Absolute Kenya

So our first 9 days have been an introduction to kenya, the African continent and of course the group we are travelling with to Cape Town.
On Kenya, there's huge diversity in the country from the rich area we stayed in Karen, where most houses had private security guards and shopping malls had heavy security, to the long and desolate drive to the Masai Mara.
This road is being built by the Chinese but they are by far from being done. So the majority of the journey in the bus was bumpy and dusty. We past some remote villages with houses made of mud and People sometimes children herding cattle and goats across plains to feed.
The children respond with ecstatic waves to us whenever we roll into town. Sometimes asking for sweets. It's hard to say no, but we do continue to drive through the towns and v rarely stop. On that point if we need to take comfort breaks we have a bell in the bus to ask the driver to stop.
The Masai Mara was spectacular. We had an evening and morning tour in the bus with the sides down. We didn't tick off the big five, but saw a lion, buffalo, elephants ( at a distance) hundreds of wilderbeast, impalas, zebras, giraffes, elan, hyenas and so many beautiful birds.
The camp we stayed in on the Mara has a resident elan. Google an elan and you can see why some of us were a bit nervous about it roaming at night. Unexpectedly that night surrounded by big wildlife, the thing that kept us up was a cat, who's meow sounded like someone saying 'hello'. It was truly unsettling as it sounded so much like a human. Thankfully one of the tents broke the unsettling silence, whilst we listened. ' What the f*** are you?!'
Then onto hells gate national park where some of us took a bike ride and spotted more giraffes, impalas but without the safety of our big yellow truck. It was good to stretch the legs after a some very long and bumpy drives. On that note we had our first breakdown.We just ran out of petrol randomly and sat on the side of the road playing frisbee and trying to make a wasp eat a cricket. Without wifi and tv, insects have become a source of group entertainment.

After hells gate we headed north west to Nakuru park for a days of safari. Here we had an amazing experience watching baby white rhinos playing and saw a black rhino extremely close up. The park was Amazonian and much of the drive was through dense forest and eerie lakes.



On the group there's a mix of ages and nationalities; slovakian, kiwi, American, Turkish, Lithuanian and a few Brits too. There are 17 of us, 5 women and the rest blokes. We are picking up more people along the way and by the time we get to Cape Town we will be at 27. We've got a rota together of chores that we have to do daily, including cooking which requires a 6.30am start. Who knew I could cook scrambled eggs for 17 over a fire in a wok?!
As I am writing this we are about to do our first border crossing into Uganda where we have four days of time to ourselves in Jinja. I think a welcome break from a routine and traveling will be great.
And whilst I'm here I am sure you're wanting to know about the weather. This is kenyas short rain season. However we have witnessed 6 hour rain showers a few times now. I darent ask what the long rain season is like. Fortunately we've dodged the rain during setting up or bringing down the tents.
October 27th, 2017