World Travel and Adventure

March Break in Cartagena

2011-06-16T11:11:00.093-04:00

Our traditional $12
Pearson Beer

So begins the second entry into this blog. For our first anniversary Marlene and I decided to get away from the bitterly cold, snowy and sun-deprived city of Toronto for the white sand beaches, topaz blue waters and warm Caribbean breezes of historic Cartagena. This trip was not on the scale of grandeur as our "honeymoon" vacation to Africa but incredible none the less.

We finally arrived to this most beautiful of back yard gardens

Since it was March break (peak travel season) the cheapest flight we could find brought us through New York, where we managed to get about 4 hours sleep before having to connect with our 6am flight to Miami. After a couple hour lay over in Miami we were finally on our way to Colombia on Avianca airline! Avianca knows what customer service actually means and it was a very enjoyable 3.5 hour flight. I watched "Inception" but unfortunately due to interruptions and the short duration of the flight I got about 2/3 of the way through the film, the captain turned off the entertainment system just as the movie was getting super interesting...needless to say all I could think about was the movie, that is, until we got out of the tiny spec of an airport. The immediate reaction to the heat was shock, our bodies were used to the negative Celsius weather of Canada, and our eyes were going to need adjusting to the bright sunshine.

Inside the Walls

The area surrounding the airport immediately brought memories of other South American nations we'd previously visited but once we winded our way through the busy side streets toward the ocean side boulevard we knew this city was going to be much different then anything we'd seen in SA before. The ocean was deep blue in color and the waves were constantly crashing on the surrounding beaches. As we approached the "murales", or the walls, I began to get a sense of the history in this place.

Colombian beer and street food

Cartagena is a UNESCO world heritage site and one of Colombia's major economic centres. Cartagena was colonized in 1533 and became an attractive plunder site for pirates due to its wealth and prosperity.

Because of all these attacks, the Spanish created a walled city and built many forts around the city in order to defend their assets. The Spanish pumped loads of money into the city and in the 17th century paid from prominent military engineers to carry out the construction of fortresses which are some of Cartagena's most significant identifying features today. The construction took over 200 years to complete and included food and weapons storage as well as underground tunnels. Once these defenses were complete, the city was considered impregnable and was never overtaken again. Cartagena was a major trading port for precious metals and was also a slave port.

Watching the sun go down on our first night

Dinner in the open air market of Cartegena

We approached the walls after about 15 minutes of driving along the beautiful coast line and eventually drove through on of the two openings in the wall designed for traffic. Inside the walls there was a European atmosphere with narrow winding cobble stone streets, street vendors on every corner, and beautiful colonial architecture. We pulled up to what would be our home for the next 5 nights and were surprised at what lay behind the front gate. What looked like a very humble structure from the street opened up into a glorious back yard garden. We were greeted by our very gracious host Lucy who had been expecting us since morning. After exchange pleasantries Lucy showed us around the property and brought us up to our room. The room had a double bed and a single bed in it along with a private washroom and a private balcony overlooking the stunning tropical garden complete with caged tropical birds. Lucy offered us some lemonade (which was really Lime-aid) which I was looking forward to since Marlene had been talking about the fresh juices of Colombia since we book our flights. It more then met my expectations and was exactly what I needed to quench my thirst...after all, it was 30 degrees outside!

Our amazing and delicious breakfast fruit juice and platter

Today was more of an opportunity to acclimatize and orient ourselves more then anything else. After a bit of relaxing time on our balcony sipping on some lime juice and reading through our trusty guide book (lonely planet of course) we decided to venture out and discover the night life of Catagena. After a much needed and satisfying meat platter dinner (which was probably enough meat and fries for 4 people) and a couple of locally brewed beverages, we were ready to call it a night. We did take the long way back, though neither of us could say if that was on purpose of if we got slightly lost (slightly). The streets are reminiscent of Venice (says Marlene) in that the best way to explore its cobble stone streets is to simply travel with no map and just let yourself wander.

The next morning we awoke to glorious sunshine and the blistful chirp of tropical birds...ahhhhenglish and we spoke very little Spanish, and of course, the spoke very quickly. Marlene seemed to understand more of what she was saying, I think I caught heuvos and pancake...how's that for spanish! Marlene managed to order hers scrambled while I insisted on omelette (same as in french yey!). Either way both our meals were amazing and breakfast seemed to last for at least an hour...can never get enough fresh fruit right?

Today, our first full day in Colombia, was always meant to be a beach day, and it turned out to be a great day for it (though as we later discovered EVERY day is a good day for it!) We spoke to our lovely host Lucy about our plans and she gave us the low down on the costs and what to ask for once we arrived at the beach. She called her nephew who is a cab driver to come pick us up and bring us down to the local beach which was no more then 15 minutes away. Once we got to the beach our instructions were clear, don't pay more then 10K pesos for the tarpa (tent) and make sure the cilos (chairs) were included. Sure enough they tried to rip us off right after we agreed on what we were getting. Honestly, there just isn't any sense of integrity around here (sarcasm). We managed to get what we wanted for no more $ then expected...and honestly we were just so incredibly grateful to be lying in the sunshine watching the waves role up on to the beach that we really couldn't have cared less about the money.

Beach Oysters

Today is a Sunday which means there are lots of local families on the beach. It wasn't crowded by any means, nowhere near what Miami's beaches are like this time of year but there were long rows of beech umbrellas and lounge chairs in each direction. With this amount of people also comes large amounts of peddlers offering everything from massages to "fresh" oysters. The massage ladies were difficult to turn down because they would always insist on giving a "demonstration". So even though your mind is saying no, your body is saying "this isn't so bad maybe just for 15 minutes". But I had heard that what begins well doesn't always end well and the massage girls are notorious for ripping off their clients. They are masters of deception in that they will claim a certain amount for your legs but after they are done they will say "no that price was per leg" etc. Regardless, Marlene and I were constantly turning them down while trying to admire our surroundings and to enjoy our quality time relaxing on the beach. For whatever reason, the oyster guy was the lucky merchant today as Marlene took to engaging in conversation with him. This is basically a guy who roles around with a bucket of oysters, a spoon, and a pile of limes. I was not so interested in trying these local delicacies but after Marlene was brave enough to take the first two and insist they were delicious, I trusted her judgement and decided to try one for myself. Although I was nervous at first, they really did taste delightful, even refreshing, something about the combination of sea salt and lime was very appealing. This may have not been the smartest thing to do as travelers, to ingest supposedly fresh raw fish, neither of our gastro systems were punished for taking this risk. Marlene spent the rest of the afternoon reading while I swam in the waves and took a few tours to see how the other half (rich tourists) lived. About the only difference was their loungers had cushions, and they had security which didn't allow vendors to come through the designated area. For now we just thought it would be nice to be away from these vendors, but not a necessity.

After a long day at the beach we returned to our rooms for a hot shower and some refreshments. Our location is so peaceful (and hot) its almost impossible to not have a nap. We got ready to head out for the night and walked around trying to find several restaurants we read about in our guide book. Unfortunately we had little success in finding all 3 of the restaurants and decided that either all the restaurants closed down on sundays or maybe our guide book was out of date. After wandering around for a couple of hours we ended up at a pizza joint right around the corner from our B&B. This was just a little hole in the wall place which extended its property into the adjacent park. We could tell by the number of people hanging around this place that it was either the only place open or they served really good pizza. Both assumptions turned out to be true. It was a very european influenced occasion, pizza and beer in the park...althought the warm caribean breeze ensured we knew we were not anywhere near Europe.

After a day in the sun and with our bellies full we decided to retire to our room to watch what was becoming a daily ritual. I had uploaded the second season of Mad Men to my IPOD and we were quickly becoming addicted.

At breakfast the next day, we decided it would be a good day to take a walking tour of the city. We were beginning to realize it didn't matter which day we took this self guided tour because everyday here was like a day in paradise! 28-32 degrees, sunny, with a beautiful ocean breeze. We started from within the city walls and walked past all of the historical sites identified in our guide book. Colonial architecture surrounded by tropical flowers and plants are an intensely beautiful contrast. The only trouble was that within the city walls, the cool breeze is unable to penetrate the large buildings. So navigating busy, narrow streets is a very hot and sweaty experience. So we decided to head toward the ocean to catch the cool breeze. This turned out to be worthwhile refreshing experience because it offered beautiful views of Bocca Grande.

Tracking The Gorillas of Bwindi

2011-05-14T16:37:00.001-04:00

About half way over the mountain

Today the ultimate journey of a lifetime begins early in the morning. We have breakfast and pack a day bag with water and protein bars. Our banda is only about a 5 minute walk to where we meet our guides. There are already a slew of excited trekkers waiting for directions outside of the main office of the park. Once everyone has arrived the guides give us a briefing of what to expect on our journey, he explains there are 5 groups of gorillas in the surrounding forests and informs us that the previous day (and all week) the trakers have had success in locating all 5 groups. Basically the way that this gorilla tracking works is the trackers set out about 1 hour before the rest of us, equiped with only 2 way radios and guns, they attempt to retrace their steps from the day before. They head in the direction that they lost saw the gorillas and attempt to locate where they nested the night before and then determine a direction to set off in. Once they are located, the trackers radio back and forth to our guides until we reunite with them. But first we must sit down and watch a video about the gorillas and their protected habitat.

Our first view of the Gorillas!!

curiosily inspecting the latest visitors

During this briefing we are told about the different groups of gorillas. There seems to be advantages and disadvantages to seeing all of the different groups. Nobody has a choice as to which group we will be seeing, but we feel we are very lucky because our group of trackers will be going to see the group of gorillas which has just given birth to a baby gorilla! We are told that this group is very small in number but the fact that we get to see a 2 or 3 day old gorilla more then makes up for it. We are also told that within the last couple of days one of the groups has lost a younger male silver back during a turf war with another group. This is a natural process and thankfully doesn't happen all too often. We are told that there are approximately 340 gorillas (about half of the entire planet's population) in total in this vast tract of land that spreads deep into the Congo and dips slightly into the Rwandan border. Back in 1997 when the protected area was formed there were about 300 gorillas, so they've seen a modest increase in the species since these efforts to protect them were established.

Bwindi Gorilla eating flower

The briefing finishes with the ground rules of the park. If we have any sort of illness, we are not to participate in the tracking because the gorillas genetics are so similar to ours that we could pass on our illness/disease. Lucky for us we're nice and healthy. The other rule is that we are to stay at least 20ft away from them at all times. We also find out that the group we're going to see has a gorilla in it which is very comfortable with humans and often comes in close proximity to us...if he touches us we are to resist the urge to touch him back. We are advised that this trek is not a simple task and if anyone wants to hire porters to carry their bags/equipment (there are some seriously professional photographers in our group) or to even carry THEM they can arrange for it.

I'm losing patience with you taking my bed away!! Don't mess with me!

Finally on our way!! After about 30 minutes of walking our guides receive a call from the trackers that they've located our group...they are about 2 hours ahead of us. We just take our time and enjoy the rain forest and surrounding lush mountains. For most of this time we are following very well used trails but as soon as we made our way to the bottom of the large hill we just climbed over, our trail becomes more and more dense and less and less clear. Lucky for us we have two guides out front literally hacking back the brush with giant machettes!

We ended up walking through some pretty swampy areas where there were obviously tons and tons of bugs, but for some reason the bugs are not bitting us at all. They are more of a nuisance then a danger. As we get closer and closer to the gorillas the forest is getting more and more dense, we are now asked to stay as quiet as possible because we don't want to startle them. Our guides out front start making this very throaty rumbling sound with their mouths, we are told that this is how gorillas who are friendly to the group greet each other. The gorillas can obviously hear and sense us coming so by doing the friendly greeting we are letting them know we mean them no harm. Anticipation and excitement is building, at this point Marlene and I are near the back of the group and we are visually told to walk slowly...we can now see the people in the front pointing, smiling and taking photos...as we approach...

Absolutely STUNNING!! This is the greeter gorilla, apparently he is always the first of the gorillas in this group to be spotted and the trackers now know the rest of the group can not be very far from us. The greeter gorilla is just sitting on top of some vines happily eating leaves and flowers. We are told that the greeter gorilla is very comfortable with humans because he is quite young and he was born after the tourists started coming, meaning he has seen humans almost every single day for his whole life. He knows they mean no harm to him. The guides tell us that he actually enjoys the company of humans. The rest of the group is not so happy to see us. Not that they are afraid or aggressive towards humans but they would rather we just left them alone.

silver back hanging out in Bwindi

As we continue on we catch a glimpse of the large male silverback. He's very hard to spot in the thick brush but I can just barely see him through my lens as he lays on the ground, on his belly, staring at his finger nails. For the greeter gorilla the guides seem to ignore the 20 ft rule, but for the silver back, nobody want to get any closer then that, nobody wants to challenge his space. The guides push on past the silver back in search of the momma and new baby gorilla.

