Mt. Kilimanjaro

The prospect of climbing the tallest mountain in Africa, and the tallest free-standing mountain on earth had seemed like a good idea, once. 5895m, 19,341ft, that's not that tall right? How hard could it be? Certainly I can make it, a week of hiking, sleeping in a tent, no big thing, piece of cake.

I flew to Tanzania on Monday, it's not a long flight from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro International Airport, only about 30 minutes in the air. But as soon as you take off from Nairobi and look out the window of the plane in a southern direction, you see it. Snow covered peak, poking out of the clouds, with nothing else around. Mt. Kilimanjaro beckons.

Monday consisted of a short trip to Moshi to hotel I would be staying in that night. A short briefing session explaining when we would be leaving the following day, and a brief meeting with my climbing group and head guide. My group was small, only 3 people, myself, and two girls from Montreal. Thankfully their english was MUCH better than my french, so we had no problems chatting. That night would be consist of relaxing, enjoying the last hot shower for a week, and getting one more nights sleep in a bed, albeit a tiny, single one.

Tuesday morning began with breakfast at the hotel, and then mass 'organized' confusion, as the different groups of people tried to get all their gear together and onto the right vehicle with the right guide, etc. Finally we were in a van, with our guides and our gear and on the way to the mountain. We arrived at the gate and got our luggage all sorted out, and headed over to the park office to get registered. Then were told to wait, and keep waiting, and wait some more. It turned out that the credit card processing machine was not working, so none of the tour companies could process any payments, so none of the groups were allowed to leave yet. After about 3 or 4 hours, things were finally fixed, and we strapped on our packs and were on our way. Pole pole (po-lay po-lay). A phrase we would be hearing all week. Pole Pole. Slowly. Day 1 was a pretty easy hike, about 4-5 hours of hiking up to camp at 3000 metres, arriving just before dark.

The first 3 days of hiking were pretty much the same. The terrain changed around us, and at times the hiking morphed into climbing over rocks, etc. But the days were about the same. Up at around 7, breakfast, then hiking until around 1 or 2. Which was good, because it seemed that the weather patterns were pretty consistent on the mountain as well. The mornings were clear and sunny, then around 1 or 2 it would start raining(sleeting, hailing, snowing...), and rain until around 6pm. It would then clear up in the evening, and stay clear overnight. Overall, Mt. Kilimanjaro was seeming pretty easy at this point, just a nice hike, not too difficult, not too easy. Things would change on day 4.

Hello Mr. Chameleon

Day 4 began the same, up at 7 breakfast, pack up camp and head out on our way. The terrain very quickly changed though. It seemed the first half of the morning would be spent like goats scrambling over large rocks, as we made our way up steep rock face. This was definitely the most exciting climbing we had done yet. Sheer drops to one side, rock face to the other, this was exhilarating. We reached the ridge on the top of the rock wall and it was time to take a break. The rest of the morning was spent descending an incredibly steep ravine, and then scrambling up the other side. We finally made it to camp around 1, however, it turned out we would not be staying at this camp. We had a quick lunch at this camp, and then headed out, we had about 3 and a half more hours of hiking until we reached the last camp before summit .

Things starting getting pretty miserable at this point. It started raining hard, then sleeting, then hailing. But we marched on. About 20 minutes from camp, the inclement weather subsided, but by this point we were exhausted. To top things off, one of the girls in my group had an asthma attack, which from what I understand isn't all that enjoyable at sea level, let alone 4600m where the air is very noticeably thinner. Thankfully she did have an inhaler along, and finally was able to breathe, nearly normally again. She would later that evening smartly decide that she would not risk going any higher on the mountain, and would wait at this camp for us. We had finally reached the highest camp, and although none of us were really hungry, our guides implored us to eat as we would need the energy for the summit attempt. After forcing down a bit of food, it was time to try to get some sleep. It was still only about 6pm, but we would be getting up at 12:00am and leaving shortly thereafter for our summit attempt. Almost the entire attempt at the summit would be under the shroud of darkness, the plan was that the sunrise would be around the time we were reaching summit. So we tried to sleep, however for me the attempts were somewhat futile, I think I only slept about an hour between 6:30 at 12:00.

Home Sweet Home.

