Time flies...

Hello my dear ones!

I haven't contacted you in a while, partly because the past weeks have been quite calm.

When Francesca and I returned to Nairobi, we actually took the two lions from the orphanage on Monday. Can you believe it? Not at 8 o'clock as originally planned (if someone plans something at 8 o'clock here, you can't trust them....) but at 12, but at least on the same day. That's already something. Especially since Francesca's return flight was the next day. And she had already postponed her flight twice to stay longer and continue her research. So we did the usual with the lions. Unlike the work in the field, it's not that spectacular... But when the lion suddenly lifts its head while you're listening to its heart, it makes you feel a bit different. I didn't even notice it at first because I was busy counting the heart rate. I was just a bit confused when the veterinarian suddenly pulled me out of the cage. But luckily nothing happened and the lion fell back asleep deeply and peacefully afterwards.

The next day was Francesca's last day. I didn't believe it until she was really gone, because I thought she might postpone her flight again. I was afraid that it would be boring without Francesca because the veterinarians in Nairobi hardly have anything to do. But then I met Priscilla, a Dutch woman who studied genetics and has been doing an internship at KWS in the laboratory for 3 months. So we finally managed to visit Nairobi National Park. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to organize that. Even though the park entrance is right next to the KWS headquarters. Nairobi National Park is the only national park in the world located in the middle of a city. It's strange when you're walking through the city and suddenly only see green and nature in one direction, and it's also strange when you're in the park and see the city skyline on the horizon. You might think that the national park is relatively small. In comparison to the other parks, that's true. For example, there are no elephants in Nairobi National Park because it is too small for them. But when you are in this park, you realize that the "small" park is actually quite big. So for us, it was clear that we couldn't leave Nairobi without visiting the national park at least once. And even though we are practically at the source, it was not that easy. You can't just walk into the park on foot. That could be dangerous, as you might get eaten by lions or killed by buffalos. But renting a car with a driver is quite expensive. Because you have to pay for the car, the driver, AND the car entrance fee. Plus, you also have to pay your own entrance fee. $48 for foreigners. Local residents only pay 500 KES, which is about $5. Just imagine if they did that in Germany. 10 times the admission fee for foreigners... Well, I can somehow understand it. Tourism is one of the biggest sources of income here and people from all over the world come to visit the national parks. And there are many locals who have never been to any of the national parks and have never seen elephants in the wild. They don't have that much money, so I think it's okay to make the admission prices cheaper for them. But the difference is quite drastic... But we are VIP, so we were able to organize a driver for us through one of the veterinarians. And one of the rangers (I don't know if that's the correct word) came with us and gave us a private tour of the park. And all of that for free! First, we drove to a place where ivory is burned to make a statement. Whenever a poacher is caught with ivory somewhere in the world, the ivory is brought to Nairobi and burned to make a statement. Then we continued through the park. We saw countless buffaloes, giraffes, various bird species (including ostriches), several antelope species, and my personal highlight: a crocodile and hippos! I had never seen them before....

And then the weekend was already approaching. Since we had already visited all the sights and tourist "attractions" in Nairobi, we thought about what we could do on the weekend... We spontaneously planned to go to Lake Nakuru. A national park where you can observe, among other things, flamingos and pelicans. So we were faced with the question again: How to organize a car? And the entrance fee there is quite expensive ($62). After talking to one of the veterinarians, it quickly became clear that we don't have to pay the entrance fee with our KWS letters, since we're doing an internship at KWS. And the veterinarian could also organize a driver with a car for us. So for the equivalent of 50€ (25€ per person), we got a 5-hour safari. We drove around the whole lake, and it's really huge. We saw the flamingos and pelicans. Unfortunately, there are not as many flamingos anymore, as the food in the lake is getting scarce and some flamingos are migrating to another lake. But we saw some! We also saw thousands of buffaloes, some giraffes, zebras, baboons, rhinos, hyraxes (they look a bit like groundhogs), waterbucks, a hippo, and my absolute highlight of the day: 7 hyenas feeding on a buffalo. Right next to the road. Great for observing and taking pictures. Truly impressive.

