Animals in the Wild

Near Naivasha is a lovely park called, of all things, "Hell's Gate National Park."  Now that we have our Kenya Work Permits, we can get into parks at the Kenyan resident price, which is a lot cheaper than the tourist price.  After we visited with the missionaries, we had a couple of hours before sunset so into the park we drove.  It was beautiful with rocky cliffs and lots of wildlife.  I don't think we ever actually found "The Hell's Gate" also known as The Gorge."  We'll have to go again.  The setting for "The Lion King" was modeled after this park.

You can hike or ride bikes or drive into the park.  You can also camp with nothing but your tent to protect you from the wild animals.  They say that once in a while lions and hyenas are found here in the park.  I think I'll stay in a hotel.

We keep trying to get a picture of these gorgeous cactus trees that dot the land.  Here we're on our way to Hell's Gate.

Of course LeRon was interested in all the farms along the way.  This was a Bio-Energy farm with a huge bio-digester, probably digesting leftover flowers from the nearby flower fields and green houses.

Baboons in Kenya must not be as ferocious as those in South Africa because baboons were playing all over the place at the entrance to the park.  So ugly they're cute.

These baboons look more like bears than baboons to me.  I wonder what they're thinking.  Maybe they were just watching their children playing.  There were so many of them but I didn't get any good pictures.

Our first view of wild animals (other than baboons) here in the park.  Zebras have become my newest favorite animal.  Their stripes are intriguing.  And it's interesting how they really do blend in with the foliage.  I thought they would look very vividly black and white but . . . black and white makes gray and they really do look gray from a distance.  Also interesting to see the tones of brown in them too.

This is the "Central Tower" that rock climbers love to climb, along with all the other rock formations in the park.

I just can't get enough of the zebras.  They're right by the road, just calmly grazing.

Aren't they beautiful animals?

Click on the picture to enlarge.  These are Thompson Gazelles.  We also saw other antelope types and a Hartebeest but I never got a picture of it.

More zebras.  I love their stripes.

This one was right by the road, looking lazily at us.

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.  Even the bottoms of their legs and their tails are striped. 

Some of these warthogs were absolutely huge!

A whole herd of African buffalo crossed the road in front of us.  I don't think I want to mess with one of them!

More baboons were playing out in the brown grass.  So ugly they're cute.

This picture could be taken anywhere . . . Alberta.  Montana.  Idaho.  But no, it's here in Kenya.

You can't see it but there's a huge herd of zebras in the background.  Like I said, they really blend in with the scenery.

Here are gazelles, warthogs and zebras.  We also saw ONE giraffe but it was far away so the picture didn't turn out.  But I was thrilled to see that one giraffe.

At first I wasn't that interested in buffalo until I realized they are very different than our American buffalo.  There's a herd of American buffalo on the road between Grassy Lake (where we live when not on a mission) and Taber (where we go to church when not on a mission).  But these buffalo are very different.

 Love those stripes!

An acacia tree and the Central Tower.  We're ready to head out of the park as it will close in about 15 minutes.

So fun to have zebras right by the road.

Look at the size of the horns on these antelope.

Last look at the zebras.  I think they've turned to say good-bye.

This is the 3rd pivot that we've seen in Kenya.  We didn't think we would see pivots here.  This is a huge farm right next to the park.