At 12 we were up, and sitting in our dining tent drinking tea and eating some cookies, waiting for our guide. We ended up waiting over an hour for him to be ready, as it turned out he had to find another guide to go to summit with us as our assistant guide was going to stay behind with Mary (asthma) to make sure she was ok. So finally at 1:30am, we headed out. Armed with bottles of hot water and headlights, we started toward the summit. As you would look up, you could not see the mountain at all, all you could see was what looked like a glowing caterpillar, slowly moving its way up the mountain, a long line of climbers, head lights glowing in the darkness, slowly trudging up the mountain. It was impossible to tell where the line of climbers and their headlights ended, and where the stars began. Very soon after departing, we did everything in our power to avoid looking up. The terrain was steep and difficult, and in the cold darkness, we were tiring quickly. Seeing the seemingly endless string of lights going up into the night sky only galvanized the feeling that we would never reach the top. After two and a half long hours of climbing, the other climber in my group, Tina, was nearing complete exhaustion, and our guide suggested that I go on ahead with the backup guide he had brought along, Kahawa (which means coffee in swahili). I was near complete exhaustion myself at this point, but I was still determined to reach the summit, so we pressed on. The trail got steeper, and each step became more painful. Accidental glances upwards that would show the trail of climbers far ahead were excruciatingly demoralizing. At this point I was having to convince myself to take every single step, just one more step, come on Steve, one more step, just ONE MORE STEP. I had no idea how much further the summit was, and I didn't want to ask, I was horrified of what the answer would be, and was certain I would give up if I knew. I had a headache, I felt nauseous, I felt as if the breaths I was taking were useless, but I forced myself to continue moving, one step at a time, keep going. As it turned out, it was good I didn't know how much further it was. I continued to talk myself into each and every step, for three agonizing hours. Three of the most physically, and mentally draining hours of my life. Three hours that took me to what I thought were the bounds of my physical and mental toughness, and then far beyond. Three hours in which I proved to myself, that my mind was stronger than my body.

Finally, to the east, a faint glimmer of light, a faint glimmer of hope. The light timidly crept up into the sky, and began to reveal facts about what lay ahead, and above. An exhausted glance upward, and a tiny ray of hope. Could it be? Am I imagining this? Is the end actually within sight? It was. I wasn't. It actually was within sight. Still far in the distance, but, visible. I've gone this far, there's no giving up now. We pressed on, and shortly after 6:00am, reached Stella Point, 5739m. Kahawa collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion, and I doubled over and tried to breathe. 5739m, already well higher than any other mountain in Africa, but, not yet at the peak. We caught our breath for a few minutes, looked at each other, sighed, and then pressed on. The trail from Stella Point to Uhuru Peak was not nearly as difficult as the climb up to Stella Point, and the added adrenaline of reaching Stella Point, paired with the enthusiastic encouragement of those that had already made it to Uhuru and were on their way back down propelled us forward. 157m of elevation, and about 20 minutes later, we arrived at Uhuru Peak, 5895m. The tallest point in Africa. The peak of the tallest free-standing mountain in the world. It was 6:30am, it had taken 5 hours. The sun was just peaking out from behind Mawenzi peak, it felt almost as if it was a dream. Complete exhaustion, complete elation. We snapped a couple photos from the summit, and then began heading back down. As we slowly descended back to Stella Point, I returned the favour of those that made it before me and cheered on those that were pressing on towards the peak. As we were arriving back down at Stella Point, just making their way over the final few steps up to Stella Point were our guide, Bwashee, and Tina. She had made it too! We sat on the rocks for a few minutes and drank some tea. We shared in the ethereal experience of the sun rising up over Mt. Kilimanjaro. Tina and Bwashee then headed for Uhuru Peak, and Kahawa and I headed down, back to camp. Now, descending from the summit of Kilimanjaro is much easier than ascending. It's steep, and the descent path is basically a huge mountain of loose gravel. So we ran, and we slid, and we skied down the slopes, back towards camp. Now we left at about 1:30am, and reached Uhuru Peak at about 6:30am, a 5 hour climb. We left Stella Point at about 6:50am, and arrived back at camp, just before 8:10am, an hour and twenty minute descent. Now I would rest. But not for long.

I attempted to sleep for a couple hours, until Tina got back, but soon found that a tiny one-man tent, at 4600m, with no wind, and no shade, and a cloudless sky, quickly turns into a one-man oven. So I slept maybe an hour, but could not stay in the tent any longer, I was being cooked. That and Tina arrived back at camp shortly thereafter, and we had to then eat breakfast, and yes, we would have to hike another 4-5 hours down the mountain yet. Well the old adage states that misery loves company, and the three of us were definitely all miserable. We had slept only 2 or 3 hours in the previous 30, and had ascended from 3600m, up to 5895, then back down to 4600, and now we were on our way further down. Oh yeah, and it started pouring rain. So we trudged through the mud for hours and hours and finally reached our very last camp. We had hiked for about 22 of the previous 36 hours, and had changed elevation by over 4000m. I think it's pretty safe to say I have never been that tired before in my life. Supper was very quiet, and it quickly became bed time at about 7pm. This would also prove to be the best sleep I had on Mt. Kilimanjaro, forget about sleeping like a baby, I slept like a corpse. I don't think I moved at all for 11 hours.

We woke up the next morning, packed up one last time and had one last breakfast. Our team of guides, cooks, and porters than sang some songs for us and we had a chance to thank them each individually and take a couple photos as a group. It was then time to don our packs one last time, and head out for 130 minutes more of hiking, back down to the gate. Shortly before noon, we arrived down at the final gate. We had made it. Total hiking distance of about 110km. 6 days, 5 nights on Mt. Kilimanjaro. The only thing that was left to do after that, was take a hot shower.

-steve

Maasai Mara - Day 3

Our last day in the Mara, we were up at 6. A quick cup of tea and we were on our way for a couple more hours of safari before breakfast and then back to Nairobi.

