Nairobi

Today I woke up early to say goodbye to Liz as she had to go to the airport around 5am. Since I’m up anyway I figured I might as well stay up and go through my stuff. I’m preparing a package to mail to my parents house so that I have less “stuff” to drag through Egypt with me. It wont be cheap but if the package actually makes it back to Canada it will be worth it.

I jumped in a cab and went to the  Giraffe Sanctuary. These are Rothschild Giraffes, not the Reticulated Gitaffes that I’ve seen in the wild. There aren’t many Rothchild Girafes left in the world but to be honest I couldn’t tell you the difference except that these ones ate out of my hand, lol.

After the giraffes I went to thre Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage. These are all baby elephants under 2 years old that have been left orphanes mostly due to poaching of their mothers. The orphanage is only open for 1 hour a day to minimize exposure to humans so that these cute lil buggars can be released back into the wild. This program was started by the wife of a park warden who was seeing all these poor little baby elephants left wandering the wild after poaching left them orphaned. The program is now run by the park wardens daughter following the death of the warden and the retirement of the wife. It’s an amazing program ran by some pretty amazing people.

There was also a blind Rhino kept on the grounds. The Rhino was born blind and has lived at the sanctuary most of it’s life. I was able to nearly touch him!

After my morning of tourist activities I cabbed it back to the hotel where I found some nice locals to build me a kick ass box to mail back to Canada. I also got a marriage propsal, lol. After the boys got all my goodies boxed up they offered to carry it to the post office for me (for a charge of course). I couldn’t find a taxi so what the hell, off we went on foot. My package was 9kg and cost $90 but it was gone….hopefully to Canada. 

Cape Town to Nairobi Day 40 Nairobi, Kenya

This is my last border crossing by truck :( We crossed from Tanzania into Kenya in the late morning and made it to Nairobi in the early afternoon after a few glimpses of Kilimanjaro. This is it. The end of my first tour. We said our sad goodbye’s in the parking lot and through out the rest of the day as most people were flying out at different times. I can’t believe it’s over. I also can’t believe that I took over 4000 photos LMAO!!!

Cape Town to Nairobi Day 39 Norongoro National Park, Tanzania

This was my favorite day of the whole trip! We worked our way down a steep decline of sketchy one way road access into the crater. Although the crater is only 15km square it had an amazing number of full time resident animals. The experience was more amazing than I can put into words so I’ll let the pics speak for themselves!

We spent the morning and early afternoon doing game drives before being taken back to Arusha to our Overland truck and our own camp at the snake park.

Cape Town to Nairobi Day 38 Serengetti National Park, Tanzania

Today was all about game drives! We hit the road at 6am, coming back to camp around 10 for brunch, then a full days game drive through the park. Since we saw absolutely everything the first day we had high expectations the second day and I cant say we were disappointed! Another great day of spotting animals in surreal numbers!

We worked our way out of the park to our camp at the top edge of the Norongoro Crater. Again all the tents were set up for us and supper was cooking. This is the life!! We had a bull elephant walking around the campground and an armed guard keeping him away from our bathrooms so he wouldn’t drink all the water. For the last couple of weeks water tanks on the roofs of the bathrooms supplied rainwater to gravity fed showers and “toilets”.

We got to camp after dark but thankfully we were arriving at a camp that was already set up for us and they were cooking us supper! What a great day!!

Cape Town to Nairobi Day 37 Serengetti National Park, Tanzania

This is why I booked this trip! THE SERENGETTI!!! In the first few hours of our tour we switched to 4x4 jeeps with pop up roofs. There were 5 of us + the driver in my truck which seated 9. YAY!!

First we stopped at a Masi village and watched and took part in a welcoming dance and jumping competition. Then got tours of their homes made of sticks and cow manure. We stopped by their elementary school where we met children aging from 3 to 6 ish and they sang us their ABC’s and 123’s which was very cool. I took pictures of the children and showed them themselves on the screen of the camera and they loved it. At this point I can say that the commercials you see on tv of starving children are quite accurate, however, the children I saw looked very happy even though I thought their living conditions were appauling.

 

I found it odd that they eat absolutely no vegetables. They only eat beef, cows milk, and cows blood. Their entire diet revolves around their livestock.

On our game drive to our campground we saw a Leopard (which was the last of the Big 5 for me), lions, a cheetah, zebra, wilderbeast migrating, cape buffalo, giraffes, elephants and warthogs!!! I was in awe of every moment. I can’t even believe that I am really here.