We push on through the brush until we finally come across the rest of the group. We see the momma who is carefully hidding her new born, the adolescent gorilla is sitting nearby guarding the newest member of the group. When we come across them the mother is very hidden and the adolescent has his back to us. As we move closer he moves closer to the mother and begins to groom her. The guides want to give us a better view so they begin pulling and slashing the branches and vines away. Now we can see them better but the adolescent still has his back to us.

Pondering Bwindi Gorilla

While all this is going on, the silver back has put himself in a position where he can see everything that's happening. At the moment we are directly between the silver back, the mother and the greeter gorilla. The greeter now begins to move closer to us from behind and next thing I know he's standing less then 5 ft away from us. Most of the people in the group didn't even notice him come up from behind us because they were too intrigued with mother and baby. The guides tell us that he is jealous and likes attention. As Marlene turns to look at him he begins to inch closer and closer to us...until he is literally right beside Marlene. He looks up at her and rubs up against her leg kind of like a cat. Although I had the front row seat for this magical event, I was much too close to actually get a good picture of what had happened. It was certainly one of those moments that none of us will ever forget. Once he's done gazing at Marlene he comes over to me and literally pushes me out of the way to get by us all. It was unbelievable and neither of us can really describe in words how we felt about that moment. Of all the things we'd seen and experienced on this trip so far, this had to be the most magical and thrilling thing yet!

Silver back looks on

Eventually our guides managed to get the adolescent to turn around, and got the mother to move. Unfortunately it was after much agitation and as you can see by this next picture, they were clearly stressed in this moment. We're not sure how everyone in our group felt about this but Marlene and I felt that the guides had gone too far in their quest to get us a closer and clearer view of the newborn. Although we both have lots of respect for what these locals are doing, we just felt that at that moment they were taking uneccessay steps to get us that money shot. The adolescent actually charged at us for about 5 meters in an attempt to tell us to get lost! This was a very frightening moment and possibly a defining moment in our relationship. Here is what I learned: When Marlene's life is in danger she will throw the life of her husband in harms way in an attempt to save her own!! HA!! Our guides had told us if the gorilla ever charges at us, we are to stay still, stay quiet and not look the beast in the eye. Well Marlene did avoid eye contact but that's only because she was too busy screaming and trying to get on the other side of me. She pushed me in front of her in the process...unbelievable!! on your HONEYMOON?? HAHA!!

Mother gorilla with baby

Silverback Gorilla taking down tres

After all this, our time was up. The park put regulations in place to ensure the gorillas are disturbed and interrupted as little as possible. We are only allowed to view them for 1 hour. Although is certainly didn't feel like 1 hour we were happy to comply especially after we had clearly stressed 2of the 4. As we walked out I watched in awe as the silver back was now standing up and taking down massive trees to eat. The animal is pure strength and power.

Silverback saying good bye

mother gorilla peaceful now

This concludes this portion of our incredible journey into Kenya and Uganda. Thanks again to all those who made it happen and we both hope you enjoyed reading and viewing along with us. Until the next time we find ourselves over seas...hope everyone is well!

Touring around Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

2011-03-31T21:54:00.002-04:00

Bwindi - dense rainforest home to the mountain gorillas

After a couple of days on our lake side resort, we were more then refreshed and ready for our next adventure. Today was kind of a filler day, we were able to wake up slowly and take our time at the breakfast table before meeting up with our driver guide for our final destination. It was another beautiful sunny morning, and a perfect temperature. Our drive took about 5 hours allowing us plenty of time to get settled into our new rainforest side banda overlooking the rolling hills of Bwindi. We knew this was a special place the second we set foot on the grounds, not only were the surrouding stunning but the food was delicious and the staff were very kind. We took them up on their offer to give us a tour of the surrounding village. It was incredible how just how much the climate had changed from the "lake district" to the jungle region. It was now very hot and sticky, not exactly a surprise considering its a rainforest, but we were only a few hundred KMs away from the lake region.

Ugandan long horned cow

We encountered many points of interest along our tour of this busy little community. We started the tour with a nice walk along a meandering stream which led to a waterfall. The only problem was in order to get to the water falls we would've had to cross the stream. Since we had a full day of trekking the next day we decided it would not be wise to attempt this, especially after a couple of guys who were on the tour with us decided to attempt this cross and ended up knee deep in rushing water. It made for an entertaining moment, but surely it wasn't worth soaking their hiking boots to dip their head in the water. Continuing the tour, our guide took us through tea and coffee plantations. Because of the climate here they are able to harvest these crops a couple times a year bringing much needed income to this remote area.

Coffee and Tea plantations

As we continued on through the village we came to an oddly placed hut in the middle of the forest. We were informed this was where the shaman lived. Unfortunately for us he was out at the moment (apparently he's quite the interesting character) so his wife gave us a run down of the various herbs they use to "cure" various ailments. They have everything from simple pain killers and laxatives to "cures" for malaria and infertility. Regardless of what we may or may not believe it was still intriguing to learn the strength of nature's healing ability. To think these natural remedies have been in use for thousands of years is truely inspiring.

Banana Gin Distillers

Rippening Bananas

Ironically the next point of interest brought us to the local makers of Banana Gin. This was also quite fascinating to see as well. They had a very primitive system of distilling bananas into pure alcohol and I'm pretty sure there was a LOT of perfecting (ie. sampling) going on by these distillers. Next we came across a banana farmer who demonstrated to us methods of rippining bananas. Apparently for bananas (and I suspect this to be the case for most fruit) they don't all rippen at the same time, they in fact rippen one at a time. But in order to sell these bananas to the markets, there is a need to have large amounts of bananas which all become ripe at the same time....so they dig huge holes, through the bananas stem and all into the holes and cover them with layers and layers and layers of banana leaves. Not only is this how they rippen them but its also the way that they are able to ferment them for things such as banana wine, and for further process down the river by the Gin distillers. It was pretty incredible to stand by these holes where you could literally feel the warmth from the slowly fermenting fruit!

Not sure about this wine

It was here that we were given the opportunity to taste test this local delicacy (and if there was a way to write sarcasm, this would be the extreme sarcasm font). Although we were all kind of hesitant to try their brews, we figured, well how bad could it be? So the first beverage that was poured for us was the banana juice, now I distinctly heard him say banana JUICE however, our fellow tourist who was the lucky chap to try these concoctions first, took a small sip and say "mmm ok ok this must be the banana wine, I can definitely taste the alcohol". And this pretty much summed up what was about to transpire...it was in fact just the juice but tasted absolutely horrible. It tasted like something you had left in the baking hot sun for three weeks...ughh I was scared to even think about what the gin tasted like. But onward with our taste test!! Next was the wine, the funniest thing was that we were all standing around in a circle watching the tour leader pour us a small glass of the stuff, we'd take a sip and kind of nod politely and pass it to the next person...and EVERYONE had the exact same reaction. At this point I started thinking, maybe this is a form of entertainment for these locals, to trick us poor unsuspecting tourists into thinking these guys actually drink this stuff! Next was the Gin, when he pulled out a bottle that was as translucent as water I began thinking the one girl in our group who claimed she didn't drink alcohol was the smartest of the lot. Aside from the 95% alcohol I shot before doing the worlds most dangerous road in Bolivia, this was the most wretched, unbearable substance that's ever touched my lips! But it made for good times as we all laughed and joked about what type of dire situation of boredom we'd all have to be in to even contemplate having a couple drinks of this stuff. Oh well, clearly not for tourists!

The next stop was the Bwindi Watoto Primary School. This portion of our tour was very inspiring, the school was built and funded entirely by volunteers. The school was started by a couple of American volunteers who were travelling the area in the hopes of seeing the gorillas. It was basically a 1 class school built from locally made bricks, and if I remember correctly had only a couple of teachers. The school was set up for orphans and children of very poor families in the region. We weren't told this, but given its location I would assume a lot of men died in civil strife since we were quite close to both the Rwanda and Congo borders. The hospital in the area was also set up on the same premise. It was also built by volunteers through the donations of many people who lived abroad but had past through this area at some time in their lives. Part of the tour was of course to show you what tourists dollars had accomplished and it was really nice to see the donation dollars making a real difference in the lives of these very poor people. Before this hospital was built, the nearest one was over 400km on extremely rugged roads where most people's only method of transportation is a bicycle or maybe a motorcycle at best. The main focus of the hospital isfor new borns and their mothers, and also for sick children, but they also do things like promote and give out free bug nets to the locals. This has had a dramatic affect in the incidents of malaria in this region.

A Bwindi hoedown by the Batwa

The final portion of our tour took us to the top of a hill where the local Batwa people were to put on a show of music and dance. On our way up the hill we got an understanding of how quickly rain can come. One minute it was nice and sunny, the next it was extremely windy and we could see very dark clouds coming in from over the mountains. Luckily it didn't rain to hard and the Batwa put on a good show for us. These people were probably the biggest losers when Uganda decided to make this region a national preserve in order to protect the gorillas. In being a preserve the government evicted all of these forest dwellers and forced them to intigrate into local communities. The park was brought into existance relatively recently (1994) so all of the Batwa people there had been born and raised in the forest. I could not even imagine having to deal with such an upheavle.

Batwa footstompin dance

We slowly made our own way back to our bandas where we bought a couple beer and watched the sunset behind the heavily forested hills...tomorrow we track gorillas!!!

R&R in the lake region

2011-03-30T18:40:00.003-04:00

I don't know what it is, but in true Ryan fashion, I gave up writing in my journal after a major hike...this is now the 3rd time in a row that this has happened and I just realized this trend. Thanks to my lovely wife (I knew I married you for a reason) I'll at least have another source other then my memory (annnnd maybe google)to go by...

After our extremely challenging hike into the Virungas we were more then ready for some relaxation at one of Southern Uganda's most popular lake, Lake Bunyoni. I had drank a ton of water and re-hydration salts in order to restore the fluids in my body after such an arduous trek. I also made sure to stretch before bed which might have been why I wasn't AS sore as Marlene. The drive to Bunyoni was about 3 hours of winding terraced hillsides, once at the lake we could see why its been dubbed "the Switzerland of Africa". As per Marlene its very beautiful but boring...and I suppose compared to all of our other experiences thus far, yes it is boring, but both needed and deserved. We were staying at a western type resort (not wild west but western world) which had a combination of resort syle cabins and also options for tenting. This was a very busy place especially since there were two buses full of Swedish tourists on an overland adventure. When we arrived they seemed to have a monopoly on the best sunning areas (on the dock) but Marlene and I wormed our way in there when they weren't looking :) We spent many hours on the dock and on the grass sunning and reading. Marlene spent lots of time on the internet, I don't know if its because she missed the world back in Canada that much or if she was really that bored. Either way it was very relaxing and a great place to recover. There were several tours that were available including a boat ride of the surrounding area, a canoe ride in a local canoe and also hiking tours, but we weren't really interested in the hiking at this point. For today we were happy just laying around catching some sun.

View of our Resort on Bunyoni

One of the major drawbacks about this place is that a) the service is VERY slow and lacking and b) the food options are very limited. Much like a few other places we've been to in Uganda so far, this resort had a HUGE menu with tons and tons of items...unfortunately they just seemed to be there for show and they didn't really have much aside from very simple things like pizza and pasta. At one point all we wanted was a sandwich and were told they were "out of bread"!!! How can a resort hosting close to 100 people be out of bread completely?? No idea, I guess this is what Anne's friends meant by "Ugandan's are switched off for the most part". At one point we had to find our driver Vincent and ask him to drive us into town to find somewhere to eat cause apparently somebody forgot to go shopping! I don't know how this is possible and we were both very disappointed with this resort, the most troubling thing for these business owners is that we are not particularly demanding customers, but boy did they hear an earful from us!

Marlene and the terraced hills of lake Bunyoni

The one tree of Punishment Island

The next day we engaged in a couple more activities (other then dock sitting!) and decided to go on a boat ride to see the lake. This turned out to be something to help pass the time as there is really nothing too fantastic going on. The view is spectacular and watching the locals come in via traditional canoe was interesting but the only landmark of any significance is one that most places would not want to known for. Its a little place called "punishment island". The idea was simple, the local people used to leave un-married pregnant women on the island to either die of hunger or to drown while trying to swim back to shore. Although the island is not particularly far from the mainland in those days (and still to this day) it was rare for the locals to know how to swim. The only other way they could survice was if an un-married felt he would not meet another woman, he would paddle out to the island in the middle of the night and snag himself a bride. Although this practice has been abandoned, apparently, it is still possible to find women who were picked up from punishment island today. The island we were shown to be punishment island didn't seem like much more then a bunch of reeds clumped together, as in, it didn't seem like there was much solid land to stand on.

