3 cows, 2 goats & 5 blankets...
Yup, that is the price of a Maasai wife. Nice to know we're worth something isn't it? Mind you, in the UK we're worth nothing! Haha!
So yeah, we joined our Absolute Africa truck early in the morning on sunday 13th august. A big, yellow monstrosity, with no seat belts, the absolute trucks are hard to miss! We made our way straight to the elephant sanctuary and giraffe orphanage and saw baby elephants being fed with milk bottles...very cute. That night we stayed in Karen Camp in the suburbs of Nairobi before heading back into nairobi the next day to change money and pick up my sleeping bag I had conveniently left on the bus from Mombasa! And they had kept it safe for me! Good Coast bus company.
In the next few days we stopped over at the beautiful Lake Elementatia before heading to Lake Nakuru national park, where to begin with we stopped at any animal that we saw. After a while of seeing zebra, buffalo, giraffe, flamingos and various forms of antelope people stopped pressing the button for Gitonga (our extremely able if not slightly crazy driver) to stop. The most exciting thing at Lake Nakuru were the Rhinos, which were of the white variety (we thought we'd seen a black one but, disappointingly, it seems we did not). Oh and baboons infested our campsite. One large male stole a loaf of bread and ran about 100 yards away with it and preceeded to eat and leave the crusts. Evidently didn't want curly hair.
Next stop was Lake Naivasha and Joy Adamson's (of Born Free fame) home where we got to enjoy afternoon tea in her garden before watching a video of an interview with her (this was a while back, she's died now) in which she confessed that her love for Elsa (lioness she set free) was more than any human love she's ever experienced, which was evident in her remarkable ability to fall in love with men other than her current husband in matters of weeks. It happened twice. I think she only stayed with George adamson because of his link with elsa. Anyway, it was a source of amusement for all of us. We also got to go on a half day trip to see hippos (not too close!), walk through a game reserve and get up close to giraffes and zebra and see the famous Green Crater Lake, which was very beautiful!
The second evening we were there we picked up another 10 people which made the truck rather full, and meant that Goodluck (our amazing cook) had to cope with feeding 27 people! Don't know quite how he managed it!
Then followed several days of safaris (which means getting up at around 5am for game drives) in the Maasai Mara National Park, Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater. In these we managed to see elephants, lions, cheetahs and a leopard up close and a black rhino in the distance. So we saw the "big 5" a were all very satisfied with what we saw especially as we were apparently very lucky to see as much as we did. My favourite 'thing' to see though is the scenery and my particular favourites were the Maasai Mara and Ngorongoro crater. Although the Mara is technically an extention of the Serengeti into Kenya, it had more rolling hills than the southern part of the Serengeti we saw a couple of days later, (Plus, the migration into the Mara from the south was still occuring, so we saw long lines of wilderbeest and zebra all making there way slowly northward). The sunset in the Mara was just stunning; the clouds spreading all the colours of the sunset across the whole sky.
I forgot to mention that amidst all this safari-ing we got to go to a Maasai village where they showed us their traditional dances (jumping included...the higher you jump the more girlfriends you can get), their houses and how to make fire with no matches or kerosene! I also got to try on the chiefs hat thanks to Loay's insisting (i'll get you back for that one!).
Ngorongoro was just stunning. It's a volcanic caldera, so obviously interesting to me as a geologist and just to see such a massive contained crater, not filled with water stretching out in front of us was amazing. I've vowed to build myself a little house on the side of the crater one day and go there just to watch the sunrise!
Anyway, less dawdling! Next we headed back to Marangu, where we stayed at the Marangu hotel again, though this time in the campsite and without the luxury of a 4 course evening meal and a hot bath! The best thing about going back to this area was seeing Kili again in all it's splendour, peering out of the clouds and thinking, 'I made it to the top of that thing'. I felt really proud of myself! We also got a great view of Kili and thus could get some good photos.
We ended the tour on Zanzibar. It was really nice to be back by the beach, with the chilled out atmosphere of a beach bar lifestyle again. We weren't completely lazy though! As we arrived we headed straight on the spice tour, (which also included a look at the old slave market in Stone Town) and learnt alot about what the different spices can be used for. Did you know that if a guy eats alot of ginger he has a greater chance of producing twins and nutmeg is an aphrodisiac for women? I will mysteriously be adding it to my food in greater quantities when i get back.
The next day we went snorkling to an island off Zanzibar in a traditional dhow. Again, like everything, a great experience swimming right up close to loads of coral and tropical fish. Could have done with another swim after lunch for the money, but whos complaining.
Of course, the nights on zanzibar were whiled away with Konyagi (papaya gin...cheap) and dancing the night away (ahhhh!) to the variable music, or just snoozing in a hammock (must get myself on of those!). It was a great way, and a great place to end the tour, but I have to say that, despite the distinct lack of hawkers and beach boys compared to Diani Beach I found the Kenyan coast alot more striking. Although swimming in a smooth, calm sea at sunset with dhows lining the horizon is hard to beat.
So now we've left our trucking companions behind and are currently in Nairobi after a long drive from Dar es Salam yesterday, waiting patiently for our night bus to Kampala to start volunteering tomorrow! New adventures! I will really miss the people from the tour though, we had a great group (apart from 2 less amiable slovakians but we'll just ignore them as they ignored us). Hopefully we'll all stay in touch and those of us who aren't on our way home to Aussieland or New Zealand after a stint in the UK can hopefully meet up in the future! There's still so much to talk about...eh Loay?!
