Joan, my views: KENYA: THE MOST AMAZING OUTDOORS

In my many decades on this earth and years of traveling, I have never seen more outstanding natural beauty than in Kenya, in East Africa.

Majestic snow-covered Mount Kilimanjaro in the background (a Denis Bouillon photo)

Our Maasai guide and driver

In this featured photo, not only is the elegance of a giraffe in the wild captured, but in the background shines Mount Kilimanjaro (killi to local folk.) The irony is, according to our Maasai guide, if Tanzanians, in whose country this scenic mountain is located, want to get a really outstanding view, they have to come to into Kenya.

For while geographically, it is located in Tanzania, they claim this only happened because of British Royal politics. For when that empire was carving up Africa, the queen dropped that mountain into Tanzania as a favor to a cousin of hers, since Kenya already had Mt. Kenya the second highest on the continent. This may just be interesting folklore but the fact that the Kenyans have a much more graphic view, makes it believable.

Kilimanjaro at 5985 meters above sea level, (almost 20,000 feet) is the tallest free standing mountain in the world and Africa's highest. It is described as a dormant volcano, although the last eruption is recorded at 150,000 to 200,00 years ago!

Anyway, back to the natural beauty of Kenya.

Thankfully, the government there is doing everything in its power to preserve its wildlife and environment for generations to come. This is a never-ending task, as poachers from all over the world are constantly trying to frustrate their efforts.

So now, all the parks which fall under Kenya Wildlife Service, are patrolled by heavily armed rangers who are not afraid to shoot to kill.

My host Denis, stands atop one of the piles of ashes

They also seize their illegal booty, which includes ivory from elephants and rhinos.

These are then burnt to take the profit out of poaching.

We actually visited one of these sites in Nairobi National Park. Here the tons of ivory are reduced to mere ashes.

Also, no one is allowed to feed the wild animals or take any dead or alive from the parks. To ensure that human carnivores are not deprived, livestock farming in quite vast there, but these farms can only operate if licensed.

A lion relaxes in Nairobi National Park

Admirably, it is not only their wildlife that they are concerned about, but indeed the entire environment. So, for example, plastic bags are no longer used and one-use plastic bottles are not allowed in any of their parks or conservancies.

They also do a lot to encourage their own citizens to enjoy the natural beauty of their country, by establishing numerous parks and forests all over and while outsiders pay large entrance fees, residents normally pay no more than about 1/10th of what the visitors do, to enter those establishments.

Wildebeests at Amboseli National Park

Kenya is a huge country of 580,367 square kilometers (224,081 square miles) with a population of 50-60 million.

To tell the truth, it was never on my bucket list to visit immediately, for as a Jamaican who descended from slaves brought from Africa, my first choice had been countries in West Africa, from whence our forefathers were kidnapped and forcefully brought to my island, Jamaica and the west in general.

However, when my Canadian friends Kelly and Denis, who are as enthralled as I am about natural beauty, started posting the breath-taking photos of Kenya and invited me to visit, wild horses couldn't stop me,

And its probably one of the best decisions I have ever made, for the parks and conservatories I visited during an all too short two week stay, defied my imagination totally.

Local Kenyans on a trek up the steep Ngong mountain

The special wildlife areas visited were; Nairobi National Park and Orphanage in the middle of the capital city; Lake Nakuru National Park which borders the city of Nakuru, the third largest city in the country; Amboseli National Park near the Maasai conversancy of Selenkay; (I have to do an entire blog on this!) Lake Elementia and Soysambu conservancy.

Incidentally, Kenyans so love our own Usain Bolt, that they actually named a cheetah in the Nairobi National Park Usain Bolt!

A bus clearly owned by a Bolt admirer

I was really fascinated that they had such a large wildlife park so close to the city, although some power now seems determined to mar the vista of that park by constructing a huge concrete rail system right through the center.

This rail system is being designed to straight through to Uganda.

Nakuru, Lake Elementia and Soysambu are all located in the famous Rift Valley, a fascinating place that I had only read about but never dreamt of being able to visit.

The huge concrete train line being constructed through Nairobi National Park

The scenery along the road to get there is lush with well laid out tea plantations, vendors' ware, forests and lots of animals roaming on the sides of the roads.

We also passed through a number of small towns which reminded me very much of scenes in Jamaica. For up front, there were huge open-air markets where vendors laid out large batches of familiar-looking fruits, vegetables and ground provisions.

Sheep and cow skins also displayed in a stall on the roadside

Once we got to the sanctuaries and parks, watching, buffalo, zebras, baboons, monkeys, rhinos, giraffes hippos, every type of antelope etc. in their own natural environment, was to die for.

To get there was a bit challenging though, for while the roads are excellent, for part of the journey, we had to maneuver between the hundreds of trucks that use a section of the that route to transport goods from Port Mombasa to Uganda and Rwanda, which are landlocked.

This looks like a scene from any Jamaican village

Kenya also has 1300 different species of birds and at the Natural History museum in Nairobi, they have stuffed displays of every single one.

We also saw quite a number of these colorful creatures in the wild, one memorable scene was seeing a daring kite bird trying to chase a juvenile eagle out of it nest!

Video of some of the scenery along the way to Nakuru.

On this trip too, I gleaned a number of fun facts about animals in the wild. A summary is below.

Some of the 1300 bird species on display at the museum

Link; https://youtu.be/W13GpOB4v9E

FUN FACTS

The white rhino is the 2nd largest land animal in the world (average 4.5 tons). It is not actually white in color but was misnamed by a South African who mispronounced 'wide' in describing how it's mouth is different from the black rhino. Despite this, the black and white rhinos do not get along!

The white rhino also performs the lengthiest sex act, much longer than zebras which are as well endowed as donkeys, but operates on the basis, slam, bam thank you maam.😂

A Denis Bullion photo

Male buffalo horns start in the center of the head while the females horns start close to the ears.

Most antelopes operate in harems with numerous females being serviced by one dominant male. However the little Dik Dik is so monogamous that it stays with its partner for life. When its mate dies, it stops eating and mopes to the point where it becomes easy prey for predators.

Many animal watering holes are made by the huge elephants wallowing in the mud during the rainy season. An elephant is also so adept at using its large trunk that it can easily pick up something as small as a blade of grass, to huge objects with it.