The boat ride didn't last too long, though it did last longer then our market visit that followed. The coolest thing about the market, by far, was watching all the locals bring in their goods by canoe. Apparently a lot of these people spend all day paddling themselves to the market place in order to sell their goods. This happens once a week.

The View of Lake Bunyoni from our Resort

Later that evening we decided to take a little paddle in a traditional canoe. The plan was to paddle out of our little bay to watch the sun set. Although we are both very adept at paddling regular canoes, unfortunately our experiences in the Canadian wild was little help paddling these hollowed out logs. These "canoes" were exactly that, a very large hollowed out tree, with no shape, making it nearly impossible to steer let alone balance! There were quite a few near tips and I began to feel as though I couldn't even put my paddle in the water without risking an unwanted swim at dusk! To make matters worse there were several people who had taken making entertainment out of watching people like us attempt to maoever their way out of the bay. We did finally get the hang of it (sort of) and managed to see a beautiful sunset in the process.

Although we enjoyed the rest and relaxation this lake provided we were also very excited to get moving the next morning...after all, we were going to see one of the most endangered species on the planet!

traditional canoe on lake Bunyoni

Hiking the Virungas

2011-02-12T11:40:00.001-05:00

Virungas in the light of the rising sun

The birds are chirping and Marlene’s watch alarm was telling us to get up but our bodies and minds were telling us otherwise. This seems inhumane to be up before the sun on a “vacation”. It’s quite cool and foggy this morning as we make our way to the dinner for breakfast. We thought we had left with plenty of time but it was clear the second we got off the main road that our driver didn’t really know where to go. Fork in the road (driver mutters to himself) another fork in the road (more muttering) yet another fork in the road…hmmm maybe we should ask someone for directions our driver says. Well maybe if there was somebody to ask in this foggy, desolate, base-camp of a town. After much cursing, and lots of guess we did finally arrive at our destination and our driver seemed as surprised as us that we ended up in the right place. We arrived just in time to get our briefing. There were 3 couples 1 guide and 2 guards in all (the guards were in case we happened upon some elephants, or at least that’s what they said, who knows, we were heading in the direction of the

congo

The Bamboo Forests

The first two hours of the hike were fairly easy and quite fast paced as we made our way to the edge of the bamboo forests. We stopped for a water break and were told this is where the challenge begins. It was interesting to see the change in biodiversity, first through a massive bamboo forest, then through a mossy tree forest. Once into the moss, things really started to get steep and I began to breath very heavily, my body had been here a few times before; it’s the feeling that your heart if trying to jump out of your throat, it quickly goes away once you stop walking. However, the pace being set was not one which was conducive to much stopping. By the time we neared the first summit I was sweating profusely, my legs were getting heavy and I began to feel light headed. Again, I knew this feeling from hiking the Inca trail; it’s not a good sign as it’s the first step (pun intended) to altitude sickness. I was very much relieved to arrive at the first peak and admire the incredible view, the trouble was I could also see the next two peaks we had to climb and they didn’t look too friendly. Our guide chose now to tell us this is the point that most hikers turn back. But troopers that we are, after a quick break and a snack we were set to climb the second peak…but first we had to climb down the first peak. The climb down was only partially relieving because we knew we would only have to climb back up on the way back.

Atop the First Peak

The second peak is where the ladder ascent began. Marlene seemed to be doing quite well on these, maybe she had more practice on the jungle gyms in her earlier years, or maybe she had something to prove, all I know is the increase in elevation was starting to make me very noxious. Once up top of the second peak I really started contemplating staying back while the others carried on. Although this was my idea, and I love hiking in the mountains, for some reason the altitude was really hitting me hard and I contemplated for a second on being like most hikers before me who had attempted this trek. But of course I’m too stubborn and determined to reach the 3^rd peak that I continued on. We could see that the third peak was just a cliff of a peak and we must’ve asked our guide 3 times if that was really where we were going. The movie cliff-hangers ran through my mind as I got a closer look at the dilapidated state of the ladders we were about to entrust.

Staring at the third peak

between peak 2 and 3

Ladder up Peak 3

At one point on the climb there was a series of ladders which were straight up the crevice of a cliff, some 40M straight up. We couldn’t believe we were doing this, we were literally a hundred feet up the side of a cliff with drops of several hundred meters on both sides. Although looking around made me even dizzier, I just couldn’t help it, I seemed to be drawn to picturing myself in that moment, on the side of a cliff with nowhere to go but up. The odd thing is that I never once thought to myself “I’m going to fall” as most people do from these heights. I wasn’t sure if I was experiencing vertigo or if this was the onset of altitude sickness, either way I was not feeling well at all. For some reason I still felt safe enough to carry on. Once at the top Marlene admitted she could not focus on anything but the next rung, I thought she was missing out on the best experience…but then again I was probably a little delusional at that point. The views from atop the third peak were nothing short of spectacular. On one side we could see the peaks we had just hiked, on the other we could see into the flats of Rwanda and on the other, the lush tropical jungles of the Congo. These views reminded me very much of Peru with the jagged but very lush peaks. The clouds were beginning to settle in and it was time to start heading back. I was not looking forward to climbing back down those old rickety ladders with broken rungs and bent nails. I was hopeful after lunch and lots of water I’d start to feel better, unfortunately it had to opposite effect and by the time I had climbed back up peak #2 I felt I was very close to barfing, so I stayed well back from everyone else. Up to this point I hadn’t made it known that I was feeling this way as not to worry Marlene. However what did worry Marlene was at one point on the final descent my legs just went completely numb and buckled, sending me face first into the turf. This really was straight out of the cartoons as I scrambled to grab onto a clump of grass to prevent me from falling even further. Thankfully that clump was very well rooted otherwise I would’ve been in for a very long fall. After that little episode, I got the attention of the guide and guards who took my bag and followed close behind me.

Feeling pretty good atop the 3rd peak

styling on top a mountain

All in all the trip took us 10 hours to complete and we couldn’t have been more then happy to see our driver waiting for us. It took all of our strength, endurance and will to do this trek and I would caution anyone that this is not your average mountain hike. Although I probably felt the worst out of anyone due to the altitude wreaking havoc on my system, our fellow trekkers all agreed they had never done anything this hard in their lives…and these were avid travellers/hikers as well. I could not have been more happy and relieved to know that the next two nights would be spent in lavish luxury, ok maybe not lavish luxury, but at a lake side resort!

Second peak and the other two Volcanoes

Enter the bread basket

2011-02-02T13:21:00.001-05:00

This morning finally felt like a vacation as we slept in till the last minute before the hotel buffet closed. We actually even went back to bed after the feasting on a wide assortment of delicious food. We laid around and waited for our transfer from the hotel to the airport to arrive. After a 2 hour flight we landed safely in Entebbe, Uganda and met our new driver Vincent. He’s an older man who was a little hard to understand at first, but a really nice man. He explains to us that he had been expecting us to arrive early in the morning, instead we arrived late that night, the poor guy waited around for hours at the airport wondering where we were, I guess nobody told him that we had booked our own flights from Nairobi to Entebbe. A slight misunderstanding because it was not explained to me that the tour company actually booked our flights while we were on safari not knowing that I had booked our flights months ago! Oops! In the end it all worked out but we quickly discovered why they wanted us to arrive early in the morning, traffic is INSANE here! It’s a chaotic combination of trucks and motorcycles. We had heard that Ugandan’s love their night life, and the drive through the suburbs of the sprawling city demonstrated this perfectly. It’s rows and rows of kiosks selling BBQ meat and beer and there are tons of people gathered out front of each. All I know is I’m really glad I’m not driving! Once we arrived at the hotel it didn’t take long to realize what all the articles and books we had read about Uganda were talking about in terms of service. I’m not sure what it is, if it’s a language barrier issue or an accent issue, but they don’t seem to be able to understand us very well. We wondered whether they only heard what they wanted to hear or if they really didn’t understand us. For instance if we ordered a tea, they’d say with milk? No milk. Ok so tea with milk. No I said no milk. And of course it would come with milk. Oh well, I guess we’re now on what they call “African time”. Tomorrow we have another very long day ahead of us as we make our way to the most south western part of

Uganda

to do some volcano trekking!

Well today we are in for one hell of a drive, but hey, it’s not like we aren’t used to it and have never done it before. And at least we will get to see what the country actually looks like on the ground, well, the south of it anyway. On our way down we drove through many small villages and the one commonality was the amount of bananas. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it, the way they are able transport these bananas is quite amazing. On our way out of the city it was transport after transport over flowing with bananas delivering them to the urban population who are getting ready for their work day. Vincent kept telling us that the entire country runs on bananas, that 3 varieties of bananas provide sustenance for the majority of the population. The bananas arrive not by the bunches we see back home in the grocery store, but with the entire stem intact with dozens of these bunches per stem. Watching them unload the cargo was interesting, but even more fascinating was the way the locals transport them via 10 speed bicycle in the smaller towns. They are able to very creatively attach several of these stems to 1 bicycle with literally hundreds of bananas at a time. It was quite the sight to see long lines of locals pushing these bikes up and down the shoulders of the highway.

Vast Farm Lands

As we continued further and further south, the terrain increasingly got more mountainous. The scenery was absolutely stunning as we passed terraced mountain tops which make good use of all available terrain. I suppose the trade off is that the entire region to the south has been cleared of trees and brush to make way for agriculture. Here they grow beans, cabbage, corn, and potatoes…not what you’d expect of a tropical location, but I suppose these are the things that are easy to grow and provide nutrition for the locals. The tropical, mountainous topography kept reminding Marlene of her travels to Colombia. It was a very long drive, but at least our surroundings made it all the more inviting. The most stunning of all scenes was after when we caught a glimpse of lake Bunyoni from high up in the terraced mountains. We would be returning to the lake in a few days for some rest and relaxation.

After about 10 hours of driving we finally approached our destination. At this point, the twisty turny nature of our drive had done a number on Marlene who was trying to find a position to sit in which did not make her feel queasy. As the road turned from freshly paved asphalt to dirt, we rounded our last mountain pass, and there, way off in the distance, with absolute and distinct clarity, were the series of 3 massive volcanoes that up the Muhavura Mountain range, staring us straight in the face. We pulled over to the side of the road to stare in aw and our driver turned to us with a huge smile and said “so…which volcano would you like to climb?” gulp!! I knew these volcanoes were huge, but to actually see them in the dying light of day was quite intimidating. Upon arrival into Kisoro, we made our way into the tourist centre to decide which volcano we were going to climb. After intently reading all of the descriptions of the treks up these mammoth beasts we both kind of looked at each other with indecisive gazes. They all sounded very intriguing but VERY difficult, a lot more difficult then anything we had read in books or on line and we kind of got the feeling that we had been mislead. We opted for Mt. Sobynyo (Sovenio) which was the second largest of the 3...but still 3659M above sea level! We based our decision on the fact that at the peak, we would be at a point where 3 countries meet: Uganda, Rwanda, and the Congo. When we booked this trip we both had the urge to dip into the Congo for Gorilla trekking but decided it was not a good idea due to the constant instability in the region. So….this would be as close as we would get to entering the DRC. Oh yes, and in case it needs to be mentioned, all of these volcanoes have been dormant since the Holocene age J

The Virunga Mountain Range

We eventually checked into our guest house accommodations and were greeted by a lovely, smiling hostess who gave us both hugs and took our orders for dinner. She was incredibly friendly but we are quickly discovering there is a distinct difference in service level here. The funny thing is that each place we’ve been to has HUGE menus but ¾ of the stuff on them are not available! So often we would get our hopes up for something we hadn’t had in a long time, only to be told they don’t have that right now. In addition, everything takes for ever to be made and served.

We went to bed early because 5:30am comes very fast and early. Tomorrow we meet the mountains!

Kenya - Our last days

2011-01-06T09:23:00.002-05:00

For what was supposed to be somewhat of a "nothing" day, a day where we were to slowly make our way back to the nation's capital, it turned out to be one of those roller coaster of emotions days that only two weeks of international travel can inspire. We left at around 8am today as we wanted to be in Nairobi at a decent hour. On the way out of the park while being distracted by a nearby jackal, we all spot something streaking through the forest beside the van. We are all staring intently at these large black animals that are running very quickly through the forest not 20 feet away from our van. Finally we reach a clearing and what is revealed was truly remarkable and unbelievable. Its a small pack of wild dogs on the hunt! To clarify the rarity of this sight, the day before yesterday on one of George's information sessions he told us that wild dogs used to be prominent in the Mara but that amongst the guides, in the past 5 years or so, not a single one was recorded to have been sighted and the local lore was that they were thought to be extinct! This was one of those moments were everyone in the van (we were giving a local worker a ride to a nearby town) turned and looked at each other with pure ecstasy and disbelief at what we had just witnessed. As quickly as they had appeared, the dogs once again returned to obscurity and perhaps even to mythical status because who knows just how long it will be before another documented sighting takes place. Wild dogs do not hunt like other principle predators, they will chase their prey for many miles to exhaust them. Unfortunately our cameras were packed away in our bags, however, much like our rare sighting of the rhino in Nakuru, I likely would not have had the time, or quick enough reaction, to take a good picture. I know for me, that moment will be forever burned into my memory. Had it been in other parts of Africa, this sighting may not be so dramatic, but here in the Mara a kind of scientific experiment with vaccines (for rabbies I believe) took place a few decades ago. The vaccines were deemed responsible for wiping out the entire population through sterilization.

