Haller Park in Mombasa

December 22^nd, 2023 

After Fort Jesus, Haller Park ranks up there as another attraction to see while in Mombasa.  It was only about three kilometers east of where I was staying in Bamburi, near the Indian Ocean.  After a short stop in Capital City Mall to buy some “not usually easy to find” essentials like contact lens solution, I walked about 800 meters down the highway, under partial construction, to the park.  It was getting stupid hot out.

 

Haller Park was created by Rene Haller in 1959.  A nearby cement factory (which I passed on the way to the mall) had made a lot of the nearby land inhospitable to plants and animals and Haller decided to change that.  It took more than 10 years to rehabilitate the area but now there is a lovely park that is home to a variety of animals, essentially a big zoo in a forest.  Surprisingly, it was hundreds of millipedes that Haller introduced to the area that got the ball rolling to make the land fertile again.

 

At first, I balked a bit at the 1800 shilling entrance fee (I had read 1200 online, but those were probably old websites) as I didn’t think I’d spend too much time in the park and I had seen most of the animals already in my travels.  There were some feeding times mentioned to me by the lady at the entrance but they were in the mid to late afternoon.  Seeing the crocodiles being fed would be awesome, but I didn’t want to wait that long in this heat.  But I decided what the hell, I will very likely never be here again, and we’re only talking about $15-20.

It was a five-minute walk to get to the reception, a big grass hut.  Just after leaving, the first animal I saw was a giant tortoise, similar to the ones I saw on the Galapagos Islands a few years ago, but this guy was originally from the Seychelles.  It wasn’t until after I had visited the park that I found out about two odd buddies who formed their friendship in the park back in 2004.  It was between a tortoise named Mzee (meaning: old man in Swahili) and a baby hippo, Owen, who had been rescued from Sumatra after the tsunami there.  They were best buds until unfortunately Owen grew too large to be able to safely interact with Mzee, so they were separated.

On the walk to reception:

The reception building:

Not sure if this was Mzee or not as I saw another tortoise later.

The animal that I was most interested to see was the crocodile.  I saw a small one on the riverbank in Queen Elizabeth Park in Uganda earlier in my trip, but it was relatively small and sleeping.  When I first reached the crocodile area, I didn’t see any sign of life.  It was 12:30 in the afternoon and hot out, so I figured the reptiles would be sleeping.  I did find a few in the pond, by a little island in the middle of the acre sized pen.  Their snouts were just poking out of the water, and they weren’t moving much but I watched for a little while, before continuing around the oblong shaped enclosure.  Some plastic flagging tape was blocking my way to circumnavigate the pen, so I ended up backtracking.  I was a bit disappointed to see that at least two of the crocodiles had exited the water in those 4-5 minutes and were basking in the heat on the shore of the island.  It would have been nice to see them exiting the water.

The two crocs on the shore.

However, it was also a blessing in disguise.  After continuing back to where I had started, I spotted another croc in the water, but close to the fence.  He had one eye open and one eye closed.  I was reminded of a conversation with German Julie in Rwanda who had talked about animals, in that case whales, who can shut off one half of their brain and then in turn fall asleep with the other half.

I continued my wandering around the park.  There were some fish farm pools, but it was hard to tell whether they were actually stocked or not.  I walked to a butterfly atrium, which was a bit of a let down, and I also couldn’t find any hippos in their big area.  I did see an oryx in the distance, the first one I’ve seen in Africa.

The fish farm:

A few monkeys were entertaining to watch as I worked my way over to the giraffe area.  It had only been 3-4 days since I was feeding giraffes in Nairobi, so it wasn’t a big disappointment when I found them far from the viewing deck, and not interested in being hand fed by humans (not that I knew where to get the food from).

A monkey chilling on a bench:

Lunchtime!

Is this really a warthog?

It is actually known as a lesser kudu:

The non-interested giraffes:

Must have been a tough day in the office for this monkey:

What a tree...

After the park, I walked towards the beach and found a restaurant for some lunch and some time to catch up on my writing.  This blogging does feel like a bit of a job sometimes…but well worth the effort.  In years to come, I’ll be able to remember things/places/people/adventures on these travels that I wouldn’t otherwise.

Tomorrow I will head about 50 kilometres north, to a beach called Kilifi, where I will stay at a place called Distant Relatives Eco-Resort.  It will be a nice place to relax and enjoy a quiet Christmas.