Orphaned Baby Black Rhinos

John petting Nicky, an orphaned 13 month old Black Rhino.

John petting Nicky, an orphaned 13 month old Black Rhino.

There are 3 orphaned black rhinos on Lewa. Anne and I met two of them, Nicky and Hope. Nicky is 13 months old and blind. He is an orphan because in the wild he couldn’t see to find his mother. Hope’s mother was poached when she was a week old. Her mother’s horn was worth $35,000 USD to the poacher who killed her and had a street value of $120,000 in places like Vietnam. The third was born to a blind mother and was being picked up by the rangers the day we met Nicky and Hope but hadn’t arrived yet.

The orphans at Lewa are not kept in a cage during the day. They have two full time nannies who follow them everywhere. At night they sleep in a Boma to protect them from predators.

Nicky is the larger rhino and Hope the smaller one on the bottom left.

Nicky is the larger rhino and Hope the smaller one on the bottom left.

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An Apology to Boston

When we flew to Kenya, getting to the airport in Boston via public transportation almost made us miss our flight. Well, not to be dissuaded by our experience, we once again opted for subway and bus upon our return from Kenya to get from the airport to Pam’s house.

The harrowing tale:

Exiting the plane, Anne and I found ourselves near the front of the customs line. After a 5 minute wait and 2 minutes with the agent we headed down to baggage claim to collect our checked luggage. Baggage claim took a grueling 5 minutes. Well, somebody has to have their bags come off the carousel first, ours were third. We went to find ground transportation.

Anne, “I’m willing to get a cab.” John, “Let’s try the subway one more time.” “Okay.”

We walked through the airport to the Silver line bus stop. As we approached, the bus drove up. Boarding we were surprised to find that there was no charge to board at the airport. Leaving, the bus efficiently cruised to South Station for our switch to the subway. There we transferred, still no charge, to the Red Line. The sign read, “next train 4 min.” Six stops later we exited at Harvard Station to catch the 73 bus. The clearly marked sign directed us straight to the bus stop where the bus arrived less than 5 minutes later. Hopping on, we took the short ride to Cushing square. There we were charged the outrageous 🙂 price of $2 each. Then a short 2 block walk later we were at Pam’s house.

It was, maybe, a total of 1:15 from departing the plane, going through customs, getting our bags and traveling to Pam’s house. 45 minutes or so was the transport part. Awesome.

So, Boston, about your public transportation, when it works, as it did yesterday, it works well.

Thanks

Posting Pictures

We are going to try to add more pictures to the blog from here on out. We have added a Pictures page so we can post pictures that are not necessarily associated with a specific blog post. They won’t include a lot of text or explanation but hopefully some of you might enjoy them. The link is “Pictures” in the header.

Anne, there’s a snake in the shower!

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“So,” I ask,” Lions, rhino’s, elephants, buffalo, and leopards are all very dangerous, is there anything else that can kill you here?” Anne and I were having dinner with a film crew staying at Ngiri house like we were. Having finished another day of filming a documentary show to be aired on British ITV and on CNN in the US on September 15th, they were interviewing the six finalists for the Tusk Conservation Awards.
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The Long Trip

We left our home in Brooksville Maine at 11:03 on Thursday morning, June 6, 2013. The drive to Pam’s house in Belmont, Massachusetts (Boston) took 4 ¾ hours.  After unloading the minivan and dropping off the keys we headed to Logan airport at 4:05. Our 7:15 pm flight schedule meant we had plenty of time. “Bing Bing” Anne’s phone signaled that we had an e-mail from Delta. Our flight had been pushed forward to 6:55. Still plenty of time.
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