Due to the fact we booked our tickets almost a year ago and were not notified by Virgin Atlantic that they changed the time of our flight, we arrived at 6:30am for a 9:50am flight, only to find out that it has been changed to 12:50pm… awesome.

Flying Virgin has been a frustrating decision, which probably won’t be helped by my 12 hours that I will need to spend in Heathrow since they changed my connecting flight too… hahaha…I am trying to keep a humor about this.

I am very happy to be going home, but at the same time I am a bit nervous, for lack of a better descriptor.  I have had most things planned up until this point and I am not exactly sure how to move my next phase of my life forward… though I am excited by the opportunity to move onto something else.

I have started a business plan for my idea for an organization/business, so hopefully that will lead to some good connections and will bud into something, though it will take a lot of work as there are many questions still to be answered in that direction. As for work, I am hoping to pick up some shifts back at the Phoenix to refill the much depleted bank account, and will be searching for something that both interests me and fits what I am want to learn about to enhance my business idea.

Well we are boarding so I am off… much love and see you all soon…

For fun I have some statistics at the bottom like number of equator crossings, a map to show you our crazy route, and some fun facts. I will try and follow this lengthy post up with more anecdotal ones, but I thought a catch up was in order.

December 14^th – Carnivore in Nairobi

We debated over going to this obviously touristy place and in the end decided that enough people had given it a thumbs up review that we caved and went with a few traveling friends from Hell’s Gate.  Carnivore is a Brazilian grill style meat feast where waiters come around with Masai spears full of grilled meats.  The attraction back in the day was that you could eat exotic meats like zebra, warthog, snake, giraffe, etc… but do to a combination of conservation and probably price of the meats, this main attraction has been limited to ostrich and crocodile, though they don’t tell you this. Now, I am not saying that it wasn’t fun to eat crocodile (think salty fishy chicken), but the ostrich was made into a meatball so it didn’t really taste different, and in South Africa we had better ostrich, as well as warthog, kudu, and some other cool meats.  The main stays at Carnivore are beef and pork, and they’re not that astoundingly, especially not for the price.  My vote for future tourists would be skip it, there are better places to eat (one mentioned below).

December 15^th – Off the Beaten Path… Drive to Nyahururu to see Thompsons Falls

Back on the road with our sweet Corolla, still missing its review, we headed out with Dan, our new German friend.  Our goal was to see some off the out of the way sites and based on out readings from Lonely Planet and RoughGuide (the RoughGuide is way more detailed and better by the way), we picked out Thompson’s Falls, Lake Bogoria and Lake Baringo, some places in Laikipia or some places near Mt. Kenya (to be decided later). The drive was beautiful, though the roads are so pocked with a variety of small holes and giant craters it makes you feel like you are in a video game as you try and dodge the them while watch out for speeding matatus and passing incredibly slow tractors.  The driving has only reaffirmed my belief that I would probably be an amazing racecar driver.

We started late in the morning and made it to Nyahururu in the late afternoon as the sun was waning.  After checking out a few places we decided to stay at the Safari Inn. A typical Kenyan guesthouse, simple and clean, it was a great place to stay and we made a great dinner over our little propane stove in the room (it really is amazing how good our austere cooking has become).

December 16^th – Thompson’s Falls to Lake Bogoria’s Hot Spring Geysers and Lake Baringo

We got up early in the morning (I know that’s hard for most of you to believe that Eli and I wake up early, but occasionally we make it happen) and headed over to the falls.  It was an easy 2 kilometer hike down to the base of the beautiful falls, where we hung out for a bit exploring around.  There were more hikes to be done but we wanted to make it to Bogoria so we headed back up the now more difficult 2K hike.  On the road again we drove through some interesting landscapes that reminded us of Arizona and New Mexico.  We stopped by what we thought was a huge aloe plantation, though it could also have been sisal.  The field made an amazing pattern of spiky emerald green, as the plants were laid out in strict lines for miles.  After a few more hours drive we arrived in the incredibly hot semi-desert of Lake Borgoria.  We had lunch at the gates and drove into the park were we saw the beautiful emerald lake with hundreds of flamingos lining the shore, some amazing eagles, a greater kudu, and of course the amazing hot spring geysers.  With water temperatures up to 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit) you can boil an egg or potatoes in the water surrounding the geysers quickly.  It was amazing to see these thermal vents through crystal clear water bubbling up and cause ten-foot high fountains of boiling water.  After the amazement wore off and we began to bore of watching the geysers, we took off and headed for our campsite at Lake Baringo in a small town of Kampi Ya Samaki, which literally translates to Fish Camp.  We passed the local’s toll, the only toll road I have seen in Kenya, and made our way to Robert’s Camp.

December 17^th and 18^th – Lake Baringo @ Robert’s Camp with the Hippos

Robert’s camp was amazing, great facilities for camping, a nice bar with icy cold beer, good food if you didn’t want to make your own, plenty of free scrap wood for a fire, and access to the lake shore where hippos freely graze, crocodiles sunbath and fish eagles abound.  The coolest part of this camp is that the hippos, a nighttime grazing animal, come out of the water and graze AROUND YOUR TENT.  This is actually really safe because they are very shy creatures and as long as you stay in your tent still and don’t scare them with flash photography they will just casually graze by and around you.  However, that is not to say that it is not absolutely terrifying as these are incredibly large animals that whose shadows are magnified onto your tent and you can actually hear them crunching the grass with their massive mandibles inches from your tent wall.  While Eli thought this was awesome, my feelings shifted from amazement to terror that they would start to fight and roll over our tent or that something would scare them and they would trample us.  Neither of these happened either night though thankfully.

December 19^th till 20^th – Drive to Timau, a small hike by Mt. Kenya, and the Kenya Zebra Burrito

While Lake Baringo was cool, it was incredibly hot and the hippo and croc infested waters did not provide the swimming that one might hope for, so off we went for Laikipia and a place called Bobong Campsites.  Unfortunately, we did not have a 4X4 vehicle and the roads, which we braved for a good distance before turning around, were incredibly rocky.  So the change of plans sent us off towards Timau River Lodge right outside of Nyere and at the base of Mt. Kenya National Park.  Timau River Lodge was incredibly quaint, you drive down a sketchy abandoned looking path and arrive at a gate, which when opened and you can see beyond you feel like you are suddenly transported to a little dutch home. There is a waterfall, duck and goose pond (ducks and geese present), adorable wood buildings, and the reception had this massive fire place dwarfed only by those at the Awani in Yosemite.  We spoke with the owners who had moved to Kenya a long time ago from Afghanistan and set up shop.  The next day we woke up early, made breakfast and went on a hike out to Ken Trout to go fishing.  The views of Mt. Kenya were fantastic and though Ken Trout did not prove to have the hoped for fishing, it did have a very scenic area to have a beer. That night we made burritos, the most longed for food, and they turned out fantastic… a picture of the Kenya zebra burrito can be seen below or on my Flikr depending on upload speeds.

