Advertisement
Published: November 14th 2009
Edit Blog Post
We flew into Kenya late at night and someone from the hotel met us at the airport. As the driver started getting closer to the hotel we were wondering what the hell we were doing in Nairobi, particularly when the lonely planet for Nairobi describes the city as the most dangerous in Africa. Then we saw the hotel and we were even more sceptical. The hotel didn't even look like a hotel from the outside, it was all boarded up and there were prostitutes on all the street corners. We got into the room and we were thankful that it wasn't as bad as it looked from the outside and the staff were lovely. We were afraid to walk anywhere so late at night so we went to bed very hungry and thirsty! Next morning we got up, looked out the window, and it was a totally different place to what we had seen last night. We got up the courage to take the 10 minute walk to town, and we realised it wasn't as bad as we first thought. We had a good day trying the local food and beer. But we still don't recommend going any where in Nairobi
after dark.
The next day we were ready to start our 32 day overland truck tour from Nairobi to Johannesburg. We met the other 22 people that would be on the tour with us. We were excited about meeting them, but we lucked out, it was a truck full of English people! Only joking guys, we love you all, at least it wasn't a truck full of Kiwis or Americans :-) We got to see our new truck, load all our gear into the lockers, but before we even got to ride in it, we ended up in some small vans for a 2 night trip to the Masai Mara game reserve. On the way we stopped for a photo op at the Great Rift Valley and then proceeded onto our fantastic camp site - at first impression they appeared to be just tents, but inside there were actual beds and a flushing toilet. What luxury but we were assured by the rest of the group that this is not the norm! After lunch we went on our first game drive, and it was outstanding. We saw baboons, zebras, giraffes, elephants, antelopes, buffalos and lions all in 2 hours.
Male Impala
Otherwise known as an antelope The highlight really was the lion, we were about 5 metres from him as the vans all go off road to find them. He was literally sitting right outside our windows. Another thing we learnt about Africa is that there are some pretty powerful and agressive herbivores, including the buffalo which our guide told us could take up to 6 lions to take down, and one lion would probably be seriously injured in the attack. Everyone comes to Africa hoping to see the Big 5 (Elephants, Buffalo, Leopard, Rhino, Lion). They are called the Big 5 because these were the most challenging for hunters to take down back in the day, and already we've seen 3 out of 5. We also got our first glimpse of the Masai warriors who were in charge of guarding our camp site at night from all the dangerous animals. They perform this job with only a spear. Brave or crazy, maybe a little of both.
The next day we were up bright and early for a full day game drive. This time we saw cheetahs, leopards, hippos, crocodiles, wildebeest, jackals as well as the same animals we saw yesterday. We saw a lion
eating a zebra carcass, and the cheetahs we saw were celebrities - they were on a BBC documentary recently. We were escorted along a river to see the hippos and crocodiles by a man with a machine gun. All this was amazing but todays highlight was when we saw two lions creep up towards a zebra and attempt to kill. The blood lust in the van was pretty high but I think all the girls were quietly pleased when the zebra got away. Back at camp that night we had a few drinks and Garry stayed up with a couple of the boys who all decided to buy one of the Masai guards a sneaky beer, who then proceeded to tell them stories about his 2 wives and how they pierce their ears with great big spears. Not so sure if getting our guards drunk was a wise move but anyway!
Another early morning for a game drive where this time we saw a pride of lions, one feeding off a Masai cow carcass while another was feeding all the cubs of the pride. After this it was back to Nairobi to find our tents set up and waiting
Elephant
Its was closer than it looks! for us. We stayed in Nairobi the one night, and the next day we were off to Tanzania. It was a rather hectic border crossing, where one man tried to sell us his wife. All in all we had an amazing time in Kenya and can't wait to see what the Serengeti holds.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.35s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 44; dbt: 0.1356s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
anonymous
non-member comment
wow it sounded amazing...great pics too!