Animal update first. The cats have been spayed. I really
should have got my cats spayed sooner but I’ve never seen any other cats around
Lewa so I thought they were safe. So I was not too pleased to one morning see
my little female tabby cat following a big black tom cat around!! Whisked them
off to the vets to discover she wasn’t pregnant but her tortoiseshell sister
was at least 3 weeks pregnant with four kittens so she must have met the tom
cat some time ago. Suffice to say they are now both spayed (I feel like a
kitten murderer) and back home after an overnight stay at the vets. Rather a
traumatic experience for them both as they did not appreciate being bundled
into a dog crate and a long car journey to Nanyuki. They are now wearing plastic
bucket collars for two weeks so that they can’t pick at their stitches. They
are very cross with me as this rather impedes their freedom and they can’t
whizz around the stable rafters and hunt rats like they used to because the
stupid collars get in their way.
On the subject of neutering animals, Santa has also been
castrated. As the vet was coming up to the area, it seemed sensible to get him
done as in another few months he will probably start getting interested in
mares. I really enjoyed assisting the vet with the operation and it all went
very smoothly until it was time for Santa to come round from his anaesthetic.
Typical Santa can’t be like any normal horse and just get up, be a bit groggy
and recover quietly in his stable. Santa gets up, then falls over, a process he
repeats about 20 times, getting increasingly stressed and thrashing around. We
eventually got him back into his stable and held him up whilst he spent 10
minutes head butting the stable wall for reasons best known to himself. Luckily
there wasn’t any swelling or other post-operative problems so he is now a
gelding and has entirely forgotten about the experience.
That’s the animal news. On to more exciting subjects. Jenny,
my best friend, is here! She arrived last Friday and I took a couple of days off
over the weekend so that we could go off on safari. We drove three hours north
of Lewa, up to Samburu land to stay at Sarara Camp (check it out at www.sararacamp.com). Such a magical and
beautiful place. It is the only camp in that area so you literally look out on
to a million acres of complete wilderness. There are no other tourists or cars.
The camp is built into the hillside and the six luxury tents are positioned to
give a fantastic view of the flat scrubby Samburu land and the Matthews range
of mountains. I can honestly say it is one of the most stunningly beautiful
places that I have ever been to. We were very lucky in that (a) they gave us a
much cheaper resident rate, and (b) we were the only guests so had the place to
ourselves. The camp has a fantastic infinity pool built into the granite rocks
fed with natural spring water. Beneath the pool is a watering hole so the
animals come into drink, mainly elephants, but we were also treated to a
leopard sauntering past one evening as we sat with gin and tonics in hand
watching the sun go down. The game is far less plentiful than on Lewa and
harder to spot because of the dense bush. However, considering that in the 70s
and 80s, all the game was completely poached out, it is wonderful to see that
there are now over 4000 elephants living in the area. Sadly, poaching for their
ivory still remains a major problem and it is unlikely that rhino could ever be
reintroduced to the area unless the land was fenced in and massive security
introduced.
Sarara Camp also has a pet kudu (type of antelope) that was
found abandoned at 5 days old. She was hand reared and is completely tame, so
much so that she wanders about the dining area asking for food! I have to say
that it was really fun to be a “guest” for a change rather than working at a
lodge. Having wake up tea bought to my room in the morning and sitting on the
verandah watching the sun come up rather than going to work – I could get used
to that!
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