Kenya - 2013

The rest of his pack are just visible, lazing in the bushes.

It is hard to describe such a creature as cute.

I wouldn't want to take on an angry one of these.

This is the leaping that is so typically associated with the Maasai people.

I asked to take this guy's photo, because of the elongated earlobes. His friend thought it hilarious and decided to highlight the situation.

Gorgeous birds. This is actually the national bird of Uganda.

We didn't have long with this magnificent cat. Soon after snapping this pic, it disappeared in to the long grass.

Cycling through Hell's Gate National Park, you share the road with zebras, gazelles, impalas, warthogs, and giraffes. It is a fantastic experience.

A Rock Hyrax in Hell's Gate National Park.

Camping by Lake Naivasha, the only real hazard is the presence of hippopotamuses. Generally, they stay in the water until sunset, with only their eyes and ears showing. In the early evening, though, this one started getting hungry a little earlier than his (or her) friends, and started feeding on the vegetation by the shore. Once the sun was down, the hippos all get out of the water and graze on the camp ground lawn. It really is a heart in mouth experience to be only a few metres from a wild hippopotamus. Sure, there was a “fence”, but not one that would keep an angry hippo at bay. Luckily, they are “generally” docile creatures, and leaving them alone and keeping some distance is the best policy. Probably the more important role of the fence is to keep us people from getting too close to them, not the other way around.

Storks were not our only visitors. There were the geese and the monkeys and the colobuses and the ibises and … Oh, and the hippos, of course.

Lake Nakuru National Park.

A male waterbuck grazes early near the shore of Lake Nakuru.

Mum keeps an eye on us to make sure we don't get too close while her young one feeds.

At Lake Nakuru National Park.