We entered the park, and were on a mission, a mission to find more cats. John worked the radio as he drove, both of us with our eyes peeled. We knew we only had about 2 hours, so as we continued on, we began to lose hope. But then, jackpot. We came to a stand of brush, and there were already a couple other vans stopped, all eyes were focused on one bush. Just as we pull up, we see a lioness emerge from the bush, cub in her mouth. Her cubs weren't safe, there were too many eyes on them, she was moving them to a safer location. So we watched her walk, right in front of us, 5 feet away, with a cub in her mouth so another grouping a bushes where she set the cub down with the others. I don't think it gets much better than this. What a way to end the weekend. Even John, who drives around the Mara for a living, who has seen it all, time and time again, had his camera out and was taking pictures. It was incredible. The hours in the vehicle were all worth experiencing this moment.

We watched a bit longer, as the lioness lay under the bushes and cleaned her cubs, and then headed back to camp. We ate breakfast, then packed up and were off, headed back to Nairobi.

-steve

Maasai Mara - Day 2

We woke up early, had breakfast, and were on our way for an all day Safari. Our camp was about 5 minutes from the park gate, so in no time at all we had processed our smart cards, and were through the gate and into the park. Our van, like most vehicles that take tourists on safari, had a pop-up roof, that allowed us to stand in the vehicle, and see out, while still having the roof overhead shielding us from the sun. We began the safari on a main road, eager and unsure of what animals we would all see. John had a CB Radio that was crackling away with other drivers talking back and forth, giving each other intel as to where certain animals were, and as we found out later, where the park rangers were. Not far into the park, paths began to snake away from the main road in every direction. John seemed to be on a mission however, he was on the radio, plotting his course around the maze of roads, he seemed to have a specific destination in mind. Along the way we saw, elephants, impalas, some gazelles, it was very quickly clear to us, that John would be a better guide than when had with our driver Hamisi, when we went through the National Park in Nairobi. John knew every single animal, and was able to tell us all about their life cycle, mating habits, and other interactions within their species. As we would come across animals that were close to the path, he would slow down and stop, and let us get some pictures, but still obviously had a destination in mind. So we continued on, and came to a small stand of brush, where there was one other van, off the road, parked near one bush in particular. We got closer and could see the people in that van looking underneath the bush, so we peered through the branches and then saw why he was in a hurry to get us here. Lying there, nursing three newborn cubs, was a lioness. Wow. Well, wow doesn't really quite describe it. The other van moved out of the way and John pulled in closer so we could try to get some pictures. Unfortunately, the camera kept auto-focusing on the branches, not the lioness and cubs beyond the branches so I wasn't able to quickly get a good picture. As I was trying to flip the camera to manual focus to get a better shot, John pulled out and headed back down the road. At this point there was a line of probably 8 or 9 other vans that had come to see the lion. We found out later from John that there had apparently been park rangers hiding nearby in the bushes, and were on their way closer. You are not allowed to leave the road in the park, and if you do, the penalties can range from a fine, to a temporary or even permanent ban from the park. So John had to quickly get out of the bushes and back on the road as the rangers were coming.

So we were back on the paths, cruising around, snapping photos of elephants, taking it all in. But John was back on the radio, he seemed to have a lead on some more animals, as he was again in a set course. We continue on up a hill and come to a lone tree with one other van nearby, and look down in the shade of the tree....two cheetahs, just lazing around in the grass. Again, wow. Here we were able to get much better photos. And as with the lioness, the other vehicles began to arrive so we snapped our photos and continued on. It seemed at this point like John must have some pretty good intel as it seemed we were arriving on scene second, and shortly before a mass of other vehicles.

We continued to drive around searching for animals, taking in the landscape. We stopped on top of a hill at one point and got out to stretch our legs. From there we could see for miles. We could see the Mara river in the distance and beyond the border of Tanzania and Kenya, which also indicates the border of the Maasai Mara and Serengeti. As we drove down from the top of the hill we spotted another cheetah, laying near a small bush, head up, hunting. It had it's eye on a small herd of hartebeest, so we watched and waited, hoping to see it attack. But alas, it was not to be. We stopped a short distance later to have lunch in the shade of a lone tree on the hillside. John had brought bag lunches for all of us, so we sat in the grass, and enjoyed our lunch with herds of various types of antelope and zebras all around. A flock of little birds came to try and steal from our lunches, one of them even took a piece of bread out of my hand. I know, I know, don't feed the wildlife. It was a great setting for a picnic.

After lunch we continued on towards the river. We drove along the bank of the river and spotted a couple crocodiles and LOTS of hippos. We waited for some time, with the hope of seeing one of the hippos come out of the water, but in the heat of the afternoon, the best we were going to get was a couple inches of their backs sticking out of the water.

It had taken nearly half the day to make our way all the way out to the river, and it took the other half to make our way back. Joce and I both ended up taking turns have a quick nap as we drove on. We drove on, sometimes circling around small stands of bushes and trees, trying to find some more lions, or a leopard, but no such luck. As we made our way back to the main gate, John heard some more talk of the radio that there were some more lions around. So we turned around and drove slowly and searched. There in the distance we saw another lioness, walking down through some brush and laying down in the shade. As we watched her, we spotted another two lions nearby, laying low. We could get a good view of them with binoculars, but unfortunately didn't have a strong enough zoom on the camera to get any really good pictures. It was a good way to end the day however. We had been driving around the park for probably 8 hours, and were definitely done for the day.