December 21^st and 22^nd – Around Mt. Kenya with 200 speed bumps and back to Nairobi, the Elephant Orphanage, Giraffe Center, and a tragic loss

Instead of driving back the way we came we decided to take the long way around Mt. Kenya back to Nairobi.  The views provided on this drive were amazing; a sharp contrast to the desert land of the lake area, the area around Mt. Kenya would be described as fertile, green, lush, and in some areas bordering on jungle/forests.  We were warned before we started the journey that there were about 200 speed bumps along this route to slow our progress, and thinking this a hilarious number we decided to count as we went… there are in fact 200 speed bumps exactly between Timau and Nairobi via Meru. Once back in Nairobi we rushed to the Nairobi National Park to go to the David Shendrick Elephant Orphanage were we got to see the cutest baby elephants who had been orphaned due to poaching, falling into water drainages, or unknown reasons.  While these adorable beasts were one of the highlights of the day, when we were leaving a rehabilitated black rhino called Sheda showed up in the parking lot.  The Nairobi national park is a wildlife sanctuary on the outskirts of Nairobi where animals live protected and wild, Sheda had been an orphaned black rhino who was reintroduced into the wild (a.k.a. the park) and who had returned to her original stomping grounds, a brilliant surprise considering that the black rhino is very shy and elusive… as well as easy spooked, in which case they charge.  After watching the rhino for as long as we could without getting kicked out for our own safety, we headed to the near by Giraffe Center to feed some rare Rothschild Giraffes.  There are apparently 3 types of giraffe, Rothschild (endangered), Masai (the typical one), and reticulated (also typical), all of which can be differentiated by their spots.  Though over packed with other Sunday tourists and local families, we got there just in time to feed a giraffe and see some tortoise before heading off.  The tragic loss occurred on our way back to Upper Hill Campsite when a matatu tried to pass us on a two-lane road into traffic and fearing for the car we were driven off the road where we popped a tire and were stuck on the side of the road. After successfully changing the tire to the spare our now much worse for the wear Corolla and passengers finally arrived “home”.

December 23^rd and 24^th – Eli’s Parents Arrive; Nairobi, Kenya to Dar Es Salam, Tanzania… and the case of the missing baggage

The long awaited for date finally came and we met Kathy and John at their hotel, which conveniently was not far from our own location (thank your for all the gifts to those who sent us stuff).  We began to condense our life down to two bags for our upcoming travels (we got down to one big bag and a small bag each, including sleeping bags and tent) and then went out to dinner at Misono, an excellent Japanese Hibachi restaurant.  The next day was Christmas Eve and we went to the airport for our flight from Nairobi to Dar Es Salam. There are some Kenya things that really slay me, specifically the lack of customer service, I honestly think its cultural.  We went to check in for our flight that we had reconfirmed the night before, only to find out that our plane had booked in full, which was funny since we had not booked in and were 2 ½ hours early.  What had happened, a story it took much coaxing to get out of the ticketing agent, is that seats on the plane were held for connecting passengers… essentially they did not count the connecting passengers when selling tickets on the plane.  This did not really flabbergast me as it occurs in the US as well, but what really chapped my ass was the fact that the agent seemed to think this was somehow not the airlines fault and that we should be thankful to be put on a later flight, as if it were somehow our fault.  In the US when this happens they ask for volunteers to get bumped and offer some form of compensation (i.e. miles, tickets, upgrades, money); however, after some discussion we managed to talk to the manager who allowed us access to the business class lounge. Later that night we finally get a plane to Dar Es Salam, meaning we saw nothing of our really nice hotel or the city, but we got there… this was not the case for our baggage.  After some discussion with the agents there it became apparent that again, this is common and our bags would be there tomorrow and we should be happy… even if they were not going to make it in time for our 7am flight to Ruaha.  Still not getting bummed out about this, probably due to the free booze in the business lounge and the fact that this was still the nicest place we had slept in months, we went to the hotel, had some beers and calamari and celebrated our holiday.

December 25^th – Christmas in Ruaha… the case of the missing bags continues

Despite reassurances the bags did not make it… however we did make it on our little Cesna to Ruaha. This is the smallest plan that I have ever been on and the experience was amazing… it’s the closest thing to flying in a bubble as you can see out all the windows including the cockpit. We landed in Ruaha and were greeted by our guide Pietro, an amazingly jovial, young and wonderful Italian guy who had become a guide when he decided that being a civil engineer was no longer what he wanted to do.  We drove to Kwihala, the 8 tent camp we were staying at and at which we were the only guests, and had to drive through some amazingly muddy roads as they had just graded the roads with sand and it had rained heavily for the last two days, turning the roads to goo.  While this was distressing for Pietro, I thought it was awesome and in Eli’s words “was kinda like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.” I should clarify something, when I say our campsite, I am not talking about the kind of campsites you might expect or the kind that Eli and I have been staying at, this was a luxury tented camp with semi-permanent canvas tents with full bathrooms.  The tents and the lounge area had obvious had the careful touch of an interior designer and were tastefully done with amazing East African art, pottery, and the logo of a Baobob tree on the most things.  I will post pictures, as words really can’t describe this all. We went for a short game drive at sundown, returned to camp, showered, and then went to the main tent where they had a small fire going outside. We sat down, were given drinks and freshly roasted (still hot) cashews to nibble before our delicious 4-course dinner. The food was better than anything I had eaten up to that point in Kenya and we all went to bed happy, full, a bit of a buzz, with visions of luggage dancing in our heads.

December 26^th and 27^th – Ruaha and John the hero… case closed

Morning and a wonderful breakfast came but still no baggage, 4 of the 6 bags had been located but they had missed the morning’s flight.  Though we had only been on one game drive and the vacation had only just started, albeit sans clothing, it was obvious something needed to be done if we wanted clothes on this trip. This is where John, having dealt with situations similar to this in the past decided it wasn’t going to get done if someone didn’t go and get it done, and so he sacrificed two days (practically the whole time) at Kwahala and hopped on the next flight to Dar Es Salam to sort out the luggage ordeal… our hero.  Meanwhile we went on an amazing game drive where we saw elephants, monkeys, zebra, warthogs, dik-dik, kudu, gazelle in herd, baboons, giraffe, hippos (who apparently fling their poop with their tails as it comes out), and over 65 species of birds both big and small.  I have never been a birder but when you are out with someone who knows their wildlife and can tell you all the cool fact about each bird and encourages you to keep a list, its hard not to get into it.  While lunch had been amazing the day before they feed you to the brim and all you really do on safari is sit in a car and look for animals, not the most strenuous work, and we all decided to push through lunch, keep driving and head straight to another amazing dinner.  John came back the next day mid afternoon, bags in tow, and the true relaxing part of the vacation began… we went on a sundowner (definition: a sundowner is a drink somewhere while watching the sunset) that night to a spot near out camp where there was a pride of lions with 4 small cubs, it was amazing to just see them play with each other and bother the male lion, and enjoy some wine while the sun went down on another fantastic day.