On and on the drive went, George drives the speed limit so our drive took much longer then expected. Upon arrival into Nairobi we got stopped by a police officer who seemed very upset and George looked very concerned. They were speaking swahilli but we could tell he was talking about us, or at least mentioning us. After several minutes of this back and forth he was let go. George later explained "that man wanted to arrest me, if not for you I would have surely been arrested". Apparently there are all types of licences required for automobiles in Kenya including a license for a radio, no not a CB radio, but the am/fm radio. The license had expired and this is an enforceable offense. George was able to plead with the officer telling him he has clients and this would not be fair to us as we had van full of luggage.

Eventually we did make our way through the insanity that is traffic in Nairobi and checked in to our hotel. It was a very nice modern hotel and we were happy to find a proper bathroom and air conditioning in the room. We laid down to relax a bit and vegg out in front of the TV (something we hadn't seen in a couple weeks!) and to our horror, ALL of the news stations were broadcasting about a terrorist attack that had struck Kampala, Uganda. We both jumped out of bed with our hearts in our throats wondering what in the world had happened? Our immediate reaction was that the city must be in chaos because they were speaking about over 80 people being killed by bombs. The bombs were exploded by suicide bombers from a terrorist organization with links to Al Qaeda, named Al Shabab who operate out of Somalia. The suicide bombers had targeted popular sports bars who were showing the finals of the world cup match. This was not a good sign. We quickly ran downstairs and got online to see what we could find out. The Canadian Embassy had not issued warnings for the area and after reading a few headlines, it didn't appear as though we would be as at risk as we had once thought. It was obviously very devastating for the city and the country, especially since Al Shabab had promised more retaliation if Uganda did not pull its troops from Somalia.

Later on that day we met with Elizabeth from our tour company who briefed us on the situation. She had already been in contact with a few people in Uganda who had assured her that flights were not delayed or cancelled and things had pretty much returned to normal, and besides we were not staying in downtown Kampala anyhow...something comparable to say being in Brampton as apposed to downtown Toronto. Elizabeth assured us our tour would still go ahead and we had nothing to worry about!

That evening we met up with Andrew (Anne's friend) and a few of his other friends. He treated us as if we were family, picked us up at our hotel, paid for our entire bar tab and the dropped us off back at the hotel even though it was after midnight and he had to work at 6am..oh those crazy Kenyans! We had a blast just laughing it up and having a few drinks. It was the perfect way to end our incredible honeymoon adventure!

Last day in the Mara

2011-01-06T08:35:00.001-05:00

Today was the first day in a long time that we were able to sleep in past 8am, and after yesterdays insanely long safari adventure, well deserved, in my opinion! We met up with George for breakfast and we were told he arranged for a local Masai named Solomon to take us up into the hills behind our lodge. It was a great hike and a welcome change from all the driving we've been doing, the views over the plains were fabulous. We spent quite a long time taking in the view through the lens of our binoculars, watching safari vans drive around and taking note of the locals down below milling about in their everyday fashion.

After listening to George talk endlessly about the local fauna, birds and everything in between both Marlene and I were getting quite tired and a little annoyed with this constant bombardment of information. Upon returning from our little hike we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, reading, and writing. A perfect opportunity for me to finally tuck into the bottle of rum I had been carrying around the entire journey! We had been told the alcohol within the parks can be quite expensive and to bring our own booze, to be honest, we had neither the time, nor the energy to sit back and enjoy multiple drinks per night. I actually ended up just leaving 3/4 of the bottle for the cleaning staff.

And soon the time had come for our final safari! It was met with mixed emotions because on the one hand it was kind of sad to be leaving the Kenyan plains, if not for ever, then for a very long time. And on the other hand, a once novel and thrilling experience had began to take on a kind of weary, un-enthusiastic aura. Not to sound like a couple of spoiled brats but we really had seen everything we had come to see and we didn't see the point in going out again. But alas, we had paid for it and George was gung ho to find us some lions. There were many many grazers lying by the watering hole and Marlene and I would have been just fine to sit there and watch these magical beasts in their natural habitat, taking in all of our surroundings for one last time. But George was determined, he was going to find us our lion! For the next 2 hours we drove around in circles attempting to cross a creek, each time we were faced with soft ground, we would have to turn around. On one of these attempts we found ourselves face to face with a very disgruntled, enormous bull elephant. He seemed to have been cranky to begin with but our presence in his territory clearly tested his patience as he began to flap his ears and even trumpet his trunk as he slowly began the "charge mode" rituals. This time I was a bit nervous because we had just climbed up a steep, windy, and narrow road and the only way to evade him was to go back the way we came. George quickly threw it in reverse, vearing off course in the process. Luckily we managed to get far enough away from the angry elephant that he decided we were no longer a threat. We all sat back, caught our breath, and watched/listened as the elephant stormed off in the opposite direction, up rooting trees along the way. We could still see the trees shaking down in the valley long after he was out of earshot.

The Jackyl

When we retired to bed Marlene and I recounted many of the incredible things we had seen and experienced along our 2 week journey. We decided that 2 weeks was the perfect amount of time and the we were ready to take on Uganda! We were very excited for a change of pace, and to meet up with some of Anne's friends who promised to treat us to a night of local Kenyan debotchery!

View of the Masai Mara from above

In search of the migration

2010-12-20T12:13:00.002-05:00

Masai Elephant Family

Quote from Marlene’s journal “Today was the longest game drive ever!” And yes, it was a marathon drive as we had to make our way to the other side of the National Reserve which is 1510 square KMs. The “Mara” as the locals call it, is essentially the northern continuation of the more famous park in Tanzania called, the Serengeti. The two parks (and therefore the countries) are separated by a river, and it is this river that we are trying to find with the hopes that we’ll see some wildebeest swimming across it. Our day began at 8am and we returned to camp at 7pm. 11 hours of game driving is definitely tiring but we say so many incredible things, starting with a family of elephants, which we love to watch. Along the way Marlene needed a pit stop at the washroom due to all the tea she was drinking, at this stop I got a better understanding of how people in the old days could stumble across a lion with no warning. It’s hard to imagine that in an open savannah, you could be surprised by an animal as large as a lion, but honestly, the grass is so tall and so thick there could easily have been a lion crouching in the field and I’d never know it.

No lions here...

The sheer scale and quantity of wild life in this park is absolutely mind blowing, I have probably described a lot of things as mind blowing at this point, but this preserve truly is a natural marvel. To drive over countless ridges only to find more and more grass covered hills with tens of thousands of grazers on each hill side is something that is beyond description. Because there are so few trees, and the lay of the land is gentle rolling hills, it is possible to see for tens of kilometres. There were moments on our drive where even though there was nothing exciting happening right in front of us, the beauty and tranquility of being immersed in all that surrounded us was enough to get our driver to stop so we could take it all in. There were many times along this drive where I thought to myself (sometimes out loud) what are all those specs of white on the hillside? Sure enough as we got closer, it would be zebra, gazelle, buffalo etc etc. I tried taking several photos to capture this scene, but a photo is such a poor replication that I’m not even sure it merits being posted.

Thousands of Masai Grazers - all the white and dark specs are a combination of zebra, buffalo, gazelle, wildebeest etc.

Masai Leopard Feast

We drove and drove, over the hills, through the gullies, across creeks, through marshes, until we finally reached the river. The disappointing thing was that the wildebeest had already made their ways across it. The amazing part was that we were allowed to get out of the van and have a look around. There were hippos and crocs in the water below. We watched them for some time and then continued on our journey. We eventually came across a cheetah that had just killed a gazelle and was proceeding to drag it into a shrubby area for shelter and cover. I spoke to some fellow safariers who informed me that we had just missed the chase by about 5 minutes! This would’ve been fascinating to see but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Later on we came across a family of 3 leopards who were feasting on a wildebeest. Our driver got us so close to these animals that we could hear them liking and tearing the beast apart and moaning with delight. To be there was incredible; unfortunately since they were in the trees it was very hard for me to get a clear shot of the on going carnage. At this point our driver George turns to us and says “I’m sorry guys I’m not too familiar with this part of the park, I think we should start following the other vans”. Ok, not the most reassuring statement considering the remoteness of our location but we were surrounded by other guides so we weren’t that worried. We eventually stopped for lunch under a large lonely tree where we could get some food into us, and George could have a look at the map.

Artistic Masai Giraffes

Masai Leopard Feast 2

Our journey continued on as we passed by many more hippos in the river below, and as we started to make our way back home we eventually did come across some massive herds of wildebeest. We were both happy to catch a glimpse of what we had set out to find, however George says that what we saw is miniscule in comparison to seeing the actual migration, I couldn’t even imagine it. We both thought what we saw was enormous and overwhelming to believe that this is just a fraction of the real deal, well that’s just craziness! Anyway, as we continued on, it became more and more apparent that George of the Jungle, or Genius George, or whatever name we could think of at this point, was LOST. He kept turning around and looking at me as if to say “any idea which way we should go?” I just kept thinking to myself, if you have to ask me then we’re really in for an adventure. At one point after driving like this for close to an hour, we came to a steep creek crossing. Although George had been avoiding these extremely rugged sections all day, we had simply come too far to turn around and find another route. He turned around and told us to buckle in and hang on, he put the van in 4X and took a deep breath….woo we made it through the downward section and across the smaller creek, now for the tricky part, across another section of mud followed by a sharp turn, and up a steep narrow, muddy path. This took several attempts and some very creative driving but we eventually made it up. I was very impressed with these old vans and their manoeuvrability. We waited for the two vans who were following us, just to make sure they made it ok. Watching and hearing the other van crash around over the rocks and through the mud made us feel lucky we made it without any damage to the van.

Just as the journey was becoming a little mundane (I know, how spoiled we quickly become!) we came down and around another rolling hill to find a massive conglomoration of vans down below. We figured there must be something extremely exciting going on so, off we went to find out what was drawing so much attention. It took a while to see just what all the fuss was about, and then there it was, in all its kingly glory...a male lion with its long shaggy mane flayling in the wind. Of all the incredible things we had seen so far, this was the moment that I had been waiting for for nearly two weeks, to see a fully matured male lion in close proximity. For me, this without a doubt, completed my African safari check list and a sense of fulfillment quickly emerged. There were actually two male lions in this location and they appeared to just be hanging out, without a care in the world, and not the least big concerned with the dozens of humans flashing cameras their way. It really is remarkable how much bigger these creatures are then their female counterparts. An unbelievable opportunity that was brough about by taking the long way home.

A sample of Wildebeests in the Mara

On our way back George asked us if we wanted to make a stop at an historic resort/lodge. It was the first ever lodge built in the Mara and it was pretty impressive with its own pond of hippos along the private boardwalk. We spent sometime looking around in the gift shop as this was the first place we had come across that actually had fixed prices on the products. At times we were quite satisfied with what we had bargained for with the locals, but of course there were other times where the locals clearly got the best of our judgement. Marlene decided that she would buy the remainder of her gifts for friends (so she said, but later retracted and bought even more in

Uganda

!) here at the hotel gift shop as it also accepted credit cards.

When we got back we had been told we’d be saying good bye to our incredible chef Guidian tonight as he was being called back to Nairobi to start another tour with our former driver/guide Mike…they apparently always travel together. We were sad to see him go, but we were also now going to be upgraded once again, as we had to be put somewhere that had full room and board. It was a slight upgrade but it had a bar with booze, so that made us a little more comfortable! And thus ends the longest day (and the longest entry in my blog) of our entire trip thus far.

Tomorrow we are supposed to do yet another game drive, but to be honest, both of us have seen enough of that van to last us an eternity. Instead we decide that we will sleep in for once, and then hire a local Masai to take us on a walking tour of the surrounding area.

Masai - Wildebeest Migration - This picture shows a lot: the dark area in the foreground is where there used to be grass and it was already eaten by the passing Wildebeests. The dark spots in the background are ALL wildebeests

Onward to the Mara!

2010-12-19T12:11:00.003-05:00

Masai Mara - More rain for tomorrow?

