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We landed in Nairobi in the middle of the day, drowsy from our over night flights and had a horrible time trying to find a hotel for the night. There were three international NGO conferences in the city, and after discussing our options, with numerous touts inevitably, we finally found an overpriced room. We set about to figure out our options on how to get up to Lake Nakuru, of course with more touts trying to get us to take a safari in the Masaai Mara (way out of the way), but we ended up finding the bus stations and setting on a plan for the next few days. We didn’t give much of a chance to Nairobi as we only had limited time, however I will say it is a very nice city from the little I saw. It is remarkably clean, the people were extremely jovial and willing to help at every corner. The touts pushing safaris are a bit much and will follow you for several hours, camp outside of your hotel, and no matter how many times you say you don’t want to go there, they will try to convince you that you do. It does have
Rhino close up
I zoomed a bit on this shot though. He's a real beauty, huh? a bad reputation for crime, and supposedly is extremely dangerous at night, but during the day you wouldn’t expect it at all. If we had more time I would have like to hang out for a few days, but we were in a hurry to get up to the Great Rift Valley and then over to Uganda.
We got up to Nakuru and organized a day safari at Lake Nakuru National Park. It is actually more of a reserve, as the park is fenced in to keep the game in the park. I didn’t have high expectations, just thinking I would see a few flamingos and a rhino or two. It far exceeded all my preconceptions. Along with flamingos and rhinos (both black and white), we saw zebras, giraffes, hippos, impalas, kudus, Thompson gazelles, dik diks (the smallest in the gazelle family), elands (the largest in the gazelle family) and a hyena, among numerous other animals I can’t name. I’ll let the photos tell most of the story, with two notable exceptions.
We were in a Land Rover for the safari, which isn’t a small car by any means. However, we came around a cliff to find a
Hyena at the lake
I've always wanted to see one of these guys ever since Lion King. First time out on safari made it feel pretty good. white rhino staring at us from about two hundred yards away standing in the middle of the road. I always knew rhinos were big animals. But when it is in the way of your four by four SUV and you know it could charge and win, it sinks in exactly how big those things are. Luckily for us, white rhinos are less temperamental than the black rhinos, and he just continued munching grass as we drove up and snapped photos. A little later we were less than ten feet away from two rhinos as they just stood there eating to their heart’s content as if we didn’t exist.
However, it didn’t compare to when we accidentally startled a giraffe and it began to run alongside the car. For several hundred yards the giraffe sprinted along the car as we sped down the road. It took one stride every two seconds, looking like it was running in super slow motion. At times all four of its legs were in the air for an extended period of time, making it look as if it was floating. It is an incredibly graceful animal for its size; Ben and I had our heads
out of the top of the car and we only came up to the base of the neck. It sounds incredibly lame, but the experience gave me goosebumps. It was absolutely incredible. I wish we could share the experience with you; we had a video of it, but Ben’s camera malfunctioned (i.e. he deleted all his photos) so we only have the photos I took of it.
On a random note, Kenyans
love Barrack Obama. Within a few minutes of landing a woman asked for Ben’s Obama pin and we were constantly asked about who we were going to vote for in the upcoming election. They weren’t amused with Darren’s responses. Along those lines, they were incredibly open about the post-election violence of a few months ago. We were talking with two touts and it came about in conversation. One kind of laughed and said, “Yeah, my tribe was attacking his tribe,” patting his friend on the back, “but, now we just fight in congress.” They simply acted like it wasn’t that big of a deal; hacking off limbs, politically motivated murders, burning another’s property, that kind of stuff happens from time to time. No worries. Hakuna
Baboons
These crazy buggers are everywhere and in everything... matata (Darren’s edit: This is the most glaring paradox of East Africa. Both male and female Ugandans and Kenyans seem to have an extraordinary appreciation for the present, for the fact that now - right now - is life. For me, at least, this makes the outbreaks of violence hard to grasp. An aid worker we met at Murchison Falls - see the next blog - told us that Uganda is not a country where you yell thief if someone steals your purse. If you do, men within earshot will chase down the thief and beat the hell out of him. If they kill him, oh darn. Street justice.)
Anyway, Kenya was a bit expensive so we decided to jump the bus the next day to Uganda. Overall the buses here aren’t bad, just expensive if you want comfort. The roads have the most incredible potholes causing the buses to slow down and swerve quite a bit, making the trips much longer. It is much easier to get around than I expected; and, it feels a ton safer on the roads than in India. Honking and car size aren’t the only rules of the road, making the cities much
Birds...
Nakuru was originally a bird sanctuary more relaxing. And, the music on the buses is Afro-beat, reggae, or soul, which is a thousand times better than Indian music. Needless to say, while we did enjoy India, we’re feeling Africa is a bit of an upgrade.
(P.S. - Internet connections in Africa are horribly slow and frustrating. So, blogs will be few and far between, and photos will be even more rare until I find a reasonable connection. That will likely be in three weeks when I get to London or Chicago. In the meantime we have been having a great time in Uganda. I have a ton of great photos to give you a good idea of what we are seeing. I’ll be sure to get them up as soon as I find a connection that can handle it. For those sitting in your offices, you could print them out, post them on the walls of your cubes, and maybe you would feel like you were on safari. Ha, have a good day at work!)
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tiffany
non-member comment
Africa
Man- so jealous you're over there... I plan on visiting Ethiopia when I go to Africa...Kenya would be cool too...But i'm thrilled you're having a good time...Hope you're learning as well...Since you're in Africa- I thought I would see pictures of my fellow people...! lol :) Be good...Stay safe. Love you. Please bring me bk something from the motherland!! lol