3-safari photos

You would think that water buffalo and hippo would qualify as part of the "big five" considering their size, but they do not.

The water buffalo just stood there and stared at us. He (or she) never moved. Two days later we saw a herd, a large herd of them. Ugly is what I say. Lisa says that they look like the girl with the braids on the cheese package.

Kenya experienced a year-long drought until a few months ago. And then of course Anna visits and it rains. The hippos have come out of the water to forage for food. Like the water buffalo, they are big and ugly. A separate blog post will give you more in-depth info about them.

The Impala and not by Chevrolet. A beautiful animal, elegant, sleek, very fast and graceful. I got lucky with this beautiful portrait of an impala looking back over his shoulder.

Wildebeast. Ugly and plentiful. They are everywhere you turn. Lisa finds them very attractive — not. When the plane was coming in for a landing you could see roving bands of moving black blobs. Wildebeasts. We saw a movement of them as they attempted a river crossing. Something forced them back and they piled up at the top of the bluff as some were facing one way and the rest the other way. We think we saw a crocodile on the riverbank which would have been the reason for the turnaround.

The zebra are also plentiful, but they are beautiful and graceful. Nervous nellies, braying like donkeys or kind of chattering to each other. The younger ones are browner than the older ones. They mingle with the wildebeast, gazelle, impala and kopi herds, yet standing out from the crowd with those striped PJs they are always wearing.