Lost on Lewa

There are many hills on Lewa that make for great “sundowner” spots. I have been exploring some of these in the past couple of weeks as I am getting to know more people who live and work at the other lodges on Lewa. Lodge work does mean that it can be difficult to get together as everyone is busy with guests. However, it is often possible to grab an hour to have a drink with friends and watch the sunset so this is what we do. The down side of this is that you then need to drive home in the dark. With so little light pollution, the stars are amazing but the darkness also makes navigation challenging. Every dirt road looks the same. Cutting a long story short, we managed to get ridiculously lost one night. I would love to have known where we ended up driving (probably round in circles). Obviously, we made it eventually but it took about an hour longer than it should have done! The plus side of the unplanned night drive was great hyena sightings. On Lewa, you only ever see hyenas at night so they are not an animal you get to see regularly.

I finally got to watch the polo ponies in action last weekend. It was not a proper tournament but “club chukkas” which is kind of like practice weekends at the local polo club. The next tournament which runs over the next two weekends also takes place there so I should get to see the real thing very soon. The polo ponies have stayed up at the polo club as there doesn’t seem much point bringing them backwards and forwards. Also this way, they get to claim the good stables before those coming from further afield arrive, and they can use the polo pitch each day for schooling. Gives me a good excuse to get off Lewa too as I need to go check on them and ride them (although the polo syces have it covered really).

The sad news is that poor little Santa is an orphan. Not in the technical sense as his mother hasn’t died (yet) but she is very sick so he has had to be weaned. It was heart breaking separating them. Not that the mare had the energy to care. All I could hear as I drove off was Santa calling to her desperately from his stable. He is being very brave though and is coping better than I expected. Simba (the mare) currently looks like a rescue case (as in those awful horse rescue charity pictures you see in magazines). She has lost so much condition in the space of just a few days. The blood test shows a very high white blood cell count which means she has some sort of bacterial infection. She is now on intravenous antibiotics but she is so weak and has even fallen over a couple of times. This all makes it sound like she has been seen by a vet. But this is Kenya so she hasn’t. I took the blood myself, then took it to Nanyuki for testing, then spoke to a vet who told me what drugs to buy and administer. Playing at vets again…

The next exciting event on Lewa is the Marathon on 30^th June. This is reputedly one of the ten toughest marathons in the world due to the altitude and rough terrain. The majority of entrants just do the half marathon which is allegedly like doing a full marathon anywhere else. People fly in from all over the world to do it. The purpose of the event is to raise money for Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and the Tusk Trust. Somehow I have been roped into being a water station manager for the event so I’ll let you know how that goes!