Day Ten: August 19: Check out of Giraffe Manor, shopping and
visit to Monkey Park (City Park).
Today the overcast lifted considerably enough for me to get
some pictures of Kelly. I was mostly experimenting with a fish eye lens, so I
hope I managed to capture something creative. Just before we left Gaye called
Kelly over to our room and she spent some time feeding her from our bedroom
window until she ran out of pellets. Kelly is a fairweather friend. No pellets,
no love. And with the food supply cut off, she meandered over to the giraffe
centre to get some treats there. Luca the resident dog was in fine form too.
She loves to run up behind the wart hogs and bite them on the butt. She knows
that the wart hogs aren’t supposed to be around the people, so she likes to
round them up and chase them off. It’s actually pretty funny.
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| This is the Bouganvillea vine. It's really pretty. It covers huge trees. The tree looks beautiful, but it isn't actually the tree that is blooming. Just the vine on the tree. |
From the Giraffe Manor we went to Kazuri beads and a shop
that has amazing bead jewelry. After that we went to a Masai Market. At the market
they were the friendliest and yet most aggressive sales people I have ever
seen! They almost made it impossible to leave each booth whether you were
interested in buying something or not. After the market we went to a shopping
mall. At the shopping mall they had recently put escalators in. It was entertaining watching the locals. They would cram into the lift (elevator) but many of them avoided the escalator and a lot of children were scared of it. I even noticed a few adults who were tentative and weren't sure how comfortable they were with the thought of using it. I asked my guide about it and sure enough he said that the escalators were new...I didn't notice him using it either. :) After the visit to the mall we went on to City Park. City Park; or Monkey Park, as it also sometimes called
has a couple thousand sykes and several vervet monkeys. These little characters love the park
visitors and are always looking for a hand out. One of their favourite tricks is
to jump out of a tree when they see a small child. The child gets startled,
drops his ice cream or what ever treat he is eating, the monkey picks the food
up off the ground and darts back up a tree to enjoy his ill gotten goodies.
They’re pretty clever.
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| Sykes monkey at City Park |
Tonight we fly to Johannesburg and spend four more days
on safari In South Africa before heading for home. So far our strategy has been
right on. Cheetahs and lions in the Masai Mara, and hopefully leopard and leopard cubs in South Africa. Fingers crossed…
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