Side Story: Dik-dik are really small deer with small, straight horns on the male… they are really cute looking and easily scared off; however, Pietro told us a story about a friend of his who apparently came out of his tent and startled a dik-dik, who proceeded to use these horns to stab him in the shin… this sounds like the best bar story ever, “One time, I was stabbed by a dik-dik…”

December 28^th till 31^st – Luxury in the Bush @ Beho Beho

After a short game drive where we almost saw a leopard, we said goodbye to Pietro and hoped in another small Cesna to our next destination, an amazing camp called Beho Beho.  This is by far and away the nicest place I have ever stayed, in fact, the rooms were rated the second most romantic in the world… again, descriptions won’t really due and I will post some pictures to really give you an idea of the breadth of how beautiful this place is (or you can check it out at www.behobeho.com, as I could write forever on all the amazing aspects of this place). It was much warmer in Beho Beho, which is in an area called Selous, and we were greeted with cold fruit juice and cold towels before taken on a small walking safari (which is much much cooler than a game drive).  We walked down to a hippo pool and watched the males show their dominance, and then went back to our ridiculous rooms.  Set on a hill, each room an entirely open wall on one side that had a balcony that over looked the savannah below, they even came with an amazing telescope to get up close views of the animals.  Throughout the next days we ate some of the best food I have ever had (3 course meals that included lobsters, bubuti – a South African dish, incredible steals, and even fajitas), and went on some amazing game drives.  One day we did a walking safari to track a black rhino and came up close and personal with elephant and giraffes, though no rhinos.  We also had a day where we did an early morning game drive to a lake where we boated around and saw amazing birds, crocs, hippos, and fish that literally leapt out of the water and across (or into – see picture below) our boat.  We were surprised with a brunch that was set up on a remote shore of the lake, table, chairs, and even a proper portable toilet. Next we went back across the lake back to our vehicle and then to a hot spring where we could swim in the hot mineral rich water… it was amazing!

Side Story: If you want to hear my awesome side story send me an email and I will tell you about my elephant story… but I am not posting it here.

December 31^st – New Year’s in Stone Town, Zanzibar

Our time in Beho Beho had to come to an end but now it was time to enjoy some sun and sand, so we hoped onto another little Cesna and made our way to Zanzibar.  It was New Year’s Ever and we were to spend it in Stone Town since we got in during late afternoon.  The city is a stunning maze of old colonial buildings, small streets, and even smaller alleys where Vespas careen around corners shops spill out from small store fronts.  We quickly found out that there was no electricity on the island because the 30 year old cable from the main land that was to last only 10 years had finally died in early December, thus, where there was electricity it was from individual generators. This caused some problems as the generator at our hotel kept giving out and it is incredibly hot on the island and your room quickly becomes a sweatbox.  We decided to escape our hotel and celebrate New Year’s at a restaurant called Mtoni Marine, which had candle lit tables on the beach under the stars and live traditional taarib (spelling questionable) music. It was absolutely lovely and at midnight they passed out champagne and had a live drum band that danced and played.

January 1^st till 5^th – Stone Town to Nungwi and the Eli’s Parents head home

Our next destination was Ras Nungwi, a resort at the tip of Zanzibar’s northern end. The resort was absolutely beautiful with its traditional thatched roof, beautiful blue pool, white sand beaches on the Indian Ocean, which is incredibly warm… some days almost too warm.  Our rooms had traditional Zanzibar beds, which are absolutely beautiful, and every day we simply had to walk down to the beach, grab a hammock or a bed and relax.  We walked the beach at low tide one day to the small village of Nungwi and had lunch, and another day we decided we wanted to see more of Stone Town and took a tour with a local guy who had been recommended to us by the people at Beho Beho.  On one of our last days we were to go diving, something I have never done before.  We woke up really early to do a refresher training in the pool (a training for me as I knew nothing) but half way through it began to rain, and did not let up for most of the day, effectively canceling our trip. While this was a bummer it was nice to be able to just relax and enjoy our surroundings.  The next day John and Kathy were to leave and Eli and I were back on our own, and desperately needing to find accommodations we could afford, for while Ras Nungwi was lovely, it was far out of our budget. After combing the beach and stopping by smaller less plush places and even some resorts (who you can talk the price of the room down quite a bit if you are in person) we settled on the place right next door to Ras Nungwi called Sazani.

January 6^th till 11^th – Being Sick on the Beach and Diving in Nungwi

For most of the time at Sazani I was incredibly sick, which was lame but if you are going to be sick doing so on a beach and chilling in a hammock all day is definitely the way to do it.  We met some really wonderful travelers who, while not staying there, came for the cheap drinks at the honor bar.  The owner’s brother Martin was running the place until his sister got there and he provided great company every night.  Towards the end of our time in Nungwi I began to feel much better and we decided on our last day to do the dive trip that we had missed while Eli’s parents were here.  Diving is amazing and once you trust the gear, it is incredibly fun.  The hardest part for me at first was breathing out, its kind of odd to be able to breath under water and have to work to breath out.  While we didn’t see anything beyond some cool ass fish, diving off Menemba Island was wonderful.  To get to the dive spot you take a dhow, a sort of larger traditional fishing boat, which in and of itself was fun. After diving we headed back to Sazani, said goodbye to everyone and took a dalla-dalla (the Tanzanian form of a matatu) back to Stone Town.

January 11^th till 18^th – Adventures in Stone Town (Learning to Ride a Vespa, Giant Tortoise, Spice Farms, and more!!!)

We ended up arriving in Stone Town at night and had someone show us to the hotel we had elected from our guidebook.  Because the streets are so winding and crazy, and the fact that there are no lights so you can’t see, a guide to our hotel was necessary.  In general the people on Zanzibar, and Stone Town in particular, are incredibly friendly, helpful, and jovial.  Our hotel was great, despite the lack of electricity that caused the fan to go out and the heat in the room to rise to desperate levels.  The next week we spent meandering the streets of Stone Town, eating wonderful Swahili Pizzas (a dough which is filled with minced meat, tomato, onion, and an egg and then fried), Swahili coffee from Zanzibar Coffee House, coffee from small street vendors (especially at Jaws Corner) where you sit on the steps of surrounding buildings or small benches and enjoy Turkish style coffee, and eating and drinking fresh coconuts. We would normally end our days with a sundowner at the Africa House or the pool at Tembo Hotel, which we had become expert at sneaking into and pretending we were guests (the key is to get a towel from the place so you blend in).

To make things interesting we decided to join the careen bunches of Vespas and rented ourselves one.  Neither of us having driven a motorcycle or scooter before, this was an interesting endeavor, which thankfully ended successfully.  We drove from Stone Town out to where the Spice Farms are (which are really just small mock ups of the kinds of spices grown on the larger plantations) and went on a tour.  While this is totally a super touristy thing to do, it was incredibly fun and we got to see and taste all kinds of spices like vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, turmeric, cardamom, black pepper, chili, and fresh cloves. There were also various fruits like jackfruit (which is delicious), star fruit, the freshest passion fruit I have ever had, litchi, breadfruit, custard apples, coconuts, and pineapple.  We were even shown the medicinal herbs such as iodine and quinine. One of my favorites however was the lipstick fruit that looked like a litchi but when you crack it open it is full of small seeds covered in an orange red powdery paste that was used by women as lipstick, hair color, and makeup. After having some of the best tea and fruit I have ever experience we hoped onto our scooter and headed for the southern tip of the island and a place called Fumba.  Like most things in Africa, you plan to do 5 things and you can only ever accomplish 3, so while we planned to go swimming in the ocean at the beach there and see the dolphins, we instead ended up going to a small exclusive resort, having a beer there and swimming on their beach and at their fantastic pool.  We headed back to Stone Town while the sunset.