We headed back to camp, enjoyed hot showers, and then cold beers. There was time to relax for a hour or so, then we enjoyed supper, worked on improving our Swahili with the staff and then went almost straight to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a very early day as we were going to head back to the park for a short safari before heading back to Nairobi.

Maasai Mara - Day 1

What would a trip to Africa be without a trip to the Maasai Mara for an overnight Safari. The Maasai Mara, or 'The Mara' as the locals call it, is the Kenyan side of the Serengeti. It is a large geographical region spanning the Tanzanian and Kenyan border that covers approximately 30,000 square kilometres, and is home to the Great Migration, which is the largest migration of mammal's in the world. It is also known to be one of the best places to observe many of the african animals in the wild. The area is named for the Maasai people, which is one of the most well known groups of people in Africa, supposedly largely as a result of living near to the major game parks, and due to their easily recognizable attire and customs. But I'll get into that more later.

Overlooking the Great Rift Valley

The trip started with a long, hot, bumpy, van ride from Nairobi to the Maasai Mara, highlighted by a stop overlooking the Great Rift Valley, prior to descending to the valley floor for the reminder of the drive out to the Mara. The Mara is a national park, and as such, requires payment of an entrance fee to get in. Now, you would think this would be a simple process of stopping at the gate, paying your fee and entering, but this is not the case. En route, we stopped off at a bank in Narok, here is where we would buy our park entrance smart cards. Thankfully, the line for the smart cards was non-existent, so we were out of there with are cards, loaded with our park fees (non-refundable if not used of course), in no more than 20 minutes. Our driver/guide for the trip John had previously advised that it is not uncommon to wait over an hour to get the cards, thank goodness this was not the case. At this point, it was already noon, and John suggested we stop in Narok for lunch, as we still had a fair bit of the drive left before arriving at our camp. So we stopped for a quick bite to eat and were back on the road. Here's where park entrance system got even more odd, shortly after leaving Narok, we stopped on the side of the road and John asked for the smart cards as this was apparently a check stop for the park. Odd, as we were still over 100km away and there was nothing remotely official looking, but we obliged, and were back on the road a few minutes later. A couple minutes later, John turned to us in the van and said, sorry, the road is pretty bad the rest of the way, and he wasn't kidding. Take the worst, washed out, wash-board gravel road you have ever driven on, multiple it by 10, then throw in random herds of cows and sheep on the road, and you would be close to how bad this road was. It was so bad, that for a good chunk of the time, we left the road and were just driving down a path in the brush along side the road because it was much smoother than the actual road. 108 or so km later, we finally turned off on the 'road' to the camp we were staying at. This path was barely a suggestion of where vehicles had at one point driven up the rocky hillside. John expertly piloted the van over the terrain and we finally arrived at our camp, where we would stay in 'Tents' for the weekend.

Nick and Dominic, our Maasai guides

Our 'Tent', consisted of a concrete floor, with wood framed walls covered in canvas, with a canvas roof. Attached to the back of the tent was a brick bathroom, with shower. Really, roughing it. Power was supplied by generator, and as such, we would only have lights in the tent between 7 and 10 pm however. Hot water was solar-powered, and there would be hot water 24hours a day. We dumped our stuff in our tent, took a 10 minute breather from the trip out, and then headed out on a hike with our Maasai guides, Nick and Dominic. They took us on a hike in the hills surrounding the camp, which unfortunately had to be cut short due to how long it took us to get to the Mara, and finally to a Maasai village to learn more about their culture.

Maasai Village

At the village we met Ken, who would take us around the village and teach us about the Maasai people and their culture. We got to see some of the Maasai Warriors do some traditional dances, we got a tour of their houses, which are tiny 3 room places made mostly of cow dung with some sticks and grass mixed in. The three rooms were 1) bedroom/kitchen for the whole family 2) storage and 3) bedroom for the calves and sheep.  They went on to show us how they make fire, demonstrate ear stretching and traditional removal of a tooth etc. They were very welcoming and hospitable, right until the very end of the visit when they tried to pressure us into buying souvenirs. It was starting to get dark though, and starting to rain, so we managed to get out of there and started heading back to camp. Both of us brought rain jackets on the trip, however neither of us brought them on this hike, perfect. Although I must say that after a hot day in the car and a hike, walking in the rain was a welcome relief. The rain continued to get stronger, and by the time we were back at our camp, we were completely soaked. Along the way, one of our Maasai guides was kind enough to hide our bag with the camera under his "coat". We dried off, had some hot drinks to warm up, had supper, and headed to bed early. We would be having an early breakfast, and heading out for an all day safari in the park.

Kilifi

When Ronnie and Lisa asked us if we wanted to go to the coast with them for the weekend, we thought, that sounds great. Staying near the ocean, hanging out on the beach for the weekend, sounds fantastic. We had no idea what was in store for us.

