A Birthday on Safari

The last blog - "the old man and the machete" was meant to be published last friday when we were in Kisii, but we accidentally saved it rather than publishing it online.

On Tuesday we left Kiamokama and headed down the road for Narok. We took a matatu, and a ride that should have been two hours ended up taking five. The matatu driver stopped ever ten minutes to pick up new passengers and to drop off others. It was made even worse by the fact that our backpacks were shoved onto our laps and our knees were jammed into the seats in front of us. We arrived in Narok at 8pm, ready to collapse into a bed. The hotel we stayed at was a good value. It had hot showers, a tv, balcony, and mosquito nets for just over 10 dollars a room. We woke up at 4:30 the next morning in preparation for our Masaai Mara safari that Anne had arranged for us. When noon rolled around and our driver had not arrived from Nairobi to pick us up, we were once more reminded of the slow slow pace of life that occurs here. Every time we called anne, she said, "We're almost there. We'll be there soon" ... If someone in Kenya tells you that something "is not far," NEVER believe them! The matatu driver told us it wasn't far to Narok. Lies!

Anyway, Anne and the driver finally arrived and we drove two hours down a rocky dirt road to arrive at the entrance to the park. Masaai women surrounded our vehicle. They opened our windows and shoved their beaded jewelry onto our laps. We had fun bartering with them as we waited for Anne to get some paperwork cleared with the rangers that allowed us to pay the resident rate rather then the rate for tourists from America.

Our first game drive was amazing! We saw six lions - four of which had just finished eating part of a buffalo carcass and another that was in the middle of stalking a huge herd of buffalo. We also saw giraffes (one ran along side our van), warthogs, a wild cat, gazelle, elephants, and all kinds of birds. At one point, our van got stuck in the mud right next to some elephants and their babies. This was a week after an elephant had killed someone in the park who had gotten out of their car. A land rover had to pull us out, and a ranger watched the elephants diligently with his rifle. It was actually a bit scary because the momma elephant kept eyeing us and flapping her ears around.

We stayed at the Sentrim Mara for the night. It was extremely nice. Our room was a tent / tree house with all kinds of amenities. We went to bed late and got up before the sun came up to go on another game drive. It was Neal's Birthday! This time we saw a leopard, a BLACK RHINO, more lions, a huge tortoise that Neal got to hold (it peed on him), hippos, crocodiles, and all the other animals you'd expect. We ate our bagged lunches across the border in Tanzania (technically Serengeti National Park) right near a bunch of hippos. We had another run-in with mother elephants and their young. This time the elephants were blocking the road, and moved toward us every time we tried to go around them. Eventually we had to back the car up because one of them was walking straight toward us very quickly.
Around 2, when it was really hot, we hung out at the Sarova Mara lodge. Its this ridiculously nice oasis in the desert where really rich people go.

On our evening game drive we saw more lions (we think there may be an overpopulation), buffalo, giraffes, elephant, gazelle, warthogs, etc. The Masaai Mara is extremely beautiful when the sun is setting. We finally left the park at 7pm and arrived back in Narok at around nine. We stayed at the Chambai Hotel again with Anne and the driver with similar good reviews.

We headed back to Nairobi at 7am this morning. We're going to try and get an overnight bus from here to Dar Es Salaam.

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Part of trip: Kenya/Tanzania

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