29 Mar
Location
Home
Days adrift.  Click here to see our best and worst experiences so far.
4995
Number of flights.  Click here to go to the itinerary page.
35
Bus, train and taxi rides.  Click here to see all posts relating to transport. (56 posts)
185
Miles walked.  Click here to see all posts relating to walking and trekking. (43 posts)
581
Countries visited.  Click here to see what we think of them. (14 posts)
15
Number of species spotted.  Click here to go to our wildlife page.
1157
Photos taken.  Click here to go to the photo gallery. (105 posts)
13288
Rainy days.  Click here to find posts relating to the weather. (50 posts)
63
Number of times scammed.  Click here to read all about it!  (2 posts)
1
Otters spotted.  Click here to go to our website about otters: amblonyx.com
45
 
...two travellers in search of the world's wildlife

26 September 2022

Gerenuk are cool

Wednesday 17 Aug

Shem reminded us today that we needed to take a park ranger on our night drive, and culture in Kenya would make it appropriate to tip him. What would be an appropriate tip? “Whatever you think is right, it’s up to you” was Shem’s answer. I totally understand why it’s difficult to answer that question, but it really leaves me in a useless place. Is £1 an insult? Is £10 ridiculous over-tipping? For the record we went with about £8 which ought to be a good meal or a couple of rounds of beers with friends.

All around Voi Lodge, Yellow-spotted Bush Hyraxes

The night drive was only moderately good; we saw the other kind of small-spotted genet, a spotted hyena, a white-tailed mongoose and something that might have been a honey badger or might not. Night drives can be frustrating like that: you often don’t get a long or good enough glimpse of the critter in the light of a spotlight to be able to identify it properly.

Anyway, the morning drive was better, with plenty of game and a brilliant look at the Gerenuk. This is a very unique antelope with a tiny head built for pushing into thorn-covered acacia bushes to nibble leaves and the unique ability to stand on its hind legs to nibble leaves other antelope cannot reach. We got to see this! The amazing thing is that, if you look carefully, you can see that the acacia bush isn’t supporting the gerenuk’s weight at all – it is properly standing up on its hind legs.

The noble gerenuk… what a teeny, tiny head he has!

The other cool thing we saw was a real needle in a haystack. Imagine a grassy plain dotted with scores of antelope and zebra. Now imagine that just two of those antelope have odd-shaped horns and a slightly different all-white tail. Those are the Hirola, a species of antelope on the brink of extinction with just a handful left in Tsavo and one other national reserve. I was expecting to spend hours searching and then maybe to not find them anyway. Maureen managed to spot them in less than five minutes! So that was good.

The balletic gerenuk

Related Images:


Leave a Reply