On one of our lasts days in Stone Town we decided to head out to Chumbwa Island (or Prison Island so named because it was a slave trading spot) where for decades giant land tortoises have been raised.  The huge prehistoric looking creatures were so much fun to feed, pet, and play with. Hilariously it was mating season and we were able to witness turtle sex, which is incredibly loud as the male mounts the female (his sex organs are in his tail) and proceeds to hump her with timed loud grunts.  It was strange.

January 18^th – Back to Kenya via Mombasa

Having exhausted all of the things within our budget to do on Zanzibar we decided to head back to Kenya and got a really cheap flight from Zanzibar back to Kenya via Mombasa, our next destination.  We spent the night in Mombasa, a jam packed crazy little city, noted for the giant fake elephant tusks and other crazy little statues that pop up in the medians on its streets (like fake palm trees, a chef, a coconut with a straw, miniature tusks, an eagle).

January 19^th till 25^th – Life on Diani Beach as a Stiltonian

We left Mombasa in the morning and took a tuk-tuk (it’s a motorcycle with essentially a rickshaw on the back) to the ferry. There we waited with the masses of other Kenyans to take it across the inlet where we would grab one matatu and then another to finally arrive at Stilts Ecolodge on Diani beach where we would camp for the next week.  Stilts was amazing because it was such a cool area and was run by a super sweet guy named Andy and some long-term backpackers who he had hired for a bit to run the basics.  The people who work at Stilts refer to themselves as Stiltonians as they spend most of their days, whether they are working or not, in the common lounge area at Stilts.  This is a facet of the fact that any tent or room becomes to hot to sleep in once the sun is up (its in the high 90s there) and the lounge area is high enough up to get a fantastic breeze.  We filled most of our time on Diani swimming, sleeping on the beach, drinking ginger beer shandies with lime on the beach in front of 40 Thieves, and hanging out in the bar/lounge area at Stilts drinking their various infused rums while playing dominos.  We had one over the top night out with a Brit named Andy and a rare muzungu Kenya named Sean where we went to a local bar in town and then out dancing at Shakatak, one of my favorite names for a club/restaurant/bar/whore den.  The Sunday before we left we walked down the beach and saw an amazing and free reggae show and circus act called Kim 4 Love, which is just a really awesome free community event every weekend, if your in Diani ever, don’t miss it.

Side Note: Happy Birthday Chas!

January 26^th till 28^th – Mombasa for the Day and the Train to Nairobi for the Night… except we end up in a matatu for 5 hours instead

We decide to spend the day in Mombasa checking out Old Town and some cool adds and ends before heading back to Nairobi on the train.  We dropped our bags at the station and made our way towards a place that was supposed to have halwa, a traditional Swahili treat like a Turkish Delight but with sesame seeds… it was really good and with my penchant for gummy candy an inevitable stomach ache.  After finally locating some halwa we headed to look at fabric called kangas or lassos (African printed fabric with a saying in Swahili) and kitenge (African patterned fabric with no saying). Next on the agenda was roaming Old Town, where we encountered made to order plantain chips with masala seasoning, delicious ginger coffee, and some really wonderful people.  Our meandering eventually led us to a place called Islands, which served Swahili food and we had a Swahili pizza and some mishkaki (grilled meat on a stick).  By this point it was time to head back to the train and begin our journey to Nairobi.  The train would at the best be called an “antique” and the reviews vary from mediocre to hating the journey, but having never traveled on an overnight train it was an opportunity we didn’t want to miss.  We had you typical room to ourselves, a bit run down but no worse than some places we have stayed in, and we hung out in the restaurant car for a few beers while playing dominoes.  It was only on return to our car that we noticed that our room, or rather the whole train, was infested with cockroaches.  Still, this is not something that we are completely unaccustomed to and we simply tracked down some Doom from our guard and essentially bombed our room… a few minutes of letting it breathe and many dead cockroaches later we watched a movie and went to sleep.  During the night however the train came to a stop because another train had apparently derailed in front of us. We had breakfast and our plans of going back to sleep until we reached Nairobi were suddenly changed into a miserable 5 hour matatu ride… pretty much the exact thing we didn’t want to do.  After much exhaustion and many types of travel we finally made it to our home, Upper Hill Campsite and Backpackers… I love this place.

January 29^th – TODAY… though by the time I post this yesterday

Our plans for today are to go to Gikomba Market, the third largest open-air market in Africa.  We are to meet up with a guy who runs an NGO there for street kids and adults that teaches them drumming, juggling, acrobatics, and other skills that show them they have worth and do not need to sniff glue to enjoy their lives. After this we plan on checking out the market and getting some cool things to come home with, funds permitting.  We have plans to finally go out and see the much talked about Nairobi night life with Jesse and Rich who own and operate the backpackers and who ever else we can wrangle into joining us.  I imagine the next day will be spent recovering and planning out departure.

Side Note: Happy Birthday to the most wonderful person in the world who I have had the extreme luck of knowing for 22 years… Miss Miranda Dalton!!  Love you bunches!

STATISTICS:

Equator Crossings: 8 or more

Damage to Vehicles: Flat Tire, Broken Rear View, Scratches to a Vespa

Bay Area People Met while Traveling: Approx. 13

Map:

Green Line – December 5^th

Orange Line – December 10^th – 13^th

Red Line – December 14^th – 22^nd

Purple Line – January 18^th – 28^th

Miss you all and wish I could be home to give you a hug dad before you leave for training and then Afghanistan.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and miss you all a bunch!

Very soon I promise will be a deluge of imagery to satisfy your curiosity and questions and comments like:

Did Erin put on a ton of weight in Kenya?

How red can Erin’s skin get in the African sun?

How much does Erin stick out in a sea of Africans?

We dont care about seeing Erin show us the fucking wild animals, those are cool.

We have been staying at a great backpackers joint called Upper Hill Backpackers in Nairobi (one of only three) in our newly acquired tent… which is great except we have no sleeping pads, something I did not properly appreciate the usefulness of before. The place is awesome and run by a really chill chic named Jesse (you can see pics of this place on the web if you Google the name). After making a game plan, me getting some kind of parasite that knocked me out for a day, we finally decided to rent a car and travel around to all the far-flung places we wanted to visit.

We left Nairobi for Lake Naivasha on December 10^th in our shiny white Corolla (definitely did not spring for the 4X4, a questionable decision but it was cheaper).  We got to Fisherman’s camp that afternoon, set up our tent and made a pasta dinner over our fire.  Boiling water is the biggest pain in the ass for those who are not aware. Fisherman’s Camp is awesome because at night hippos come out of the water to feed on the grass by the lakeshore of the campsite, maybe 20 feet from us.  They are kept safely close by the use of an electric fence.  Its crazy how fast these beasts are and that we were close enough to hear them crunching the grass.

