Safari Part Two

Baboon roadside, giraffe welcoming committee, rift valley, Kelly negotiating, and Valerie with the shop proprietors.






I'm not doing a very good job of uploading these images in any kind of order.

Anyhoo...

We began our second day in Nairobi, in our hotel with the crazy security. We had four security guards at the front and for each floor there were three different locked doors that you had to go through to get to your room. There were cameras everywhere.

The night before we had met with the safari line representative who had come to give us our itineraries and to ask us for our input on the safari (we were given feedback forms to fill out later). She also told us that since there were only four of us they were upgrading us to a leisure camp at Masai Mara (we were supposed to be camping). We would be staying at the Mara Leisure Camp.

To get to Masai Mara we had a loong bus ride, but it was fantastic. We saw so many cool things. On our way out of the city we saw our first Masai people, wearing their distinctive red blankets. Joshua warned us against taking pictures. An American took pictures of a Masai woman and her children bathing nude at a water hole and turned them into postcards, since then a photograph equals a rock being chucked at you or worse. Understandable really but sad. I was really frustrated because the Masai are beautiful, I have never seen a more photogenic group of people in my life. It was like being a diabetic fat kid in a room of sweets. Stupid Americans.

We drove through several towns and watched as the landscape gradually changed from urban to rural to the Savannah. We amused ourselves at rest stops by buying new kinds of treats that we had never tried before. I bought a candy bar called U & Me, only to discover it was a twix in different clothing! I also rediscovered the Jamaica bar, which we don't have in Canada but we used to get in the Solomons... mmm chocolate and rum flavored raisins. Toilet breaks were very similar to those in Egypt, holes in the ground and you needed to supply your own tp. We stopped at a scenic spot to take pictures of the rift valley. I chose this moment to play with my new camera and erase all pictures taken thus far...oops. Thank-god for travel mates and their knowledge of all things camera, they taught me how to use the panorama setting. There was also a shop there roadside and we went in with the intention of buying little to nothing. Bloody hell. Between the four of us, two large wooden chairs, one small wooden chair, 25 postcards, three fabric wall hangings, spoons, t-shirts, book marks, and more. We also discovered to our delight that Kelly is a master bargainer, he got the price down to half of the initial offer from the seller. In fact the shop guy gave up his bargaining duties and had the owner come over to debate with Kelly, I was very impressed. In future I plan to take lessons from him, he didn't yell, he didn't freak out he just planted his feet stayed calm and pleasant and got his asking price. I think Joshua was a bit taken aback when we loaded the van up.

I had ceased to pay attention as we drove, choosing instead to focus my attention on an Eve Ensler book I had bought when Emily shouted "Look at that!" It was our first African wildlife spotting, a Thompson's gazelle just hanging out by the roadside. Shortly after we came across some baboons, and then giraffes meandered across the road in front of us. Fuckin awesome.

When we arrived at the lodge it was quite something. There was a massive thorn wall around the place, and the inside was beautiful. From our rooms you could see a watering hole where Masai people brought their cattle and washing up. We had lunch out on a patio surrounded by tropical flowers, you would have had to slap the grins off of our faces. After we had unpacked and had a chance to look around Joshua took us on our first game drive...