Hello Family and Friends,
Below is a tooth pick tree. No, actually it is a thorn tree, with very sharp toothpick-like thorns. Our open window bus passed very close to these trees on our way to a hiking site breaking off some of the branches and thorns into the bus and it would be extremely painful if one sat on it the wrong way.
The place we stayed at was amazing, zebras, giraffes, impalas and dik diks were sighted frequently. Since I lost my camera on the flight coming over, (actually my iPhone) I have only been able to take limited photos. But several other people have telephoto cameras so I can get excellent animal pictures from them after the trip. The third picture is an example of why I shouldn’t bother taking pictures with my iPad or the android phone that was lent to me. Can you spot the zebras?
In the second picture can you spot the elephant…dung? We know they were in this area and this is the best I could do with my iPad. Elephants and giraffes can eat the thorny tree and the thorns will pass right through their system with no harm to the animal. However, if you step on the elephant dung the thorns that were eliminated are still sharp enough to go through one’s shoe, it is better to walk around the dry dung.
For those of you that I promised a post card to, I may not be able to keep that promise, I have not seen any postcards for sale at the few shops that we stopped at, let alone being able to get to post office to mail it.
We are now at the Turkana Basin Institute, founded by Richard Leakey. It is in Turkwel, northern Kenya. We are close to the Ethiopian border. The weather is much warmer here, 86 degrees F and we are in the middle of nowhere. The landscape is very dry here, very little vegetation but lots of thorny acacia trees.
The Internet is very slow here so emails may be more sporadic, we will start the “working part” of our trip in a day or so do excavating from 8:30 in the morning until 4 or 5 in the afternoon.
Merrianne
