Mission to Maua #10 - Meru National Park

We were blessed with another chance to visit Meru National Park – this time with Bill and Jerri Savuto.  In some ways, this visit was similar; we saw giraffes, elephants, cape buffalo, etc. , there were few tourists, and the scenery was still green and beautiful.  In other ways, however, this visit was very different.

The first thing we saw, shortly after we entered the park around 7:15, was a new-born gazelle.  It was up on its feet, just tottering, then fell down.  The mother was about 50 yards away, probably trying to encourage it to walk.  The baby tried again, and fell again.  Suddenly, an eagle swooped down and almost carried it away, but the mother gazelle ran back and chased the eagle, which finally flew away.  The baby then resumed its walking and we drove on, hoping mother and baby would soon rejoin the herd.

On this visit, we visited the white rhino sanctuary.  In the 80s, poachers killed off all the   rhinos.  (Rhino horns bring good prices in the Orient.)  The Kenya Wildlife Service re-introduced rhinos into Meru Park in the late 90s, but they are in an enclosed area that is closely guarded.  We drove throughout the extensive area, and spotted rhinos at a distance, but just as we were leaving the sanctuary, we saw four rhinos next to the road and were able to sit and watch and photograph them.

We spent the morning driving through the park (You are not allowed to get out of your car except at designated areas.) oohing and ahhing at a variety of animals and birds, then stopped at a campground for lunch.  I provided the comic entertainment when I fell over backwards in my deck chair while holding my plate of egg salad.  It gave a whole new, literal meaning to “having egg on your face.”  The herd of impala provided the action though when a herd of a hundred impala sped through the area en-route to the river, just 100 yards from where we were sitting.

We saw another herd of animals late that afternoon.  This time it was giraffes.  Over fifty of them ambled from one side of the road to the other.  As we got closer to dusk, the animals got more active and the light got better for photographs.  Just before leaving the park, we finally saw a lioness! – the first cat we had seen in our visits.  We watched her for about 20 minutes.  She obviously was waiting.  She would get up, stretch, walk to another location (in the middle of the road at one point), then sit again.  She was a beautiful, graceful animal and we never tired of watching her, but it was getting close to the mandatory time that we were to leave the park, so we had to drive on.

Roger and I feel so lucky to have seen so many of these animals in their natural setting and without contending with hoards of tourists while viewing them.  We plan to visit two more national parks after we leave Maua but before we leave Kenya.  Nairobi National Park is almost in the city limits of Nairobi, and Lake Nakuru National Park is just a few hours drive from Nairobi. It’s just too tempting to pass up in what could be our only trip to Africa.