The next day we awoke early, made some coffee and hopped in the car to head to Lake Nakuru National Park to try and spot some rhinos.  On the way there on a well paved but two lane highway a matatu clipped our rearview on the drivers side and shattered it into pieces… if the shoddy condition of most of the roads does not dissuade most from driving in Kenya, the crazy ass matatu drivers should.  Upon entering Lake Nakuru NP we were greeted by a momma and baby white rhino grazing!  In the distance was the flamingo covered lake (Lake Nakuru is a very large soda lake) and hyenas.   We drove around the park, getting lost multiple times as there really is no good road map, went up to this great lookup point that is in some movie I forget now (Out of Africa maybe), found a tortoise on the side of the road, and then while discussing which way to go and where the hell we were, I looked up from the book at Eli to debate my point only to realize there was a lion right outside out car. Later that day we say some Giraffe (possibly Rothschild, possibly Reticulated) and were surprised and bombarded by baboons that jumped all over our car while we were stopped looking at two zebras fight.

That night we returned to camp and met a few other travelers, Dan from Germany – who would join our adventures, Bryan from Ireland – the Irish travel more than any group I know, and Andres from France – he was finishing his time in Kenya and had been working on a project for his thesis on Lake Victoria.  They were great fun and joined us the next day to mountain bike around Hell’s Gate.

The morning of December 12^th we roll out of our tent and onto some beat up, barely shifting mountain bikes, mine was an amazing shade of purple while Eli got the super 80’s neon pink fading to violet… it reminded me of Caroline’s sweet Huffy from DC. This was my second time to Hell’s Gate and it was as gorgeous as I remembered.  Though we didn’t get to rock climb Fischer’s Rock we did climb through the gorge and into some awesome, but possibly sketchy areas, got a bit lost in there and had to have an awesome Masai kid named David guide us out.  After the hike we took our now properly bruised asses back to the camp site, where the lake had turned a burnt umber color (thank you Crayola Crayons) due to the approaching rainstorm, which thoroughly soaked us and sent us (though our tent held up great).

Sunday morning we headed back to Nairobi for a Kakamega reunion with some expat friends. It was Bryan’s (who worked for a microenterprise venture) last night after 3 ½ years in Western Kenya, so it was nice to have a proper send off.  Nick and Lindsy of Thanksgiving two fame (see that entry) were there, Tara from CEDAR (now no longer in Kakamega but still in Kenya) and Carolyn (who formerly worked with CEDAR in Kakamega), Will from One Acre Fund, and some other guests were all there. It was a wonderful end to the first part of our planned trip.

This title not only refers to my trip to Nakuru, but also  I have been doing a lot of reading whilst I have been here and I recently finished Dave Edgger’s book that is based on a movie that is based on a children’s book by Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are… it was a really great and quick read, though I would love to go back and read the original book as I can’t really remember all of the details of the original.

The processional is way more fun, though for the bride incredibly time consuming.  The bridal party literally dances down the aisle.  Peter entered first with his best man and these 4 little boys dressed in tan suits with sunglasses proceed dancingly down the aisle to the front of the church. Next comes the bridal party and they enter from different sides of the church, meet in the middle, bow and exchange flowers, and then dance together down the aisle. This is a kind of rhythmic swaying, bowing, slower dancing walk, one man and one woman. Try and think more like how you would dance in a car to some slow upbeat song on Boston’s radio station The River, not like that scene from Coming to America where they present Eddie Murphy with his wife.

The music they are playing is some kind of Jesus inspired African pop in Swahili, and they simply loop the CD until everyone is down the aisle.  Then they start a new song on loop for the bride to come down the aisle and she slowly dances/meanders side to side slowly forward.  Its like she sways in place and then steps to one side, repeats and then slightly steps forward to the other side, making her way slowly (here they say pole pole) down the aisle. The 5-minute song looped no less than four times.  During this the woman in the church make a high-pitched EYE-YAY-YAY-YAY with a rolling R in there somewhere kind of yell. It’s awesome and I am not sure I could make that noise if I wanted to.

The ceremony itself was very similar to an American style wedding with the minister, some prayers, a few readings, and then some music.  For starting as late as it did and not counting the processional as part of the wedding, it actually was a very quick ceremony. Then we all proceeded to the reception where all the guests greeted the couple and we danced a traditional Luhya dance behind them as they entered.  Then there was traditional African feast with ugali, skuma wiki (kale), kuku (chicken), beef stewed, samaki (fish), and rice.  It was all pretty delicious.  Entertainment was provided by the Ninga Flames, a local Nairobi band that Peter knowns that does traditional Kenyan and Luhya music, which was awesome.  The Master of Ceremonies who pronounced the name Nin-ga without the “g” only made the band even more spectacular of a centerpiece.  All of the Westerns at the event were momentarily shocked and quickly checked their program to make sure that the name was not in fact Nigga Flames, perhaps it was just a soft “n” that made him pronounce it like this.

In the end gifts were given, the newly weds were bedecked with garlands and then fed the cake not to each other but to their families and guests (a bite each), and some wonderful speeches were given.  All in all a great ceremony and a wonderful couple, I couldn’t have been happier to be able to see this great event.

Entry #1                        Do They Know Its Halloween?**

Kirsten (my co-worker and best friend here), Eli, and I had a Halloween party at the house with the interns and our Kenyan friends, it was really fun, though convincing a bunch of Kenyans who have never celebrated Halloween before to dress up in a costume was interesting.  The best way we found of explaining it was that you could dress up as anything you wanted, as long as you weren’t that thing in real life (i.e. if you work as a Cook you can’t come as a cook).  The costumes were great, the Kenyans mostly went for monsters or ghouls, but the interns came as all of the Ninga Turtles, Harry Potter, a monkey, a Zebra – she wore a black dress and put masking tape strips on, a Mama from the village, a Masai Warrior, and Jackie Chan – mostly cause Andrew is Korean and how Kenyans yell Mzungu at me, they yell CHING CHONG or JACKIE CHAN at him.

Its very PC here.

Kirsten came as her dog Kali because her Matatu conductor costume fell through, but she still looked awesome.  Eli went as a Muslim school boy and bought the uniform, which is ridiculous, and I went as a Unicorn after many failed attempts at trying make myself a bag of Omo (which is this ridiculously over advertised laundry detergent).  We drank it up at our house and then headed out to one of the three dance spots in Kakamega, West Life, which plays traditional Luhya music in one of the buildings on the compound and then hip-hop/techno in the another building. The last building sells nyama choma (grilled meat) and samosas.  All in all a great night.

**This title references a ridiculous song that is a mockery of Do they Know Its Christmas by a plethora of random artists who are collectively known as the North American Halloween Prevention Initiative.

Enty # 2                        A long Safari (safari means journey by the way)

Next it was off to South Africa because I had to leave East Africa for visa stuff and Eli was doing this amazing workshop.  It was beautiful.  Eli had a “fixer,” photography vocabulary for someone who gives you unfettered access to their life and takes you around on a more personal tour of the area that they know very well, especially to the areas of Cape Town, like the townships, that normal tourists don’t really get to see, or if they do it is the very commercialized view of it. This made me think about how great it would be if you could use fixers, or the idea of them, for travel and somehow organizing something around this idea, hahaha.  I am still thinking about this but realize I need to focus on one idea at a time and my passion is still in the idea of networks as assets and assisting people in leveraging the networks and potential partnerships that surround them.

Anyways, the highlights of the trip were a visit to Meerlust winery where we had free reign to walk around and check everything out, a private tasting where we got to sample the second bottling (1981) of their flagship wine Rubicon, and then dinner at the manor house with the owner, Hanz. It was wonderful.

