Oct 20, 2016 - Last Day in East Africa

Lazy day today. Mary & I go up for breakfast around 9AM, but Donny & Polly pass because of last night’s “beast of a feast” at Carninvore. We verify we’ve got a late checkout until 6PM, and head to the Masai Market (which is held in different locations in Nairobi based on the day of the week. Even though it is a National Holiday today, the Market is being held at its regular Thursday spot ... the Junction Mall. Last minute tee shirts & trinkets are picked up, and we head to the Food Court for lunch. The pizza was pretty good! We got back to...

Oct 19, 2016 - Back to Nairobi

We had a leisurely 8AM start, and left the park with the roof up & spent some time watching the elephants & cape buffalo eating in the swamp, up to their necks. Mt. Kilimanjaro was quite visible, so we took a few last minute pics. When we finally got off the gravel road to the park (1 hour past the park entrance) we hit Namanga the border town we came thru a couple of days ago. Mary had been wanting fabric & I spotted a locals textile shop. Steve, Mary & Polly went in, and Steve was impressed by Mary’s negotiating ... over 20 yards of...

Oct 18, 2016 - Amboseli National Park, Kenya

This is our last full safari day on the trip. We got some good shots of Mt. Kilimanjaro with animals in the foreground. There are lots of elephants again, and an a$@hole from Blue Mountain Safaris harasses a male elephant, and stresses it to the point it starts to get aggressive ... to us (not the a$@hole). Steve moved us out of the line of fire, and we moved on to the edge of the forest to see a single female lion head into the bush. For our 4PM drive we saw more elephants, etc., then headed to the lookout where you walk up a couple of...

Oct 17, 2016 - Kwa Heri Tanzania

Today we leave Tanzania & cross back into Kenya for our final 2 days of safari-ing. Tip: The US dollar is king in Tanzania. If you use a credit card to pay for your incidentals at any hotel the bill is converted to US$ before the charge is rung through. The exchange rate used is very unfavorable to the going Forex rate (as much as a 20% swing between buy & sell). I wish we had pulled a lot more Tanzanian shillings out of the ATM when we first arrived in Tanzania. The amount you’ll need depends on your habits, but we seemed to go thru US$40...

Oct 10, 2016 - mini safari and giraffe kisses

We left N Fort Myers on the 8th, but later than planned. Hurricane Matthew didn't come here, but affected Jacksonville, FL which is the control center for airlines in the Southeast. So, when we got to Atlanta, we were missing our connection to Paris. We got a flight later in the afternoon for Amsterdam with a connection to Nairobi which puts us there an hour and a half later than planned. Diane Willcox is my roommate and coming from Boston. She was supposed to meet us in Paris, but got to Nairobi and had a nice conversation with our driver,...

Oct 8, 2016 - Across the Masai Mara (to Mara Serena)

Our first “late” start time ... 8AM ... because we are going to visit the Maasai village first off. The Maasai lead a very simple communal lifestyle. The dress you see in the pictures is real. They dress this way in everyday life. We paid US$20/pp to be toured through the village by John, the chief’s son. A welcoming ceremony (very similar to the show from 2 nights ago) started the festivities. The houses are made of straw, mud, clay, & dung. We went in the chief’s house, and D&P went into the chief’s eldest son’s house. They have no...

Oct 7, 2016 - Masai Mara (from the Mara Sopa)

We get a 4AM wakeup call, but some bird makes a screeching sound at 3:45, and I think it is our wakeup call. It is fun to wake up laughing at such an unGodly hour. We get our “real” wakeup knock on the door at 4AM. (This another “on-generator”) hotel, so there are no phones in the room.) The cost of this ride is steep IMHO (US$450/pp) but we get our cost down to $380/pp by having copious quantities of champagne & Bloody Mary’s after the ride. I’m not much of a heights person, but the takeoff was gentle, and my nerves good! The ride was...

Oct 6, 2016 - Enroute to Masai Mara National Reserve

We start the long trek to Masai Mara National Reserve with a search for the male lion we tried to get a good picture of yesterday at Lake Nakuru. No luck with him, but we did find two adult females with 3 cubs between them. Two of the cubs were small & very cute. The drive is about 6 hours, and the last 2.5 hours is on brutal washboard road. The culverts that allow water to cross under the road are in terrible condition. Some of the blocks that mark the edges of the culverts have been washed away, and others probably smashed by vehicles....

Oct 5, 2016 - Sweetwaters to Lake Nakuru

It is a 5 hour drive from Sweetwater to Lake Nakuru. Google Maps thinks it should take under 4 hours, but that’s impossible in these conditions. A significant part of the road is gravel & washboard. Steve drives as fast as the conditions safely allow. We cross the Equator many times on this trip. This time we stop for the “Equator Demonstration”. It seems really tacky, and maybe it is a parlor trick, but the demo involves a small plastic bowl with a small hole in the bottom. Water is poured in the bowl, and a matchstick is placed in the...

Oct 4, 2016 - Off to Sweetwater Tented Camp

It looks like 5:30AM wakeup, 6:30 breakfast, 7:30 departure is going to be the norm on this trip. Our regular waiter, Abdi, is missing at breakfast. But not to worry, he is on a day off today (one of only 4 in 4 months!), and is grabbing a ride with us into his hometown to visit his family for the day. Sweetwaters is just a midway point before our “real” next location, Lake Nakuru, but it doesn’t disappoint. The rooms indeed are tented, with canvas tops and front, but inside the room have a full bathroom with granite countertops, wifi,...

Oct 3, 2016 - Samburu National Reserve

After Check-in & lunch we went on our first game drive. What an amazing afternoon! We quickly spotted waterbucks (nicknamed “toilet seat” for the artwork on their rear-ends, impalas (“McDonald’s”), giraffes, dik diks, leopard with an impala kill, elephants, a lion eating something in the distance, hawk, guinea fowl, vervet monkeys, and great kudu (female). Steve was great spotting the leopard kill. While we were photographing a tower of giraffes, he watched their movements & direction of sight, he found the leopard in a bush at the side of...

Oct 2, 2016 - Enroute to Samburu

Today we meet out guide for the next two weeks (Kenya) & head for Samburu National Park. Donny & Polly are ecstatic, Steven Ndungu, their guide from their safari (3 years ago) meets us in the parking lot. A lot of people skip Samburu as it is over 5 hours north of Nairobi & there`s lots of parks closer. However we`re here for 3 weeks, so off we go. The road north is uneventful (other than crossing the Equator from south to north) ... freeway for the first hour or so, and then 2 or 3 lanes for the rest. Driving is fairly aggressive, but...