Friday, December 5, 2008

A Walk in The Woods

The mosquitoes may have been bad but with what we saw it was well worth the the bug dope. The sights were amazing on the “chameleon walk” with us seeing massive grasshoppers the size of our hands and little tree frogs hidden so well beneath the leaves but best of all was the chameleons!! They came in all shapes and sizes with the colors sadly staying the same but people say that it takes a good while for the color to change.
A group of us meet at the Amani headquarters at about 8:30. Dad , Sy and I. Alex , Emily and the two Irish girls who had just finished teaching at Holy Family Primary School. The seven of us had high hopes for this walk and we were ready to see sights that made the $30 entry fee worth while (We only had to pay 5000 shillings or $5 because of our residence permits but the Irish girls had to pay full). We meet our two guides who know this stuff like the back of there and which makes us all walk a little easier. All of us “Americanized” folk with our 6 bulb super LED lamp and them with a light hardly right at all and they are the ones who can find these magical beasts.
We, sorry The Guides, spot the first Chameleon. A pigmy chameleon standing very still on a branch. We found out that once something a whole lot bigger then them approaches them their only tactic for survival si to stand very still and not move. This one was very small and its eyes ooo it eyes were very cool. They are almost a little eye on the end of a funnel they are very neat to look in close at.
With these creatures standing amazingly still it made it quite easy to get in close and “check them out.” The guides would even break off the stick that they were on to bring it close for us to see and then out it back very gently. It was very good we had these guides because first of all we would not have known our way and wouldn’t have had a clue what to look for and these guys knew.
Now it is back to the campsite for a nice long sleep because I can tell we are all so tired but again it was well worth it.
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