Masai Mara Baby!

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So we have left Uganda behind us. We took the bus from Jinja to Nakuru and stayed there for two nights before we headed off to Nairobi. The first impression of Kenya wasn’t good. It took us sooooo long to cross the border and nobody informed us where we had to go to find our bus again, so we came last and the driver was a bit upset. But once we arrived in Nakuru we were blessed with a beautiful sight… a normal Supermarket. Not one owned by Indians which only has weird imported things, but a normal supermarket chain filled with normal, “European” things. Then on the way to Nairobi we came across another godsend, a taxi-bus that actually only took as many people as there were seats!!!! (Don’t get me wrong Kenya has its drawback compared to Uganda, but I’ll get to that in another blog entry, when I’ve had more time to compare).

Nairobi was surprisingly nice and calm, like any big city you could find in Europe, a huge difference from Kampala. I was a expecting a crazy and maybe dangerous city, but it was actually very peaceful and modern. We spent two nights in Nairobi and got the chance to meet my old classmate Kate, which was really nice. I hope we will get the chance to see her a bit more before we fly back. After our two nights in Nairobi we spent three days in the Masai Mara!!!!

So now is the moment you have all been waiting for, to see if I accomplished all my goals. I did become friends with a lion, even though the friendship felt a bit one-sided. I didn’t ride an elephant but one was very close to charging our safari car, after we pissed it off by going to close. I did chase a cheetah; he was just too far away for me to see him. And finally the crocodile was too scared to wrestle once I did a cannonball in the Mara River. The fact is that the Masai Mara was fantastic, even though I had high expectations. I have to admit that the drive there was long and bumpy, and when we first entered the park for our first drive I was thinking “Oh nooooo”, once I saw the 20 safari cars in front of us. I was really worried that it was going to be like a drive through zoo, like Kalmarden in Sweden and at some points it was a little crowded. If one car saw something interesting, other appeared quickly. However all was salvaged the second day, when we had our full day drive. We drove deep into the Mara and it was amazing. It is absolutely huge, full with animals and with no (little) signs of human presence. We got to see a countless amount of animals and just the park itself was really beautiful. We didn’t see rhinos or leopards, which was a little disappointing. But we did see many, many lions, elephants, buffalos, zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, crocodiles etc. etc. etc. The surprise was the giraffes. They were a lot cooler to live than I thought.

We stayed at a camp just outside the main gate. The camp was simple but nice and there were wild monkeys running around. Most of the people working in the camp were Masai and at one point we had one following us outside of the camp. We however quickly noticed that he was the guard at our camp and had followed us out because it is apparently dangerous to walk outside of the camp at sunset. He showed us the place where a British fellow was killed by an Elephant just outside our camp. So we quickly went back to our camp and waited patiently for dinner.

So after the Mara we headed back to Nairobi for a few hours before we took the night bus to Mombasa. That is where we are now and I am writing this entry from our hotel room in central Mombasa. I’m writing while Ewa is lying on the bed in her new African dress and while the Mosque outside is shouting out prayers from the speakers for maybe the fourth time today, starting at around 6 in the morning. Mombasa isn’t really my kind of place. It’s beautiful in an old, rustic kind of way and it’s very nice with the sea right next to it. But it’s a bit hectic and everyone wants to sell you something, “Jambo my friend, where are you from? What Country? Come and see my shop, looking is free!” Today I tried to introduce the phrase “Time is money” but they wouldn’t have it “In Africa time is free” they said. However tomorrow we are going to the beach and then on Saturday I think we are heading off north to Lamu which is supposed to be very calm and beautiful.

Hakuna Matata!

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