Due to some crappy weather (see previous entry) we didn’t make it to Robben Island because every day we tried they had shut the ferries down due to Gale Force winds and rain.  It was cold, very cold, but it was a nice change from Kenya’s constant heat.  We also checked out some great restaurants and the Apartheid Museum in Cape Town, which was a great experience. Its weird to think Apartheid only ended 15 years ago…

So on the way to Cape Town from Johannesburg Eli lost his passport.  We think it fell out of his pocket as we were leaving the plane, but nonetheless a guy at South African Airways in Johannesburg found it and called him to tell him he had it the next morning.  This was all cool and he told us that we should just leave it in the Johannesburg Airport’s Baggage Claim/Lost Property because it would be safe there and we could pick it up on our way back to Nairobi. Thinking this guy knew what he was talking about we were like, cool, this all works out, no need in the 10 days we have in Cape Town to stress getting a new passport, Bonus.  We even call the day before our trip to ensure that it is where it is supposed to be and get the “all good on this front” signal. However, when we get to Johannesburg we are confronted with the rudest woman I have ever met working baggage claim who refuses to help us.  Essentially she is a lazy fat wench, so nasty that when we politely asked if she could please get her supervisor because we have to find this passport and maybe they know something, she flipped out and said “What you think she is going to be able to do something I can’t, its not here;” “No one can help you” and a few other choice remarks.  When we asked for her name she also refused to give us that… no name, no supervisor, so after 8 hours in the airport and finally getting the Station Manager involved, still no passport, and it’s a Saturday so the Consulate is closed till Monday, and the only guy who knows where the damn thing is had his cell phone stolen and won’t be in till Monday night, we begin on Plan B. The Station Manager said he would rebook out tickets for free but it wasn’t the airlines fault that one of their employee’s mislead us and lost the passport. Needless, we are writing a letter, because here is the rest of the story.

Plan B

So we go to the Travel Information desk, which were the most helpful people ever.  They got us a hostel called Ghandi Backpackers that was close to the airport and would pick us up.  Awesome place, I love backpacking hostels. We get picked up by Heinz, the owner and this awesome Swiss dude who moved to South Africa like 10 years ago, and we arrive at this gorgeous lil hostel. Crash out for the night and at 8 am, we are still sleeping cause we have had no rest in like 24 hours, this guy who is like 6 feet tall, slim, black, and calls himself Telli or something wakes us up to let us know that if we want a tour of the city he went to school here, is from Mozambique and will charge us half of what the other people will. He then informs us he will be doing a traditional Africa dinner buffet if we want in, its 100 Rand a head, which is extortionate since you can normally get something like that for 30 Rand. Anyways, he continues to pester us all morning as we try and figure out what on a Sunday we can do, and then we find out we need to go get a police report.  The closest police stations are in the center of the city, which is so bad that the guy who works there and grew up in Soweto, a notorious township, said he doesn’t even walk there.  We ask him how we can get there cheap cause we are already crazy over budget from Cape Town, and he says take a taxi-bus and walk there and right back to the taxi-bus stand and we should be cool.  We go to leave to try and figure out this taxi-bus situation and see these 5 Japanese guys and Telli all wearing these World Cup shirts promoting South Africa and Japan. Turns out these guys are huge Samari Blue fans and got sponsored to pass out t-shirts around South Africa that encourage South Africans to support Samari Blue in exchange for Japan support of South Africa’s team.  They are all going to catch a taxi-bus downtown to the bus station cause one of the guys needs a bus ticket. Telli invites us to go with him saying there is a police station at the bus station, that we will be safer as 8 people rather than just 2 and that he will take us there and directly back.  We think about it, I already don’t like this guy from his high pressure sales routine earlier, but, after making sure he wasn’t gonna charge us, agree…. HUGE MISTAKE.  The moment we get to the area we need to go, which is already pretty obvious we are tourist (1) cause we are all white or asian and in the wrong part of town (2) because the Japanese guys want to take pictures of everything and hand out t-shirts as we go and (3) they don’t put their cameras away they hang them around their necks or carry them.  The problem is that now we are far from out hostel, we have no idea how to tell what taxi-bus to take back cause there are hundreds now, and it becomes pretty clear that this “guide” doesn’t know the area as well as he was letting on.  We get to the police station, get the police report for a lost item we need and meet up with the guys hoping we would head straight back as its now like 3:30 4:00 pm.  NOPE. Telli asks if we want to check out the area and we are all like no ass-wipe this place is super not safe and everyone told us not to walk around more than we have to down here and he is like okay then I just need to grab a few things.  He then proceeds to take us to various little street markets so he can pick up the cheapest stuff for his African dinner. Pretty soon it becomes obvious he is lost and asking for direction in Zulu from people, funny how you cant speak a language but you can tell when someone needs directions.  We meander the streets and every nerve in my body starts to stand on end, I am now incessantly complaining to Eli about the situation, to which he rightfully points out we are kinda stuck cause we don’t know how to get back and cabs are super expensive. We are almost back to where we would get a taxi-bus, after wandering a bunch of streets and Telli parading in the actual street, and I turn to Eli and was like, we have to get out of here, I have a really bad feeling about this, everything in my body tells me this is wrong. We walk down a semi populated block with street fare, and turn this corner onto a much less populated street, I am refusing to walk in the street and walking on the sidewalk, carrying nothing because I keep my money in my lady pockets (i.e. my bra) when all of a sudden I see these guys run past Eli and then I see two guys jump on him and try to take his bag, in which is all the papers to get him a new passport, and my passport cause they needed it for the police statement. This is when I jump on the bag that they are trying to tear of his shoulder.  The guy who is now focusing on Eli while the other guy tries to tear me off the bag by my hair and got a good hard kick to the shins, is now saying we don’t want to hurt you just give us the bag… which honestly the only way he was getting that bag was if he planned on seriously hurting me and/or had a gun. Eli and I continue to fight them off and wrestle the bag to the ground and hold it hugged between us, almost fetal position style.  This all lasts maybe two minutes, and the guys run away.  Ironically, about two minutes before we got jumped by 15 guys (which is what really chaps my ass, cause had we done what the asshole should have done and just gone and went back they wouldn’t have had the time to mount a small army to jump all of us) this white woman, about a block behind us got punched in the face and her bag taken.  She had called the cops, and one of the guys who jumped and took one of the Japanese guys camera ran around the corner and straight into the cops, who promptly arrested him, made him get someone to bring back the passport that was taken off another Japanese guy, and then took him to jail… this process took a few hours.  Once they had the guy and we were all with the cops, I asked a mama in the crowd to please recommend a safe cab that I could take back to my hostel cause we had no idea at this point, and now its getting darker, how to get back.  She got us a cab and Eli and I left to go back to the hostel cause I refused to be around Telli any longer lest I kill him.  He had also taken to making these huge theatrical exclamations to the crowd about and why didn’t any of you help us or I know the attackers are in this crowd you cowards… dude man was just all around bad news.  Back at the hostel we tell Heinz and this guy Nick we became friends with the story and by the time the guys all get back to the hostel and come in the bar, Heinz just casually tells Telli to get his things and leave, which of course led to some more dramatic words, but finally he was escorted out of the hostel where he could do no more harm.  We proceeded to help the Japanese guys make sense out of the interesting barrage of food Telli had made them buy, and in return they made us homemade miso soup, the whole time bowing and apologizing that they had caused so much attention and that they made us get jumped, which obviously wasn’t there fault.