Last night it poured ran all night long, luckily Natural Tracks safari was kind enough to upgrade up to a local hotel (free of charge) since our poor little tent is nowhere near being water proof. Today we enter into the last leg of our trip in Kenya as we make our way to the Masai Mara. We have 2 nights and 3 days booked in here as we have been informed this is the highlight park of many safaris. Today will be a long day of driving as we make our way from the ruggedness of the rift valley area, down to the arid plains. Along the way we stopped in a Masai town where Marlene’s eyes were beaming at the sight of ice cream, it had been quite some time since either of us had anything cold, so ice cream hit the spot and beyond! In the grocery store we also found some of the magic spice that our chef uses on everything.

Momma with Cub

Once we finally arrived and settled at our latest outpost, we were quickly whisked off for a late afternoon game drive in the Mara! The Mara is known for two things, the lions and the wildebeest migration. Today we saw 1 half of that as we (actually, more like me, as I was getting the feel for this game drive business…as our guide was going on and on about this and that as he always did, I spotted a momma lion on the side of the road, he didn’t even see it, I swear we almost hit it!) followed a momma lion back to her safe place where she had 4 lion cubs hiding in the long grass. This was really the only thing in the way of animals that was impressive. However, the scenery is straight out of national geographic, rolling grass laden hills, with spotted trees and bushes.

Masai Lion cub waiting for momma

Tonight is the world cup final and we are both interested in going out for a true African experience. Our guide is very excited at this prospect and tells us to go ready. Not long after we were both clean and dressed, George came to our banda to tell us he had some sad news. Upon speaking with the locals in the kitchen they advised him that it would not be wise to bring his clients to watch the game in the local bar or restaurant. We were after all in the middle of nowhere with only local Masai around, apparently they can get pretty abrasive when they drink and our safety would be in jeopardy. They are not used to seeing foreigners in the village, especially at night, and George did not want to risk it. So alas, we staid back in our banda, caught up on some reading and writing and were off to bed as tomorrow will be the longest of all safari journeys. We will be attempting to catch a glimpse of the wildebeest migration happening at the opposite end of the park.

Masai Lion in the Grass

Into Hells Gate

2010-11-28T10:39:00.002-05:00

Welcome to Hell's Gate!!

After a quick stop in Nakuru for some supplies, and another stop just outside the park to pick up our guide (Simon) for the day (George is apparently not comfortable on a bike LOL) we made it to the park gates with little time to spare. In fact we actually got the last 3 bikes for rent, just some simple mountain bike style bikes, good enough for us at this point. This would prove to be a very long bike ride for my new bride, who doesn't like biking all that much. It was a 2 km bike ride just to get into the park and then another 7KM to get to the top of the canyon. Regardless of distance, energy and effort we both agreed that this experience was more then worth it. The beauty of the natural landscape here was enough, throw in the countless zebra, gazelle, warthogs and giraffe, it was and incredible and breathtaking experience. The park is set in the beautiful rift valley, with hanging ochre cliffs and jagged towering peaks.

Incredible Ochre Cliffs of Hell's Gate

Remnance of an ancient whirlpool

We stopped at the trail head and dug into the lunch that Gideon had packed for us. After refueling, our real adventure in this park was just about to begin. We were but 20 steps into this hike when we realized this was not going to be an easy task, which was fine by us since we have had little exercise so far on the trip. The trail starts out with a steep narrow passage which leads to a path along a nearly dried out river bed. After a few river crossings (very shallow, so no swimming needed at this point!) and some fairly technical downward climbs, we found ourselves right in the heart of the canyon. This area has been the site of several movies, the first one that comes to mind is Tomb Raider...where they are supposed to be in Tanzania heading toward the cradle of life?? Ya that's actually here in Naivasha! The sculpting and shaping of the rocks over millions of years of water erosion is magnificent and neither of us have ever seen anything like it. Our guide asked us if there was anything comparable to this in North America, and after lots of though, I still can't think of anything that's even remotely comparable to this place. Unfortunately its one of those places that pictures really do little or no justice at all, its a place that you just have to see and experience yourself. We walked along the river bed until we reached the source of the water in the wet season, and where the canyon gets its name.

On the Canyon Floor of Hell's Gate

Incredibly Hot Spring water that feeds "Hell's Kithcen"

According to our guide, the Masai named this area "Hell's Gate" because when the rains come, all of the water from the surrounding mountains flow through here creating flash floods. Any animals standing in the rushing water's path would be swept up and carried down into the canyon below. The Masai would then hear these animals screaming for their lives, trapped in the canyon, and later find them dead at at the mouth of the canyon. They believed these beasts were the ones who were sacrificed below and returned to the surface. Easy food I guess. Simon definitely took us on the scenic route on the way back where we had to scramble down some of the sandstone cliffs. Neither of us had ever done anything like this, I assume this is about as close as you could get to not needing a rope and harness to go hiking, it was a cross between trekking and rock climbing and we absolutely LOVED it. On the way back we past by some thermal waters which were extremely hot. Simon told us this was called Hell's Kitchen because the Masai actually used this heat to cook their food. There was actually an area that was carved out into a ledge with several rounded out holes....making it easy to put the food there, and have it stay until cooked. This ranks as one of the top experiences since our arrival here in Kenya, we were both pleasantly surprised at how incredible this place is! On the way out of the park, we finally got to experience a full on African downpour, we raced to the park gates and beat the heaviest part of this rainfall but ended up getting soaked regardless. It was a nice gentle, warm rain and we welcomed it after a long strenuous day of travel, biking, and hiking.

As a side note, Kenya has made the most of this natural resource, and has begun harvesting the thermal energy from the ground with plans to develop and expand geothermal energy. Kenya is one of the leading countries in the world in this regard.

Above the Canyon looking at the central tower of Hell's Gate

Hippos in Baringo

2010-11-28T09:30:00.002-05:00

Lake Baringo Boat Ride

Baringo Traditional Fisherman

The next morning was bit rough, a we were awoken at our usual 6am start time. Due to the heat and humidity, I was quite uncomfortable for the duration of the night and didn't get much sleep at all. Oh well, today is HIPPO day!! We enjoyed some tea and biscuits as we watched the sun rise over the lake, no time for a full breakfast as our guide came by to walk us down to the boat launch for the beginning of our hippo tour! We quickly discovered this was more like a bird tour which included a tour of the lack and the hippos as the grand finale. The funniest thing about this was that our guide would get very excited about seeing certain birds, and he'd say "are we not close enough for your camera" 'cause I wasn't taking pictures, so he'd tell the driver of the boat to get closer! Later on when he saw my camera, he knew distance wasn't a problem...so he'd continually tap me on the shoulder and say "take picture, take picture" as if I was mentally challenged and didn't understand the concept. The issue was disinterest, I tried telling him that we were here for the hippos and he just said "later". So I went along with his little game and took dozens of pictures that I later deleted, Marlene was highly amused by this as he thought he was doing me a huge favour by telling me to "hurry, take picture, TAKE PICTURE...awwww you missed it!" Good to know he takes his job seriously at least.

Stalking Hippos

African Fish Eagle

Actually, there was one really cool thing we saw relating to birds. After we met some local fisherman who had been out gathering Talipia in their locally made canoes before dawn, and once we rounded the lake's largest island (inhabited by 1 rich man and his 5 wives and 36 children) our guide pointed to some trees in the distance and said, "watch over there" as he proceded to make the sound of an eagle's cry with his mouth...like a high pitch, very loud whistle. Sure enough, over in the trees we could see the eagle pop its head up out of its nest. After several convincing cries, and motioning to the bird that we had fresh talapia for him, the bird finally came swooping in! This was a really cool sight to see, it was like something right out of the nature chanel because he threw the fish about 10-15 ft away from the boat, so we saw the eagle come down and snatch the fish right in front of us. He did this a couple of times and then we continued over into the marshy area where the hippos reside. There must have been a family of 20 or so happily bobbing up and down. It's hard to count how many there are because they take turns with some resting on the bottom and others keeping watch at the surface, so for us it just looks like the same hippo bobbing up and down, very cute! At one point there was a hippo that was returning to its mates and was coming up from behind us, this is the dangerous situation we've heard about, that you don't want to be in, if that hippo were to believe that we were trying to stop it from reaching his family we'd be in deep trouble. Our driver quickly started the engine and moved to the side to let the hippo pass. We sat there for a good 15 minutes watching the hippos watching us, Marlene grinning from ear to ear, she absolultely adores the hippos. It is really neat when they come up for air, they blow out huge breaths of air like a whale, and twitch their little ears.

powerful jaws

After uncessufully attempting to find some alligators, our tour ended abruptly. We returned back to our campsite where George and Guidian were packing up our gear and beginning to serve us breakfast. After a quick stop in Nakuru for some supplies, we were Naivasha bound. Naivasha is a very unique park in that you can experience it outside the security of a vehicle. Yes that's right, you can choose to hike or bike your way through the park, its a rare opportunity to be on the same level as the animals themselves.

Talapia Fisherman in Baringo

Fish Eagle

After all of this we now made our way down to Naivasha (Hell's Gate) along the way we drove through bee keeper central and we all had to buy some more to replace the bottle that I accidently smashed yesterday. What's an adventure without a little drama? The bottles were sitting in a bag and while rooting through things trying to find soap I dropped the bag (full of Marlene's stuff of course) and the bottle broke, but we didn't discover this until hours later...note to self, honey does not come out of ANYTHING very easily. I spent a good 2 hours trying to wash the honey out of the bag and some of Marlene's clothes...ooops! So anyway, for 100sh (like $1.20) you get a 250ml bottle of fresh honey...in old booze bottles no less. It certainly has a different taste, but its good regardless, pure and natural.

Rhinos in Nakuru

2010-11-19T08:55:00.006-05:00

lonely Rhino

Nakuru Rhino and Buffalo

After a pleasant nights sleep under our beg nets (brilliant invention that cottagers/campers here should invest in...you can hear them but they can't get you!) we headed off to for a morning game drive in the park again before heading off to Baringo. This morning's drive was just as fun, what a great park this is, I was completely surprised as I was not expecting much of this little gem. Today's drive started out with a very large family of baboons, say maybe 40 or more? Baboons are fun to watch cause the troop was on the move, and the babies were just like children at play except they like to climb trees and swing from branches. Once out of the forest we were introduced to the interesting habits of the male gazelles who stand guard like soldiers on the edges of their territories, protecting their females and young from intruders. But the absolute crown jewel of the day was a young female black rhino who decided she was going to hang out with the buffalo, George said she seemed confused and may have been new to the park and looking for a friend...awwww. She will quickly learn she is of a different species but for now, the buffalo don't mind her and she's happy cause she's got company!

River Crossing: Road to Baringo

Now on our way to Lake Baringo! Baringo is about the same latitude as Samburu, however the road between them is deemed to be unsafe to travel due to bandits so this is why we took the route through Mt.Kenya to Nakuru and then back up to Baringo. This road was something else to see. Most of it lies in a low land type valley with steep cliffs on one side. I suppose because the roads flood so frequently, or maybe due to the lack of stability, there are NO bridges...and let me point out there are SEVERAL rivers, creeks and streams coming off those mountains. This being the dry season, there was only one river that we had to "ford", that is, drive through with the van. Imagine something like this in Canada where they know a certain area floods every year, so they just leave the roads to contend with mother nature instead of building bridges and retaining walls. The idea that water has the right of way over vehicles is an idea we are un-accustom to. Apparently the road becomes virtually impassible in the wet season, and its quite obvious why. The river we went through was a good 4ft deep in some places so I can only imagine what its like when its banks are swollen.

Enormous Termite Mound - Baringo

Black Scorpion

Once we arrived at the gates our guides recommended a local guide who would take us both on a nature walk and on a boat tour to see the hippos. The price seemed a bit steep at $100 U.S. each for a 3 hour walk and a 4 hour boat ride, but we were here to see the hippos after all. We later found out that the cost is per per boat rather then per person, had we known this we could've found some other people to come in our boat to lower the cost. Regardless, the excessive cost was easy to justify since this was a community run program and all the money is shared amongst its people. We later discovered that Lake Baringo is a "birders paradise" with something like 700 different kinds of birds, which is pretty impressive...if you love birds??! For us, we just can't be bothered to learn about 700 different kinds of birds...some of them are very bright and beautiful but we just aren't that excited about them. This logically led to our "nature" walk really being a birding walk...oh joy. I say that sarcastically but we did see some pretty fascinating birds. The coolest ones we saw were ground nesting type birds. In order to disguise themselves from predators, since they reside at ground level, their feathers are an incredible camouflage. Even from 10ft away they are virtually invisible due to their ability to blend into the surrounding rocks. It seriously took me a good 10 minutes to find this bird, I was looking right at it the whole time but couldn't see it. Pretty wild. Our local guide, Moses, quickly figured out that we were not interested in birds and so continually turned over rocks with the hopes of finding snakes and scorpions. We didn't find any snakes, but he did find us both types of scorpions (brown and black) he picked both of them up, neither of us wanted to get very close to it, though he did make me touch it...creepy. He took us on a hike up the mountain where we could have a birds eye view of his village. After a quick rest and chat to him about local life, I began to understand teh plight of rural Africa. They are only provided with education up to grade 8, after which point, their only option is to go to the city (Nairobi) for high school. So if they do want to continue education beyond grade 8, not only do they have to leave their families hundreds of KM behind, but they also have to find a place to live and since most families don't have very much money, guess what most of them don't ever do. For someone who was only educated up to grade 8 Moses spoke very good english.

