Monday, May 9, 2011

Couples Conference to the Maasi Mara on Mom's Birthday

On the 19-22 of April we held our Semi-Annual Senior Couple's Conference at the Maasi Mara. Karen's birthday is the 19th. What a way to spend your birthday! There were nine couples in attendance. A special treat for us was that Elder and Sister Harms were visiting from South Africa doing some Public Affairs training in Nairobi. And it worked out so that they were able to join us. The Harms are dear friends from Arizona. He was our Stake President when we lived in Apache Junction. They are on their second mission here in Africa. Their first mission was to Cape Town South Africa, as Public Affairs directors. After only being home for 3 months they agreed to come back and serve in the Area Office in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the Public Affairs Office there.

On one of the few times that we were allowed out of our vehicles during our game drive, we posed for this picture in front of a river full of hippos with our friends the Harms.

We came across this lone hippo grazing quite a distance from the river. Usually they do not leave the water during daylight hours. You can see he had a couple puncture wounds on his neck. Our guide guessed that he was out of the water to give them time to heal. Notice the little bird attached to the side of his belly.

What a stoic pose. Just a few minutes after this image was taken, this Cheetah stretched herself and started stalking an Impala she had noticed about 200 meters away. The Impala saw her in time to escape and to live another day.

This was the most exciting spotting of the safari for us because this is the first Leopard we have ever seen since being in Africa. They are one of the most allusive of all of the big cats because they are most active at night and very early in the morning. This image was taken about 6:30 AM on our second day. We went on to see two more Leopards that morning! I have almost 100 pictures just of these three guys.

This is our group just after we had eaten our lunch overlooking the savannah of the Mara. This was only the second time when we were allowed out of the vehicles.

No comments: