Safari Story

Here's a great story about the safari Dustin & I just went on. We arrived at the Tsavo East Park at around 11am. The plan was to drive around looking for animals to see (Elephants, Gazelle, Impala, Zebra, etc.) until about 1pm when we'd arrive at the lodge where we would have lunch. We saw a few animals, it rained a little, and as I was standing up with my hands up in the back of the safari van with the raised rooftop getting wet from the cool raindrops and the cool breeze lacking the humidity of the coast, I realized how draining the Mombasa humidity can be and how refreshing this was.

We came to the road for our lodge, but there was a river running through it so we went the long way. Our driver was in a hurry as we were late for lunch so he sped on through the bumpy road. We were going much too fast to see anything so I continued reading my book. The nice young German couple were standing up in the front, their hair and faces becoming redder and redder with the African dust kicked up by other vans in front of us. Suddenly I hear a scream and see a small yellow thing flash in front of me and I feel a little splatter on my face. I looked to my right to see a beautiful, yet headless, yellow bird on top of my small, black N. Texas dufflebag. A small pool of blood gathering next to its missing head.

"Ahhh!" I said.

I picked up the bird's body and hung it over the side of the van. I was going to drop it, but then decided it would be best to document, thus the pictures. One of us finally said what everyone was thinking, "Where's the head?" The young German woman looked down to her feet and screamed, "Ahhh!" We all laughed a little more, took a few pictures and had a good story.