Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 27 – 4/21/11

Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 27 – 4/21/11

The usual rush to get out the door, team waterfall and we left camp by 8am.  It was a slightly longer drive today into Elerai-Rupet Wildlife Sanctuary.  The bush was very dense on either side of the track in and we only saw two giraffes and a few lesser kudu the whole way.  Kipepeo was the second team dropped off with Steven as our guide and Lydia from KWS as our askari.  Daniel was not able to get us right to our starting point so we began forging our way through the grass and bush for about 600 meters.  I was compass and range finder girl today so I got to lead (yay!).  At the starting point we organized ourselves and set off eastward on our first transect.  It was not easy walking.  Thorns grabbed our clothing and the grass made the ground, and rocks, totally invisible.  Trees and shrubs made it impossible to walk a totally straight line and the sun continued to rise and get warmer.  Despite the heat and finding ticks on our pants and shoes often I enjoyed being out in front looking for animals.  A little more than a kilometer in our transect took us on top of a rocky outcrop with a great view over the sanctuary and toward Kimana far in the distance.  We were about to continue on when something caught my eye.  It was an elephant!!!  They are hard to spot because they dust themselves with the red dirt of the area which makes them practically invisible.  We recorded the elephant , noticed three giraffes browsing nearby, and I took a few pictures of the view and me standing on a rock before we continued on.  This first transect ended up being a total of two km long with 450 meter of visibility.  A short water break and we began walking our buffer to the next transect.  Just as we were about to finish our buffer and start the transect I looked up just in time to see five startled giraffes before they turned and bolted into the bush behind them.  I still can’t believe I was so focused on the compass and ground I nearly walked into 5 giraffes!  Our second transect continued through the dense bush and there was one point where Lydia pointed to a especially dense shrub/tree cluster and whispered there was an elephant behind it and that we should go around it quietly.  The rest of the transect we saw four other giraffes and no other animals.  Once we had finished this transect we took another short break and then began forging our way back to the road.  At the road we found a shady spot under a tree which actually had not thorns and made ourselves comfortable.  We enjoyed out lunch together and began picking off the prickers from our socks and pants while we waited for Daniel to come get us.  Back in the car we nearly drove past the Shem-anigans because they were sitting a little back from the road and were hidden by grass until they jumped to their feet to flag us down.  On our way back into Kimana we made a quick stop at the local “Golden Brown Cake Shop” and I got a queen cake (looks like a cupcake but not as sweet) and a piece of black forest cake.  They were good but in general a bit bland.  Our wrap up meeting took less than ten minutes and then we were free for the rest of the afternoon.  I put together my portion of the project proposal and watched a movie.  In the middle of my movie it began to pour.  It is the rainy season so this was not shocking.  What was rather different was that the sun was shining brightly to entire time.  I ran outside trying to find a rainbow but saw nothing except bright sun and got rather wet in the process.  Tomorrow we walk the other half of Elerai-Rupet and then were are finished collecting data!  This means that from tomorrow onward we will be in camp analyzing data and writing a really long paper.  However I get one more day of freedom in the bush and I plan to enjoy it fully.