Q: How many people would it take to fix all the roads in Kenya?

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A: There aren't enough people in the WORLD!!!

It's day 3 of my 14 day adventure, and so far it's been three days of what our driver jokingly refers to as "an African massage", which is a cute way of saying that the roads are bad enough to shake just about anything out of you. It would be the understatement of the year to say that my neck hurts just a little! Honestly, no exageration, most of the roads are more pothole than ashphalt. If the road is even paved at all! It's kind of a tradeoff - either the roads are so broken up that driving is next to impossible, or the dirt road is muddy (read: sloshing around) or dry (read: dust EVERYWHERE!). And the way our driver drives... he finds these patches of good highway and hits up to 160 km/h (wheeeeee!) and then slams on the breaks as we slam into a pothole thats bigger than the average sized cow and i swear i can hear the rear axle breaking off..... *sigh* Sorry, that was a big rant about the roads... i'll move on now!

Kenya, as you imagine from the rant above, is a hell of a lot different than South Africa in terms of development. This, i presume, is the REAL Africa. The cities are dirty, dusty, crowded, and definitely behind in the times. I'm not sure how i feel about this... i think South Africa's first worldliness has spoiled me! The dankness of the cities however, is overshadowed by the beauty of the wilderness - it's so green!! So far we have seen the Great Rift Valley (which we're currently in) and the Masaai Mara National Park, which is the Kenyan side of the Serengetti National Park in Tanzania (which i'm going to see on my next tour!). We saw lots of wildlife including wild elephants, lions, and even a very calm cheetah. So calm was that cheetah that it let us ride up RIGHT BESIDE it and take a bunch of pictures! In fact, most of the animals in the Masaai Mara were like that... very used to the vehicles i guess, which is good, it means they dont see humans as a threat.

Today we are in Nakuru, which is supposedly the 4th biggest city in Kenya or something like that. Speaking of big cities, Nairobi is the biggest, and boy was that a shock to fly into! My hotel is not exactly 3 star by Canadian standards, thats for sure :o/ Also, the tour isn't everything i was expecting it to be... there are only 3 of us! Myself, and an older Afrikaans couple (ie. white people from South Africa) They are very nice, as is our guide Emanual, our driver David, and our personal chef Joseph, but its just not a very good group dynamic. I think i'm just missing having someboday to talk to, somebody who shares my sense of humour and whatnot... yes, i really miss Shona right now :o) Dispite the lack of fun, things are good because like i said, the beauty is stunning.

I should get going now, and god only knows when i'll have internet access this good again (we're in a poshy 5 star hotel using their internet that's 5 times more expensive than other places... however that still means i'm only paying 300 shillings an hour which is about 5 bucks!) So i appolize for the lack of conveninces (you should SEE the bathrooms around here... *shudder*) but it looks like this may be one of a few postings i can get in before i get back to South Africa on Feb.6th. Rest assured that if i dont get up pictures and stories of this trip now, i'll do it in SA. OOOH, one last thing i almost forgot - we're going to track the gorrillas in Rwanda instead of Uganda! Cool!!!! Tropical rainforest anyone?! Eeee!

Oh, and PS - Hakuna Matata actually DOES mean "no worries" in Swahili! :oD
Janine

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Photos

Our first night camping
Under a Yellow Fever Acacia tree, that's our guide Emanual acting like a goof!

Worlds laziest cheetah?
We came back about 2 hours later and that cheetah was STILL just lying there in the grass, completely unphased by all the cars stopped around him

Hells Gate National Park
We hiked down into that gorge. This is me, AFTER that hike (which explains the tired look on my face :oP)

Comments

[anonymous]

very cool janine! thanks for being so good at keeping us updated! you know, we're living vicariously through you!