They had rented a house for all of us to stay in, well, house doesn't really do it justice. This place was gorgeous. The house was about 300m down the beach from the mouth of an estuary off the Indian Ocean. Each bedroom in the house was essentially it's own suite. We had a private balcony facing the ocean, a king-sized bed, and an ensuite. There were stairs down from the house to the private beach, a private pool, oh, and did I mention that the house included a staff that would be doing all the cooking and cleaning for the weekend? Joce, myself, Rachel, and Sara (another intern that is staying at Lisa and Ronnie's), just walked around, mouthes agape, in disbelief. The thought of staying at a place like this never even came close to crossing any of our minds when we envisioned this trip to Africa. It was simply stunning.

The meals all weekend long were incredible. Breakfast would start with fresh fruit, yogurt, cereal, toast. Then would come bacon, sausages, eggs any way you like them, and pancakes. Any preconceptions about potentially losing weight in Africa were right out the window. Lunch and supper then consisted of fresh seafood, fresh salads, more fresh fruit, and generally far more of all of it than we could possibly eat. Prawns, tilapia, crab, barracuda, shrimp, all fresh from the ocean, all delicious. We spent the days alternating between laying on the beach and swimming in the ocean, and laying by the pool and swimming in the pool. The temperature held steady at 35+ degrees, but thankfully a substantial breeze off the ocean blew consistently throughout the day keeping us at a comfortable temperature.

On Sunday evening, Joce, Rachel, Sara and myself took a sunset cruise up the estuary in a Dhow, a traditional sailing vessel of the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa. The crew of two, took us up the estuary which opens into a reasonable size lake, through mangroves and then back around to the mouth of the estuary where we were staying. From the water we got a great view of the development that is going on on the banks of the creek. As we sailed slowly on, Joce suddenly urges me to turn around and look at the captain. I turn around and see him holding out his hand to me, clutched carefully between his fingers, a grapefruit sized jellyfish. He assures us that, oh no, just don't touch here and here and it can't sting you. So we do touch it, and it feels like, well, really hard jello. As we look into the water though, we start to see more and more jelly fish floating by, until it seems that there couldn't possibly be any more jellyfish in the water. This is not the place you want to go swimming! We reach the far end of the lake, and the captain fires up the little outboard to take us back to the home. As we cruise due east, the sun sets over the hills behind us.

Soooo many jellyfish!

Perhaps it was a miscalculation on the captain's part, perhaps it was me asking him if he could head back faster as 75% of us had to pee more than you can imagine, but about 200m short of our house, the boat runs out of gas. The captain is able to open the sail and use the cross wind to angle us to shore. We are plenty anxious to get out of the boat at this point, so we hastily hand the captain the money for the trip, jump out of the boat and run down the beach towards home.

The next morning we had a few hours to soak up a bit more sun, then it was back to Mombasa, and a short flight back to Nairobi and reality. Or at least the version of reality we are living here.


-steve

Mombasa

Our hosts Lisa and Ronnie were planning a trip to the coast for the weekend, and invited us to join them. It sounded like a great time, this would also give us a chance to check out Mombasa as well. So we decided to fly in to Mombasa the day before they were heading out there, so we could explore the city a bit before heading up the coast to Kilifi for the weekend.

The moment the cabin door on the airplane opened, we felt the wave of heat and humidity hit us. Nairobi is at an elevation of about 1800m so it has a drastically different climate than Mombasa. Nairobi has generally been mid to low 20's and relatively low humidity. We were now at sea level, mid 30's and high humidity, it felt like we were walking through a sauna.

We arrived in the evening, and it was already dark. It's generally recommended for tourists to not venture out in the city after dark, and with the added tension of election nominations, we heeded the advice and took a taxi straight to our hotel. Not exactly the lap of luxury, the was the finest, cheapest room $15/person per night could buy. It did have A/C though, so at least there was some relief from the heat. $15 bought you not only A/C and what they claimed was a single bed, but also breakfast the next morning. The breakfast ended up being quite adequate for the cost, so we ate our fill and then headed out to explore Mombasa.

While there are quite a few things to see in Mombasa, we only had until about 1PM, so it was going to be an abbreviated tour of the city. We headed off, Joce and Rachel keen on finding the spice market. As we wandered around the markets, the temperature continued to rise. As we walked aimlessly up and down the streets of stores and stands, mostly all selling the same things, some even selling spices, we apparently hadn't found the right place. Joce decided it would be in our best interest to start following some random guy on the street as he knows just the place to buy spices. So he leads us up and down the all the streets we had already walked on, while making calls on his phone. At this point we are pretty certain he is either taking us to his store, or leading us into an ambush to be kidnapped. Well luckily for us, he was leading us to his brothers store. We went into the store and the proprietor proceeded to show us pretty much every spice in his store. All of them, advertised as the very finest available. Rachel and Joce both bought a bunch of spices, all of which we were certain were sold at the 'white' price. Joce was able to barter them down somewhat, but we were pretty sure we were still paying many times the local price. All in all, cheaper than what we would have paid in Canada, and much more entertaining of an experience.

