Skip to main content

Travel for Two

The travel blog is baaaaaack! But with a big change from the last time I was keeping it updated... now it's for me and Toby! Cue the cute photo.



We're leaving for nearly two months in Kenya tomorrow. Bags are packed. Electronic devices are charged. Checklists are completed. Malarone (anti-malarial medication) is started. I guess that means we're ready...? (gulp)

Here's our basic itinerary, with a map: We'll be in Nairobi (purple dot) for about 2.5 weeks, while I do research on fossils from an archaeological site called Olorgesailie - I've been working on this project for quite a while! Then we'll spend a few days in Baringo District in a town called Mogotio (red dot) where I'll be helping to facilitate a 1.5 day workshop on evolution for Kenyan high school biology teachers. We'll drive back to Nairobi, then leave the next day for Ol Pejeta Conservancy (blue dot) for about a month of fieldwork studying the bones of modern animals.


I'll try to post updates every few days.

See you on the other side!

Briana

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

bones and animals

Fire and I left Nairobi at about 9:45 am yesterday and drove to Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where we're doing pilot work for what we hope will be a long term study. Our project is called BONES (it took a long time to think of that cool an acronym!): Bones of Ol Pejeta, Neotaphonomic and Ecological Survey. We have several interesting research questions which we hope to answer using a study of bones scattered across the landscape of this conservation area. One of them is this: paleontologists and archaeologists dig up fossils, and we use these fossils to reconstruct animal communities and ancient habitats. For instance, if we find 50% grassland adapted animals and 25% forest adapted animals and 25% woodland adapted animals, we use this information to look at the animal community, and reconstruct the vegetaiton. When we do this, we assume that the types of animals we find as fossils are preserved in the same proportions as in the living community they came from. But is this the case? We ca...

a shout-out to Solomon

I just want to give a shout-out to our armed guard this year, Solomon (he's the one on the left in this 2011 research team photo). We've worked with a different guard each time we've been here and they've all been great. Solomon has a particularly good sense of humor with a great laugh; keen eyes that can see elephants from a few hundred meters away as well as bones seemingly hidden in the grass; and is always patient as we ask him questions about animal behavior and footprints while we're tromping around the bush. Thanks for keeping us safe out there, Solomon!