Mombasa and Tsavo East National Park, Kenya

We left Mombasa very early for the two hour drive to Tsavo East National Park, so we didn't see any of the old  buildings in the old town left from the early British colonial days. The drive was on a paved two lane road with fairly heavy traffic and frequent potholes to slow us down. There were many   crowded villages with makeshift structures along the road.  Since the large cargo seaport in Mombasa supplies several African countries there were also a lot of trucks hauling cargo containers on the road. 

Typical structures by the road.

 Tsavo East National Park spans 8,035 square miles. The vegetation is savannah grassland with thorny bushes, and some swampy marshland near the Voi River, with some scattered trees. The soil is very red, and the dirt roads in the park are  are quite dusty. At the end of our game drive in open air vehicles we were all covered in red dust! 


Our driver loved to follow too closely to the other vans and cover us in their red dust!

We saw a good variety of animals including elephant, giraffe, zebra, antelope, gazelle, monkeys  and several variety of birds including ostrich,  secretary bird and weaver bird.

This was the only time that we saw zebra, elephant and a giraffe (in the background) all together.

A family of giraffes.


The elephant herd was actually much larger than I could get in the picture.


The elephants love to roll in the dust, so look very red from a distance. Very cute baby!


A male gazelle. The female has no horns.


Not sure of this fellow's name.

An ostrich hiding in the bushes.

The secretary bird is about 3-4 feet tall.


The male weaver bird makes several nests like the one above. The female then chooses which one she prefers. This bush was covered in very tidy round nests.

Our drive was in the middle of the day, so we were lucky to spot a lion sleeping under a tree. The best time to see predators is at dawn or dusk when it is cooler and they are more likely to be hunting.


The  sleepy lion. He was very close to the road and paid no attention to several vans of people who came to take pictures.

















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