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Hemingway Adventure
Amboseli National Park, Kenya (second day)
Amboseli National Park, Kenya. Seeing game on foot is not an option for most tourists, but it was the way Hemingway preferred to do it. Thanks to my trusty escorts, Ali and Jackson, I can get safely close to flamingo and elephant.
Where there is a stretch of clear water a flock of flamingos has settled. Startled by our approach they peel off into the sky, turning in a perfect curve, wings catching the light. Jackson warns me that snakes like these lakeside conditions. He has seen pythons here and urges me to walk carefully and make heavy footfalls to warn them of my approach. That would be something, a Python killed by a python.A grazing herd of thirty Cape buffalo regards us warily. These are big animals, weighing in at around 1500 lbs and dangerous. At the back of the herd a buffalo calf is being born. The cow stays standing and as the calf drops to the ground, she turns and begins to lick it extensively and thoroughly, chewing up the placenta. The new-born calf looks around, blinking and startled as if this is the last thing it wanted to happen. Within a couple of minutes it is standing unsteadily, staggering, falling and being urged up again by the mother. Within five minutes it is standing on its own. A domestic calf would take several hours to stand unassisted, but in this hostile environment such helplessness could be fatal.
At the end of the day we climb up to a small steep bluff called Kitirua Hill. Below us the plain is streaked with vivid splashes of crimson and scarlet as columns of Masai herdsmen, driving their cattle before them, return to the boma, their encampment, before nightfall.
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PALIN'S GUIDES
- Series: Hemingway Adventure
- Chapter: Amboseli National Park, Kenya (second day)
- Country/sea: Kenya
- Place: Amboseli National Park
- Book page no: 167
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