Kenyan Holiday

---

(Lukas writing…)We arrived to Kenya by plane (taking a 4am flight!), rented a car and driver and drove to the national park. The car that we got was made for a safari because the whole top of the car came off so we could just stand on a seat to get a better view.

We went on a Safari to Masai Mara National park +Lake Nkuru and saw Giraffes, Impalas (look like small deer), Thompson and Grant Gazelles (like small deer but thompsons have a black strip on their sides), Elephants, many, many, many, variety of birds (At one point we saw thousands of flamingoes), Mongooses, Warthogs, Hippos, olive baboons, many monkeys, crocodiles, Ostriches, Zebras, Blue Wildebeest (hairy black deer thing), Hartebeest (almost the same as a deer), Topi (deer with blue hind legs), Eland (antelope) Waterbuck, Cape buffalo, Rhinos, Lions, and Cheetahs (never play cards with them -ha.ha.Get it - cheater cheetahs). It was amazing!!! We got so close to these some of these animals including the most dangerous ones. We got within two yards to a giraffe, 8 feet close to an elephant, 6 feet for a cheetah, and about 10 feet to a pride of lions.

After the safari we did not use the car +driver. We took a train to a town on our way to an island. The train ride was supposed to be 14 hours but the train in front of us derailed and they had to do something with the other train and fix the tracks so it took 8 more hours . During that time almost everyone on the train left to hitchhike to town,except us and some other people. 24 hours in one train is not the most fun thing ever. Then we took a public bus to a town near the island that we are going to, and then a ferry to the island of Lamu.

Once we were at the island we went swimming in the Indian Ocean. In the ocean there are a lot of weird stuff like jellyfish and sharks. While we were swimming, Kovas went pretty far out then came back to the beach saying that something brushed his arm and it hurt. We think it was a jellyfish. After that no one went out far. The next day we took a tour of the city. My sugar was high (diabetes) so I came back to our rented house, and I got locked out of the house that we were renting. So I just waited for hours until everyone else returned home. The third day we went on a wooden dhow boat to fish, swim, and snorkel. It was really beautiful and fun.

Reluctantly we travelled 2 days to get back to the airport but our flight got cancelled. This time we rented a small Toyota Corolla to Hell’s gate. Hell’s Gate is a deep gorge in the middle of the African Rift Valley. We hiked a while, went back by the car and ate lunch.Although we had bags of food only one bag had all of our sandwiches. Suddenly a big baboon started running towards us so Kovas protected the bag of sandwiches. The baboon jumped on the table (everyone was screaming) rammed Kovas and took the sandwiches. It happened so fast we did not know what happened. It was like a football play. This is the second time a baboon took our food. While it was funny, it was also annoying. We were hungry!

We went back to the airport and flew back to Ethiopia - happy to have had a great vacation.

---