Amboseli National Park
This last weekend the group took a trip to Amboseli National Park, which is on the Kenya/Tanzania border and is, of course, a game park! You'd think that we would be tired of going on safari by now, and in fact, before we left, we were all a little concerned about the reduncency, but we shouldn't have been. Amboseli was definitely the best safari we have been on, and if, no when, you come to Kenya, that is the one safari you absolutely must do!
We left on Friday morning to make the 5 or 6 hour drive with our favorite tour company, Steve Tours and Safaris (ps this is a shameless plug), and even more happily, our favorite driver, Elijah!!! He's not only a great driver and extremely knowledgeable about all things safari and beyond, he's also really good natured with a great sense of humor. We shall miss him very much! Anyway, I slept through most of the drive; fortunately the roads heading toward Amboseli are far superior to those going to Maasai Mara and countless other locations in Kenya, so it wasn't bad at all. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop with mediocre food but really nice ambiance. Here in Kenya there are these trees (I really need to learn their name) covered in really bright, beautiful flowers, and this place had ones of every color covering their property. It was wonderful! They also had a curio shop and were selling some very nice items, but since their customers are generally tourists, we couldn't get the prices we wanted on things (aka fair prices). Also, they had pretty nice bathrooms (if, when I get home, I seem unusually excited about something so common as a normal bathroom, please ignore me) complete with toilet paper (a treat!) and handsoap (a real treat!). I had a pretty normal experience, but then later on I learned that when Kathleen and Julie had gone, there was a lady lurking around, saying you had to pay for the bathroom (which you do at some places, but not this one). Not only that, she told Kathleen she had to pay her a dollar!!! Now here, that is absolutely ridiculous. That's 70 shillings (equivalent to my lunch today), whereas usually when you pay for a restroom it's 5 or 10 shillings. What a ripoff!
We were camping inside the park this time in 2-person canvas tents with banana leaf roof structures to keep out rain and such. They had thin mattresses on the floor (the floor was a wooden platform, yeah I know, not real camping, but as close as we've gotten so far). You had to lock the tent so that the monkeys couldn't get in and steal things, which I found hilarious. We put our stuff down and then piled back into the vans for an evening game drive. Amboseli is famous for having many elephants and zebras, and we definitely saw plenty. We also saw a lot of Wildebeest, which was exciting to me because I really like the wildebeest. Anyway, we drove around for a bit and then stopped at the base of this big hill that you can climb up and have a great view of the park to watch the sunset. One of the coolest things about Amboseli is the fact that Mt. Kilimanjaro serves as its backdrop. During the afternoon the top is covered in clouds, making it look like an ominous gray mass, but then as the sun begins to go down, the clouds slowly clear out until you can see the peaks, the highest one (and the highest in Africa) being Uhuru, with its beautiful but steadily shrinking glacier. It's an incredible sight, and you have an especially clear view in the morning.
After the evening game drive it was time for dinner, which was cooked by our cook who traveled along with us out on the fire. We never did learn his name, but we did try and ask Elijah, who also didn't know, which quelled our guilt just a little. He always made three giant pots full of main course food, plus soup, plus a big kettle full of water for tea or coffee. The first night, in fact, we got pasta (oh the cravings for pasta here are intense) with veggies and minced meat. He really is an excellent cook, and we enjoyed our meals a lot! Afterward we spent time hanging around the campfire, until most everyone went to bed except for me, Kathleen, and Patrick and the drivers. I've already told you about Elijah, but the other driver this time was Steve, who seems like a very quiet guy, but then you get a couple of beers or a little brandy in him around a campfire and he starts talking. Patrick, Elijah, and Steve were all telling us various ghost stories, especially from the coast (where we're going next week and where Elijah is from). Apparently these stories are not in short supply here in Kenya, so it was pretty funny to hear the things that parents tell their kids to keep them on the moral straight and narrow. Picking up a pretty woman on the side of the road is a bad idea in any situation, for example - in one story you end up disappearing never to be seen again, and in another she ended up having donkey legs. Steve was also very interested in talking about some deeper issues, like on the first night he was asking about Michael Jackson, which led to a conversation about sexual child abuse and then about homosexuality. He simply could not fathom that there is such a thing as mental disorder and alternative sexual preferenc; it was really fascinating, especially when the next night he asked about the high divorce rate in the US and was really curious as to what we thought were the reasons behind such statistics and trends. Mostly that one got too long and intense, though, so we started playing "Never have I ever" instead. PS campfires are the best! The second night, Sally was in the bathroom (it was like a nicer, stone version of a port-o-potty), and was just standing up when a bat flew out of the toilet!! Yes, a bat! Then it decided that it preferred the toilet to the outdoors, because it flew back in!! Four of the girls wouldn't go in there the whole rest of the trip after that one.
