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Published: March 2nd 2006
The Great Rift Valley
That's Jill and I above the Great Rift Valley. Those Coca Cola signs are all over the place in Kenya. It feels like Coca Cola owns this country. You'll noticed I shaved my beard. I miss my beard. It was a "fine, manly, article of dandiness".Jambo everybody!
My Plane arrived in Nairobi just in time for me to see my first African sunrise. It was gorgeous. I found Jill's smiling face waiting for me at the baggage claim and we hopped in our cab heading for the Boulevard Hotel. We were both exhausted from our night flights and spent the entire day just eating and sleeping. This is the only part of my trip that hasn't exactly been budget traveling. The hotel felt luxurious to me.
The next morning we bought a bunch of water to last us the next 7 days and we headed out on our safari. There were 5 other people on our safari. There was a Czech couple, a British girl, and a guy from Hong Kong. All were about our age, and everybody was really friendly. Our driver's name was Ochacho (That's how it's spelled phonetically. It's not even close to the actual spelling). We drove out of Nairobi and stopped for a view above the Great Rift Valley. It was an incredible sight. It's huge, and I think it spans several different countries. We then proceeded to drive into the Great Rift Valley and headed for the Masai
Mara Reserve Park. We didn't arrive until early evening so we only had about an hour to get in a game drive before the park closed. I was able to see a cheetah and a Leopard that first night. It was very exciting. Jill was pumped because she never got to see a Leopard before (I forgot to mention that this is Jill's second time in Kenya). After the game drive we had dinner at the camp site, which was disgusting. We sat around the a campfire and had a few Tuskers (Tusker is a Kenyan beer. It's incredible) and then went to sleep early because we had to get up for our 6:00 AM game drive.
It sucks getting up so early, but it's worth it because most of the animals do their hunting during the early morning when it's cool out. It's amazing how cold it gets at night here when it is so unbarably hot during the day. You have a better chance of seeing the meat eaters early in the morning, and if you're lucky you can see them kill something. During the day they just lie around and rest under the hot sun. We
Aslon
Would you like a stick of Gum?
Go on, it's spearemint! got to watch the sunrise as we drove into the park, which was unbelieavable. Best sunrise I've ever seen, hands down. The sun is huge here. Ochacho found some lions right away. There were a bunch of female lions and some cubs who had just killed a buffalo and were tearing into it. It's amazing to watch.
I think it will get boring for everybody if I just continue to talk about every single animal I saw, since I saw hundreds of them, and it's probably not that neat to hear about it. You need to see it for yourself. But each time I saw one, I was just awe struck. It's also amazing just being in such a huge place that is almost completely untouched by humans and you can see the animals live how they always do in the wild. Anyhow, we saw everything: Lions, Giraffes, Elephants, hippos, all kinds of antelopes, etc.
The scenery in Masai Mara is also incredible. Every direction you look in is a beautiful view of the landscape and the hills that surround the valley. And whenever you drive over a small hill you see a completely new unbelievably beautiful landscape.
I feel like I can see much further here too. I don't remember if there is some thing about the horizon being farther away near the equator or not, but it feels that way in Masai Mara. Also, the sky looks amazing. The clouds look like a painted cartoon against a perfect blue background. Basically, Masai Mara is just like The Lion King. The only difference was that I never saw a crazy, old, mystic baboon that wore face paint and carried a walking stick that he shook insesently. But for the most part the animators of that film did a dynamite job.
The lion king has sort of been the theme of this trip. Jill and I were constantly making references to it, and we would often have "Circle of Life" or "I just can't wait to be king" stuck in our heads. I'm sure Ochacho is sick of hearing Lion King references from tourists but he pretended not to mind.
The third day in Masai Mara we visited a Maasai village. If you pay 15 dollars you can go and have a Maasai villager show you around their village and show you how they live. It
seemed less authentic because it was such a tourist gimmick for them, but it was still really cool. They perform a dance with chanting and you get to talk with the 5 villagers who speak English and ask them questions. I guess they send a couple people to school where they learn English and Swahili, and the rest stay in the village. I entered a jumping competition with some of them, including a Masai Warrior (To become a Masai Warrior you need to kill a male lion with a spear. Nuts!). Needless to say, I lost. Jill and I got a tour of one of their houses which are made of cow dung (dung is a pleasant way of saying shit). The houses are small but really clean, especially for being made out of dung, and stay incredibly cool under the hot sun.
