Off to the Aberdares!

I have a busy two weeks coming up at work where it looks like I will have few days off, so we have decided to go on a 2-3 day safari to Aberdare National Park which is in a mountainous region north of Nairobi.

The park is quite different from other parks found in Kenya. It encloses two different environments: moorland, peaks and forest atop a high plateau, and an outcrop of dense rainforest known as the Salient. Because of this the park is in stark contrast to the open savannah of Amboseli, Masai Mara, and previous parks we've been to.

Aberdare National Park was formed in 1950 to protect the forested slopes and moors of the Aberdare Mountains (the 4 main peaks in the park range from 3500m to 4000m). The dominant species are elephant (which we still have yet to see in the wild) and buffalo, but there are also chances of seeing black rhinos, spotted hyenas, bongo antelope, bush pigs, and black leopards! The terrain however is a bit rough, and the roads can get quite muddy when there is a lot of rain. Because of this the park is rarely visited by safari companies, and even less by individual travelers! Of course this is very enticing to us.... (and Battlecat of course).

Here is a shot from Google Earth, with just a bit of the data from Tracks4Africa overlayed. The Rift Valley is to the east, and you can see the park (outlined in green) is all up in the lush vegetation of the hills (click to enlarge).


On top of the mammals I just mentioned there are hundreds of bird species present, and in general the park has varieties of fauna, flora, and scenery not found elsewhere in east Africa. We are especially looking forward to the Gura falls, which drop 300m down into the thick forest.

We'll be back on Thursday!

Another Video! Trip to Lake Magadi

Two videos in one day! This is just a short one from a day trip last weekend southwest of Nairobi...

Video: Trip to Kapiti Ranch

For some reason I was able to upload today from our internet connection here at the house. I actually haven't tried an upload since we've moved into the new place, so perhaps the connection is slightly more reliable? Either way, here is the clip!

New photos

Here are some random shots from the past couple of weeks. I have videos completed for our Kapiti trip and for our Lake Magadi trip but unfortunately the only computer I can upload them from isn't available till Wednesday. They should be up by Thursday!

2006 Africa - Fall misc

Navigation here just got a whole lot easier!

Navigation here in East Africa just got a whole lot easier because Google has just released a new overlay in Google Earth called Tracks4Africa. I was so excited I had to blog about it! Apparently the data layer comes from 6 years of work from the fine people at Tracks4Africa, a non-profit organization dedicated to the accurate mapping of off the road tracks and destination in Africa.

Here is an example of what I've been using to plot out routes on our GPS (here, our recent trip to Hells Gate National Park, click to enlarge):


And now adding the Tracks4Africa overlay in Google earth, you get the following (click to enlarge):


It's not just the main roads that lead to the park which are overlaid, but even the secondary, off-road, and hiking tracks! On top of that there are point of interest, national park boundaries, lodges, gas stations..... it's incredible. In the picture above, Hells Gate is at the bottom left, Lake Nakuru is on the top left, and our next destination, Aberdares National Park, is just barely visible on the right.

More on Google earth here.
And more on Tracks4Africa here.

We are proud new parents!

We are happy to announce that we are the proud new parents of a beautiful baby girl! She has a nose like her father, and the appetite of her mother.... and we couldn't be more happy. Here is a copy of the "birth certificate":


And here is a shot of our new bundle of joy:



Our good friend Emma, who is from Ireland and doing some post-doc work here at ILRI, adopted an orphaned elephant at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust here in Nairobi. It's a center where they rehabilitate baby elephants that have been orphaned in the wild. Anyhow, she invited us to visit her elephant tonight (foster parents get to come in at a special time and get to see the elephants up close and personal). As a gift she ended up adopting one for us too, and we now find ourselves parents of a baby elephant!

Her name is Galdessa, and actually the shot above isn't her, but it is one in an adjacent pen which is about 15months old or so. Ours is only 3 months so it is much smaller! It was airlifted just today from Tsavo National Park where it was found in a generator shed by one of the park staff. Since it has only arrived we didn't spend too much time with it because it is still a little spooked from the trauma of the past 24 hours. We'll have some shots of her when we go back to check on her progress in about a week or so.