The second morning we got up at 6am for an early morning game drive, and boy was it worth it! We had some tea/coffee and then headed out. Hyenas are nocturnal, so they only come out during the night (you could hear them at night, in fact - kind of creepy) and are out early in the morning. There were not just a couple of hyenas, but tons and tons of them, just like in the Lion King! Even more Lion King-esque, though, was when we stopped by a group of lions, females and cubs, tearing away at a buffalo carcass, completely surrounded by pacing hyenas. They wouldn't dare challenge the lions; they just waited for an opportunity to grab a bit of the kill. They got an opportunity. It seems that the buffalo weren't very happy that the lions had taken one of their kin (Elijah actually said that they wanted to rescue it), because we saw a big herd of them meandering toward the lions ("are the out of their minds?" what are they doing?" "they're headed right at the lions!!"). As they got closer, they start running and lowering their heads down ("bowling for lions!!"), and the lions have to scatter! These buffalo are chasing the lions away from their food, and not just a little ways away, but really far away. The small cubs had to run to the side and cower in the grass to wait for their mothers to come back. As soon as the buffalo began to clear, the hyenas moved in, all the while making that incredible laughing noise (they really did sound like they were laughing at the lions, it was amazing!). They started eating, and one succeeded in pulling of a leg and running around with it. We though that was it so we were about to drive off, when we spotted the female lions returning. When they got back they attacked the hyenas, fighting them all off of the food and ending up right where they began - some of the hyenas went after their friend with the leg. That had to have been the most incredible thing I've ever seen...except then we were chased by an elephant.
There are big herd of elephant at Amboseli (I explained before that elephants move in families), and African elephants are the largest in the world (not kidding, they're enormous, especially at Amboseli). We actually saw some males that we called "five legs" because their penises actually reached the ground (really gross, I know). Anyway, we were driving through a herd behind another van and one really large elephant is standing in the road. The van in front of us, instead of waiting for it to move, gets really close to it and tries to scare it by revving it's engine. Well, this elephant is massive, way bigger than that van, and so it just gets angry and starts walking straight at the van. The whole line of us starts backing up, but the elephant keeps coming!! Then, some crazy comes flying right past us in their van toward the elephant, finally realizes that it's after us, and starts backing up themselves. They were so incredibly close to that angry elephant, we were sure they were going to get tipped. The elephant finally got bored with us, but it was pretty insane for a while there. Mostly, though, the elephants were so fun to watch. They spray themselves with dust, wade through pools of water, and eat grass by first pawing at the ground (with their giant feet, it's like slow-motion pawing) to uproot the grass, then using their trunks to pick it up.
It was also apparently baby season, because there were babies of every single animal. Baby warthogs, baby zebras, baby wildebeest, baby elephant (holy cow, tiny elephants are cute), baby lions, baby birds (we actually came across a mother bird who had laid her eggs in the middle of the road and wouldn't leave them even though we were driving right next to her), baby gazelles, baby hippos (we saw hippos way out of the water this time, even crossing the road! Even running! Did you know hippos could run? I didn't), etc. The source of water at this park is more sporadic and marshy rather than one large, central body of water. In one of the marshy areas there were a bunch of flamingos, "greater flamingos" (they were white and larger) and "lesser flamingos?" (had really bright pink on the wings and were smaller). We also saw pelicans, and they were enormous! There were tons of cool birds at this park. One of the most common was this iridescent blue bird that hung around our campsite.
The entire time we were there, as well as on all previous safaris, we have wanted to see cheetahs. "Elijah, are you going to find us cheetahs? When are we going to see cheetahs? Do you think there are cheetahs here?" At the very end of the last day we were getting pretty sad that we had still failed to see cheetahs, when Elijah takes off toward a big group of vans. Sure enough, 3 cheetahs were hanging out over there, walking around and then drinking water from a pool. They are such elegant, beautiful animals. Wow. So lucky!
It was very sad to come back for sure, and that was our last safari! It was a really good one to end on, though. I really can't believe I have less than a month left here. It's actually a really sad realization, because I'm really enjoying my time here, even moreso now than before! Don't get me wrong, I miss you all, but the idea of never seeing some of these people again is really hard to wrap my mind around. PS I'm coming back to climb Kilimanjaro and do all of the things I missed on this trip, so if anyone wants to come... :)
Update on Happy Life - some of the guys from USIU's community service class decided to build another building to add on their existing structures, so it looks totally different than it did in the beginning! It was so nice!
