Saiwa Swamp is one of the smallest parks in Kenya situated about 80 kilometers from Kitale.
On a recent safari I visited the park with my friends from the company I work with. After visiting Kitale we drove to the park. It was around 12:30 and since it is a small park we were sure it would take an hour to see it.
In Saiwa there are tracks and you follow leading to the tree hide above from where you can hopefully see the rare Sitatunga antelope hidden in the long reeds. These antelopes are very shy thus they prefer to come out only at night to feed.
We arrived and we started to walk. It’s a seven kilometer track. From the raised platform we managed to see two sitatugas. We were excited and so we decided to walk around and see if we would see more sitatungas.
Somewhere along the track we lost our way which would have led us back and instead we went deeper into the forest and at this point it began to rain and we were thoroughly soaked tired and hungry. We had now reached the extreme end of the park which is fenced.
The thought of walking nine kilometers back was not exciting. Anyway we found an outlet through the fence and we crawled out. But another obstacle awaited us. We had to cross a river which had burst its banks. And all this time it was raining. We took refuge and sat in a nearby hut waiting for the rain to stop. There was not much conversation because our hosts did not speak either Swahili or English.
It was getting really late and we started walking back to the park entrance and luckily we met a boy who could speak Swahili and it seemed we had to walk the same way we had come since crossing the river was too dangerous
The whole ordeal took us five hours. We come out wet and full of mud, and tired. But now when we think of the trip we can laugh about it and boast that we did see the shy sitatunga.
ETT-Kenya Holidays Desk
Etton Travel and Tours
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