As her "foster parents" we get continuous email updates about her progress. Also we get the special privilege of coming in after viewing hours and actually being able to pet her and generally spend some time getting to know her (something which you can't do during regular hours!). Anyhow, we look forward to blogging about her progress. As I mentioned, she seems to have suffered some trauma over the past while, so we hope that she settles into her new surroundings.

The link below is for the project's website, and it has some great information:

Farewell Dr Lee PhD!!

A good colleague of ours is departing back to South Korea today after a 3 month stay here at ILRI. We have enjoyed lots of good times with Lee, and just last night the three of us even survived an encounter with a corrupt Kenyan policeman that wanted to take us the courthouse on bogus charges!!! (more on that later!). Lee and I shared an office together, and he will definitely be missed! Best of luck Lee, and we'll see you at the sauna in Korea!

Off to Africa Night!

It's been a busy week. Tonight is "Africa Night" here at ILRI, and as you can see there is a strict dress code in place!

More pictures to come...

Back from Kapiti

We stayed at an ILRI-owned ranch for the weekend called 'Kapiti'. It's a fantastic old colonial house with several wings, and secret tunnels connecting them.


The area surrounding has some great wildlife, and we should have some video up soon. We had a whole lot of rain during the night, so this mornings game drive was a muddy one and Battlecat is filthy!


The drive yesterday was gorgeous. We ascended a small peak on a nice little dirt road in order to spot game down below. We headed down towards where it looked like the most animals were, and ended up having tea amongst a group of 38 giraffes! We also saw lots of zebra, gazelle, hartebeest, jackal, wildebeest, and warthog. It was a great trip, and we look forward to returning since ILRI staff get to stay there at a very reasonable rate.

We should hopefully have some video posted early this week...

Two adventures for the weekend!

We have two one grand adventures planned for the weekend. First, a day trip where we return to the Rift Valley once again to the southern-most lake in the valley called Lake Magadi (something came up at work today, so we're going to save Lake Magadi for next week!). Second, a two day trip to the ILRI-owned ranch in Kapiti. Here is a shot from Google earth that shows lake Magadi to the left, and Kapiti to the right (click to enlarge):


Lake Magadi:
During the dry season, Lake Magadi is 80% covered by soda and is well known for its wading birds, including flamingos. It is a saline, alkaline lake, approximately 100 square kilometers in size, which is made up of a dense sodium carbonate brine. In places, the salt is up to 40 m thick. The lake is recharged mainly by saline hot springs (up to about 80°C), and there is a single species of fish, a cichlid called Alcolapia grahami, that inhabits the hot, highly alkaline waters of this lake basin. The lake is featured in the film The Constant Gardener, although in the film the shots are supposed to be at Lake Turkana.

Kapiti:
We don't know too much about Kapiti, other than the fact that it's a ranch that ILRI owns and there's lots of animals there. In fact, some lions apparently got into the sheep pens not too long ago and killed quite a few of them! It's not too far away from Nairobi, and the road is good getting there. We were invited to come by some friends here at ILRI, and we couldn't pass it up!

Pictures/video to come!!!

update: We still managed to have the afternoon off today, so instead of Magadi we got some supplies at the local market. One new piece of kit that we picked up is a spotlight for our 4x4 (which is henceforth named 'Battlecat'). One of the really cool things to do when on safari is not just day trips, but also night trips because it's a whole different game at nighttime. You have to have a spotlight though, cause that's how you find animals and also identify them from afar (ie predators eyes tend to reflect a bit different colour than grazers). Anyway, where we're going tomorrow is apparently very good for night trips, so we're excited to have the new gear. It's also probably our best chance of finding lions since they're often hard to spot during the daytime cause they're hiding out from the heat. Hopefully we'll have some good video ready for posting sometime next week (I've now figured out a way to get footage from our real video camera online instead of our digital camera, so the quality should be much better!).

