Baby Elephants!

Our day started off with a trip to the National Museum of Kenya.

They recently opened SNAKE PARK, which I stayed as far away from as humanly possible!

From there we stopped by a store with beadwork, carvings etc.  It was a lesson in how NOT to run a retail store.  After Deb (aka Mom) picked out 2 small beaded items and I picked out a strand of beads, we inquired as to the cost of all three items.  To which the people working at the store looked panic stricken and essentially just stood there silent.  Finally after some discussion amongst themselves in Swahili they came back with 24,000 Kenyan Shillings....$296! We walked right out the front door.  Guess I'll have to find elsewhere to buy some souvenirs!

Next stop was the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, which is dedicated to saving the lives of orphaned elephants and rhinos and ultimately releasing them back into the wild.  Infant elephants need their mothers' milk for their first two years in order to survive.    The trust spent 28 years trying to perfect a man-made formula that would mimic that of elephant mothers' milk.  As elephants very much mirror humans in their emotions, in addition to mothers' milk, they need personal relationships and family to survive.  


The Trust employs "keepers" who dedicate their lives to caring for these baby elephants 24 hours a day.


I fed SITIES, the Trust's youngest elephant @ 8  months.

A four year old blind black rhino

From David Shelrick we moved on to Giraffe Park....

After feeding elephants and giraffes, it was time to head back to the hotel to feed ourselves!

Tomorrow is a long day of travel - 2 different 1 hour flights (on small prop planes) followed by an 1.5 hour drive.  We are heading to the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania and staying at the Ngorongoro Crate Lodge.  

Gnight! xo