We got to camp after dark but thankfully we were arriving at a camp that was already set up for us and they were cooking us supper! What a great day!!

Cape Town to Nairobi Day 36 Arusha, Tanzania

This is the halfway mark between Cairo and Cape Town and they have a clock tower to mark the spot.

Our camp is also the home of a snake park and a small village of Masi people. There are lots of wild lovebirds flying around the camp as well as numerous other beautifully colored birds that I would have to look up in a book if any one really cared what they are.

I dropped off some laundry for a village woman to wash for me (I suspect they were washed in river water dirtier than the clothes, but I tried), toured the snake park, and relaxed with a couple beers to prepare for the next couple of days which we would be spending in the Serengetti and Norongoro Crater. WHOOT WHOOT!! This is what it’s all about people!!

Cape Town to Nairobi Day 35 Moshi, Tanzania

Just a LONG ass day of driving. Saw lots of small towns and still took lots of pics, lol. Check out the pic of an African wheelchair and the bathroom facilities! I can confidently say I can pee anywhere now with perfect balance. This was the nicest bad bathroom that we seen. Don’t let the cleanliness fool you. It smelled TERRIBLE!!! Note the bucket of water beside the porcelin hole in the floor. That’s your flusher.

Cape Town to Nairobi Day 34 Stone Town, Zanzibar

Today we loaded back in the bus and went back to Stone Town where we dropped off our bags and got ready to swim with dolphins. The dolphin swim wasn’t what I expected but was still very good.

We were all suited up with snorkel gear then loaded into a couple of death trap boats with no life jackets and sailed out into the ocean to over come 3 ft waves and a slight rain. I have done a few questionable things on this trip and eaten some very questionable foods but this was the only time I thought “MOM would kill me if she saw this!”

When we tracked down a pod of wild dolphins our boat driver started yelling “Get out! Get out!” to which we all very pathetically flopped into the water and choked on salt water through our snorkel tube while thinking “what the hell is going on??” Needless to say, the dolphins got away. We climbed back into the boat. We cut off the pod again and managed to scramble into the water fast enough to catch a glimps of the dolphins. This went on four or five times and we were able to swim over top of the dolphins and nearly touch them. Even after the dolphins would swim out of sight we were amazed to watch the beautiful salt water fish.

After chasing the dolphins a few more times we moved to a new location to snorkel for about an hour. It was so beautiful. I plan to buy a good set of snorkel gear before my next holidays!

After the water activities we loaded into the bus again and moved to a new dock and went in an even sketchier boat (one guy put his foot through the floor boards and they covered it with a mat/blanket. We headed out to an old prison site that was never actually used as a prison and now harbours a rare breed of tortises that range in age up to almost 150 years.

What a busy day!

Cape Town to Nairobi Day 32 and 33 North Zanzibar

We did a tour of a spice plantation this morning. I have to say it might be one of my favorite mornings so far! They grow so many things in such a small space. Pepper corns, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, mango, oranges, coconut, pineapple, avacado, and a whole bunch of fruits and spices I hadn’t heard of. Towards the end of the tour we were seated while men brought in a parade of fresh fruits and cut and served them to us. OMG! It was DELICIOUS!!

After our little brunch of fresh fruits we were taken to watch a boy climb a coconut tree to fetch us some fresh coconuts which they then cut open for us to drink the juice then they cut up the meat inside for us with a special knife and we feasted on the fresh coconut. AMAZING!!!!

They then dressed us up with funny hats and necklaces made from grasses and took us to a stand to purchase fresh spices. I bought enough to replace most of the things in my cupboard at home, lol.

After the tour we went on to our hotel and spent the day lounging on one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen and the water was so blue and warm it was nearly unreal!

Day 2 at the north end of Zanzibar I booked some spa treatments to relax. I got a mediocre massage, a crappy pedicure and insulted while she did it. While washing my feet she said “Oh, you climbed Kilimanjaro?” I said no, she said “ Oh you have Zanzibar feet” as she and the other women all laughed. THEY ARENT THAT BAD!!! Then I got a manicure that I could have done better at home and when I asked for an eyebrow wax she put a hair remover cream on my eyebrows and gave me a very unpleasant chemical burn that made my eyebrows bleed and scab over. It looked like I got my ass kicked in Zanzibar! LMAO!!