Back in Nairobi, I realized that this is already my last week of internship. Time really flies. In the first week, when I was still getting used to everything, 8 weeks seemed endlessly long to me, and now I can hardly believe that the time is already over. On Thursday, we went on another trip. Patrick, Priscilla's supervisor, has a student in Tsavo East National Park who wanted to introduce us to his research. So we didn't hesitate long and traveled to Tsavo by bus. It's just unfortunate when you accidentally book the bus at 10pm instead of 10am.... But it's really confusing with this am and pm.. But luckily, we were able to change the ticket to the bus at noon at 1 pm?!?!? I just can't remember... so we arrived in Voi (the nearest town to Tsavo National Park) in the evening. David picked us up from the bus stop and took us to our hotel. It was actually a relatively good hotel. I didn't expect that for 15€ per night in a single room. Only the food could have been better. But you can't have everything. David is one of the nicest people I've met here. He wanted to please us in every way and organized everything for us. The next day, he picked us up from the hotel, drove us to the park, and introduced us to his team. We drove around the park with them. They drive through the park every day to search for animals. As soon as they see an animal, they log it into a tablet. Apparently, there's an app for that. There, they enter which animal, what it's doing at the moment, and how many other animals are nearby. The tablet then saves the exact location where the animal was seen. We saw lions and cheetahs, and of course elephants. Tsavo is known for its large elephant population. The national park is incredibly huge, bigger than Holland. Plenty of space for large elephant herds. We saw several families. But when we came too close to an elephant cow with a calf, she didn't find that funny and started running towards us... That's when the driver had to step on the gas. I really like Tsavo National Park a lot. Green bushes, red soil, blue sky. Simply fantastic. You can drive around for hours without encountering other people. Just nature. And when you observe the elephant herds at the water holes... I really can't say which animal is my favorite. I think giraffes are incredibly amazing, I get excited like a little child every time I see a hippo... and almost even more when I see a warthog. I loooove warthogs. Everyone always asks me, "why warthogs, they're so unspectacular and they even walk through the city of Nairobi"... but they are just so incredibly cute and funny when they run around like that. And they are just like Pumbaa from The Lion King. I would really love to have one as a pet. But elephants... elephants are something else. They evoke something special in me. You don't just see them pass by, you feel a kind of admiration for these animals. I don't know if you understand what I'm trying to say. But I just find it impressive how these huge, heavy animals can move so elegantly and silently. And it's really an incredible experience to observe these animals in the wild.

On that day, we were also lucky to see a rare Grevy's zebra. Until that point, I didn't even know that there were different zebras. Grevy's zebras have much narrower stripes. There are apparently only 60 of them in all of Kenya.

But the next day our luck was even surpassed. Because we saw 3 lionesses with 2 cubs right next to the road. The cubs were about 1.5 months old... They were so cute. I had a hard time resisting the urge to run up to them and cuddle them. But if I had done that, I wouldn't be able to write this text now. We also saw a group of vultures. Impressive and creepy at the same time. As most people probably know, birds are not exactly my favorite animals (except owls, we actually saw those too!!!) But vultures are just creepy. Luckily, they only eat carrion. But that doesn't make them any less creepy. And then another highlight: the leopard!!! The only animal of the "Big Five" (elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo, leopard) that I hadn't seen yet. Leopards are very shy and very difficult to spot. So we were incredibly lucky to see one at all. It was lying on a tree, but as soon as it saw us, it climbed down and disappeared into the next bush. So we only saw it briefly, and unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to take a photo. But I am incredibly happy. I think now I have seen pretty much everything Kenya has to offer in terms of wildlife. And that's really a lot. If you ever want to go on a safari, I can highly recommend Kenya!

It was definitely worth it to go to Tsavo, even if it was only for two days. Secretly, I had hoped for an elephant case, as that was the only thing missing for me. But I don't want to be presumptuous, I am already the happiest person in the world. Who has the chance to work with a wildlife vet in Africa?! And I have had so many incredible experiences in the 8 weeks. At the beginning of my stay, I was a bit shocked by the culture here. Everything is so slow. But you get used to it. While at the beginning I thought, "Okay, now you've been to Kenya, next time a vacation in Europe will be enough," now it's not a question of whether I will come back, but when I will come back. And who knows, maybe there will be an elephant case for me then.

Now I'm incredibly excited for Marius, who will finally come in two days, and for our vacation together at Diani Beach. Next weekend, we will go to Tsavo again for a two-day safari. Let's see how the park feels like as a tourist. And then I'm looking forward to seeing all of you again! Until then: Sending you all lots of hugs!

Your Pia