Lesson 1: In Cape Town Eli walked around the Cape Flats with Sindele the fixer and some locals with about 2K of camera gear in an area wracked with gang violence, met gang members, and were fine.  In Jo’burg we went with someone who acted like he knew the area, acted like an ass, and we got jumped… its really all about knowing who to trust when.

Lesson 2: Hat tricks really do happen (1) jumped in SF before I leave (2) robbed in the middle of the night in Kenya (3) jumped in Jo’burg… at least the locations are interesting.

Monday we get up early, rent a crazy van from our friend Nick who works for Wicked Campers, and we take off towards the Consulate for a 1pm appointment.  We get there and wait in line with other US citizens renewing passports or getting their babies naturalized, and start talking with this chick Rachel who is super cook and grew up in between Mombasa, Kenya and the US but now married a South African.  We get inside, talk to someone and are told that until they can talk with the guy at South African airways who knows where the passport might be, and can say that it is definitely lost, they wont issue us a new passport.  At this point Rachel and I have been chatting and she gives us her contact information and says that if we end up in Mombasa let her know because her parents have a beach house there and that we can stay there for free, the one cool thing that happened on this trip.  So now its back to the airport to wait for this guy to come back on shift. Eli goes down to baggage claim, also known as the lair of despair, and the woman is not working, some really helpful guy is who say he will check the safe where it should be one more time for us, and low and behold out he comes with the damn passport, which had been there the whole fucking time.

What do I think of Cape Town: wonderful beautiful place with happy nice people that I will go back and visit.

What do I think of Jo’burg: its like LA without the cool part or any city center really. Think sprawling suburb full of strip malls and walled compounds. It sucked, and would have sucked even if we didn’t get jumped. Good luck to all 2010 World Cup travelers.

So, I got back to Kakamega finally, missed my grant writing workshop but made it back in time to do my training of trainers basic business concepts workshop which has gotten really great reviews.

Entry #3                        Twice as Thankful

Thanksgiving came and we were blessed enough to get to have two Thanksgivings, which is impressive for living in a country that doesn’t celebrate this holiday.  The first delicious feast was with the One Acre Fund crew out in Bungoma, we made an espresso cream pie, the food was AMAZING and made me so happy, they even had a new staff member who came from the states in October bring cranberry sauce.  Saturday was Thanksgiving 2 out at Nick (works with One Acre) and Lindsay (works with Village Enterprise Fund)’s house in Kilengili. It was super cool because a bunch of Kenyan’s from Nothern Kenya were there for a conference and celebrated with us (they bought, killed, and roasted a goat for us to eat as well to honor the celebration).  They procured a turkey and everything, it was great (I made two homemade pumpkin pies… I was impressed with myself).  The Samuru and other Northern tribes did a traditional dance for us after dinner and taught us how to do it as well, and then this local Kenya band came and played traditional music and there was bonfire and we all drank and dance the night away.  It was wonderful.

Entry #4                        Working Remotely, but not remotely working

This began my last week in Kakamega, we began packing up to leave our house this past Thursday, head to Nairobi for Peter’s, my boss, wedding, and then we travel around till the 23^rd when Eli’s parents arrive in Nairobi. During this time I will be finishing some small documents for the Site Team and the Newsletter… you will all be sent said newsletter if you want it, just let me know.  The actual plans of travel so far are to head to Mount Kenya for some hiking, then Nakuru for some rhinos (both black and white), maybe Hell’s Gate to see the gorge and some mountain biking, and then back to Nairobi.

When Eli’s parents get here we will be traveling with them to Tanzania, a quick stay in Dar Es Salam for Christmas, off to Ruaha for some safari type adventures, then to Beho Beho to do some other safari type deal and hiking, then off to Zanzibar for the new year, beach, swimming, diving, and drinks… that I can’t wait for, hahaha.  Then Eli and I travel up the Tanzanian coast, up to Mombasa maybe to Lamu, and then its back to the states, unemployment, and poverty on February 1^st.  Well, hopefully I will have found some amazing employment opportunities with a nonprofit or organization that is interested in the human element in systems and/or leveraging networks as an asset.

How am I feeling right now beginning this next chapter… Its all a bit surreal.  I will get you a better description of my emotional state when I don’t have to pare down the amount of stuff I am attempting to carry, figure out my real game plan, and start on a newsletter… right now it just feels hectic and again, surreal.

So that’s my story. What’s yours? Its nice to get messages from people so feel free to comment or drop me an email at ehersey@gmail.com

Despite the weather this really is a beautiful place and Eli and I are staying in an incredibly nice place called Monkey Valley in Noorhoek.  What brought us here is that Eli is doing a photography workshop with David Turnley (www.davidcturnley.com).  If you don’t know who he is, because I did not, his site is worth checking out… he was Nelson Mandela’s personal photographer when he got out of prison, and he is a Pulitzer Prize winning war photographer, and in general a really wonderful person.  I am sort of riding on Eli’s coat tails on this one since I had to leave Kenya for visa reasons – must leave East Africa every 6 months – and I get to stay here with him for next to nothing and sit in on all the workshops. I was going out to shoot the townships with Eli for a bit, but since I have my own work to do as well, and I want to check out some other things, I have been hanging by myself here… which has been interesting though heavily impeded by the weather.

So far I have gone into Nyanga Township and Mitchell’s Plain, headed out to a wine estate owned by a friend of David’s and had lunch there and got full run of the place, gone out to a wonderful dinner in Kalk Bay, was supposed to go to Robben Island but with the winds the way they are all the trips have been canceled, and in general just met some very interesting people.

Its difficult traveling with this group though being unemployed and on a strict budget, which has proven nearly impossible to stick to. The other participants are all self employed and this is a vacation of sorts for them (there is a fashion editor, an eye surgeon, a photographer for Hugo Chavez, a successful real estate agent, and an ad and marketing agency owner) and while they are all incredible people, its tough to stay on a budget with a group of people who don’t really seem to have one… especially when they buy food for the house and at the end of the week we are all going to split the bills evenly.  After struggling with this for two days Eli and I just decided that we should probably just suck it up, eat what we want, and starve later.  Its hard enough having a budget, its even harder when you are expected to chip in and were not prepared for this and everyone else is not on a budget… I can barely keep myself on my budget, I am not about to impose it on anyone else.

Its a big change of pace for me too, I have been used to having enough money to do what I want within reason and not have to worry to much about it… but when you have no money coming in and only money going out, its difficult.  Eli has been helping me take a little bit more relaxed view of the situation though, money comes and money goes and stressing where it is at will not make more of it, so just enjoy it now and suck it up later.  This has never been my monetary mentality so I am struggling a bit with it, but am happier now anyways.

So enough money talk, there are so many amazing things going on here and that I am learning about photography and South Africa it is a shame to use this much of my time discussing that.  It is crazy to think that only 15 years ago Apartheid ended. Hearing the stories from our guides/drivers, who photographers call “fixers,” has been amazing.  These people give you unfettered access one on one to their lives and answer questions as directly and earnestly as possible.  Eli’s fixer is Sindelle, a wonderful black man in his mid to late 50s who was very active in the Apartheid years and even had to leave South Africa for Malawi for a time due to persecution.  He plays all kinds of percussion instruments, writes musicals based on South Africa folklore, and is one of the most sincere and genuine people you could hope to meet.