Beautiful Ochre Ridges behin Lake Baringo

We returned to our once tranquil campsite to find that our tent space had been rudely invaded by an overland tour of Quebecois! Since we were now out of the highlands, even the nights were very hot and sticky, and of course tonight was the night we had to sleep in our tents, and tonight was the night that it decided to rain again...so we had to keep all the vents closed...this would be the first sleepless night in Africa, I expected it to happen much more frequently then this, so I sucked it up.

Lake Baringo: Panoramic

Onward to Lake Nakuru

2010-11-12T09:52:00.005-05:00

Thompson's Falls

This morning began like any other on this trip, at 6am...this wake up time is beginning to feel more like a job then a vacation! Oh well, when there is so much ground to cover and a limited time to do it, this is the result. This morning it was really cold, I don't think the hotel had any form of heat which made it even harder for me to get up. The hotel has a feature where you can be notified via a buzzer, located in each room, if any animals of interest are roaming around the water holes in the middle of the night...we didn't receive any buzz. So off we go! They rounded us up and sent us on our way back to the restaurant via shuttle bus to enjoy a large buffet of food which included everything from crepes to chicken wings...boy do they have a skewed view of what westerners eat for breakfast LOL...though I guess I didn't help that view any since I went back for seconds.

Great Rift Valley

After breakfast we patiently awaited our driver and guide to pick us up, once he arrived he told us he had received some very bad news. The news was that his mother-in-law had passed away. The result was that he had to go back to Nairobi and would therefore be unable to remain with us for the duration of our journey...which was sad for us because we really liked him! Natural Treks Safari was going to be sending a new driver/guide to meet us at Nakuru so it really wasn't a big deal for us but it was still sad to see him go.

Thomson's Falls from below

Today's drive took us through the fertile highlands and down into the low lands of the great Rift Valley. What a stunning view that was! We were told many (many) times that the Rift Valley extends all the way from Israel to Mozambique, which is very impressive, but everyone we met in this area insisted on telling us this fact which of course then led to them pushing their crafts relating to this fact. Along the way we stop at Thompsons Falls for a quick glimpse at the falls which descends a 72M cliff into the lush forest below. This was supposed to be a quick stop for us, but since we really hadn't had much exercise in the past few days we decided to get adventurous and climb down to the bottom. I'm always amazed at the sheer energy of the falls, once we climbed down through the dense forest, the temperature must've dropped 10 degrees as the falls blew cool mist into our faces.

Thompson's Falls

Once at Nakuru we meet out new guide George, who is a total wealth of knowledge. We are sad that Mike is leaving us but George seems to be pretty good too! Nakuru is a smallish park, for Kenyan standards at 150sq KM but it has a gorgeous fresh water lake at its epicentre. Here the main attraction are the flamingoes, millions of them! They estimate somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8 million live here. They stretch the entire length of the southern shore of the lake, it is quite the sight to see from upclose and afar as the waters look like they are stained with some sort of florescent pink dye! As we make our way towards these shores to check out the birds, where we can get out of the van and walk around, we come across two white Rhino's, a mother and its baby. This was what I had been waiting for, finally a healthy Rhino with horns! What a sight to see, they just look like an animal of raw power, I for one wouldn't want to be standing in front of a charging rhino! Anyway, on to the bird viewing. As described before, we aren't really too interested in birds, but I have to admit, this was pretty incredible to see ALL these flamingoes in one place...just the colours are stunning enough to merrit a visit. There are also a few other birds around such as pelicans and meribu stroks which look like old men in trench coats when they are sitting down. These birds are enormous...probably 3-4 ft tall when standing upright.

After spending some time with the smelly flamingoes we make our way into the forest where there are plenty of animals to be seen. I was completely shocked by this park, at its variety and amount of animals in here. The first thing we see is what we think are two female lions laying lazily in the tall grass, yawning and rolling around. Then we hear some rustling in the grass on the other side of the road, yep, two more lions...or is it 3? Yep turned out to be 6 lions in total! They really weren't doing a lot until one of them decided she had had enough of the flies and proceeded to climb a tree! Apparently this is very uncommon in this park and our guide George had never seen that...yet another first!

Nakuru - Leopard in tree with catch

This game drive just kept better and better, the next interesting thing we came across was a leopard which was sleeping high up above the forest floor on a very large limb. We almost drove right past it until I spotted its tail and paws hanging from the tree and thought "this doesn't look right...there has to be something in the tree" it took a while for my eyes to focus on exactly what was different about this tree. For 1, it had a leopard in it, for 2, it had dragged its kill up the tree with it! This was one of the most thrilling things we had seen to date. We weren't very close to this tree which held all these secrets, so all of these things were not seen immediately, in fact I think we were sitting there for a good 5 minutes before our guide with his naked eye (we were using his binocs) said, what is that in the tree beside. Sure enough, it was a gazelle! After watching the leopard and then a few giraffes, we started to make our way up to Baboon Cliff (or as Marlene called it, Buffalo Hill...at which point she started to serenade me with Blueberry Hill, filling in her own words as she went along...lets just say she was a little disappointed when I told her its actually called Baboon Cliff which doesn't rhyme at all with Blueberry Hill) and on our way, we actually crossed paths with a black rhino and its offspring!! Once again, an extremely lucky sighting to be there at the exact moment when these animals were crossing...this was really the only place we could have seen it since we were driving through fairly thick forest at this point. Unfortunately the sighting only lasted a few seconds, it was so quick that I couldn't even get a proper picture of it...darn!

Nakuru - Lion Yawning

Finally we arrive at baboon cliff to watch the sunset over the park, it truly was an inspiring view but what was most interesting was our guide's encounter with the dominant male baboon of baboon cliff! As we drove up to the cliff tops there were a large number of them around but as the van approached they all scattered, except the dominant male who patiently waited. As we exited the van and headed to the look out point I saw this large male baboon approaching the van out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to look the baboon needed all of 2 hops and a bound, and he slipped right into the popped up roof of the van! Now THIS was exciting, how to get an angry male baboon out of the back of a van when you're blocking the only entrance. Well, George used the only thing he had at his disposal, a plastic water bottle! He yelled at it and continued to slam the water bottle on the seat and faked to throw it at the primate, the primate eventually stopped hissing and baring his teeth and with one carefully executed bound, made his way back out of the van throught the roof. We all had a good laugh at George's expense and this became a running joke for the rest of our days together. Actually, this was the second time today that we had a primate in our vehicle, the first time was when we were waiting at the gates of Nakuru, I was outside the van and Marlene was inside on the far side chatting with me when a small monkey lept in from the window and sat directly above her head on the seat rest! I thought it made for a nice hat!! She could tell by the look on my face that something was wrong and all I had to say was, "I think you should get out" and she darted for the door! HAHAHA that was funny too :) This monkey just got out of the van without any resistance but it was quite humourous regardless.

After taking in the spectacular view of the park from atop Baboon Cliff we returned to our "home stay" accomodations, had some dinner, and watched the rain come pouring down. The first time its really rained since we arrived.

Nakuru - Baboon Cliff (all the pink are flamingos)

Aberdares Tree Top Resort

2010-11-11T11:22:00.004-05:00

Samburu - Elephants Crosing the River

Samburu - Elephants Crossing River

Another early morning departure for our small crew of 4. Today we are heading to Aberdares park and the tree tops resort. From what we had read, this place is top notch and we are both really looking forward to having hotel style accomodations for once. On our way out of Samburu this morning, we exercised the African tradition of pole pole (slowly slowly) and watched the large herd of elephants we've grown accustom to seeing. Today they were making their way across the river, this was an incredibly stunning sight to see the way they crossed the water in single file, baby in the middle holding on the momma's tail with her trunk. It was at this point that I really began to get a feel for the natural beauty of Africa, to really appreciate how remarkable this place really is. The elephants marched on through the river and actually came up the river bank directly beside our van, such beautiful creatures! We continued making our way out of the park and made it about half way when our driver's eyes light up as he looks at our cook. He slams the breaks and says "we have to go back, you guys forgot something". Immediately I checked for my wallet and passport as I have a tendency to forget these all important items (I didn't leave it once on THIS trip!). He started driving irradictly and we knew we were chasing an animal and not an item we had apparently left. Eventually after weaving our way around dried up watering holes and bushes we come to a clearing with a large tree in it. And what lies in the tree? None other then our very first Leopard!! This is what we had forgotten, we had forgetten to complete our big 5 viewing before leaving Samburu. This was an incredible sight as we watched the leopard stretch out and get comfortable atop his tree limb...ah nature!

Samburu - Sleeping Leopard

At last we make our way out of the park and head towards Aberdares and what we thought was going to be luxury. The drive took us from Kenya's dry, remote north, back into the semi-tropical highlands in the centre of Kenya. It is actually surprising how chilli it is here even during the day as I notice many locals in parkas and tuques! It is their winter after all.

Samburu - Yawning Leopard

We are dropped off at an affiliate restaurant which has a buffet lunch on offer. The food is pretty good, but the COLD beer is even better! Eventually we are instructed to jump on the shuttle which will take us to the tree tops. This is about a 30 minute drive and upon arriving we immediately think, yes this is a gorgous setting way up on top of a hill, but this hotel is not what we were expecting. It looks like something that was built in the early 50s and had never been updated. When we arrive we are given a 30-45 minute prep talk about how things operate here, we aren't really interested in a game drive so we make our way into the hotel for a nice hot shower. Again, its not what we expected in that we thought we would have our own toilet and shower. Wrong! It was shared with our floor, but luckily everyone else was on safari so it was like we had the place to ourselves for the first couple of hours. The tree tops hotel original concept is a brilliant one, originally it operated similar to a giant tree house which had a few bedrooms in it and you could watch the animals down below from the safety of the tree. This newer version has two very large watering holes on either side of the hotel. The hotel has a rooftop and a very large viewing area from which to view the animals, if there were any of interest. They do have very large spot lights which allow you to see animals at night and some people spend the entire night on duty watching to see if anything comes around. Again a neat idea, however it isn't like this is a zoo, the animals are free to roam anywhere within the park boundaries, so seeing animals is rare...we checked the log book and they had seen 2 cats the entire year. It's like letting the animals come to you rather then going out to find the animals. At this point for us, watching gazelle and buffalo is nothing novel and we're not very impressed...though I must admit when the hyena came at night, that was kind of cool!

Tree Tops Resort

It is world cup time and Spain is playing tonight, it just so happens there are several dozen Spaniards staying in the hotel tonight, so of course they are all very interested in watching the game. The hotel set up an old TV with antenna in an empty conference style room for everyone to watch. We thought it was a little rediculous that these people came all this way and they decide that watching the futball match is much more important then anything else. People actually staked out their seats hours in advance of the game. We watched the first half, then did some animal watching via spotlight, and then retired to our rooms to read and write.

Samburu - Leopard in Tree

Samburu - Quest for the Big 5

2010-11-07T23:50:00.005-05:00

Baby Elephant

Boy was it windy last night! The heavy cancass tents were flapping and flailing like an angry raven resulting in very little sleep for me...ya that's it, the wind...had nothing to do with the roars and grumbles we heard through out the night. All joking aside we did here a few strange noises which were later revealed to be elephants disgustive systems, which can be heard for kilometres. The experience definitely wins over lack of sleep, by a long shot. The feeling here in Samburu is one of very remote authenticitiy, which is what we have been so excited for. Unfortunately, that authenticity was also met with slight disappointment as this morning's game drive was pretty much for not. Althought 2 hours in authentic Africa is much better spent then 2 hours on the job, we did end up driving around for 2 hours in the safari van without seeing a single point of interest! After the game drive, Mike declared that all of the animals must have migrated southward already toward more fertile lands.

