My bag is really heavy: Nairobi

After Kili, we waited around the hotel in Moshi, waiting for our transfer for our flight in the afternoon. The transfer to the airport is due to pick us up at 1pm. The power at the hotel is constantly in and out. Which takes the internet out with it, making it difficult to do the blog.

When we get to the airport we find out that our flight is cancelled, and that we will have to wait till the next day to get a flight to Nairobi. We were going to cut it very close with the pre departure meeting for our safari. However the hotel they put us up in was very plush, and we abused the shit out of there free beers and free laundry service.

We were supposed to fly out at 2.15pm the next day, and Nelsen our supposedly friendly airport transfer guy, who was supposed to rock up at 1pm, doesn't show up till 1.45, and then tells us our flight is at 1.50! STRESS. And the fucker still had the nerve to ask for a tip when we got to the airport. Turns out our flight still was at 2.15, and we did make our flight, after much confusion with the check in people.

We finally board, when we realise its just us, and 2 other people on the plane. Which wasn't even the dodgy part. When we pull up to the runway, the pilot turns to us and no shit asks "So where are you going", we are all like "what the fuck? Nairobi man!", he's like "Nairobi has 2 airports which one?", so I rummage around our documents and find out the name of the airport we are supposed to fly to. Then before we take off, it looks like they've realised something is wrong, and we taxi all the way back to the tower. Where the pilot turns off the left side propeller we were sitting next to (we were begining to doubt our decision to sit next to the propellers), and a ground crew guy runs over and does something. We are assuming they forgot to close the baggage door, and the tower noticed when it was on the runway! Crazy! TIA

After a very sketchy flight, we make it to the Nairobi airport and check in. We then do a mad dash across town to the Boulevard Hotel for our meeting, luckly we were only half an hour late. Nairobi peak hour traffic is CRAZY, and there are these huge dinosaur/bird/pelican things that inhabit the city, straight out of Jurassic park.

We meet our tour leader Justus and the rest of the group (16 in total), and after the meeting we head off to dinner with our new friends at a local pizza place.

After breakfast the next morning, we jump on a huge overlander with everyone else and head towards the Masai Mara. On the way we stop at some shops and Katie finally finds an ATM that accepts Mastercard, hot tip, bring cash or a visa card to Africa. As mastercard hardly ever works. Katie stresses until we find an ATM that works.

We spend the entire day driving. We stop at some town to eat some lunch from a roadside restaurant. Nobody really understands what they are ordering.

We head back on the truck and the roads just continue to get bumpier and bumpier. We spend a lot of time trying to spot animals and playing extreme UNO where if the cards stay on the table, its a bonus. (Thanks to cajan Katie for the UNO card donation)

We spot our first baboons and zebras on the way to the park. Biggest tourists ever, all pressed against the windows of the truck trying to get a good look.

We eventually reach the Masai Mara camp site, set up our tents and help with dinner. The good news is they have beer here. The bad news is they are warm. However we quickly adapt to our warm beers in the middle of no where. Neither of us are really sure what we ate for dinner, but it was good and thanks go to the cook.

Everyone lends a hand to clean after dinner. One person washes, one rinses, and everyone else drys. But not like you would expect with tea towels, instead by shaking them dry in the air like lunatics. This evidentially is to avoid dirty towels and prevent the spread of diesese. This would become the norm.

The next day we head off to the Masai Mara, everyone is excited about going on safari and we head off early after breakfast. We enter the "Mara", and zebras are the first animals we see, and we are still excited about them, but by the end of the day we are well and truely zebra-ed out. Next we see a few gazelles then wilderbeast (ugly ass things), more zebras, and then LIONS. There were some females and about 4 little cubs. One of the females and about 4 little cubs standing right next to one of the smaller safari vans. We were so close we could almost touch them. The lions were definitely the favourite of the day, although it would have been awesome to see a male lion, or a 'mufassa' as the group referred to them as. The next exciting find was a cheetah. It was just laying in the sun not being very exciting for us tourists at all. Still pretty cool to see.

Giraffes were next on the list but we could only see them from a distance so we left for a more exciting discovery. A LEOPARD, apparently leopards are pretty difficult to find so I think we got lucky today with this. We came across some waterbucks, more zebras, more giraffes, and then elephants!

We could see the migration across the river in the Serengeti, it was pretty amazing to see the amount of animals in the distance, but most hadn't crossed the Mara river yet, only about 7000 had crossed, and they weren't crossing when we were there.

We stopped for lunch at the Mara river were there were hippos sunbaking and having a swim. Whenever the bus stops and we all get out we always have to make sure the windows are shut to keep out the monkeys. Whilst having lunch Natahlia, one of the girls in the group was worried about the monkeys as she didn't get any rabies shots. She was chatting to Aishia (a med student) about common cases of rabies, when a monkey runs up behind her and jumps on her arm and steals her banana out of her hand. Monkeys were stealing food everywhere. And Natahlia was freaking out about her possible case of rabies.

We then went on a walk with a local ranger who got us closer to the family of hippos, and showed us a crocodile and where the migration crosses the river. The same one you see on NatGeo. We got a photo with him and his rifle before jumping back on the overlander. We stopped at the Kenya/Tanzania border to take photos before starting to head out of the Masai Mara. On the way out we get a close look at some giraffes crossing the road and see a dead wilderbeast next to the road. Last stop for the day before returning to camp is the Masai Village

We stopped at the Masai village for a cultural visit. Mardy joined in the jumping dance with the Masai, apparently the higher you jump the less you have to pay for your wife - or something. Mardy would be paying alot as he didn't jump very high.

After the dancing by the boys and then girls, they showed us inside there tiny houses that are made from cow poo and sticks. It was pretty awkward. They then started to try and sell us some of there stuff (necklances, bracelets, machettes, spears, etc). They were VERY pushy.

This was the last night we would spend with the 16 of us that left Nairobi for this 3 day adventure, as some would stay with us but most left. We woke up in the morning and had breakfast with them and said goodbye. We then spent the next day and a bit hanging out at the campsite waiting for the next tour people to come. It was mostly uneventuful, highlighted by having baboons come into the camp (omg!) and going on a nature walk with a Masai warrior named Dickson, which was fun, much better than the Masai village visit, and more realistic of their way of life, not all touristy.

We walked up the hill adjacent to the campsite/masai mara to the mobile phone towers - which seemed really out of place here, considering there is no running water or power. We passed the time by teaching danish 500 to some of our fellow travellers, which Katie (much to Mardys disgust) seems to always win. Wont be long now beofre we have our first beers and Meet our new friends t hat will come with us to the gorillas. There is supposed to be 36 people in the next group! So it might get a bit crowded from here on in.

Mardy misses Pete.

The next day we met our new crew, and went into the Masai Mara again, it was not as eventful this time, we saw a pride of female lions walking, some elephants up close, and a few carcasses being eating by vultures. First time we went was definately better. Also our truck got bogged. Awesomes.

The next day we hit the road for Kisumu, we've spent all day on the road and finally have free wifi to do some blogging, its taken us 2 or so hours to catch up, so enjoy it! Here are some photos from Kili till now.