I was sad to leave Massai Mara on the fourth day because it was just so beautiful. But all of Kenya is beautiful. We drove over a lot of the country during those 7 days and everyplace I saw was amazing. It's the most beautiful country I've ever been to.
We left in the morning
for an 8 hour drive to Nakuru. Most of the drive was on a ridiculously bumpy dirt road. Ochacho was just plowing through it and weaving around any potholes that he could. I got thrown so high off my seat that I bumped my head a couple times. Jill and I tried to block it out by listening to Paul Simon's Graceland the whole way. Dynamite album to listen to while driving through the African countryside.
Nakuru was a smaller park than Masai Mara and it's big attraction was a lake that is filled with millions of flamingos. The water actually looks pink in places because there are so many of them. We checked out the flamingos, saw some rhinos and giraffes, and then hiked to a high up view of the park where we saw lots of neat lizards and other little critters.
After Nakuru we had another long drive to Samburu National Park. The drive was awesome because you go past a lot of different looking scenery. All of it looks amazing. We passed the equator and stopped to have somebody show us a demonstration on how water will rotate in opposite directions just 20 meters
Nakuru
The pink is the flamingos from each other, and then won't rotate at all directly on the equator. After the demonstrator was finished he offered us diplomas from the equator school for Kshs 300. I declined.
Samburu was extremely hot all day and all night. I didn't like it as much as Masai Mara, but it was also neat because it had a lot more trees and bushes which made everything seem less spread out. We were able to get really close to a lot of the animals. You could see how the drought in the region had affected the animals. There is a river there that is normally full and was completely dry when we visited. The drought has also affected the people who live in Kenya. Nobody can get any milk because their cows aren't producing, and many people are dying. It's very sad.
Our last day of the safari we took a small hike up part of Mt. Kenya and then headed back to Nairobi. From there, Jill and I caught a night train to Mombassa. We spent 4 days at a self service cottage on Tiwi Beach. It was really secluded and extremely relaxing. Just what we both needed
Jill with a little critter
We're not sure what that thing is but Jill thought it looked soft and she likes to pet soft things. She's like Lenny. after a week long safari. We spent the time relaxing on the beach and cooking ourselves some elaborate meals. We bought fresh calamari on the beach and I cooked it up. I had never cooked calamari before, but it was delicious. The owner of the cottages brings in a lot of stray animals, so there were lots of dogs, cats, monkeys, parrots and what not all over the place. It gave it a very homey feel. There were a bunch of cats that would hang out on our porch all the time. I hate cats but I kind of liked these because they were all so messed up and I felt bad for them. One cat had cancer, so his nose looked all red and bloody. We named him sylvester after the famous cartoon cat. Another cat only had 3 legs so we named him Buster after the Arrested Development character with one hand. Another one was deaf. We named him Timmy. Tiwi was perfect. The only bad thing was that Jill accidently had all of her pictures erased. But hey, Hakuna Matata!
We took the train back to Nairobi yesterday and spent our last night in Kenya by
Jill with our tent
These were our living quarters on safari. going out to dinner to this restaurant called Carnivore. It is apparently rated as one of the top 100 restaurants in the world. It was amazing. Ugh, Sonny, Samer, you guys would love this place. Alyse, you would hate it here. It is all you can eat and they first bring out a bunch of sauces for you and a flag that you are supposed to put down when you don't want anymore meat. But when it is raised, they just continue bringing alll these different kinds of cooked meats over to you and cutting a piece off right onto your plate. Anything from chicken to camel to ostrich. It sounds pretty sick to eat a camel, but it was delicious. So was the ostrich. The crocodile was kind of gross though. Apparently they usually have more game meats but they have recently been regulated by the government. Anyhow, it's too bad we didn't get to try gazelle, but it was still an amazing dining experience.
So today Jill and I will part ways. I leave for South Africa tonight. I'm not sure if I will have access to computers there for the next month. So I will talk
Ya Chicago
Whenever our train would stop at a station there would be a bunch of kids waving at us. This one kid was wearing a Michael Jordan jersey so I gave him my cubs hat to add to his Chicago sports gear. to you all when I can.
-Jonathan
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Leslie Reby
non-member comment
Awesome
I love your blog Jonathan. Your adventure has been so amazing. The photos are even pretty good considering you are an engineer! Its incredible how much you have been able to see and do so far. I really don't get how you are so comfortable by yourself in this big scary world so far away from home, but am in awe of your ease and skill as you wander, meet new people and see things most of us only read about. Stay well and be careful---ooops sorry, that was the Mom thing coming out by accident.