Safari Pictures

The red clay roads go for miles in every direction.

On Monday we spent the entire day on a safari to the Tsavo East National Park in southern Kenya. To get there we drove about 2 1/2 hours from Mombasa. The park itself is larger than the entire country of Wales.

This lion lies camouflaged in the grass.

The park is home to over 26,000 elephants.

These warthogs had just finished frolicking in a mud hole.

Our genial guide Archie is also a member of Word of Life Fellowship Church. As a professional tour guide, he knows the many red dirt roads that crisscross the vast national park. He promised us that we would not be disappointed–and we weren’t. 

These tiny deer, called dik-dik, are fully grown.

This giraffe didn’t have to stretch to eat lunch.

This mama lion walked right next to our van.

Our team took well over 400 pictures. Here we present some of the best. Take it from us. If you ever come to Kenya, you must take a safari and see this for yourself. It’s better than anything you’ve seen on TV or any articles you’ve read in National Geographic. But be forewarned. A day is just enough to get started. You could easily spend three or four days traveling the many back roads. 

Time for the elephants to go for their afternoon swim.

These tiny dung beetles worked together to roll a ball of dung across the road.

The impalas stood perfectly still as if posing for a picture.

These pictures give you a slight taste of our safari. We saw elephants everywhere–there are over 26,000 in the park. Every few seconds Archie would pull over so we could see hippos or a brightly colored starling or egrets by a pond or a species of deer we never knew existed or a pride of lions resting almost invisibly in the grass. He even stopped once so we could watch two dung beetles work in perfect tandem to roll a ball of dung across the road.

The big elephants make sure that junior is well protected.

We stopped to watch this magnificent zebra cross the road.

This seemed like a very typical African scene.

We saw a tree full of baboons, two beautiful ostriches, a band of mongooses gathered around a snake hole, and when we stopped for lunch at a lodge, we saw a sign that read, “Do not feed the baboons.”

As we left the park, this line of elephants seemed to say The End.

All in all, it was a wonderful day spent seeing one of the most spectacular parts of God’s creation anywhere on earth.