ANIMALS ARE PLENTIFUL

WEATHER: Cool in the morning 19C – beautiful day 25C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Sharpening up my bargaining prowess  

BUMMER OF THE DAY: I think I may be getting the sniffles

BUYS OF THE DAY: My African hand-made bracelets at 1AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: Twende – lets go

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Zebra, flamingo’s, pelicans, buffalo, white rhino, black rhino, water bucks, lions, Rothschild giraffes, impala’s, colobus monkeys, baboons, ostriches, eland

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Flushing toilets (with paper), hot water, pool and BAR = 6 STAR out of 5

Ding ding ding ding – that’s the sound of my alarm going off at 5.30am.  It is still dark outside and we had to have all our gear packed up from the tent and in the truck by 6am, which was when breakfast was served for a departure at 6.30am for a game drive.  The tents could stay up, as they needed to dry off before we packed them back into their bags before heading out of camp.  How was my night’s sleep I hear you ask?  It was on and off.  I was warm enough, but I think it is going to take some time to get used to my blow up pillow, and I was just a little restless.  But I think it is just getting used to my new environment and I know it won’t be an issue as the nights go on.  I was surprised how easy it was to get my sleeping bag back in its bag and also my travel pillow, how often does that usually happen?  So the tent had to go into lockdown, with the windows zipped, the front door zipped and the main cover, as the baboons are known to get into the tents and cause some destruction – the cheeky buggers.

So back in the truck and on the road.  We went to the other side of the park this morning on the hunt for leopards, cheetahs, giraffes and lions.  So the morning started with sightings of buffalo, zebras and some rhino – big deal, we saw them yesterday, we want some new animals.  It is only day 2 and we are saying that already?  I think we were being a little cheeky, but we had such a great afternoon yesterday.  So you can imagine our excitement when we came across a pride of lions!  There were 5 females and they were in a playful mood and we were lucky we were the first vehicle to arrive.  We got about 20 minutes to watch these amazing animals playing with each other, and it was great to be in a massive truck so when all the other vans came, they didn’t obstruct our view as we towered over them.  It is great to be able to do an afternoon and morning safari as there are different animals doing different things.  We saw a dazzle (the collective ) of zebras, and there would have to have been over 30 of them all walking single file heading to the dam for a drink and there were a lot of herds of buffalo together also walking to a destination unknown.  The leopards and cheetahs are quite hard to see at the best of times, but we never gave up on the hope one would be hanging from a tree.  Giraffes were also on our list and we were lucky to come across a tower (the collective) of giraffes.  Considering how tall they are, they look quite graceful when they walk.  They didn’t seem to be put out by us being there and were walking right up to the road we were on and crossed in front of us.  It was like watching something surreal, a giraffe for goodness sakes, and right in front of us!!!  Just to add to that buzz they just aren’t ordinary giraffe’s they are an endangered species that can only be found in this park and the giraffe center in Nairobi.  Why are they so different?  They have different coloured spots and are high fashioned animals because they have white stockings on their legs.  Amazing creatures.

Further on we drive, seeing colobus monkeys (long haired fellas), more zebra’s, herds of buffalo’s and the find of the day, after the lions and giraffes of course, was the very rare black rhino!  What a day we have had, he was about 300m away in the distance, but we were able to get some good photos of this guy, and he had about 10 birds just sitting around on his back, so it made a great photo opportunity!  What a find!  Our last animal we saw was a couple of wart hogs that were playing with each other and then back to camp at 10am.  So we got a good 3.5 hours in the reserve – and it was well worth the early start.

As we had started early we had an early lunch, with Liss getting together some pasta and veggie sauce, a crepe, a sausage and fruit salad which we had around 10.30am.  The monkeys were back in force and cheeky as ever.  They try and get into the truck to get to the food, and as it would happen, I had a packet of biscuits in my seat pocket and a cheeky devil got into the truck and stole the whole packet!  He got busted on the top of the BBQ area and he dropped the packet and ran!  There goes my schnacks for the next leg of the journey!  There is a park ranger that was hanging around the camp trying to keep the monkeys at bay as we ate our lunch.  He must be fit, as he just kept running around the whole camp site with rocks in his hands, throwing then when required to keep them at bay!  So while that was getting prepared we pulled done our tents.  We were shown the ‘correct way’ to fold the tent up so that it would fit back into its bag.  Yeah well, when does a tent ever fit back into its bag?  We re-rolled ours twice and it just squeezed back in its bag, we nearly had to sit on the bag to get the Velcro done up, it wasn’t the best job. But it was done up.  Funny how no-one else had the same problem as us?! 

