Lion Patrol

One of the best pics I have from the Safari
Waterbuck
Wildebeest
5 legged elephant!! (-:



Gazelle

Vulture eating the intestines of a Hartbeast that the lion had just killed
Wildebeest


Me next to lions
Our picnic lunch in the safari... we found out later that there were 4 lions really close to here!!
Lizard

Look at how close we were to this croc!!
Sans River... one side Kenya, the other Tanzania!!
One of our many flat tires!!

He was mad and blew his trunk at us!!
One of the kids in the Masia Village. They all had this many flies on them
Me holding a two day old goat in the Masai Village
Us with the Masai women
Me with two of the Masai Men
Masai Sunset

Masai Sunrise
Cheetah just after a hunt
Our tent/hut
Pelicans at Lake Nakuru
Baboon
Dead Wildebeest. Looks like he's smiling

Me pretending to be a flamingo even though I look more like a monkey!!
Mike and I at Lake Nakuru

So we finished up our time teaching at Emmanuel Lights Academy, and decided to end our trip with a four day Safari through the Massia Mara National Reserve and Lake Nakuru. Mike, the guy who took us out to our placement, was our tour guide, which was great because he is a lot of fun and sings all the time.

On our way out to meet Mike, Meg and I heard the dj on the radio say "Micheal Jacksons death may not be an accident." Meg and I looked at each other with our jaws dropped. We had no idea if this was true or not, but we were definitely shocked. You miss out on a lot when you dont have tv, radio, or internet.

We saw a lot of animals which was really cool. I saw a lion eating a wildebeest, a cheetah hunting, lions having sex, and the begging of the wildebeest migration. I stood about 10 feet away from a crocodile and sat about 5 feet away from a Baboon, which was really scary. We saw all of the big five; leopard, buffalo, white rhino, lion, and elephant. We also saw giraffes, zebra's, wart hogs, gazelles, hippos, monkeys, vultures, lizards, flamingos and so much more.

The first two nights we stayed in this really cool place that was a combination of a tent and a hut. It was like an army tent, but then it had a grass roof over top of it and had cement floors and everything. It was really cool, and the food was good (as long as it wasn't banana soup, I wasn't going to complain)!

During the safari, we had 4 flat tires and the car broke down 3 times! When we were changing the tires, one person always had to be on "Lion Patrol" to make sure that we weren't attacked by any unfriendly visitors!

We went to a Massi Village one night which was kind of cool. The Massi's are the only tribe who still wears their traditional clothing and they live a pretty simple life compared to the rest of Kenya and the world. We were able to go into their homes, which are made out of cow poop! They have huge fences around the village to keep out lions. We saw a few of their traditional dances and saw how they live their life which was neat!

When we were done with our safari, we stayed the night with Kate and Raychel at their placement since they were 15 mins away from the airport and our placement was 7 hours. It was really cool to see what they had been experiencing because it was 100% different than what we had.

Meg and I spent our last day in Nairobi, which was an experience. We went to the arcade and bought souvenirs. Getting there was no problem, but we had a little hiccup on our way back. Normally Matatu drivers are really helpful and tell you which one to get onto. However, as we were leaving, we asked a Matatu driver if he was going to Mlongo and he told us to get in. Meg had a bad feeling that this was not the correct one. She asked the guy like 5 different times if we were going to Mlongo, and he said we were. Meg didn't feel like he understood what she was asking though. Finally after a while I realized that I didn't recognize the stuff we were passing, so I asked the lady next to me and she said we needed to get off and get on a different one.

The Matatu dropped us off on the side of the road, and didn't tell us where we were or which way we needed to go. We were in the middle of nowhere and didn't know if we had been traveling in the right direction or not. We asked several people around us, but no one knew how to get to Mlongo. We called Bonafest, one of the guys that works for Fadhili Helpers. He didn't really know where we were, but through his help we figured out that we had been going in the opposite direction that we were suppose to and therefore needed to go back into Nairobi and get on the 110 Matatu. In Kissi there was only one road so it was way easier to know if we were going in the right direction or not. This mistake added about an extra 2 hours to our time getting back home. It took us nearly 3 hours from the time we originally left Nairobi, and without traffic, it should have only taken 30 mins. But still, we had fun, and it gave us something to do rather than just sitting around waiting to leave.