Jambo!

After a very early morning flight and 3 hour layover in Ethiopia (where we were told to wait at the wrong gate and found out half an hour before our flight) we arrived in Nairobi, Kenya.

Upon landing, the sun was out, the land looked arid and we spotted zebra grazing on the outskirts of the airport. We transferred to the hotel and seeing as we may have got an hours sleep between us we set an alarm and had a snooze until our meeting at 6pm. Of course the alarm James set didn't go off so we had a phone call to say everyone was waiting ... We were those people! Luckily the group was only small so no one cared.

After a meeting and greeting some of us went out to the famous Carnivore restaurant. Walking in the door to the smell of hot coals and cooking meat was amazing. We tried the local Tusker beer and Dawa cocktail (vodka, water, lime, honey & sugar). The waiters come around to your table with a rotisserie of meat and a machete and carve it straight onto your plate. We tried the entire menu including crocodile, ostrich meat balls, chicken liver and ox balls to name the more exotic. The highlight was pork spare ribs with fruit salsa. Finally after eating meat (and a small amount of salad to be "healthy") we had to surrender and roll out and home to pass out in a food coma.

7am wake up call, a quick bag pack breakfast and we were off on the way to the Masai Mara. First brake down of the trip an hour in- fan belt. We set off again after some quick repairs and drove west. Along the way we got to see the farmers walking behind their herds of sheep, cattle and goats herding them beside the road, occasionally whacking them with big sticks. There were no real sign of fencing or land markings so we have no idea how they knew where their grazing land is. Sometimes it was only small children about 5-6yo with sticks taller then them who were in charge of keeping the stock in line.

At lunchtime, and after an hour of corrugated road, we arrived at our camp site for the next two nights. They are permanent tents with two beds (we got the couples tent and so has a "double bed" - more like a large single), a flushable toilet and running shower. We also got to see our first wild animals in the area - and not ones we would have expected - a tortoise crossing our dirt road and a pack of baboons.

After lunch we set off on our first game drive through the Masai Mara. Within minutes we saw zebra, impalas and gazelles and a warthog! It was a while between drinks but then we came across the biggies - giraffes grazing, a pride of lions feasting and ripping apart a catch, cheetahs resting, elephants wondering right up to the van and more. We even saw a couple of gazelles butting each other just as we were leaving and before a storm hit us. What an afternoon. Final funny part was that just about where we saw the tortoise earlier, Ash spotted a rabbit in the bushes. Dunno who won that race.

Day 2 Masai Mara game drive: baby elephants, baby warthogs, leopard, hippos and all the others from yesterday. Highlight was watching 2 cheetahs stalk an impala. We sat in the vehicle watching for about half an hour as they crept up from behind & as soon as they started to sprint, the impala ran off. Anticlimax!

Little monkeys came and stole a banana and sandwich when we were sitting near the river having lunch!

Day 3 Masai Mara: 5.45am start- it was still dark. Two hours in the game park and we saw nothing except a few impala. As we were leaving the park to head back to camp for breakfast, a black rhino (extremely rare to the area) came waltzing across the road in front of us. Amazing! We ticked off the BIG 5 :)

Then to top it off, we had the gates in sight only to spot a few buffalo in the bushes. We stopped for a second and then two lionesses came charging out. The buffalo ran off... Damn.

Asante Kenya!

One hour ago we crossed the border of Kenya-Tanzania to continue the journey. We are sitting in a little hot bread shop with 300,000 shillings in our pockets. If only it equalled dollars.