We started off Thursday morning by loading onto a big
charter bus to take us to Nairobi. It was an 8 hour drive and honestly, a
little scary since our driver drove really fast and swerved in and out of
traffic a lot. It was really cool to be able to see a lot of the country side.
It was mostly grasslands, but there was a surprising number of hills and
mountains too. There were a lot of little, very poor looking towns along the
way. The roads were not very good, but were all paved. By the time we got to
our place in Nairobi, it was about six. The place we stayed at was not what I
was expecting. I thought we were staying in a hotel, first of all, but it was a
hostel. It was just a shock at first to realize there would be 8 of us sleeping
in a room smaller than my bedroom at home. The gender shared, open concept
bathroom took a bit of getting used to also. However, it was clean and a lot
nicer than I thought it was at first. We all we starving at this point and so
we went to a recommended Italian restaurant in town. We were definitely
underdressed in our jeans and sweats. The food was really good though, and it
was a really fancy place to eat for not very much money. After that, we went
back to the hostel and hung around the bar that they had there. It was a really
fun time hanging out with everyone. However, they did have a guard dog at the
hostel (there was a sign saying not to pet the dog), but one of the guys (Lee)
ended up ignoring the sign, trying to
pet the dog, and got bit. That was a bit of an ordeal, but the dog apparently
had its shots, so everything was okay.
The next morning, we loaded into our Safari vans and started
the drive to Maasai Mara, the Safari park. The first 2 ½ hours were good
because the road was pretty smooth. However, for the next 2 hours after that,
we were on the worst gravel road I had ever been on times at least 3. It was
awful. We were also going fairly fast down the road which made it a lot worse.
By the time we got to our camp, we were all very grateful to get out of that
van. The camp we stayed in had some permanent tents and some cabins. Alexa,
Chelsea, Angie and I stayed together in one of the cabins. It wasn’t the
cleanest or most modern place, but it did have warm showers so we were happy.
The electricity was only on from 5:30 am to 7 am and from 6:30 pm to 10 pm.
That took some getting used to. We arrived at the camp around 4 and after
dropping our stuff, immediately went out on an afternoon drive in the park. We
were so excited!! The first animals we saw were zebras. We were all in awe of
them and so excited to see them in the wild. However, our fascination with the
zebras sadly soon wore off because there were thousands and thousands of them
everywhere. You couldn’t drive anywhere in the park and not see a zebra or a
wildebeest. There were also thousands and thousands of wildebeests around.
However, we loved them all the first day. We were all so happy to be out there
and kept relating everything we saw to The Lion King, which was really fun. We
even broke out a song or two from the soundtrack. J The first day, we also saw
giraffes, elephants, water buffalo, impalas, and gazelles. It was very cool.
However, I have to admit, I did not really know what a safari would be like. I
had vision in my mind of the animals always being around and always in action,
when reality was that we often drove for almost an hour with very little to see
and the animals we did see were usually just grazing or hanging out (except for
the lions).
We headed in from the safari about 6:30 that night and it
was really cold outside by that point. We were not expecting the temperatures
to drop as much as they did, and so quickly! We ate supper at the camp (it was
the usual noodles, beef stew but there was also butter bread and a good soup).
We were all very tired after the long day so we headed to bed pretty early.
Well, that's all I have time for tonight. I'll update about the rest of the trip and my day at the hospital tomorrow night!
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