Welcome to Samburu/Meibae Conservancy!

Chris, me, one of the park rangers who went out with us, Mary, and Peter in Meibae!

My recent (and way too brief) trip to Samburu National Reserve and Meibae Conservancy was great! I went up here for the purpose of looking into the possibility of also collecting poop samples here as a better control area. Because these are protected areas, there is very little threat of development, thus small, controlled human interference with cheetah populations. ACK already has a team in this area so all I have to do is train them in poop collection and help them find areas to check for fresh poops!

ACK rents camping space at the Meibae Conservancy park ranger camp. This means we share a camp site with 15+ dudes toting giant rifles, aka we are super safe. I should also mention that whenever we went out looking for poops in the bush we had a park ranger (rifle and all) out with us. The reason for this is mostly just precaution due to the lions, elephants, leopards, and buffalo in the area. The biggest threat being the elephants. The elephants have become more aggressive due to poaching problems. That being said I never saw an elephant, lion, leopard, or buffalo while we were out poop searching. Mostly we ran into dik dik, hyrax, and lots and lots of camels. Anyways, we camp under the meeting conference center roof. It's a nice little area! I should also mention our toilets were just holes in the ground. Yep. Just a little hole about 6 inches by 6 inches. Well, that's not very big, you're probably thinking. It's not. I had to get VERY good at aiming. It's an acquired skill.

Pitched our tents inside of here.

Girls' side! 

I met the three scouts: Chris, Soulh, and Moses. They are all awesome. Chris is the one I worked with the most since he is the only one who is full time at the moment. Mary and Peter had to leave us for a cheetah emergency in Samburu Reserve (more on that later), so Chris and I were left without a car for a few days. This means we hiked. A lot. Edward, a park ranger, came out with us on those days. He was super helpful and always looking on termite mounds for poops! We walked down to the river (with croc tracks!), across dry river beds (awesome!), elephant corridor (trails frequented by elephants through the bush), and on top of many many rock hills. Also it was super ridiculously hot there. Not that you guys in the States will feel sorry for me regarding this, as you have been officially frying for the past few months... but in Salama and Nairobi it is chilly, so I was quite unaccustomed to the heat. After about 4 hours out there you're about ready to collapse, or at least I was. Chris and Edward NEVER carried water and barely ate anything for breakfast and lunch. These guys are insane.

Edward and Chris leading the way through the river bed.

Beautiful sand patterns on the dry river bed.

Every night we were visited by bats (eating all the bugs attracted to the lights) and a genet cat. The genet cat became more and more ballsy and finally didn't care at all about our presence, it even licked Mary's toe! I've got a lot of pictures of it but I think this is one of my favorites...

Climbing in the rafters above the tents looking for lizards to snack on.

I would also hear it outside my tent at night munching on all the bugs crawling around. So cute.

It rained just about every night, and when it rained, it POURED. Just before or just after the rain we saw amazing sunsets (Color Games!) from camp. The camp is located at the edge of a ridge with a lot of giant rocks great for sitting on and pondering life. A day before we got to camp there was a pack of African wild dogs (say whhhaaaaa???) hanging out on those rocks and sometimes they also see elephants passing through. I didn't get to see these guys frequent the camp, but I did get to enjoy the rock ledges during sunset.

Just after it poured our second night.

Just before it poured one of the last nights.

 Samburu Reserve and Meibae Conservancy are absolutely gorgeous places. In the conservancy live the Samburu tribe. They are semi-nomadic, moving their manatas (homesteads) to follow good grazing areas (for the goats and camels)/water availibility. They wear beautiful bead works (especially the warriors). I didn't take any photos because I didn't want to be disrespectful. If you are really curious google Samburu warriors and Samburu women and you'll see some amazing bead work!

It was an amazing trip and I have a million more pictures to share but I think that will be it for this entry! I will leave you with the first and only HERD of ostriches I have ever seen or heard of. It was a male Somalian (blue necks) ostrich (down in Salama we only have Masaai ostriches - ones with the red necks) and about 26 young ostriches. He did a great job as dad protecting his young from us :)

In Samburu National Reserve