What is really interesting about South Africa for me is not just the division between black and white, but that between black – normally of Xhousa or Zulu decent, and colored- of varied decent including Malai (spelling might be wrong), mixed, and other tribes of lighter skin color.  There is also a difference between the whites but this is much less noted – Ukrainian Jews, Dutch or Afrikans White, English, and other small groups.  Speaking with David its interesting to hear his stories about a section of the Western Cape called C-Point where most of the transplanted Ukrainian Jews live/lived. He tells stories from 1985 of a jewish family on a whites only beach and asking them how they felt about this having only come to South Africa because they themselves were escaping persecution… for this family they simply said you take all the opportunities as people that you have, but for others these were some of the main white activists against the apartheid system.

It is amazing seeing what 15 years can do to change a country though and to think that its really only been about 50 years for our country of equality, if that.  In fact, its funny to even really be worrying about money, when while I might not have as much as I did when I started this trip, I still have more saved than some people in the Cape Flats (this is the main colored ghetto/township) or in parts of Kakamega, Kenya will have in a few years.  In fact, I think Eli is right, money does come and go, and worrying about it will only cause me unhappiness, and having it won’t get me any more happiness. Money just is, and I will deal with its consequences when I have to… there are worst things in the world than having to skimp… especially when your looking at the view I am.

In the States we take for granted the fact that we turn our taps and clean drinkable water comes out. In fact, and this drives me crazy, most people buy bottled water thinking that this is cleaner than their taps, when in fact it is under less stringent restrictions than tap water.

What really killed me in the states even before I came here was the use of clean, drinkable water in activities that do not need this type of water… like watering your yard, doing laundry, flushing your toilet… its just a huge waste of water that we expend energy to clean.

When you move to Kenya, or any developing nation, you are told not to drink the water, not to drink anything with ice because you can not tell if the water is contaminated or not.  What you will also notice is that just because you have a tap, does not mean that you will have water coming from this tap, in fact, having the tap is a luxury, most people fetch their water from the river.  The city water that comes through the taps is what they say as hivi-hivi in Swahili, or so-so or 50-50. This is not about its quality, though I still have to boil it to drink it because my system cannot always process the different bacteria, but also because it does not always work.  People are not shocked when they turn their tap and no water comes out, they simply move to their storage tanks of water that they fill up when the water is working.

What I didn’t realize back in the states with my disgust for the use of water resources was that I was just scratching the surface. Having access to water and clean water is much more the root of this issue, though conservation is an outcome of this as well.  Right now in Kenya there is a huge cholera outbreak in the northern region because the water, which is fetched from the river, is contaminated.  These are issues that we don’t even think about in the US as we water our lawns and flush our toilets.  Clean water has many meanings here, there is that from wells, that from fresh springs, and that from rainfall that is collected during storms through drains that bring the rain to storage containers. Clean water in the States simple means turning a tap, it’s a service our tax dollars pay for and by not having to collect water everyday we are saving precious hours during our day from traveling and carrying water from the nearest water source.

Water here is also tied directly into the number of trees, or really at this point, the lack of them.  Kenya is a country that relies on its natural resources for energy, especially trees and water.  The people use trees as their primary cooking fuel as gas and electricity are expensive and not always available. Water power, like in most developing nations, is the source of much of Kenya’s power.  This of course in the long run creates a conundrum: Trees bring water (e.g. rainforests), water is the basis for electric power. When there are less trees there is less rainfall, and thus less energy from dams and water produced limiting its reach and its price, which increases the need to cut down trees for energy.  Can you see the cycle?  This is the issue that faces Kenya right now, with droughts raging (though hopefully to be cured with the coming El Nino rains, although with the deforestation of many areas this brings up a new problem of floods as there are no trees to absorb all this rain) there is no rainfall to help plants grow that are the food for people and animals, there is no water to drink, and with the drop in water there is a huge increase in energy costs.  It’s a vicious cycle that has been championed by women like Wangari Mathai for years, but whose impact is now being fully seen.  The only real question is, can Kenya regain control of its people in order to save them from power of water?

The drought has brought some of the animals out from the national parks in the Nakuru area and we were able to see troops of Olive Baboons who normally keep to the park scavenging on the side of the highway. Other more dangerous animals like buffalo have also become a sudden problem as they leave their homes in search of food.

Once we reached Nairobi we were exhausted but still excited to be in a real live actual city after being in Kakamega for so long.  We went out to Chinese food in Nairobi, fiending for something different in the culinary department.  While a bit more than I am accustomed to paying for Chinese food, it was delicious… if you are in Nairobi I recommend the Panda Restaurant for Chinese food.

After resting that night we went out to the Nairobi National Museum, which was an interesting collection of archeological artifacts – bones of people and animals, stones, tools – and some interesting contemporary artwork set up much more like a gallery than a museum since you could buy the pieces. It’s an interesting museum, especially its taxidermy bird section that is enormous. That night we got dinner at an Italian place and headed to get a drink by out hotel, across the street from which was the first gay bar I have seen in Kenya, which is amazing seeing as though being gay is punishable by up to 14 years in prison here.

At 8:00 am the next morning our vehicle with our other safari members (a German couple, and an American couple from DC, Leslie – a journalist but who writes for a Miami paper, and Scott – who works for TechnoServe – they both actually know some of the same people I do as I remembered Abbey Brazee’s business card from when I was a senior in college was for TechnoServe!)  came and collected us and we began the seven-hour journey to Masai Mara.  We stopped at this crazy lookout of the rift valley before descending into the valley and heading towards the park. The valley looked rather barren, surprising for what I think of when I envision the term valley, but there still seemed to be goats and cows feeding on what little shrubbier that exists there. Lunch was at an interesting spot decked out with Coke paraphernalia, by four o’clock we finally reached out campsite, and by 4:30 pm we were off on our first safari (which literally translates to journey in Kiswahili).  It was amazing, as soon as we were in the park we saw Wildebeest, Gazelles, Hartebeests, Giraffes, zebras, Buffalo, lions, birds a plenty, and the most amazing spotting of the day thanks to our German couple, A CHEETAH… eating its kill.  So cool. (see eli’s site for the rest of the pics… www.elimarias.com/africa  Mara is post #8)

The next day brought just as much amazement with more lions than I could have hoped to see, hippos, alligators, the Secretary bird, eagles, lilac breasted roller bird, zebras, elephants, warthogs, babies of all kinds, vervet monkey, Grey-crowned cranes, mongoose, golden jackals and so much more!!

The last day we got up before us rise and headed into the park to watch the sunrise over the land… it was beautiful!  We also saw whole families of animals arising, and by this I literally mean twelve at a time, we saw twelve giraffe together, twelve elephant together, herds of wildebeest, and lions sleeping happy and full.  All in all it was a great trip and the three days in the park was more than enough.  We headed back to Nairobi and decided that another eight hours in a vehicle was not gonna happen and we stayed in the cheapest, and most roach infested hotel I have seen so far, but it did the job.