Another random piece of excitement - the Mavs/Suns game last Wednesday was on ESPN so I could watch it and it was a wonderful wonderful time. Yes, it was at 4am, and yes, I watched the whole thing; I loved every minute of it!
This should be a pretty low-key week, but I'll let you know if anything iteresting happens!
We left on Friday morning to make the 5 or 6 hour drive with our favorite tour company, Steve Tours and Safaris (ps this is a shameless plug), and even more happily, our favorite driver, Elijah!!! He's not only a great driver and extremely knowledgeable about all things safari and beyond, he's also really good natured with a great sense of humor. We shall miss him very much! Anyway, I slept through most of the drive; fortunately the roads heading toward Amboseli are far superior to those going to Maasai Mara and countless other locations in Kenya, so it wasn't bad at all. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop with mediocre food but really nice ambiance. Here in Kenya there are these trees (I really need to learn their name) covered in really bright, beautiful flowers, and this place had ones of every color covering their property. It was wonderful! They also had a curio shop and were selling some very nice items, but since their customers are generally tourists, we couldn't get the prices we wanted on things (aka fair prices). Also, they had pretty nice bathrooms (if, when I get home, I seem unusually excited about something so common as a normal bathroom, please ignore me) complete with toilet paper (a treat!) and handsoap (a real treat!). I had a pretty normal experience, but then later on I learned that when Kathleen and Julie had gone, there was a lady lurking around, saying you had to pay for the bathroom (which you do at some places, but not this one). Not only that, she told Kathleen she had to pay her a dollar!!! Now here, that is absolutely ridiculous. That's 70 shillings (equivalent to my lunch today), whereas usually when you pay for a restroom it's 5 or 10 shillings. What a ripoff!
We were camping inside the park this time in 2-person canvas tents with banana leaf roof structures to keep out rain and such. They had thin mattresses on the floor (the floor was a wooden platform, yeah I know, not real camping, but as close as we've gotten so far). You had to lock the tent so that the monkeys couldn't get in and steal things, which I found hilarious. We put our stuff down and then piled back into the vans for an evening game drive. Amboseli is famous for having many elephants and zebras, and we definitely saw plenty. We also saw a lot of Wildebeest, which was exciting to me because I really like the wildebeest. Anyway, we drove around for a bit and then stopped at the base of this big hill that you can climb up and have a great view of the park to watch the sunset. One of the coolest things about Amboseli is the fact that Mt. Kilimanjaro serves as its backdrop. During the afternoon the top is covered in clouds, making it look like an ominous gray mass, but then as the sun begins to go down, the clouds slowly clear out until you can see the peaks, the highest one (and the highest in Africa) being Uhuru, with its beautiful but steadily shrinking glacier. It's an incredible sight, and you have an especially clear view in the morning.
After the evening game drive it was time for dinner, which was cooked by our cook who traveled along with us out on the fire. We never did learn his name, but we did try and ask Elijah, who also didn't know, which quelled our guilt just a little. He always made three giant pots full of main course food, plus soup, plus a big kettle full of water for tea or coffee. The first night, in fact, we got pasta (oh the cravings for pasta here are intense) with veggies and minced meat. He really is an excellent cook, and we enjoyed our meals a lot! Afterward we spent time hanging around the campfire, until most everyone went to bed except for me, Kathleen, and Patrick and the drivers. I've already told you about Elijah, but the other driver this time was Steve, who seems like a very quiet guy, but then you get a couple of beers or a little brandy in him around a campfire and he starts talking. Patrick, Elijah, and Steve were all telling us various ghost stories, especially from the coast (where we're going next week and where Elijah is from). Apparently these stories are not in short supply here in Kenya, so it was pretty funny to hear the things that parents tell their kids to keep them on the moral straight and narrow. Picking up a pretty woman on the side of the road is a bad idea in any situation, for example - in one story you end up disappearing never to be seen again, and in another she ended up having donkey legs. Steve was also very interested in talking about some deeper issues, like on the first night he was asking about Michael Jackson, which led to a conversation about sexual child abuse and then about homosexuality. He simply could not fathom that there is such a thing as mental disorder and alternative sexual preferenc; it was really fascinating, especially when the next night he asked about the high divorce rate in the US and was really curious as to what we thought were the reasons behind such statistics and trends. Mostly that one got too long and intense, though, so we started playing "Never have I ever" instead. PS campfires are the best! The second night, Sally was in the bathroom (it was like a nicer, stone version of a port-o-potty), and was just standing up when a bat flew out of the toilet!! Yes, a bat! Then it decided that it preferred the toilet to the outdoors, because it flew back in!! Four of the girls wouldn't go in there the whole rest of the trip after that one.
