Aug 30, 2006 7:00 pm US/Central
Obama Goes On Safari In Kenya
Takes Two Daugthers Along For Walk On The Wild Side
by Mike Flannery
KENYA (CBS) ―
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U.S. Sen. Barack Obama On Safari In Kenya on Aug. 30, 2006
CBS
U.S. Sen.
Barack Obama left the political world behind for a trip to the real wild side.
Wednesday, he went on safari on the plains of Africa.
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery and photographer Marcus Richardson were right there with him, and captured some amazing scenes.
Moments after a lion killed a wildebeest on the vast
Masai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya, Barack Obama and his family arrived to observe.
Freelance cinematographer
Amy Rice replayed for the senator the dramatic footage she shot of the actual kill.
"You don't see the actual kill too often," Obama said. "It's a little gruesome. Everybody's got big smiles on their faces. Obviously we don't sympathize with the wildebeest quite as much."
The spectacular images of wildlife and nature in the raw on display at the Masai Mara Game Preserve this week have been very moving for Obama and his family.
Obama asked for quiet on an early morning walking tour with his wife and others because their Masai native guards had spotted a herd of notoriously skittish giraffes, just one of the amazing wildlife spectacles visible from seemingly every point of this game preserve.
"This is where man started. I mean, our first ancestors came out of these valleys," Obama said.
It was near the game preserve that archaeologists discovered some of the earliest human fossils ever found.
Obama first visited this part of Kenya nearly 20 years ago and on this trip wanted to share the unique spectacle with his two young daughters.
Driving over a hill and suddenly seeing tens of thousands of zebras and wildebeests is a pretty useful visual aide in giving them a sense that there's a big planet and that they've got a role to play in it.
Obama chose Basecamp Masai Mara for the safari because of awards it has won for promoting environmentally sensitive tourism and because it is handing management over to Masai natives.
Obama paid personally for the safari after a tumultuous week of taxpayer-paid official business in the land of his late father's birth. He was hailed by huge crowds and called on Kenya's government to clean up notorious corruption, control street crime and reform its economy.
"I wanted people to get a sense of the hopefulness of Africa," Obama said. "Because oftentimes I think Africa's only paid attention to in crisis."
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Read Mike Flannery's Travel Blog
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