Spices in hand, we headed out of the markets and towards Old Town. Old Town is an area right near the main port in Mombasa, that was initially settled and was a major trading hub. We didn't have time for a full tour of Old Town and Fort Jesus, a fort that was built to protect the port in 1591, so we just decided to walk around aimlessly. We were approached by a number of people, obviously wanting to be paid to show us around, which we were fairly successful in sending away. But one guy that came up to us was pretty insistent, he was a volunteer, wanted no money, and just wanted to show us around. Experience had taught us that even though he said he didn't want money, he would take us on a tour and then demand money at the end, so we were still skeptical. We explained that we would not be giving him any money, but he continued to walk on with us, insisting that he didn't want any money. He continued on with us for the short walk through Old Town, giving us a few tidbits of information as we walked. He was a funny guy, 'Moody Blues' apparently was his name, he lived in Old Town. He knew everyone. Every person we passed in the street, Moody was talking to, he knew them all, and he strutted around like he owned the place. As we headed back towards our hotel, Moody went on his way, and in fact, didn't ask for any money after all. We wished we would have had more time to tour around, and head into Fort Jesus, but we were hungry, dripping with sweat and didn't have much time before Ronnie and Lisa were going to pick us up to head to Kilifi. We grabbed a bite to eat, cooled off with some ice cream, and then were off and on our way to Kilifi for the rest of the weekend.

-steve

A bit about Kenya/our house

A few people have asked me about things like what language do they speak in Kenya, and general things like that.  So I figured I'd do a post on some of that general stuff and a bit about where we are staying.

The official languages in Kenya are English and Swahili.  There does seem to be a bit of a split of languages based on income class.  People like guards at compounds and gardeners, maids etc. generally don't speak that much English.  They will have learned a bit because the people that employ them will all be primarily English speakers.  The majority of the wealthy people are British ex-pats, which accounts for the prevalence of English.  The currency is Kenyan Shillings, although at most touristy things, US dollars are accepted as well.  The exchange is about 87 Shillings to 1 Canadian dollar. 

Here's a picture of the house we are staying in.  Our hosts are Lisa and Ronnie.  Lisa is a doc from Winnipeg that spends a significant amount of time here in Kenya heading up various projects.  She is one of the people heading up the project that Joce is working on here, as well as several others.  Ronnie is originally from Kenya, he is an Anaesthetist working in Nairobi, and really the only person that speaks Swahili.  Lisa is learning Swahili as well, but as Ronnie grew up here, he is our go to if Swahili is needed.  There are two other interns staying at the house, Rachel and Sara. 

The area we are living is called Langata, it is a suburb of Nairobi.  As with all of the other houses in the area, the yard is a fenced compound, with a guard at the front gate 24 hours a day.  The trip into Nairobi is in theory a 20 minute  drive, but with construction on the main road and traffic, it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 and a half hours.  We are serenaded to sleep every night by the Tree Hyraxes, neighbourhood dogs, hyenas, and various other wildlife.  Thankfully, you get used to the noise, as it seems to go on all night long.

The temperature in Nairobi has generally remained around 25-30 degrees, and so far it has only rained one day.  Staying here in Langata has been a pretty gentle introduction to living in Kenya.  Not difficult to get used to at all.

-steve

Nairobi National Park

 What better way to spend a sunny afternoon than driving through the Nairobi National Park on a mini safari. The Nairobi National Park is only minutes away from our house, so we jumped in the RAV4 with Rachel (another intern from Winnipeg that is also staying at our house), and Hamisi, our driver. We cruised down to the National Park and went to pay. Cost per person for Joce, Rachel and myself: $40, price for Hamisi (Kenyan Citizen) and the car: $6 Would it be worth it? What type of animals would we all see? Let's find out!

Tree Hyrax

The National Park is basically a large area of land that has been protected from development to prevent the natural habitat from being destroyed. There is a very rough grid of 'roads' (4x4 highly recommended), running through the plains to allow you to drive around looking for animals. The day started a bit slow, we saw one or two impalas, and a lone tree hyrax. The sun was beating down and I was beginning to think this was going to be a boring uncomfortable afternoon stuck sitting in a vehicle, bouncing around not seeing anything.

Shortly thereafter, however, things began to change. We continued on further into the park and as we peered across the plains we began to see some larger groups of animals. At first there were a smaller group of more impalas, then, a slightly larger group of gazelles. Then wait! What's that in the distance? Giraffes! A whole bunch of them! From this point on there was an almost steady stream of animals outside the windows of our vehicle as we drove on. Hundreds of what we generally just referred to as 'deer'(impalas, gazelles, hartebeest), more giraffes, rhinos, African buffalo, ostriches, maybe THOUSANDS of zebras, even some vultures circling around in the sky.

At one point we found a group of giraffes that were quite near to the road. So we drove up close to them and they didn't really seem to be that worried about us being only a few metres away. We were trying to get a good picture of the giraffe nearest to us, but he wouldn't look over. I thought, maybe if I yell his name out the window he may look. So I stuck my head out the window and yelled..."Geoffrey!", sure enough, he turned right over and *click* the movement was captured.