The second morning we got up at 6am for an early morning game drive, and boy was it worth it! We had some tea/coffee and then headed out. Hyenas are nocturnal, so they only come out during the night (you could hear them at night, in fact - kind of creepy) and are out early in the morning. There were not just a couple of hyenas, but tons and tons of them, just like in the Lion King! Even more Lion King-esque, though, was when we stopped by a group of lions, females and cubs, tearing away at a buffalo carcass, completely surrounded by pacing hyenas. They wouldn't dare challenge the lions; they just waited for an opportunity to grab a bit of the kill. They got an opportunity. It seems that the buffalo weren't very happy that the lions had taken one of their kin (Elijah actually said that they wanted to rescue it), because we saw a big herd of them meandering toward the lions ("are the out of their minds?" what are they doing?" "they're headed right at the lions!!"). As they got closer, they start running and lowering their heads down ("bowling for lions!!"), and the lions have to scatter! These buffalo are chasing the lions away from their food, and not just a little ways away, but really far away. The small cubs had to run to the side and cower in the grass to wait for their mothers to come back. As soon as the buffalo began to clear, the hyenas moved in, all the while making that incredible laughing noise (they really did sound like they were laughing at the lions, it was amazing!). They started eating, and one succeeded in pulling of a leg and running around with it. We though that was it so we were about to drive off, when we spotted the female lions returning. When they got back they attacked the hyenas, fighting them all off of the food and ending up right where they began - some of the hyenas went after their friend with the leg. That had to have been the most incredible thing I've ever seen...except then we were chased by an elephant.
There are big herd of elephant at Amboseli (I explained before that elephants move in families), and African elephants are the largest in the world (not kidding, they're enormous, especially at Amboseli). We actually saw some males that we called "five legs" because their penises actually reached the ground (really gross, I know). Anyway, we were driving through a herd behind another van and one really large elephant is standing in the road. The van in front of us, instead of waiting for it to move, gets really close to it and tries to scare it by revving it's engine. Well, this elephant is massive, way bigger than that van, and so it just gets angry and starts walking straight at the van. The whole line of us starts backing up, but the elephant keeps coming!! Then, some crazy comes flying right past us in their van toward the elephant, finally realizes that it's after us, and starts backing up themselves. They were so incredibly close to that angry elephant, we were sure they were going to get tipped. The elephant finally got bored with us, but it was pretty insane for a while there. Mostly, though, the elephants were so fun to watch. They spray themselves with dust, wade through pools of water, and eat grass by first pawing at the ground (with their giant feet, it's like slow-motion pawing) to uproot the grass, then using their trunks to pick it up.
It was also apparently baby season, because there were babies of every single animal. Baby warthogs, baby zebras, baby wildebeest, baby elephant (holy cow, tiny elephants are cute), baby lions, baby birds (we actually came across a mother bird who had laid her eggs in the middle of the road and wouldn't leave them even though we were driving right next to her), baby gazelles, baby hippos (we saw hippos way out of the water this time, even crossing the road! Even running! Did you know hippos could run? I didn't), etc. The source of water at this park is more sporadic and marshy rather than one large, central body of water. In one of the marshy areas there were a bunch of flamingos, "greater flamingos" (they were white and larger) and "lesser flamingos?" (had really bright pink on the wings and were smaller). We also saw pelicans, and they were enormous! There were tons of cool birds at this park. One of the most common was this iridescent blue bird that hung around our campsite.
The entire time we were there, as well as on all previous safaris, we have wanted to see cheetahs. "Elijah, are you going to find us cheetahs? When are we going to see cheetahs? Do you think there are cheetahs here?" At the very end of the last day we were getting pretty sad that we had still failed to see cheetahs, when Elijah takes off toward a big group of vans. Sure enough, 3 cheetahs were hanging out over there, walking around and then drinking water from a pool. They are such elegant, beautiful animals. Wow. So lucky!
It was very sad to come back for sure, and that was our last safari! It was a really good one to end on, though. I really can't believe I have less than a month left here. It's actually a really sad realization, because I'm really enjoying my time here, even moreso now than before! Don't get me wrong, I miss you all, but the idea of never seeing some of these people again is really hard to wrap my mind around. PS I'm coming back to climb Kilimanjaro and do all of the things I missed on this trip, so if anyone wants to come... :)
Update on Happy Life - some of the guys from USIU's community service class decided to build another building to add on their existing structures, so it looks totally different than it did in the beginning! It was so nice!
Another random piece of excitement - the Mavs/Suns game last Wednesday was on ESPN so I could watch it and it was a wonderful wonderful time. Yes, it was at 4am, and yes, I watched the whole thing; I loved every minute of it!
This should be a pretty low-key week, but I'll let you know if anything iteresting happens!