Samburu war dance

Women of the Village

As previously mentioned, it gets way too hot by mid day to be searching for animals, whatever animals were still remaining, would be hiding in the shade of trees and bushes. So we decided to take a drive into the local Samburu village which we had passed yesterday on our way in. The understanding here is that we would be given a detailed tour of a traditional Saburu village. The deal here is that it is regarded as rude and disrespectful to take candid shots of the villagers, who instead invite you to join them in their daily activities. Judging by our guide book and our official tour guide, the belief is that these villagers are the real deal, what you see is what you get. Being who I am, I often approach situtation like this with skeptisism. My first hint was that they wanted $25 US from us each for this village tour. In our opinion this was quite a bit of money for people who don't own, nor have a need for, a material single item. Anyway, we decided to go as this was the proper way to be able to take pictures and it gave us the chance to interact with the tribe.

how the Samburu make fire

My failed attempt

Inside the Hut

From the introduction to the end, their manner was very professional, polite, and inviting. They performed a few war and welcome dances for us and even gave us the chance to join in on a couple of them. After the dances and a quick round of questions, we were brought inside the Samburu village, which consisted of about 2 dozen shelters. The village guide explained to us that the shelters are made of cow dung and old cardboard making it easy to pack up and move the entire village as the Samburu people are nomadic hunter/gatheres. For me, the $25 entry fee became worthwhile when we were given a glimpse inside the hut, and were even allowed to climb into the hut itself. The hut consisted of two areas to sleep (sheep skin blankets on the ground), one for the parents, and one for the children, and also fire place in the middle. placed for both cooking and for warmth...although its very hot during the day, its quite cool at nights. The next stage of our tour brings us to fire making 101. This is fire making African wilderness style...with two sticks, a few grains of sand, and some bark shavings. The demostration seems easy enough to replicate until I attempt it for myself. The process seems fairly straight forward, you've got one piece of stick being rubbed quickly between the palms of your hands as you drill the tip into another stick which has a hallowed out bottom where they throgh some sand in for added friction. The idea is creat enough friction to bring smoke, add some tree bark, blow a little oxygen into it, and voila! I have little (no) success and am quickly demoted. Clearly there is much more complicated technique that I'm not about to master in a couple of minutes.

Authentic Samburu Hut - The reality is they do sleep and live in these things

Samburu children getting primary English lessons

Later on it is explained to us that some of the local villagers are sent off to be educated by catholics in the local schools. But in order to do so, the children must have uniforms which cost money which, of course they do not have...of course this is all mentioned to us very casually...but two and two? We casually ignore these "subtle" hints but this of course, resulted in further eyebrow raising on my part. The interesting thing I discovered while here is that a) they can't wear traditional clothes to attend these schools b) they can't have those huge holes in their ears they make as part of their tradition if they wish to attend, and c) they can't wear their traditional jewelry to the schools either. Its no wonder they think the west is trying to brain wash, manipulate, and control them. The second to last portion of our tour takes us directly into and area where a "professor" is teaching the village children to count to 10 and sing the alphabet in English. The Children vary in age but are all looking at us with their best puppy dog eyes. Our guide continues, "it is through the donations of people like yourself that we are able to educate ourselves". He had already mentioned this to us at least 4 times by now and eventualy asked us directly "so if you'd like to donate, if you can find it in your heart, just let me know". At this point I began to feel very awkward as I felt as though the $25US I already gave, should be going to these children. It is one thing to bring in foreigners in an attempt to guilt them in to handing over peity money, but what really bothered me was the fact that this tribe owes its existence to their persistant refusal to adopt to Western norms.

Samburu Warriors

So by giving this money am I not contributing to the destruction of their traditional ways of life, instead of their prosperity? These sale by guilt tactics continued as we were introduced to the town "black smith" who, as far as we could tell was just some random guy sitting beneath a tree. We were then quickly ushured/escorted toward a large number of local women encouraging and begging us to buy some of their beaded jewelry. I am always one for supporting locals when I travel but in all honesty, neither of us were interested in anything they were offereing. I'll leave it to you to decide for yourselves as I seem to be jadded when it comes to these things, but again, other then education, what could these people possibly need money for? The Samburu diet consists of milk, blood, and goat meat..no vegetables as nothing grows here...their houses are free, they own no vehicles, they don't have electricity and they are nealy 100% self sufficient except in times of drought.

Some additional random information ont he Samburu: their enemy is the Somali tribe to the north east and they apparently still have raids on each other once in awhile. They still have traditional medecine men, and blacksmiths, and they are pretty well 100% carnivors as there is very little edible vegetation which grows. All in all I'm glad I went as I really did enjoy learning about them, meeting them, and of course, the pictures are absolutely stunning if I do say so myself!

The elusive greater Kudu!! These animals are extremely rare, we saw 2 in 2 days!

Later that afternoon we went to see how the rich travel Africa. We went with our guide to the nearby resort to see what life is like on the other side. He needed to check his tire pressure and get a shave so we decided we needed to tag along fo a cold beer! This place was very extravagent and we sat in a covered oval room perched high above the meandering river and watched the birds fly by, all while enjoying our cold Tuskerrs. I was informed that later they would be feeding the crocodiles in the river for the entertainment of the resorts guests...but we didn't stick around. As nice as it was, it didn't have the genuine feel of the park that we had in our campground. After some quick tea and biscuits at our camp we were off to our late afternoon gamedrive.

Todays late afternoon drive once again began very slow but ended spectacularly. We found ourselves hanging out by the river as yesterday this is where most of the action was . Sure enough this time the river yielded us a couple of lionesses that seemingly everyone else in the park was also aware of. The lions were very actively moving around (maybe even hunting?) but Mike wrangled his way into an incredible spot for us where we were able to get extremely close to the lioness' resulting in an incredible sense of amazement. They are such beautiful animals, and to see them from this close, in their natural habitat is truly a thrill. The lionesses actually walked right beside our van at this point and Marlene swears they were eyeing us hungrily head to toe contemplating the difficulty of the kill!

Dinner tonight was traditional African food including oxtail soup, chepati with fish masala and veggies...and of course lots of passion fruit for Marlene.

Lions on the prowl

Through the Foothills of Giant (Mt.Kenya)

2010-11-03T15:00:00.051-04:00

Mt. Kenya in the distance

Our first time crossing the equator on land

We woke up in the morning feeling quite well rested considering we slept in a tent, had tree hyrax's bellowing at the top of their lungs, and there was a party going on at a local bar down the road. We packed up, at breakfast and were now off to the northern semi-arid park of Samburu. On our way we finally caught a glimpse of Mt. Kenya off in the distance. Marlene quickly noted that it is a very oddly shaped mountain with 5 separate peaks. The significance being, we had initially pondered about hiking this mountain, with five very large peaks, getting to the top one would have proven to be quite painful. There are options to just climb one peak, but what's the point in that? During this drive we found ourselves crossing over the equator (something we'd do SEVERAL times before this trip was through) and since this was our first time to ever do this on land we decided to make a stop and watch the legendary water demonstration. You know the one where they claim that water will drain in a clock-wise direction in the north and a counter-clockwise direction in the south? Well what I didn't know is that if you stand directly on the equator the water will drain straight down! In order to prove this all we had to do was walk approximately 20M to either side of the equator and the water began to change directions as it filtered through a hole in the bottom of a bucket, pretty amazing. Marlene took videos of this to show to her science class (geek!). After the demonstration we were ushered to some local shops where the shop keeper tried intensely to convince us to buy something to remember him by. Talk about the best way to put a damper on an otherwise unique experience. Back in the van! Our next stop would be a town called Isiolo, which is dubbed the gateway to the North (and Ethiopia). The look and feel of this place was quite different from anywhere else we had seen thus far in Kenya, and we quickly realized why, it is a predominantly Muslim community mostly made up of Somali and Ethiopians migrants. It took us about 4 hours to get from Mt. Kenya to Samburu park.

Gerenuk

Once in the park, it was clear we were nearing desert territory, officially it is semi-arid, either way its very very dry. There are large bushes sparsely populating the sands, with desert palms shading the riverbed. They are nearing the end of the wet season in the portion of the park and it certainly shows. The beauty of Samburu is that it is as natural a park as you can imagine. I say this because the park has no physical boundaries and the animals are free to roam where ever they choose. This means that the animals are not in this park all year round like they are in other parts of the country. Once we arrived at the campsite, I was eager to go wandering around since our campsite was located directly inside the park (this gave us mixed emotions...mostly for sleeping purposes, you never know what can wander in at night!). We took a walk down to the river where there were dozens of monkeys and baboons just hanging out in the shade, close to the waters edge...it gets very hot here in the mid-day sun. We also came across a group of gazelles and a greater Kudu (a very rare deer looking animal with stripes). We had never seen one of these Kudu so we asked our guide later what sort of animal it was by describing it to him. He told us that it sounds like we were describing a greater Kudu but that it would be impossible since these animals are usually very shy and very very rare. We confirmed the next day that it was in fact a greater Kudu that we had seen that day when we came across another one in our guide's presence...he could not believe how lucky we are! This seemed to be a reoccurring theme so far in our early days of travel in Kenya.

river drying out

At this time of year, the river is very low and we were told that as the dry season continues the river eventually dries up completely above ground, but continues to flow underground. Apparently the large population of elephants in the park help out all the animals at this point since they are able to dredge huge holes in the soft river bed to get at the water. As per our guide, lots of animals would die of dehydration if not for the elephants. We were also informed that not more then 3 weeks ago there were heavy rains which caused massive flooding up stream. These floods were so severe they eventually resulted in the breaching of 3 dams and massive flooding and destruction to roads and bridges in Samburu.

elephants drinking from river

the large bull elephant charging us

Later that afternoon (its far too hot mid day) we went for a game drive and much to our surprise, there wasn't a whole lot of activity, we began to think that perhaps our luck was changing? We did come across a couple of lionesses just lounging in the shade, but they were not very active so we continued onward toward the river. This is where we had our famous meeting with a very large bull elephant. We were just riding in the van minding our own business when a male elephant decided he didn't like us being so close (at this point we were about 30ft away). He turned to face us directly and began to wiggle its giant ears (a sign of aggression) and proceeded to slowly stomp toward us. At this point Marlene got very nervous and shuffled to the other side of the van and pushed me into direct line of sight (thanks honey!). Mike turned to her and asked "are you scared?" "yyyess!" so he started the van and began to drive off...at this point the elephant was no more then 10ft from us and was definitely not changing its course! Rather then cower I continued to snap photos of the mamoth beast! The next most entertaining thing we saw on our first game drive in Samburu was a large family of elephants who were hanging out by the river drinking and eating. We watched them for quite some time, I am still amazed at their size and grace. A point on interest in Samburu National Park, and the animal that is unique here is something called a Gerenuk. This is a gazelle or antelope looking creature but it stretches upright on its hind legs to reach the leaves and berries of the tall bushes! Very neat to watch these guys in action.

Back to the camp for a much needed shower (its super dusty here!) dinner and early to bed as we had to get up at sunrise for our 6am game drive! Our accomdations are very simple, heavy canvas tents again and a millitary style kitchen area. But this IS Africa, here we are in the middle of a national preserve with no electric fences or barriers...at night when its really quiet you can really here the animals!

A UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and Kenya's highest peak

2010-11-01T19:49:00.005-04:00

lone tree in the plains

Today we will spend the better part of the day in the van. As much as I'm not one for road travel, our destination definitely keeps the excitement up. The plan is to drive from Amboseli (bye bye Killi) and head to Mt Kenya via Nairobi. Again, these roads are ATROCIOUS, one minute you're cruising along fine on nice tarmac, the next you're riding in the ditch cause the road disappeared. All of the roads in Nairobi itself seem to be under construction as well, and its not until we're a good 50 km on the other side of the city that the roads improve. All I have to say is I am very grateful that I am not the one behind the wheel. This is where the geography begins to change and the scenery becomes increasingly beautiful...Marlene kept mentioning how much it looked like Colombia, mountainous, fertile and lush! The Kenyan highlands are where they grow everything from sweet bananas and mangos to pineapples, coffee, and tea. I remember my friend Anne telling me one of the things she enjoys most about going back home to Kenya is that the fruit actually tastes like fruit, and now we understand what she means. Neither of us have ever tasted such delicious, mouth watering, fresh, bursting with flavour, fruit in our lives. It really is unbelievable how much stronger, juicier, and flavourful everything is. As we past through the different plantation areas our driver pulled off to the side to purchase the various fruits being sold, which, as he mentioned, had been hand picked that morning.

