Although we had seen the leopard twice already, we set out to a 3rd possible area to see if we could get a better look. This time we were not so lucky, but we did come across a leopard tortoise! He was running across the road (he was surprisingly fast for a tortoise!), but when Patrick approached it on foot, he retreated into his shell. After a few seconds, he threw caution to the wind, thrust all of his limbs out of his shell and threw himself forward with all his tortoise strength, cruising for the bushes once again. Upon returning to the main road, we looked ahead to see a lone bull elephant strutting toward us. Ali told us to stop and watch from a distance, and then zoom past once he was out of the road – apparently our Subaru Legacy station wagon is not imposing enough to discourage him from charging us (whether because he felt threatened or had frustrations to get out, apparently lone bull elephants do that occasionally). It was not until we zipped by him that we saw how he towered over our small car and realized Ali knew what he was talking about.We then headed towards the ocean viewpoint, stopping on the way to photograph a majestic male sable antelope who sat in the grass, being pampered by birds eating ticks (or who knows what) from his back. The viewpoint has a nice picnic veranda, which overlooks the rolling hills as they unfold into the ocean. It was too cloudy to see the ocean clearly, but there were spots in the sky where the clouds were sharply contrasted against the sky, and other spots where they clouds blended into the canopy of the rainforest. It is quite an amazing area to visit.
We said our goodbyes to Ali and Shimba Hills ~noon and decided to pop over to the Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary, 15km away. On the way, we came across another lone bull elephant in the road. We watched him from a distance as he crossed the road and disappeared. As we sped by him (following the technique that Ali taught us earlier) we realized that he had found a water fountain and was cooling off in the spray. The large water main that runs along the road had sprung a leak and was sending a geyser of water into the air. After he wet his back and his belly, the bull elephant pressed the opening of his trunk over the hole, completely redirecting the spray into his nose so that the geyser disappeared. After he filled his trunk with water, he poured it into his mouth from his trunk. We watched him do this several times (flapping his ears in the spray in between trunk-fulls). He reminded us of a kid playing in a fire hydrant or sprinkler on a super hot day…he was amazing!
The elephant sanctuary was established as a sort of truce with the elephants. There was so much human-elephant conflict along this ancient elephant migration path that the villagers finally threw in the towel on farming and set up a sanctuary. Now, instead of planting maize, they charge entrance fees. They also have an acclaimed community project where they turn elephant dung into paper. More correctly, they make paper from magazines and newspapers, adding some boiled elephant dung and wood glue as binder. The elephant dung makes the paper too coarse to write on and therefore fairly useless. But we still bought some so I guess it “works”.
Our final stop was a restaurant just north of the Mtwapa bridge. The Moorings Restaurant is built on a series of barges, roped together and floating in the Mtwapa creek. It was quiet and shaded, a bit overpriced, but definitely a great place for a sunset drink. After one beer, you start to feel the gentle rocking of the whole restaurant and decide you never want to move. The grilled fish was so good that it helped to ease the transition from Bon Jovi’s “Bed of Roses” to Gene Autry singing “Blueberry Hill” in the background. We were so impressed with the food that we got very optimistic and ordered the iced coffee with vanilla ice cream. We were disappointed with a noxious concoction of instant coffee and ice cream made with vegetable fat instead of real dairy. Results - cold, greasy coffee.
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