So back on the road just after 11am with a stop in Nakuru township for an hour.  This gave people time to apply for their Rwanda visa’s at the internet café, banks etc.  Afke and I made a trip to the post office and got some stamps for our postcards and I also got my Kenyan stamp in my Globetrotters book with no hassles, she was really nice the lady at the post office.  I have to say I find the Kenyan people very friendly and generally always have a smile on their dial.  As we walked back to the bus you have the peddlers selling their wares, just like any other country.  They were selling handmade pictures the size of a coaster and friendship bands.  The pictures were actually quite cool, so I bought 3 for 3AUD (can’t go wrong right) and I made a friend with a seller called Moses.  Now this was a salesman through and through.  He would give any car salesman a run for their money any day!  It didn’t help that I love to bargain and then the games began.  Haggle, haggle, haggle as I only wanted one, I bargained hard for it, and when I paid I had to get change from him, which he in turn upgraded me to 2 for an additional 1AUD.  Sale done and dusted.  We are now ‘friends’ and his name was Moses.  So I then tried to drum up some sales from the rest of the truck for him, and before I knew it I fell into bargaining with him again and no-one wanted any, so a deal is a deal so I had to pay and I got 3 for 2AUD.  Once a seller agrees to your sale price you HAVE to buy.  He was actually a really good sport and in the end he asked for my email address as he had some sons at home, with a lift of an eyebrow and a wink.  Thank-god I thought it was for him, that makes me feel so much better, he’s trying to drum up a wife for his sons!!.  He was cool and hopefully we parted both happy with our transactions.  I also purchased a Kenyan Sim card for my travels for the next few weeks.  The main thing I get when I get the countries sim card is it is cheaper for me to send messages at 10c inside Kenya and Uganda and 30c to send them home to Australia. Besides the fact that I lost my Australian sim card somewhere in Morocco may also have something to do with it and I cannot charge my UK sim when I am in Africa.  But it is worth all the hassle to be able to stay in touch with my best friend and god-daughters. 

Back on the road now to our final destination of Eldoret, due to its altitude is well known for where the Kenyan runners come to train.  We passed over the equator and a sign stating this and I was sleeping.  When I woke 20 minutes after we had past it, I asked Julius (now Jools) why we didn’t stop and he said we pass over the equator 7 times on this trip so there will be plenty of time to stop and get a photo.  Okay, that’s good enough for me.  The drive is slow and tedious at times, as some of the roads are in really poor condition.  Mainly potholes bigger than a wading pool and the tar of the road has shifted and it literally looked like waves we were driving over.  You can imagine the rolling we were doing in the back of the truck.  They also seem to love their speed bumps and some block of bumps are located every 50m and there maybe 10 of these to pass over.  So if you’re in a hurry, you ain't going anywhere fast in Kenya.  We get a lot of stares as we pass through villages, I guess we aren’t that conspicuous sitting in a massive truck with 22 white faces watching the scenery pass by.  They all seem quite friendly and we get a lot of waves from the children as we drive pass.  I love waving so I am happy to give a big cheerio wave back.  Their faces just light up when they get a response.  I am a waver.  I also got a chance to charge my camera battery and my laptop with the onboard power sockets they have on the truck, so I feel very happy that I won’t be running out of battery juice anytime soon.  They are universal sockets, so I could plug in my Aussie plugs with no adapters which is pretty cool.

So 5 hours later we arrived into Eldoret which is 2165m above sea level, so you can imagine the temperature here was a lot cooler.  Lucky I kept some cold weather stuff and didn’t leave it all in London.   After we picked our patch, up go the tents, and a then we got a chance to have a look around the camp site.  This place is amazing and if we are to give it a ranking out of 5 it is a 6.  It had hot showers (for most), flushing toilets (WITH paper), an amazing pool that was as cold as the arctic, a bar and a gift shop!  AND Bill Gates had stayed at this very place in 2009!  I would like to point out that there was an option to upgrade to a bungalow at this place, but as it was only day 2, firstly I can’t say I have given camping the full chance it deserved yet and it was only day 2, how sad and soft would that look and at this point.  I felt I didn’t need to get out of the tent – just yet.

I am also feeling a sore throat and a runny nose coming on.  Afke and I thought it might have been from all the dust of the game drives yesterday, but to tell it straight I have a lot of flem floating around.  Generally this wouldn’t be a problem, but with the gorilla’s coming up in 7 days, if you cough, sniff or sneeze you will not be permitted to do the trek as they try and limit disease that could be transmitted to the gorilla families, which is fair enough.  So I need to nip this in the bud and fast.  I asked my personal pharmacist on his diagnosis (Sean) and as I already had symptoms it was time to hit the cold and flu tablets.  I have been drinking vitamin C, in my water, powder that I bought from home, so fingers crossed I get this early. Blasted cold - of all times to get one.

As soon as the sun went down it turned a tad cold, but we had vegetable soup for dinner as a starter and then beef stew with rice and veggies.  I loaded my plate with veggies, as this was also part of Sean’s recommendation for my cold.  After washing and flapping dry the dishes we headed inside to the bar and a drink to unwind and to help with sleep.  The bar was AWESOME.  It was like stepping into a HUGE African tent, with a log fire burning, comfy couches, African wood sculptures and the roof covered entirely in mats shaped like a tent roof, what an amazing place.  We got a beer for 150SCH, which is like 1.50AUD for 500ml!  Prices are just so cheap here.  I wonder how much the beers cost in the supermarket if that is what they are in a licensed bar.  I left the guys playing pool and was tucked into bed at 9.45pm.  It sounds early, but when you’re up at 5.30am and have the same start again in the morning, this little puppy needs to get some shut eye.

Man it is still a little hard to comprehend – I AM IN KENYA!