Lunch in a treehouse

We (me, Toby, Ella, and my colleagues Fire and Kari) finally drove north to Ol Pejeta Conservancy on Sunday, July 29! I have been doing research at Ol Pejeta since 2002, and Fire and I have been working there together since 2007. Kari is a Finnish ecologist who works with Fire and who we have invited onto our project.

Fire and I have a tradition of stopping for lunch at the Trout Tree Restaurant which is about a 3 hour drive from Nairobi, very close to Nanyuki, the town where the turn off to Ol Pejeta is. The Trout Tree Restaurant is built in an enormous Fig Tree along the Burguret River, below Mount Kenya, and trout is farmed and cooked there. We had a really nice leisurely late lunch (including fresh trout for the non-vegetarians) as it rained a little bit, and then got on our way to Ol Pejeta.

Fire, Toby and me

Toby was totally captivated by the trout ponds

Toby at the entrance to the restaurant

A good view of the tree that the restaurant was built around

Trout farmers

Ella, Toby, and Fire enjoying the enormous slices of chocolate cake we got for dessert

Toby found a playground I didn't even know was there

Toby enjoyed climbing on the playground

There are black and white colobus monkeys that hang around the restaurant

Toby feeding geese at the restaurant

Comments

D minus a week and a day

I'm leaving for my annual migration to Kenya soon, just like the wildebeest.... well, only there's a few million less of me than there are of them. Also, I'd like to think I run in a few less circles than they do, given that they spend their year basically making a big circle between Kenya and Tanzania in the Serengeti/Mara ecosystem (though that's debatable!). I'm going through my usual 'I'm leaving soon' routine: getting together with friends who want to spend a little time before I leave for a few months; making sure I can take care of all my (as my fab friend Fire calls it) "personal admin" online while I'm gone - banking, paying utilities, etc.; adding things to the duffel bag I keep stocked during the rest of the year with my 'going to Kenya' things. It's always hectic, and no matter how well I plan - and those of you who know me know I plan! - there's always a lot to do at the last minute. So it's D (departure) mi

moonshine (the celestial kind)

I was going to write about our excavations, but I had to change topics after the spectacular moonrise we had this evening. It's a full moon tonight (or nearly so), and early this evening this soft glowing orange orb was visible just above the horizon after sunset, rising ever higher, and becoming ever brighter, into the starry night sky. There is nothing like watching a moonrise in the African bush. I would have taken a picture of it after it rose, but I don't have the photographic expertise - here's one I took of the full moonrise last year. Last night, the moon was so bright that when I got up in the middle of the night to pee (a sign I'm keeping well hydrated!), it was casting shadows everywhere, and I didn't even need my flashlight. It's perfectly gorgeous. The moon isn't the only gorgeous thing here - beauty can be found growing delicately among the rocks, or singing a song in the trees, in the form of a colorful red and yellow barbet.

the proposal

Well I was going to start at the beginning of Peter's visit to Kenya, and build up the anticipation and waiting, but several of my friends have clamored for me to tell them about the proposal. So here it is...! After this, I'll go back to the beginning of Peter's visit, and go forward from there. It was a dark and stormy night. Just kidding! But actually, it was a dark and stormy afternoon. Earlier that day, we had taken a dhow trip; a dhow is a traditional Swahili fishing boat, and taking day-long dhow trips is one of the more common ways to spend a day in Lamu. Here's a picture of a smaller dhow, named Hakuna Matata (yes that really does mean no problems in Kiswahili and people really do say it), which I venture to think had a bit of a matata since it was grounded in the sand and looked relatively unused. But let me back up just briefly... Peter had been visiting me in Kenya for about a week at that point. We'd spent several days in the excavation camp, which I wi

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