So yeah, we joined our Absolute Africa truck early in the morning on sunday 13th august. A big, yellow monstrosity, with no seat belts, the absolute trucks are hard to miss! We made our way straight to the elephant sanctuary and giraffe orphanage and saw baby elephants being fed with milk bottles...very cute. That night we stayed in Karen Camp in the suburbs of Nairobi before heading back into nairobi the next day to change money and pick up my sleeping bag I had conveniently left on the bus from Mombasa! And they had kept it safe for me! Good Coast bus company.
In the next few days we stopped over at the beautiful Lake Elementatia before heading to Lake Nakuru national park, where to begin with we stopped at any animal that we saw. After a while of seeing zebra, buffalo, giraffe, flamingos and various forms of antelope people stopped pressing the button for Gitonga (our extremely able if not slightly crazy driver) to stop. The most exciting thing at Lake Nakuru were the Rhinos, which were of the white variety (we thought we'd seen a black one but, disappointingly, it seems we did not). Oh and baboons infested our campsite. One large male stole a loaf of bread and ran about 100 yards away with it and preceeded to eat and leave the crusts. Evidently didn't want curly hair.
Next stop was Lake Naivasha and Joy Adamson's (of Born Free fame) home where we got to enjoy afternoon tea in her garden before watching a video of an interview with her (this was a while back, she's died now) in which she confessed that her love for Elsa (lioness she set free) was more than any human love she's ever experienced, which was evident in her remarkable ability to fall in love with men other than her current husband in matters of weeks. It happened twice. I think she only stayed with George adamson because of his link with elsa. Anyway, it was a source of amusement for all of us. We also got to go on a half day trip to see hippos (not too close!), walk through a game reserve and get up close to giraffes and zebra and see the famous Green Crater Lake, which was very beautiful!
The second evening we were there we picked up another 10 people which made the truck rather full, and meant that Goodluck (our amazing cook) had to cope with feeding 27 people! Don't know quite how he managed it!
Then followed several days of safaris (which means getting up at around 5am for game drives) in the Maasai Mara National Park, Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater. In these we managed to see elephants, lions, cheetahs and a leopard up close and a black rhino in the distance. So we saw the "big 5" a were all very satisfied with what we saw especially as we were apparently very lucky to see as much as we did. My favourite 'thing' to see though is the scenery and my particular favourites were the Maasai Mara and Ngorongoro crater. Although the Mara is technically an extention of the Serengeti into Kenya, it had more rolling hills than the southern part of the Serengeti we saw a couple of days later, (Plus, the migration into the Mara from the south was still occuring, so we saw long lines of wilderbeest and zebra all making there way slowly northward). The sunset in the Mara was just stunning; the clouds spreading all the colours of the sunset across the whole sky.
I forgot to mention that amidst all this safari-ing we got to go to a Maasai village where they showed us their traditional dances (jumping included...the higher you jump the more girlfriends you can get), their houses and how to make fire with no matches or kerosene! I also got to try on the chiefs hat thanks to Loay's insisting (i'll get you back for that one!).
Ngorongoro was just stunning. It's a volcanic caldera, so obviously interesting to me as a geologist and just to see such a massive contained crater, not filled with water stretching out in front of us was amazing. I've vowed to build myself a little house on the side of the crater one day and go there just to watch the sunrise!
Anyway, less dawdling! Next we headed back to Marangu, where we stayed at the Marangu hotel again, though this time in the campsite and without the luxury of a 4 course evening meal and a hot bath! The best thing about going back to this area was seeing Kili again in all it's splendour, peering out of the clouds and thinking, 'I made it to the top of that thing'. I felt really proud of myself! We also got a great view of Kili and thus could get some good photos.
We ended the tour on Zanzibar. It was really nice to be back by the beach, with the chilled out atmosphere of a beach bar lifestyle again. We weren't completely lazy though! As we arrived we headed straight on the spice tour, (which also included a look at the old slave market in Stone Town) and learnt alot about what the different spices can be used for. Did you know that if a guy eats alot of ginger he has a greater chance of producing twins and nutmeg is an aphrodisiac for women? I will mysteriously be adding it to my food in greater quantities when i get back.
The next day we went snorkling to an island off Zanzibar in a traditional dhow. Again, like everything, a great experience swimming right up close to loads of coral and tropical fish. Could have done with another swim after lunch for the money, but whos complaining.
Of course, the nights on zanzibar were whiled away with Konyagi (papaya gin...cheap) and dancing the night away (ahhhh!) to the variable music, or just snoozing in a hammock (must get myself on of those!). It was a great way, and a great place to end the tour, but I have to say that, despite the distinct lack of hawkers and beach boys compared to Diani Beach I found the Kenyan coast alot more striking. Although swimming in a smooth, calm sea at sunset with dhows lining the horizon is hard to beat.
So now we've left our trucking companions behind and are currently in Nairobi after a long drive from Dar es Salam yesterday, waiting patiently for our night bus to Kampala to start volunteering tomorrow! New adventures! I will really miss the people from the tour though, we had a great group (apart from 2 less amiable slovakians but we'll just ignore them as they ignored us). Hopefully we'll all stay in touch and those of us who aren't on our way home to Aussieland or New Zealand after a stint in the UK can hopefully meet up in the future! There's still so much to talk about...eh Loay?!
posted by Tash at
10:02 AM
