Safari Club and the animal orphanage next to it. At first when we went into the orphanage, there weren't many animals to be seen, and definitely no guides, so we thought that we'd just wander around a bit and go over to the hotel. Next thing we knew, James came over to us to be our guide, and we were feeding a rare Bongo and many other things you'll just have to see in the pictures below.
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| Feeding Bongos. |
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| Ostriches are dumb. This one was repeatedly touching and biting the electric fence. |
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| Ainsley and her favorite animal! |
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| A colobus monkey has a snack off of Kirk's head. |
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| Claire was super brave feeding the monkeys. |
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| Cecily was fascinated, and not at all frightened. |
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| Ainsley faced her fears of monkeys: "With you, daddy!" |
