Greetings from Nairobi! After about 22½ hours of travel, our entire team AND all of our gear have made it to Kenya!
Our team, consisting of four members from the Houston Zoo & three of us from KPRC 2, were wheels up from Bush Airport at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon. After a 4½ hour layover in Amsterdam we continued on our second leg to Nairobi, which took another 8½ hours. We arrived in Kenya’s capital city on Thursday at 1:50 p.m. Houston time (9:50 p.m. in Nairobi).
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We are spending the night in Nairobi to get a few hours of sleep before we hit the road early Friday morning. That’s when we will embark on a 6-7 hour drive to the Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya.
Along with the Houston Zoo, we have been invited to the reserve to learn firsthand how the Samburu people, who are primarily herders, are coexisting with the beautiful but vulnerable and wildlife in their community. That wildlife includes just about all the animals you would expect to see in their natural habitat in Kenya: elephants, hyenas, warthogs (think Pumba from Lion King), baboons, and much more, but the stars of the show are the lions.
Yes, we will be tracking & observing the lion prides that exist in Samburu with the Ewaso Lions organization, which is a conservation group the Houston Zoo and Houstonians help support!
There aren’t many animals in the world that are more revered than the so-called king of the jungle, so I can only imagine what the first encounter with these amazing creatures will be like. But even though the lions might be the main attraction so to speak, the entire team & I are ecstatic to have the opportunity to witness all of these beautiful animals in their natural habitat.
The other stars are the Samburu people & the conservationists who have adapted in many ways to co-exist with the animal population to keep their families & their livestock safe, but also to keep these critical animal populations alive.
It will be an amazing experience, and I am extremely grateful to have this once in a lifetime opportunity to see the wildlife and see the conservation work Houstonians help make possible.
I’ll be ready to hit the road on Friday and will keep you updated on our journey here on Click2Houston.com/conservation. But first, please excuse me while I catch a few hours of sleep!