Momma

As we drove, we started getting greedy though, we were no longer satisfied with the animals we had already seen. We wanted to see the big one, the one everyone wants to see more than any others. We wanted to find a lion. At every fork in the road there was a sign that pointed down each arm of the road and indicated what area you were heading for and how far it was. So we began to head in whatever direction indicated there may be some lions nearby. As we drove, we saw, well, nothing. We continued on, over some serious terrain, taking full advantage of the extra ground clearance of the SUV, at times driving through knee deep water, and came to a low area with trees towering over the road. As we drove under the branches we looked up and saw about a dozen baboons, sitting in the tree, paying us no attention. Shortly thereafter we reached what seemed like the end of the road. There is a little hut, a porta-potty, and what appeared to be a walking path with a sign, "Do not proceed past this point without a guide.". So we get out of the vehicle and out from the hut comes a guy dressed in camouflage fatigues carrying a rifle. He motions to the path and says, follow me, and stay close. So we start off down the path, not exactly sure what we are heading for. A short distance down the path we see just off the path a relatively new buffalo carcass, the guide nonchalantly says, "lion killed 'em", we all look at each other and are thinking the same thing...Lion? I don't think that gun is big enough! So we continue on, and come to a river running alongside us. Our guide stops and points to some brush across the river, says to look under the branches. We peer across and can see just the tail...just the 5ft long tail of a croc. We decide not to stick around too long and keep on going down the path. All of a sudden our guide turns around and says, from here on, no more talking. The three of us once again exchange concerned glances and continue on. Then, we stop. On the bank of the river, at an enlarged bend. Our guide first puts his finger to his lips, motioning for us to be silent, then uses the same finger to point to water on the far side of the bend. We look over, and there, just above the surface of the water, two round ears, two eyes and two nostrils....hippopotamus. Now we are certain the gun isn't big enough. He motions a bit to the side and we see the same 6 features popping out of the water right nearby, only smaller. Perfect. A momma, and her baby hippo. After some quick pictures, our guide suggests we not stick around to long and we head off, back to the vehicle.

Simba and Nala?

After the hippo sighting we are all pretty pumped up again, and on top of that, the guide says he knows where the lions are. He tries to explain to Hamisi how to get to where the lions are supposed to be, and sketches a rough map and we head out. It becomes apparently quite quickly that the map isn't quite up to modern cartographic standards. The forks in the road we are supposed to count are non-existent, and the numbers on the signs didn't match the numbers on the map. We head one direction, but it doesn't feel right, we turn around and head another direction, at one point we nearly drove all the way out of the park before turning around and heading back. It's hopeless, this map is useless. The sun is starting to set and we need to start heading back. So we decide to continue on the road we are on and head back towards the main gate at the next fork in the road. Through a herd of zebra, blocking the road, over a couple rises and we all of a sudden see a row of vehicles stopped at the side of the road, all seemingly focused on one side of the road. We pull up and stare out in to the plains. As the sun sinks we scan the field. Grass. More grass. Still more grass. Then we see them. Yes. THEM! Two lions, laying down, barely visible in the swaying grass. A male, of reasonable age judging from the mane, and a female. We sat and watched, and waited. Hoping to see some movement, hoping they will at least stand so we can get a better photo. We waited, and were rewarded for our patience. Both lions stood, stretched, and yawned. What happened next was, well, quite unexpected. And for the sake of keeping this, well, G rated, I'll just say we witnessed an 'adult situation'... I can honestly say that never in a million years would I have ever thought that this would be something I would witness in real life. They then lay back down in the grass as the sun continued to set, stunned, we head off on our way out of the park and back home.

Certainly we have now seen it all. As we are heading back though we pull up behind a stopped vehicle, they are staring again out the side window. We see them motion to our left and we are looking all over to find what they are seeing. One of the guys in the vehicle ahead sticks his head out the sunroof, so I stick my head out of my window and he whispers, "right beside you!" I look down, and not more than 3 metres away from my open window lay another lion. This male looked much older than the other lions we saw. His mane was thinning and his body looked withered, but I had no doubt that one swipe of his paw, and I would have wished that the window was closed. We snapped a few pics and continued on out of the park and headed home.

What a day. It absolutely exceed any expectations I had when we began the safari. Just another ordinary day in Kenya, which is proving to be an extraordinary place.

-steve

David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Another site very near to our house worth visiting is the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. This is a haven for abandoned elephants and rhinos. This charitable organization rescues orphaned elephants and rhinoceros, and raises them until an age where they can be released back into the wild.  The elephants are brought in groups based on their age into a "pen", to chew on branches, drink water and if it's hot out, play in the mud to keep cool.  The "pen", consists of a rope, loosely strung between fence posts about knee height.  Some of the elephants were really playful and would come over to the crowd of people and want to be pet.  One young one kept leaning over onto a few people, nearly knocking them to the ground, it was quite entertaining.  The staff then give a brief bio of each of the elephants, including where they were rescued from and how long they have been at the Wildlife Trust.  The elephants remain at the Wildlife Trust until they are 3+ years, and then are reintroduced into the wild.