Chimp at Sweatwaters

The contrast between this and the arid planes is remarkable and personally, I much prefer this to the dusty air of Amboseli. Today's drive took about 8 hours in total and we arrived at our camp ground with just enough time to drop our cook off with our stuff and then rush our way toward Sweet Waters Chimpanzee Sanctuary. Our driver Mike drove like a complete maniac trying to get us to this park. When we first arrived we didn't quite understand his urgency as the park didn't seem to be that special. But we later found out its a sanctuary for Chimps that have been rescued from irresponsible humans who thought they'd make good pets, and situations where poachers killed the mothers of these babies, and other situations where their natural habitat simply does not exist anymore due to deforestation. The park exists solely through the donations of generous and concerned people and can house up to 100 chimps, currently there are 52. The great thing about it is that since most of the chimps were held captive by humans, they've grown used to having us around and are therefore not very camera shy at all.

Sweet Waters is also a Rhino sanctuary and houses both the black and white variety. We did manage to see a couple of white rhinos from a distance and on the other side of an electric fence. The fence is there mostly to keep poachers away, as another precaution from poachers, Sweetwaters Sanctuary also cut the horns off of these beasts (which do eventually grow back). Next Mike starts asking us if we've ever seen one up close or touched one, of course our answer was NO, so he begins to tell us that they've got one in the park that you can feed and touch. We thought he was kidding and that he'd lead us to some stuffed animal or something, but sure enough he was telling the truth! Today we touched and fed a part of wildlife history as this is one of the last remaining Black Rhinos in the world. Not only is it a rare animal but it is also of a rare temperment. The Black rhinos are usually quite aggressive and normally humans are unable to approach them, but this one is blind and has lived in captivity for most of its life. So this big beast is used to having humans around...we took advantage of this truly rare opportunity and snapped several up close and personal pictures with her. In addition to housing this Rhino, we also learned that this park has 4 out of the 8 remaining Northern White Rhinos in the world. Definitely a worthwile stop over, especially since most of our park fees go to the operation and up keep of the grounds and animals. The distinction should however, be made, that this is infact a wildlife preserve and sanctuary which is quite different from the wild park of Amboseli we had just come from. In terms of wildlife, about the only other thing worth mentioning were some vultures feeding on a dead girafe in the swamp, that sure smelt pleasant! mmmm the life cycle in its full glory!!

We later returned to our tented camp site for dinner and a camp fire, and then off to bed!

The cycle of Life

Amboselli - Kenya - Day 2 Safari

2010-10-31T13:29:00.007-04:00

Mt. Kilimanjaro

Sunrising over Amboseli

Marlene in the Banda

Our second day began early in the morning (6am) as we were both eager to catch a glimpse of the elusive Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa at just under 20 000ft. Although we were extremely tired and the morning was quite chilly, the view we got the second we opened our tent was truly magnificent and made us forget everything else. The camp ground we were staying at sat directly adjacent to the extinct volcano of Kilimanjaro with its ever receding glacier shimmering in the light of the rising sun. As we prepared for our long day of game driving we were even more pleased with our decision to rise early because the clouds had already begun to obscure the peaks of the giant. Upon entering the park on day two we are met with a little humour. As we approached the gate, Marlene was attempting to put in her eye contacts, Mike being the comedian he is, decided to have a little fun. As the locals approached our van to attempt to sell us some crafts, Mike opened his window and said something in the local language. Suddenly all the women came over to Marlene's side of the van and began to stare intensely. Some of the women stood there for several minutes with looks of awe and disgust. Meanwhile Mike is just killing himself laughing in the front seat, he turns to us and says "I told these ladies to look at the foreigner, she's putting in her eyes!". Nothing like a little early morning humour. As we enter the park we are greeted by large herds of zebra followed by many gazelle and giraffe. We were beginning to realize that all this hype of animals in Africa was reality...I mean we expected to see animals but we didn't realize they would appear in such great numbers and in every corner of the park.

Hippos and Elephants with foothills of Killi

Stalking Cheetah

We had started out on a different path today toward the swamp lands of the park in hopes of viewing some hippos but about 1 hour into the drive our driver Mike's ears perked up about a transmission over the CB radio. We quickly turned around and started heading back to where we had seen the lions yesterday. Before we reached the lions Mike spots it...its a cheetah! We watched the Cheetah from a fairly close distance as it attempted to cross the road to reach the cool shaded area on the other side. As it proceeds to make its way toward the trees it decides to have a little fun with the nearby zebra...the zebra take off in a cloud of dust even though the small cat is no threat to them.

our guide estimated this elephant was about 1 month old

Hyenas trying to get in on the lions kill from last night

Just a few meters from here is where the lions are now guarding their zebra kill from the hyenas who have shown up in numbers today. Some of the hyenas are attempting to get the lions to chase them in hopes that while the lions are distracted the other hyenas can steal some of the zebra meat. But the lions are obviously too smart for this and don't play into the games. This one small stretch of road is Africa at its finest. On one side of the road we have 3 female lions and a male lion guarding their food from dozens of hyenas while zebra, gazelle, wildebeest, and giraffe all attempt to cross the road in order to get to the watering hole which lays directly behind the occupied lions. A few hundred feet beyond that there are elephants, more giraffe, and ostrich all grazing in the plains...we could have easily spent all morning there watching all these animals!

Killi quickly disappearing behind the clouds

In this part of the park, all the animals return to the forested hills around Kilimanjaro at night, and then head back towards the watering holes in the day time...the road is strategically placed between these two biospheres. It was just surreal to see all of this happen at once, all within about 1 sq. km. We eventually proceed to the swampy areas so that Marlene could see her favourite animals, the hippo. Once in the swamps, we quickly came across a few hippos, but they are hard to spot as they are submerged, however as we continued along the road we eventually came across a pair of them that were out of the water, they sure are massive! These animals are not particularly comfortable on land and quickly retreat to the safety of the reeds when they see us coming. In these swamp lands there are also a significant amount of white and pink flamingos which are happily feeding in the receding waters of the park...there are also pelicans, ducks, and storks amongst the flamingos. So much wildlife everywhere you look.

view of the welands

Flamingoes

Today we brought a packed lunch which we enjoyed atop of a large look out point where we had an excellent view of both the wetlands and the plains...and of course the mountains around killi. It is explained to us that without the glacial runoff and rainwater from Kilimanjaro and the surrounding area which travels to Amboseli via underground rivers, this park would be a desert. All runoff from the mountains flows this way and thus sustains life in the park. The rest of the afternoon was spent viewing hippos and elephants in the surrounding marshes. We returned to our campsite for some R&R at around 3pm. We had a long drive ahead of us...tomorrow we head to the Kenyan highlands.

Bright and Early to see Killi!

Welcome to Africa!! - Through the Arid Plains to our first SAFARI GAME DRIVE!!

2010-10-31T12:20:00.066-04:00

Hello to all near and far and welcome to the very first entry of my (our, as Marlene reads this over my shoulder) travel blog to Africa.

Ladies Going for High Tea at Buckingham

Standing Guard

Our first stop on this trip found us arriving at London's Heathrow airport, slightly blurry eyed and grumpy from a lack of sleep on our over night flight. Our first order of business was to try to find something to eat, and we quickly settled on trying to find the hole in the wall Cafe we found ourselves at 3 years ago which served AMAZING baked Jacket potatoes. For those who don't know, these are giant potatoes stuffed with anything from cheese and beans (Marlene's choice) to curry chicken (my choice). We were positive that we were in the correct area of the city but were simply unable to find said restaurant so we opted for similar cafe (they are a dime a dozen). Once our potatoes were actually cooked (it took 2 attempts and they still weren't cooked!) we made quick work of them and we were off to a quick walking tour of the city Marlene style. We made a quick pass by Buckingham palace where we were treated to a display of very proper English men and women set to have "high tea" in the palace...I found their hats to be quite amusing...blame it on lack of sleep. After a few quick photos we were on to our real destination, Green Park. Oh that's right, we were THOSE people who made a temporary bed on the grass under a large tree and slept the afternoon away! Well maybe not the entire afternoon, but we had a good lie down and caught up on some much needed zzzzz. We then had a meandering walk through the park and continued onward to catch a glimpse of Big Ben, Scotland Yard, Westminster Abbey, Parliament buildings etc etc. It was a quick visit but alas, we had a plane to Nairobi to catch...plus the underground train ride took a little longer then expected.

After our nap in Green Park

Our welcome Ostrich...the first animal you see if your good luck animal

Immediately upon boarding our overnight Virgin Air flight we both knew it was going to be a much better experience...everything just seemed to be vibrant and the atmosphere on board was much more appealing then that of the Air India Flight...not to say that I got much sleep, but I at least got a few hours before landing in Nairobi. Upon arrival we truly did feel like celebrities as our tour leader held a placard bearing our names, and we had 3 more gentlemen to welcome us to beautiful Kenya. The first being our driver/guide Mike, the second, our excellent cook Guidian, and the third, none other then Mr. Mbuthia!! Mr Mbuthia is the father of my ex roomate Anne, whom, for those of you who attended our wedding, had the second reading at our ceremony. Anyway, he was there to accept a package consisting of Arm and Hammer tooth paste brought to him straight from Canada at his request...don't ask LOL. Anyhow, our initial impressions of Kenyan people were exactly as we expected...happy, friendly, and welcoming. We already knew we were in good hands.

The View from the Van

Marlene making the most of her first game drive

So, immediately upon arrival and a quick monetary exchange later, we were off to our very first game drive in Amboseli National Park. It took about 5 hours to drive to the park putting us at the park at approximately 3PM. Along the way we had already discovered many things #1 the roads are atrocious, being from Sudbury, I've always heard of pot holes you could lose your front end in but I had never actually seen one..until now! You know its bad when in order to avoid potholes you consistently drive on the wrong side of the road (which is the right side for us North Americans) and will take to the shoulders and ditches because they are...ahem...a smoother ride. #2 Kenya still believes in strong local farming and the results are delicious, fresh, ripe fruit. Our cook stopped several times along the way to pick up fresh ingredients for our meals to come. #3 The shop keepers will try any tactic including barter, trade, guilt, and occasionally intimidation in order to sell us things we clearly did not want. I can't count the number of times I heard "why you not want to promote my business" or "my name is George buy something to remember me by" and when all else fails "ok you want to trade your hat for something? How 'bout a pen so I can give to my children" on and on...we were entertained by the consistency of these lines, its like every shop keeper took some course on how to sell stuff to tourists...that being said, we did manage to pick up some really beautiful items to bring back and there is certainly a lot of talented artists to be found.

momma and baby Gazelle

On our way through the arid plains toward Amboseli Park several large volcanoes began to appear on the horizon and we eagerly anticipated our first sighting of Kilimanjaro..which we have since discovered is quite elusive and mostly hidden by clouds except at sunrise..guess what we were going to do the next morning!! The area surrounding Amboseli is resided by the Masai people. A very strong and traditional people who refuse to give in to western ideals. These are the people (woman) who walk 20km to fetch both water and firewood to maintain their subsistence. It was quite striking to see their bright red clothes against the paleness of the arid plains. Not to mention gaining a bit of experience at the sight of these people going about their daily business.

Finally into the park!! Amboseli is located off the main highway down 25km of dirt road, and this is the type of dirt road that has received ZERO maintenance probably since it was built...so 25km equates to about 1hour of incredibly rough terrain. The very first creature to greet us (and this wasn't the actual park just yet) was the Ostrich...not exactly the most exotic or exciting of animals, but as we were about to find out, the best was definitely yet to come.

Giraffes in Amboseli

Our first order of business was to get to camp and to have lunch, then it was off to the game drive! Our accommodations for two nights were quite simple, but there were toilets and hot water, and we also got up graded to a banda (heavy canvas tents with full beds in them) so we had nothing to complain about. After a quick meal of pasta and tea we set out into the hot African sun for our first evening game drive in Amboseli. Almost immediately upon arrival into the park we were greeted with zebra, giraffe, antelope, gazelle, elephant, and even lions! We were extremely lucky to have found lions so early on...luck seemed to be the one recurring theme throughout the entire journey. There was a mother lion and her two young daughters standing around a zebra they had just killed. We watched in amazement for several minutes as the lions guarded their kill and also began to shred it up, devouring large chunks of meet. As incredible as this was to us, we had not even seen 1/10th of the park yet, so we continued on our safari and saw many more animals and birds, but nothing as exciting as the lions. As the sun begins to set in that stunning African brilliance we returned to the sight of the lions. They are still resting from the long day...something we both needed to do.

Sunset over Amboseli savanah

Welcome to the new home of Viracocha travels!!

2010-10-31T11:58:00.001-04:00

Hello Everyone and Welcome to my NEW Blog!!!

Unfortunately my last travel blog "realtravel.com" suffered a slow and painful death due to my inability to actual "compose" any information into the main body of the text. After several months of waiting, and several emails being sent to the site administrator, and no progress being made, I've decided to move any information from that site and post it here...and of course complete my tales of our African Adventure!!

In the interest of those who may not have had a chance to read the posts on my previous site (it will soon be deleted completely) I will include my entire travel blog on this site.