Thursday 18 Aug
Voi Lodge. So the rooms are a bit tired, especially the bathroom. This isn’t unique to Voi; I think it must be very expensive to replace bathroom fittings in Kenya as it’s always the nastiest part of any place we stayed in. The buffet meals are okay, though nothing to write home about. The best thing about Voi is the view. It is built high on a kopje (a rocky hill sticking up out of the flat plains) and so you can see the huge vista of Tsavo NP stretching out before you.
There is a waterhole here too, only ever visited by elephants while we were here. They’ve created a creepy white-concrete-and-flickering-neon tunnel that goes from the lodge down to a hidden window just a few yards from the waterhole and it was rather splendid to be almost within touching distance of elephants as they mooch around killing the time like a handful of old men at a bar. Here’s a little video… https://youtu.be/bjk0bh_S2S8
We went for a long game drive today, getting as far as the Tsavo River and seeing a lone hippo. But apart from that it was a fairly fruitless drive. It felt a bit like being back in Meru NP. Some mild pornographic content as we found a male and female lion doing their thing. It took them all of five seconds. On the other hand, they repeat the show every fifteen minutes for a couple of days solid. I’m unsure whether to be envious or not?
The night drive wasn’t very spectacular again, though we added black-backed jackals and a Senegal galago to our mammal tally and so kept up the habit of seeing new mammals every day. It was really quite windy.
Oh! And Shem let us know that one of the waiters in the restaurant had approached him a little worried, to ask whether perhaps Maureen wasn’t feeling well. Because of how little she was eating. That was quite touching, to be reminded that all these dozens of lodge staff who we only have the briefest “would you like to order a drink?”-style interactions with, and who see hundreds of tourists coming and going every year, might often be keeping a quiet eye on us, caring about their guests and wondering whether they are happy. We’ve left a nice tip in the communal tip box (as we’ve done at every lodge, of course).
By the way, Maureen was fine. We just don’t have big appetites!
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