Up early the next morning for organisational things to do and wandered around Nairobi doing them. I was so happy I had slept. I expected it to be a horrible day but it was fine and Kenyans are so lovely. They are a really happy people and always willing to help but also like any city one has to be careful since I have encountered people already who have tried to take advantage of the fact that I am foreign and don't know anything about the place. I have now learned though to trust my instincts and to be more on guard and not trust everyone to be as nice as all the lovely people with whom I have become friends. So I am learning my way in this big wide world by myself which is a wonderful and liberating feeling (even if I do get annoyed that I can't trust people!).
The next day I headed off on safari and it was amazing. I was a bit stressed to start with since my ATM card seems to have stopped working and then I got told that banks here don't take traveller's cheques. I did have some US cash but not that much and I didn't want to use it. Luckily the foreign exchange did cash my traveller's cheques and I was fine. It didn't stop me writing an abusive letter to the poor people at HSBC though in which I forgot to give any details about who I was as I told them they had better allow me access to my money within the next 30 minutes!!!
Oh well, all was good and I joined the safari. There were 6 of us on the 6 day safari and once again I was blessed with having a lovely group on tour with me. There was Karl and Donna from Ireland, Melvin and Virginia from Ireland and Karl (also known as Karl number 2) from Sweden. We had an absolute ball together and shared the same sense of humour. In fact Karl number 1 (Irish) is so much like my brother in personality that it is freaky! And his girlfriend Donna and I hit it off so well which was great.
So we got on the bumpy bus (also known as the A-team bus) and headed on the long and bumpy ride to Lake Baringo. On Lake Baringo we did a boat trip and saw crocodiles, fish eagle and the highlight was about 10 hippos (little did I know that I would see many more in the days to come!). As everyone can imagine I was very excited. They were so close. We did an evening walk that night and saw a big tortoise and an owl. Apparently, legend has it that if the owl is there and hoots at night, someone will be dead in the morning. Well that made us all feel so comfortable considering the bloody thing didn't shut up all night! Anyway, for some reason there was a bar at the campsite (go figure, I suppose they knew they Irish were coming) so we all decided to try the local brew before bed. This allowed us to sleep well right up until we were woken up by what can only be described as a roar of a hippo outside our tents. Unfortunately in waking me up it made me realise I needed to go to the toilet due to the bar the night before. But having discussed that evening about how they are the biggest killer of people in Africa and that they bite a person in half if the person gets in there way and also given the fact that the blasted owl was still hooting, I decided to sit tight and listen to the hippoes splashing and grunting in the shallows of the water hoping that they wouldn't trample our tents.
At last morning came and I could go out and see if the omen of the owl was correct (and go to the toot) and alas all in our campsite were safe and well. So we packed up and set off on another bumpy ride in the A-team truck. First stop was Lake Bogoria where we saw loads of Flamingoes and also many rock hyrax (apparently thought by locals to be related to the elephant because of the way they look but since they look like a huge guinea pig with a longer nose I couldn't really place the family resemblance). There were also hot geysers bubbling there. Not just bubbling though, some were squirting metres into the air and letting off loads of steam. It is dangerous to be too close because of the heat.
Then back into the bus and onto the next campsite, Lake Nakuru. Here was where the wildlife really showed itself. We went in and immediately saw impala and buffalo, zebra and blackbuck. Baboons were playing and little baby baboons were there as well. One baboon had a severe wound on its leg which was horrible because the baboon was playing but in pain enough to not weightbear and the wound was severe enough that I knew it would kill him. Sometimes I wish I didn't know these things.
At the shore of the lake were thousands of flamingoes and in front of them pelicans and then in front of them Malibu stork. It was amazing. There were also gazelles and eland grazing alongside the buffalo, zebra, impala and blackbuck. Then we saw 2 white rhino. Pretty lucky given that there are only about 350 rhino left in the wild and only 50 in Kenya. Suffice to say we never saw a black rhino on the trip.
We then went up to baboon lookout where we were up close with a heap of baboons that didn't care that we were there. Looking down from there was amazing because the flamingoes made a great sea of pink colour at the lakeshore. Just stunning against that backdrop of the mountains.
On our way out of the park we got to see a hippo running for water (they are so massive!!) and the real treat was the sighting of 2 leopards in a tree about 15 metres away. I do not know how they were first sighted! It is amazing how such large and spotty animals can blend in so well!!
The next morning we were joined by 5 more people for our group. These were Linda and Michael who were American, Shauna who was American, a Londoner called Fraser and Julianne who is from Newcastle (Oz) but has lived in PNG and Cambodia as well. She has been in Kenya for 6 months working with HIV positive pregnant women trying to help with the health of their unborn child to make sure it is born free of HIV. She is working in the slums of Nairobi and I can't help but feel lucky to have met such a person giving so much of herself for others.
So we headed off for the Masai Mara, a reserve in southern Africa known for its wildlife and also for the migration. The migration is one of the seven natural wonders of the world and happens twice a year when the wilderbeest and other animals such a zebra all migrate en masse from the Serengeti (on the Tanzanian side) up into Kenya and the Masai Mara. They are slowed down to cross the Mara river in the Masai Mara and it is the Mara river crossing that can be amazing to see because they are sitting ducks trying to cross this thing. Not only slowed down and hedged in by the river so easy picking for the lions and other carnivores on land, in the river they have to contend with crocs.
At this time of year it is the tail end of the migration with many animals still in Kenya and it was amazing to see the wildlife abounding.
In Masai Mara we saw gazelles, impala, topi, eland, warthogs, mongoose, ostriches, buffalo, giraffes, elephants, lions, hyena, cheetahs, other smaller cats, vultures, eagles, goshawk, buzzards, secretary birds, hippos and more hippos, crocs, baboons and of course wilderbeest. There's probably other things I've frogotten to mention. And not to mention the amazing landscape and sunsets with rain on the horizon in the distance (because we were in the rift valley, we were on a plain and could see amazing distances).
My favourite was seeing the male lion walk nonchalantly through a group of zebra and topi. He was hungry but even with them only a few metres away he knew that by himself he could not pounce quickly enough to get one without being closer so saved his strength. They all of course watched him warily as he walked passed and you really did think of him as the king of the beasts. But he came up to them from behind our truck as if using us to shield his presence. As he walked towards our truck, we were all watching the other animals reaction to the smell of him but I could help but mention to the people on his side with all the open windows that perhap someone at least should keep an eye on what the lion was doing!
The hard part was seeing the cruelty of the wild when we saw a zebra with a wounded leg that was severely painful that was surrounded by vultures (they were starting to gather as we arrived) waiting for it to give up on life enough such that they could feed on it. A horrible way to die being eaten alive by vultures. We didn't wait to see the gruesome event thank God but I can imagine what happened. I was hard pressed holding back my tears and I just wanted to put the poor thing out of its pain. I was hoping it would die very quickly. Horrible thing was it was something that would have been treatable in a normal domestic horse. And the zebra wasn't even very old by the look of him. Oh well, vultures have to live too I suppose but it was a very confronting thing for me to see
It was absolutely amazing though. Several times we were literally about 5m from huge lions with windows of truck down and they were not bothered by us and let us watch them.
