AFRICA's iconic acacia tree.

Our first stop (after Nairobi) was Samburu National Park. This is the Samburu River.

Reticulated giraffe, Samburu Park, Kenya. One of the Samburu 5: Somali ostrich, geneluk, Grebe's zebra, and Oryx

Up close

Lots of elephant at Samburu

All sizes of elephant

Genluk, the giraffe-necked gazelle, at Samburu

Geneluk get all the water they need from their food.

Cheetah, Samburu

Cheetah

Another cheetah at Samburu

Cheetah

We could have watched the baboons all day.

A baboon patriarch.

Adult and adolescent

A whole troop of baboons.

Young baboon and a younger friend.

Baboon mother and very young child.

Zebra and Grant's gazelles, Samburu

A pair of gazelles.

Warthogs, Samburu

Oryx, Samburu

Cape (not water) buffalo, Samburu

A buffalo up close

Our first leopard, Samburu

What a beautiful coat.

Four elephant at the river, Samburu

An African elephant, Samburu

Samburu elephant

Our lodge on Mt. Kenya was around a watering hole/salt lick.

Water buck at the watering hole/salt lick at Mt. Kenya

Water buck up close.

Young waterbuck playfighting.

Young buffalo doing the same.

Waterbuck wading right in to eat something at the waterhole.

Zebra and flamingo at the next stop, Lake Nakuru

Water buck, Lake Nakuru

A male and female lion with their kill, Lake Nakuru

I guess she was full.

Umm, that felt good.

A rare white rhinonocerous, Lake Nakuru

White rhino, mother and baby, Lake Nakuru

An eland, the largest antelope, Lake Nakuru

Eland

Rothchild giraffe, Lake Nakuru area

Male Thompson's gazelle, Lake Nakuru

Jackal, Lake Nakuru

Wildebeest, Lake Nakuru

Zebra, Lake Nakuru

Wildebeest, Lake Nakuru

This was our next stop--it is the Kenyan part of the Serengeti.

The Masai Mara.

Wildebeest, Masai Mara

Baby's hungry.

Ain't he cute?

Up close and personal with an elephant

REALLY close up.

And even closer.

Masai giraffe

Masai giraffe -- doesn't it look like a “push-me pull-you”?

Grant's gazelles, Masai Mara

Grant's gazelles

Black back jackal.

Two male impalas.

An elephant in the Owaso River.

We got THIS close to the elephant.

A baby elephant

More elephants.

An elephant knee deep in a swamp...and the oxpickers that eat the parasites on him.

Bat eared foxes.

A Masai cow

Masai calves

Majestic!

Mother lion and child, Masai Mara

Cape buffalo, Masai Mara

Up close with a Cape buffalo, Masai Mara

Up closer

The buffalo got tired of watching the lion watch them and charged the lion, who scattered like scared little kitties.

Masai giraffe on the Masai Mara.

Mother and baby.

Baby zebra

Colobus monkeys, Trout Tree Restaurant, Kenya

Another Colobus

Our last stop in Kenya

Dust devils, Amboseli Park

The spotted hyena.

Everybody together (wildebeest, giraffe, zebra)

Rothchild giraffe

Another elephant...

He got THIS close...

The Rift Valley--on the way to the Ngorogoro Crater in Tanzania.

The Crater

Baobab tree, on the way to Ngorogoro Crater

Our Toyota Land Cruiser, transport in Tanzania.

Hippo at the Crater

LOTS of hippo

Hippo up close (or as close as I care to get)

Hippo on a roll...

A pride of lion, Ngorogoro Crater

Masai herders in the crater

Jackal

Elephant at the Crater

Baboon with a death wish - they don't move until the vehicle almost hits them.

A common sight--zebra and wildebeest together.

We stopped at Olduvai Gorge (correctly spelled Oldupai) where Mary Leakey discovered the remains of earliest man.

Olduvai.

The famous Serengeti, Tanzania

A kopje (rock outcropping), Serengeti

Kopje and euphorbia tree, Serengeti

Kopje on the Serengeti

Closeup of the Gong Rocks.

The Serengeti Plain, Tanzania

Baby elephant, Serengeti

Cape buffalo, Serengeti

Kongori or hartbeest, Serengeti

Giraffe.

Lions on the Serengeti--could we get any closer?

Regal lions.

On the move.

Nap time.

Lionesses hunting, Serengeti

Lion on the move.

Lioness with a kill.

We were really close to the lion here.

A kopi (antelope)

Another view of the kopi.

