Africa Day 1 (okay, so really day 2)

So I am in the middle of the process of uploading all of our pictures...we took like 2,000...this is a very intimidating process, not to mention the fact that it takes FOREVER!!! But there are a few people who I think will strangle me if I don't post at least a few pictures, so I'll write a little bit about our first few days in Africa.

So after our first day of picture taking in Kenya, Bart was playing around with his camera, and ended up re-formatting his memory card, so we lost all of the pictures from the first day. Fortunately there was only one thing we saw on the first day that we didn't see for the rest of the trip: The Black Rhino. So oh well, c'est la vie. You will have to take our word for it that we saw the black rhino. Bart also got some really cool bird pictures that we lost...so picture some really cool black rhino and bird pictures and insert them here.

We started off our trip at the Lake Nakuru National Park. We stayed at the Lake Nakuru Lodge. It was really cool. It overlooked this watering hole where tons of animals came to get water. So as we were eating dinner and breakfast, we watched the water buffalo, baboons, and impalas walking to and from the hole.

The second day was the really cool day. On our way into the park from the lodge, we saw a leopard eating a water buffalo! Now leopards are solitary animals that like to rest in trees, so it's extremely rare to see them at all. In addition, the water buffalo is too large for a leopard to kill, so this leopard was scavenging! Our guide said he had never seen a leopard scavenge before. It was awesome! I got some great video too, but you'll have to wait for that.

The leopard finished his meal, walked away from the water buffalo to a comfortable spot, and started cleaning himself, just like a cat! When he was done, he got up and crossed the road right in front of us.

When he got to the other side, this jackal came up and started barking at him. It was as if the jackal had been watching the leopard from his safe hiding place while the leopard was eating the water buffalo thinking, "Hey, that's my water buffalo! You're not a scavenger, why are you eating my food?!?" Then, when he saw that the leopard was done eating, he figured he was safe now and came out to say, "Yeah, that's right, just walk away, don't even think about coming back." The leopard didn't even give the jackal the dignity of acknowledging it's presence. It just walked away as if the jackal wasn't even there. It was so crazy!

Okay, there is my story for today. I will post more soon.