[Kenya] Samburu

The first game reserve we visited in Kenya was Samburu. It is located about 7 hours  north of Nairobi.

Female Somali ostrich in Samburu

I thought I didn't know anything about Samburu up until we got there. When we entered the main gate of the Samburu National Reserve (which is painted to resemble the spots of a reticulated giraffe)...

Entrance to the Samburu National Reserve

...there was a small sign commemorating Elsa, an orphaned lioness who was raised by George and Joy Adamson before eventually being released back into the wild. I read about Elsa when I was a kid. This lioness gained a lot of popularity because the movie "Born Free" was made about her story and the song "Born Free" by Matt Monro was actually written for the film. Samburu is one of two places where Elsa was raised and the small memorial at the entrance indicates how Elsa helped safeguard this game reserve, probably because her popularity helped Samburu gain more financial support. I took a photo of this memorial before realizing that there was another sign next to it that talked about Kamunyak, a lioness who became famous for adopting a baby oryx. (One of the staff members of the Samburu Sopa Lodge where we stayed told of us this story and said there was a sign at the Samburu gate about it and that's when I realized I had a photo of it.)

Memorial for Elsa and Kamunyak at the Samburu entrance

Arguably the most beautiful and elegant animal we saw during our safari was the reticulated giraffe. We saw so many of them during our Samburu game drives. Apparently, there are several different giraffe subspecies, and it was only in Samburu that we saw this particular one.

Reticulated giraffe

We also saw several other animals here that we didn't see elsewhere such as the rare and endangered Grevy's zebra, which is the largest wild equid and can be distinguished from the plains zebra by its tigher stripes...

Grevy's zebra

...and the rare and near-threatened striped hyena. I continue to be amazed at how our guide Zachary saw it. The sun had set, it was dark and we were on our way back to the Lodge. As we were driving along the dirt path, Zachary stopped, looked behind the jeep, and pointed to the hyena behind some bushes and quite some distance away from us. Considering how dark it was and how even when he was pointing it out to us, it was still tough to see, it blows my mind that Zachary actually spotted it while driving! I'm really happy that the striped hyena walked a bit closer to us and crossed the dirt road because it gave us a chance to take a better photo.

Striped hyena

A few more animals that we also got to see only in Samburu were the gerenuk, or giraffe gazelle, which is called as such because of its long and slender neck,

Gerenuk or giraffe gazelle

the Beisa oryx which is known for having beautifully long and straight horns,

Beisa oryxes

the dik-dik, which is one of the smallest antelopes in Africa (I previously thought it was the smallest but apparently, it isn't; the royal antelope is),

Dik-diks

and the superb starling with its beautiful plumage. (That said, I can't be sure if we also saw it elsewhere but it's only in Samburu that we got to recognize it, see it upclose, and take a photo of it.)

Superb starling

Of course, we also saw many other animals here, including ostriches,

Male Somali ostrich

impalas,

Impalas

Thomson's gazelles

Thomson's gazelles

a black-backed jackal,

black-backed jackal

warthogs,

warthogs

and baboons. (Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if we actually saw baboons in the other game reserves so we might have seen them only in Samburu. And boy were there a lot of them!)

Baboon

What I also really love about Samburu is its landscape. There are lots of trees and vegetation set against mountains and hills.

Samburu landscape

We also got to see the Ewaso Ng'iro river.

Ewaso Ng'iro river

We spent a day and a half (and two nights) in Samburu before departing for Lake Nakuru. On our second night, Zachary told us that there was a threat of roads being blocked the next day due to a nationwide protest and he recommended that we leave very early. Samburu Sopa Lodge prepared packed breakfast for us and we left at around 6am. Before we left the reserve, we got to see a beautiful sunrise.

Sunrise in Samburu

I'm not sure if I know anyone who has been to Samburu but I'm glad we got to go on safari here because it was absolutely magnificent.

Next: Lake Nakuru