Pictures in Kenya

Africa

Back in Nariobi after an amazing time out in the bush monitoring the black rhino and many other things and animals as well! Kenya is the end of the rainbow.  The people are so kind and very welcoming and so soft spoken and mellow.  My first couple days in Nariobi and now again staying at a beautiful hotel, the Fairview.  It is like paradise here, the grounds are lush and you have no idea you are in the middle of a bustling city.  I leave for Uganda tomorrow, Aug. 10th and will be gone a week.  Three days in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to see the Silverback gorillas and then off for a couple days to ride the rapids of the River Nile :>)   After that the Masai Mara to see the migration of the wildebeest and maybe then Tanzania to see Mt. Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar.
On the first day of our expedition and we entered Ol Pajeta conservancy and within our first minute we spot a giraffe and she is following a lion!!  Then the lion stops at the side of the road and we pull up and take her picture.  From there on it was one amazing sighting after another with the animals.  We saw all but the leopard.   I'm good with that, hung out with jaguars in Brazil, lol. To name a few on the animals we saw, gazelles, Impalas, Waterbucks, Cape buffalo, Rhino's, elephants, giraffes, jackals, hyenas (yeah), elands, hippos, zebras and much more.  There is nothing more magnificant than seeing a herd of giraffes run across the land with Mt Kenya in the background.  I love the savahanna at dawn!  But the most precious gift we were given when we took of one morning and a pack of wild dogs walk out onto the road up a head of us and wait!  We stopped and stared at one another for a short bit and then they decided to investigate and a couple of them came up to the jeep, one wagging it's tail!!  They were so beautiful, some tortise shell color and of course their round ears.  Our director who has been at this site for over 10 years told us he has never seen wild dogs before and our driver who has lived here said it was his second sighting in 17 years!!!  A rare gift indeed :0)  Unfortunately this means they near extinction like so many other animals here.  There are 7 white rhinos left in the world and 4 of them are in Ol Pajeta.  The black rhino population is slowing growing but poaching is still a serious problem.  There are 85 black rhinos here and I think a total of 200 in the world.  In the 1970's there were 20,000!  It is a sensitive balance balance between the rhinos, elephants and giraffes as they eat the same tree, the acacias.  The elephants break down many of the trees or bend them over and cause damage, the giraffes and baboons like the flowering buds so then not enough trees can seed.
It is winter here and the days are like warm fall days and the evenings cool.  Also windy most of our days on the expedition.  There went my Greece tan! Thank you once again for all of your on going prayers and support, I REALLY APPRECIATE IT!
Jungle Jan

Vonitsa, Greece, on the expedition

The Dolphins

Holly Tolledo!!!!  OMG!!!! Today with the dolphins is one for the records, even for my expedition leader.  He said he has not experienced anything like this in a long time.  We were surrounded by 100 dolphins!!!!!!!!  Amazing, awesome, magnificent, breathtaking, exhilerating :>)  We witnessed easily 50 of them in a 50 meter area and the rest anywhere over 300 meters.  They were incredibly frisky today, being very social, playful displays of back flips, breaching (not completly out of the water then slapping down on the water), rolling over,  bow riding, catching sardines by scouping them up with their chest and fins, scouting ( coming out of the water so they can look you over from the side), I'm certain one winked at me! Ha! For 4 hours we were allowed into the home of the dolphins, which we documented all the while. We saw a few sets of mothers with juveniles.  The ages are newborn, calf, juvenile and adult.  We are learning much of course and sadly the serious enviornmental hazards resulting in the decline of all sea life.  Like how much of the water is deoxygenated now.  Today we also witnessed a malformed calf which will more than likely not make it past a week from now.  It was sad to see this beautiful mammal but have a bulbous head and would have to rest on the water.  Literally is would be still and just bobble on top of the water for 30 seconds or so after swimming with its mother for a few minutes :>(  Dolphins mourn and Joan (procnounced John), my expedition leader is writting a paper on this behavior.  He has gathered data that proves a female's first born will not survive due to all the toxins that have been absorbed and held in the fatty tissue from her juvenile years to her first off spring.  They have many tissue samples that support this theory as well.  There are approximately 150 dolphins in the bay here and 100 of them we got to engage with in one way or another.  Thank you universe!  A vida e bella!!

changing of the gaurd, Athens, cruising around the islands, Onasis' island

Athens

Arrived in Athens July 8th.  The weather very hot and humid.  It was very fasinating and would love to have had another day or two to see more museums.  Met many people with staying at the hostel which I highly recommend how to travel no matter what your age. I was told by a young nurse from Australia that they are desperate for nurses so that is an idea for down the road :>)  Took a walking tour which was very informative. Saw most of the changing of the gaurds....until the masses stood in front of me!  I can google it to see the rest, ha!  Met some women on this tour who were from the Iguacu Falls so got to hear some Portuguese which I miss......A vida e bella!  It was great to be able to share with them my experience there and vise versa.  In Greece it is mandatory for a male that you spend one year in the service as a duty, meaning no pay, but you get clothed and feed. But really it is not much of a training...only ten days.  So you know whose butt it would be easy to kick.....a far cry from centuries ago!

Athens