Thinking Allowed: Voi-er

Most tourists come to Kenya to go on safari. The country is dotted with national parks and conservancies. Once upon a time the country was dominated by wild animals. Reading historical accounts of Kenya is mind boggling. Still, a tourists can still get a taste of that historical wildlife heyday by going on safari. The thing about safari though is that it is a high per person cost and it is an activity that involves long hours sitting in a car. Also I kind of have mixed feelings about the safari culture. On the one hand it is very fascinating to look for animals and it is a thing of my childhood dreams. On the other hand, seems a bit of a nuisance to the wildlife to have jeeps driving around watching their every move. All of a sudden nature becomes a wild zoo - especially as more and more parks are putting up fences to prevent elephants from pestering local farmers.

Animals aside though, I still kind of wanted to see the wild landscape of Kenya. Aurora and I had just read Love, life and elephants which talks in detail about the history evolution of Tsavo East park and it appealed to us to bring those anecdotes to life. Unlike most other countries national parks are a car only experience. After much debate we decided to make it happen our own way. We took a train to Voi and then rented a car for a one day game drive into a park. It was a thrill for some of us and for others it was a lot of time sitting in a car. The best time to see animals are early in the morning and in the evening so our day drive was 12 hours long. Sophia spent the entire day with her head out the open rooftop scanning the horizon while Tova and Zadie spent a large portion of the day reading in the back of the car and popping their heads up when we called out something interesting. Levana both really enjoyed looking for animals and was mesmerised by the slow movement of the lions and had her moments of pure frustration at our endless car ride.

The Tsavo East landscape was just as vast and grand as we hoped. We saw lots of different animals including zebra, giraffe, oryx, water buck, buffalo, dik dik, ostrich, lions, hippos, monkeys, gazelle, many birds of various sorts and lots and lots of elephants. Tsavo East has the largest concentration of elephants in Kenya and we did not tire of the crowds of elephants. They are beautiful creatures and I could sit and watch them for hours (which I essentially did). Watching elephants at a water hole is far better than any social drama.