Our new house:
Also, here are just a few shots of our new place for those interested:

This is the view coming down the stairs into the living room & dining room:


And this looking across the dining room into the kitchen:


And this is looking up the stairs:

I Felt the Rain Down in Africa...

Hello All!

So I thought I was leaving the West Coast and its rain behind...but...I was wrong. Right now Nairobi is getting a taste of the "short rainy season" where there are huge dumps of rain all day in short or long spurts. The positive side is that it's still quite warm except at night when it can get quite cold! I know what you must be thinking, "This doesn't sound like African weather! Kenya is situated on the equator for gosh sakes!" But I assure you it rains every day and gets cold every night! My only consolation is that it will get smoking hot in December/January...temperature should rise up to about 35 degrees!

In other news, Matt and I have been upgraded to a house at ILRI! It's quite a bit larger with two bedrooms, a living room, dining room, and huge kitchen with more cabinet and counter space than I can use! I felt kind of reluctant to move in at first because it's so huge! We can hardly fill it up with our meagre possessions and I'm sure as heck not about to buy a whole bunch of stuff to fill it up with! So Matt and I are having to listen to our echoes every time we talk for the time being.

I'm hoping to visit the Masaii Market soon so we can try and find some cheap decorative things to place about the house...not to mention try and find an Africa get up that I can wear to Africa night! I'm really looking forward to it! It's an annual soiree that they have here at ILRI where everyone dresses up in African clothing and there's a night of dancing, entertainment and games! Excellent! And, even though Matt and I haven't been out safariing for a while, we're definitely still having fun meeting people and going out for meals. In fact, we went out to a restaurant yesterday where I tried Eland for the first time! It was delicious! So as you can see, life continues on in Kenya for us! We really miss everyone, though, and I can't wait to come to Mexico and see some of you! YAY!! Well, will post again soon...I promise!

Moving on up...

Well, we have no adventures to report on from the weekend unfortunately. We're thinking of getting away for a 3 day trip this weekend down towards the Tanzanian border however, so we'll keep you posted!

Saturday was another big day for me at work because I had to "harvest" my remaining tryp-infected mice in my current project which is now almost coming to a close. The project isn't quite complete, but we are at a bit of a roadblock until some additional reagents arrive from the UK at the end of the month. I'm now moving on to two new and very interesting projects. One involves looking at a correlation that has been found between trypanosome-resistant mice and their physical size. The other involves looking at several strains of congenic (mice which genetically only differ at one genetic locus) mice and analyzing their response to trypanosome-infection. Both projects involve gene expression and immunology -- which are my two primary fields of interest -- and so I'm quite excited to get started on them.

In other news, we have been 'upgraded' here at ILRI with regards to our accommodations! We're moving from our hostel room into one of the staff houses tomorrow, and we're looking forward to having lots more space (especially in the kitchen!). We'll still be on campus, and the house is actually only about 200 meters from where we're currently staying. It's a two bedroom house, so that means that anyone coming to visit gets their own room! That means you Jenn & Paul, Chris, and Chelsea (and whoever else might be coming to Nairobi)! There's a garden area in the back, a fireplace, large living room with cathedral ceiling, dining room, and a much more functional kitchen than what we're currently using.

I also spent the weekend getting more familiar with the mechanics of our new 4x4. I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the purchase so far (knock on wood), and I'm excited to get it equipped for our planned longer-term adventures. So far we already have two spare tires, tools, and an extra jack. I have to say that the GPS we brought has already got us out of a few tricky navigational situations, so it too is indispensable. I'm currently sizing up some 20 L jerry cans which will mount on either side of the spare tire on the roof rack, and we will also need a fire extinguisher (not just for fires, but lions too!) and jumper cables. The goal that we still have in mind is to make it to a park in southern Tanzania called 'Ruaha'. It is supposed to be incredible, but quite a bit more remote than some of the parks in the north of Tanzania. Still lots more research to do, but we hope it will be a go.

That's about it for now!

Video: Trip to Lake Nakuru National Park

(Sorry about the flying snakes in the video.... next time I'll make sure the lens is clean!)