Tue 25 Aug Ed and I took off in his Mitsubishi Pajero (Montero in the United States), and we drove to the Lake Naivasha area. We did a short hike in Hell's Gate National Park. In a slot canyon, we saw what we thought was a dead cheetah--although the park ranger did not beleive us. Almost four years later, Jake Grieves-Cook found my web site, examined the picture, and pointed out that the dead animal was in fact a serval.

The slot canyon revealed layers of sandstone and lava flows. We turned around at a twenty-foot thick flow that we didn't want to climb. The climb was probably a 5.7, and we could have climbed it to continued hiking up the canyon, but we were concerned about getting back down, so we skipped it. I think Lois Lobben has climbed this wall. After the hike, we had lunch in Naivasha, then we hiked around Crescent Island, where we walked within 20 yards or so of some giraffes.

	This is the dead serval. This picture was taken at the bottom of the slot canyon we hiked. We think it might have fallen into the slot canyon to its death...very sad.
	Here's a giraffe we got very close to on Crescent Island in Lake Naivasha.
	This is Ed in front of a giraffe. He was feeling a little blury that day.

We then took the A104 highway (if you can call it a highway) to Nakuru. The traffic was crazy on this two-lane, pot-hole-infested road. People drove like maniacs, incuding the bus driver of the infamous Eldoret Express, which passed us unsafely several times. At one point on this stretch of road, we saw a wrecked tanker truck that had smashed a brand new Range Rover Discovery.

Terrorists bomb Planet Hollywood Restaurant in Cape Town South Africa, although I didn't find out about this until I returned to Nairobi on Fri 27 Aug.

Wed 26 Aug We left from Lion Hill Lodge inside Lake Nakuru National Park at about 9:00am. We drove around the lake and had an excellent game drive. We saw white rhino for the first time. Saw a bunch of lionesses, including one who was dragging a zebra corpse thru the brush to her cubs. At first we only heard cracking branches, and I thought it was a hippo moving along the shore, but then I saw the distinctive black and white stripes and the lioness. There was almost nobody else around.

	This is mama and baby white rhino. These two completely ignored us, and we watched them for about 20 minutes.
	Here's another good shot of the rhinos.
	I took this picture out of the window of the Pajero. She was about 3 yards away. Good thing she'd just had some zebra for breakfast.
	This colorful lizard was on a rock on an outcropping just above the lions below. There was a picnic area there--but I'm not sure if it was a picnic area for humans or for lions.

Drove from Nakuru to Aberdare Country Club. Tonight we're staying at the Ark. Before heading over to the Ark, we walked the Aberdare Country Club golf course. It's an interesting course. There are wart hog hoofmarks on the greens and other wildlife in the rough. Golfing in Kenya is an interesting experience. At one point Ed and I made the mistake of standing on a safari ant trail. Normally you can't miss one of these trails because the safari ants are so thick on the trail, but this time the ants swarmed up our legs and promply sank their mandibles into our legs. Ouch! I had the creepy crawlies for the next half hour. We walked back to the club house and had our tea. While we relaxed, we were entertained by a peacock was courting a female.

Now we're at the Ark. Unlike other game viewing where you go to the animals, at the Ark the animals come to you. Buffalo and other 'meat' animals are drawn to the lodge by a natural salt lick, and predators are drawn by the meat. We saw a cat-like animal. We also saw a mongoose chase down a couple of Egyptian geese.

Went to bed at about 10:30. At 1am the buzzer rang, and we saw about ten elephant approch the water hole. They looked rather ghostly milling around in the mud and the mist. We didn't hear the buzzer the rest of the night.

Thu 27 Aug Woke up just before six hoping to spot some cats, but no luck. The only animals in the morning were a pair of cautious and nervous looking bushbuck. The Egyptian geese had survived the mongoose. Tonight we leave for London and then back to Phoenix.