Friday, September 4, 2015

The wilder Side of Kenya!

I am in Kenya, y’all! On Safari! With, like lions, and wildebeests, and hyena’s and shit!


This is freaking awesome! Went on a little 2 hour safari tonight. It was so beautiful. Lots of times a picture just does not capture the real beauty of the moment. We saw, tons of wildebeests, I thought they were small! Like the size of a pig. But they are huge! Size of like a donkey with really thick necks. We saw tons of gazzelas and zebra’s and lions! Oh, the lions! We saw lion cubs too! 

There is something to be said for seeing animals in the wild. Much better than any zoo could provide. One of the cubs started stalking this bird! But the jeeps kept grabbing his attention and he finally went back to his mom. The sun was absolutely gorgeous. The light shinning through the clouds and the glow in the sky. And then the sunset, ohhhh, magnificent! 

We are going tomorrow morning as well at 7 am. And then we are taking a trip to a Masai tribe. Some of the other guests don’t want to go because they think it is too expensive, but hey, once in a lifetime thing, right?





In our tour of Masai Masa, we have an Indian couple, a Kenyan woman with her British husband, and the woman’s nephew and his new bride who are also Kenyan. Everyone seems nice and well traveled. And everyone’s older, except the newlyweds. There’s never anyone Ajenai’s age. But she is really enjoying this which is cool. She said today was good and she likes the tent we are staying in and the food was ok. Of course the animals were amazing! We shall see how I sleep tonight! The beds a little hard but I’m loving the darkness! No need for a sleep mask tonight!


Our Tent! Home for the next 3 days!


Our 5 Star restaurant!

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 2nd day visiting the Masai Mara Game Park. Today we started at 7am and were going to stay in the park until 4. I was wondering, what the heck are we gonna do for 9 hours!? I do have to admit that there was a lot of sleeping going on in our van! But just when I was thinking, yea, nobody needs to be in a game park for mulitiple hours, we say lions! Right on the side of the road, less than 10 steps away from us! It was awesome. They were just chilling, not afraid of us like some of the herbivores.








Ok, let’s see if I can name all the animals we saw today: lions, zebras, giraffes, elephants, hippos, gazelles, wildebeests, buffalos, cheetahs, mongooses, vultures, crocodiles, and tons of species of birds. Yes! I really saw all these animals in their natural habitat! It was pretty amazing. I asked if the lions are fed but no, all the animals have to hunt and live or die as nature intended. Some of the wildebeests looked really thin, could see all of their ribs. But I guess if I had just made a major however many mile migration, I would need some fattening up too.

This lion walked right towards and then around our van like it was just another bush! No fear!


I could lie here and say, wow, we totally heard him roar! But we didn't, he was just yawning! Awesome pic though!






These elephants crossed the road behind our van. A whole family, the driver said there was an Auntie and a grandmother with this group too.



Does it look like this male bull is heading right for us? Because he was! We were too close to his women, so he started walking towards us as the family crossed the road. I thought it was an everyday occurrence, but our driver said, let's hurry and go now!



This river separates Kenya from the Serengeti, Tanzania. I had no idea we were that far south!






Don't feed the animals! But of course, I did! This little guy actually took this banana right from my hand!



Last night when we were leaving the game park, we were stopped by the rangers who told our driver to get out of the car. There were about 5 vans in line to leave the park. The park closed at 6:30 and it was about 6:45. The rangers talked to the drivers for a long time and the Kenyan couple in our van said they were asking for money! I don’t know what ended up happening but after about 10 minutes, we left without giving them any money thank goodness!

So, I have a plan for the near future. I have been feeling bad about leaving Ms. Emily and the kids, I mean, the whole point of this trip was to volunteer with children. Now, here's my new plan: Ajenai and I will hang out this week, doing touristy stuff after the safari. Then I will go back to Guthyri and live in the hovel of an apartment for the rest of my stay, and volunteer at the school. Ms. Emily was very excited when I told her and said of course I would be welcome! So, yay! Something is finally working out!

Ciao for now1