Captain Davis

On Wednesday, we took the day off and took a trip to a game farm just outside of Kitale, and all had a great time being touristy! It was quite funny, because the only thing that they advertised was "horse rides" but they had all sorts of sweet animals like giraffes, ostriches, gazelles, elands (large elk-ish animal) rhinos, monkeys, and a bunch of birds. I guess that to Kenyans, horses are more exciting than those. They were quite surprised when we told them that horses are not such a novelty in Canada, so we weren't interested in horse rides.

However. I rode an ostrich instead! Pretty exciting. It was one of those times in life where I just couldn't not do it. David did it first, and it looked terribly awkward and uncomfortable. But really...when will I ever have the chance to ride on the fastest land bird in the world again? I'm thinking never. So I'm glad I did it. Mostly, the people helping me just kept it to a walk, but on my second tour of the ring, they let it run a bit. It felt so weird. It's kind of a cool thing to brag about. I rode an ostrich. That's impressive. No? Yes? Maybe a good way to start conversation and make friends?

I never would have imagined that Rhinos were SO big. I couldn't even get my mind wrapped around the pure solid mass of them. They each weighed 2 tonnes. Pictures can't do justice to their size. Their names are Mike and Celina.

 

My highlight of the trip was definitely Thomas (unfortunately I didn't catch his last name, but I'd bet money it was Sanz). He was a very friendly, very tall, nine year old giraffe. I fed him molasses, and got to pet him. He had a blue tongue. Did you know that a giraffe can live to be 70 years old? Giraffes are now my new favorite animal. I have never met a creature with such a quirky personality before. I've seen so many nature videos that have footage of giraffes, but none of them could ever compare with what it feels like to have something that tall come sauntering up to you and pick molasses out of your hand!