Topi, large antelope, at the Masai Mara

A topi, Serengeti

That's a Nile crocodile

Cheetah.

This beautiful cheetah was sitting right by the road, Serengeti.

Gorgeous.

Noble.

Our last stop....

Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania

Hippo and zebra, Lake Manyara

Baboon, giraffe, and impala, Lake Manyara

A giraffe, up close and personal, Lake Manyara

Baby giraffe, Lake Manyara

An impala.

Baboon grooming, Lake Manyara

Baboon grooming.

Even baboons get thirsty.

Baby baboon and mommy, Lake Manyara

The rest of the troop

This baby baboon was watching from a very high perch.

Vervet monkey, Lake Manyara

Vervet monkey mother and infant.

Vervet monkeys at one of the lodges

Ooo....that tickles.

Nothing goes to waste with monkeys around.

Male and female ostrich, zebra, and wildebeest

Male ostrich, Masai Mara--the first of many birds

Female ostrich, Lake Nakuru

Crested cranes, the Crater

Guinea fowl

Guinea fowl, Serengeti

A secretary bird, Samburu

Egyptian vulture, Masai Mara

White backed vulture, Masai Mara

An oxpicker on an elephant

Oxpicker bird on the back of a buffalo

Oxpicker birds on a giraffe--a mutually beneficial relationship.

Maribou stork, Lake Nakuru

Maribou storks in the trees near Lake Nakuru

Lesser and Greater Flamingos, Lake Nakuru -- there were thousands of them.

They're almost like ballet dancers.

Pink backed pelicans, Lake Nakuru

Egrets, Lake Nakuru

Egrets, Ngorogoro

Heron, Ngorogoro

Sacred Ibis

Saddle-billed stork, Serengeti

Starling, on the Serengeti

Weaver bird

Weaver bird nests

African fish eagle, Lake Manyara

And finally, a herd of the dreaded safari vehicles.

We stayed in all sorts of places. We started at the Nairobi Hilton.

Our first stop, almost exactly on the equator

Our room, complete with mosquito nets (tho we didn't really need them), Samburu

Our lodge at the Masai Mara.

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On the grounds at the lodge at Lake Nakuru

Our room at Lake Nakuru.

Around the lodge grounds

The last of the Kenyan lodges.

The view from our room, Amboseli

We saw two native villages. This was our guide at the first, a Samburu-Torkana village near Samburu.

The women sang and danced for us.

The Samburu women wore many beaded necklaces

A Samburu woman and her bead craft

Entrance to a Samburu home (made of sticks and cow dung)

Making fire the Samburu way

A young Samburu

Samburu mother and child

A Samburu beauty

The Tokana women sernaded us too.

The Tokana women wore LOTS of beaded necklaces.

The Masai village

Dancers at the Masai village, greeting us

Masai dwellings

Masai dwelling under construction

Welcome! (note the door is open)

Masai warrior and his “horn”

Masai women greeting us.

Masai women

A future warrior.

The Masai were faster and fire making.

Masai children and their babysitter

The kids

Tanning a hide at the Masai village

Inside a Masai home

The inhabitants.

Kikuyu dancers at the Falls.

The whole gang. L to R: Judy, Steve, Pat and Ed Donnelly, and Kathlleen Carroll.

A monument in Arusha, Tanzania, marks the halfway point between Cairo and Cape Town

The home of Karen Blixen, near Nairobi, Kenya. She wrote Out of Africa as Isak Dinesen.

Part of the beautiful garden.

A palm tree in the garden.

A sausage tree - you can produce beer from its fruit.

Nyahururu (Thompson) Falls, on the way to Lake Nakuru. They are 240 feet high.

Acacia trees--very African.

Along the road, Kenya

More scenery along the road

A rural school in Kenya.

A typical roadside tourist trap. We stopped at many of them because they had decent toilets.

A wedding in rural Kenya

Market day in Kenya

More roadside vendors in Kenya

A clothing “store” in rural Kenya

Kenyan shops

A Kenyan village.

A Kenyan village.

A more prosperous Kenyan rural town.

Wheat fields in Kenya

Euphorbia tree, seen all over Kenya

Camels were imported as pack animals, Kenya

A young camel.

A common sight along the road--an overloaded donkey.

Shoe store, Tanzania

Africa's highest mountain, snow-coverd Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania--from the airplane.

Twilight on the Serengeti.

Twilight in Kenya

Sunset in Kenya

Sunset on the Masai Mara

Sunset on the Serengeti