Wow – what a week! We haven’t got that long (and its quite expensive here) to tell you about our amazing week in Kenya. We started off by touring Nairobi and the local villages. We stayed with a Kenyan family who looked after us and we particularly got on with the kids who were Willie 3 and Ben and Fred who were 11 and 13. The accommodation was rural and we coped really well with the outside long drop – particularly since it was quite dark and the cows were kept right next to it! We also got to see all the crops they are growing including the new organic section which is thriving. We managed to wash using the hot river water provided and enjoyed a couple of pints of Tusker beer in the local pub with a few guys from the village (including the chief and the retired headmaster – not quite up to Katie and Babs standards!)
We then headed out to the Maasi Mara on a budget camping safari. It took 6 hours to driver there and we met some great new people including Anne-Marie from BC in Canada and Ali from Morocco/France/Canada (but currently working in Africa and enjoying a 3 day break) – hiya! Robin’s challenge started the minute we entered the reserve and we managed to see 4 of the Big 5 in the first 2.5 hours. The Maasi Mara is amazing and there are just simply so many animals you are almost guaranteed! The only one of the big 5 we didn’t get to see was the Rhino but they are particularly rare in the Mara. After a while it wasnt just about spotting lots and lots of different types of animals, but watching them in the habitat and following them. The Mara is full of wildebeest at the moment as they have migrated here and to see them, literally, in their tens of thousands is awesome. We saw so many lion families that looking back on the photos its hard to distinguish between them all but they all had different characteristics or personalities. We were also privileged to see so many different cheetah including one female and her 3 cubs. The food back at camp was fabulous and the company was great. The tents turned out to be sheds with canvas lining the inside walls which still didnt stop us from worrying about the baboons running around on the roofs at night or the leopard grunting as it walked around or the hyenas laughing from 4am! Anyhow, an amazing experience for us both and a great start to the game viewing to come. We flew home from the airstrip to Nairobi and got back to do the final washing and preparations (like battery charging) before joining our next truck. Weve met everyone and they seem cool and our tour leader Jack is from Pretoria in South Africa and knows his stuff! Uploading images and updating diary right now and then heading for some fab food and an early night before we set off tomorrow at 7.30am to head to Tanzania. Jack tells us that internet access is slow and sporadic from now on and it may well be longer between updates. It may be even longer between photo updates so hope you like the ones so far! Thanks for staying in touch and hope you are all well. Cant believe this is the start of week 6!
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