Friday, July 11, 2008

And...the trip is over.

Here I am back in Heathrow Airport....still alive! Already I am missing Kenya, the research station, the megafauna, the microfauna, basically everything. The trip was INCREDIBLE. Life changing even. I apologize to anyone who tried to check this regularly, it was 100% impossible to access internet to update where I was. I don't have much internet time left and I have to get to my gate so I won't give many details/any pictures now. I think my plan is to update this from here on out with my journal entries and best pictures, so you can read along on a 2.5 week delay if you wish.

Here are some highlights:

Seeing a leapord on a kill....TWICE
Seeing the rarest of the rare mammals, an Aardvark.
Being harrassed and false charged by an angry female elephant.
Walking around in a downpour to watch the coordinated termite mating flight.
Finding a new genus of scorpion in Kenya.
Picking maggots off of a dead giraffe!
Finding an elephant dung beetle.
Spotting a lion stalking at night.
Watching bush babies jump around in the trees in camp.
Making smores at 11:30 AM on the equator while everyone else did work.
Buying Samburu weapons from the camp staff.
Nearly breaking my hand trying to help catch a lizard.
Finding driver ants and making them hiss.
Finding insects I couldn't even identify to order.
Being woken up in the middle of the night by animal calls.
Being REALLY SCARED in the middle of the night because of the animal calls.
Seeing almost 50 species of large charismatic mammals.
Having my own bird list...and completeing it.
Crossing the equator, twice.
Giving a presentation on Hyraxes on 'Happy Hyrax Rock'

I guess the list could go on and on. Pictures will start in the next few days. GOTTA CATCH A PLANE!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So the question you've been waiting for- is it possible to check a blog a 1,000 times in 19 days? Yes! Glad the trip was incredible.

Unknown said...

After a while, I figured that you'd either been eaten by something or that there was no internet access....

I'm glad you had a great time and I'm looking forward to hearing more about it. Finding a new genus of scorpion in the area must have been exciting! I wonder what it is....

Anonymous said...

Hi Eric,

Im sad I didnt catch you while you were in Kenya. Ill be back to check up on your scorpion finds, as I am very interested in what you found where. I can also give you a list of what I have found in Mombasa, Tsavo, Baringo and Kabernet.

Cheers, Ib
Ib att home dott no

Anonymous said...

??? pictures ????? Pleeeease ??????

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