 While the elephants were being introduced and the Wildlife Trust was being explained to us, some warthogs wondered up behind us and were foraging for food.  Apparently they are not that scared of humans as they were within a couple feet of us and didn't seem to even notice.  At one point I felt someone pushing me aside, rude tourists right?  Trying to get a better view of the elephants?  Nope, one of the warthogs pushed into my leg and pushed me aside so it could get into the elephant "pen".  Rude.

After we had met all three groups of elephants and they had all be introduced, we had the opportunity to 'foster' one of the elephants.  The Wildlife Trust relies on both the admission charges as well as donations to operate, the admission is actually quite cheap, so a significant amount of the necessary funds come from donations.  We decided to 'foster' one of the elephants, and with our donation, we were able to take advantage of some additional perks.  Those that have fostered an elephant are able to come back to the Wildlife Trust in the evening to see the elephants fed and put to sleep.  Baby elephants generally sleep curled up next to their mother as they require the heat from their mother to stay warm at night.  So at the Trust, they have large blankets hung in the elephants pens, which the baby elephants will cuddle up to as if it is their mother, and they wrap blankets around the elephants to ensure they stay warm at night.  So we went back to the Trust that evening and got to watch our baby elephant be fed it's milk from a bottle and watch him get his blankets wrapped on.  We could the n pet him a bit before he finally was too tuckered out and flopped down onto the ground, curled up and went to sleep.  It was incredible.  As they got the elephants ready for bed in several groups based on their age, we were able to also see a bunch more of the older elephants being fed, and got to pet a number of them.  We were petting one female elephant, and as it turns out she was somewhat of a troublemaker.  She kept slowly sneaking her trunk over the edge of the gate to her pen and then trying to grab my face with it.  At one point, she grabbed a bucket that was hanging from a chain on the outside of the pen and tried to hit me with it.  It was pretty funny, it was really interesting to see the very different personalities of the elephants.

At the Trust, they also had two black rhinos that had been rescued.  One of them had been there a while and was quite large already, nearly fully grown.  She came over to the gate at one point and seemed to want our attention.  Joce tentatively touched her horn as she was sticking it trough the gate, she seemed to love it. As soon as Joce stopped petting her horn, she would move it over closer to another person for them to pet it.  Bizarre.  Petting a 2+ ton rhino is a anxious experience to say the least, one neither Joce or I ever thought we would have in our lives, but one we will never forget.

-steve

Giraffe Centre

While our house isn’t really located close to the city, there are several interesting things to see right nearby.  The first of these that we explored was the Giraffe Centre.  Only about a 10 minute walk from our place, the Giraffe Centre is both an educational centre to teach people about conservation, and preservation of the natural habitat’s of animals such as giraffe’s, and is a breeding centre where they are working to breed the endangered Rothschild giraffe.  That all sounded great when Joce was reading the description to me, but wait…we get to pet and kiss the giraffes?  What are we waiting for? 

What a beautiful animal.  We arrived and were given a couple handfuls of ‘giraffe treats’ and up the stairs to the feeding platform we went.  Two of the younger giraffes were already hanging out there, trying to snag as many treats as possible.  If you have treats, the giraffes are your friends.  Put one in your mouth, and they will give you a nice wet kiss while they take it with their impossibly long tongues.  They are very gentle social animals, a lot of fun to feed.  We went on a short hike through the preserve area with a guide from the centre.  Then it was back to the feeding platform as Hellen, the matriarch of the herd, had come over to visit.  Hellen is the most social giraffe at the centre, and very pregnant.  She is due to deliver her calf this month or next.  Hellen was much bigger than the other two giraffes we were previously feeding, but very calm and friendly. 

Hellen has lived at the centre all her life, and will remain there as part of the breeding program.  The calves however spend about 3 years at the centre and then are released into the wild in an attempt to revitalize the population of this, the only endangered species of giraffe.

-steve

Travel to Africa

My trip to Africa started with a lesson that I imagine will be valuable throughout the trip; do not expect things to go exactly as planned.  My flight out of Winnipeg was delayed by nearly 2 hours, ensuring the fact that I would be missing my connecting flight in Chicago.  I did finally arrive in Chicago, and expectedly, my flight to Brussels had already left nearly an hour prior.  I went to the United Airlines desk and they set to work trying to get me to Nairobi as quickly as possible.  A new route was found and I was off to London no more than 2 hours later.  This new flight plan was eliminating one of my connections, and would be taking me directly from London to Nairobi, however, it meant an 8 hour layover in London.  After arriving in London, I was able to get online and send Joce an update on my arrival time.  A driver was going to be picking me up at the airport, and they would need to know that I wouldn’t be arriving as initially scheduled.  After hours spent trying in vain to catch up on some needed sleep, I boarded the second red-eye of the trip, bound for Nairobi.  Seemingly all ready to go, our plane didn’t seem to budge from the gate, several minutes later we were greeted by some fantastic news from the captain; the computers in air traffic control were down, no flights were leaving at present, there is no eta.  30 minutes later the computers were back up, we were in the queue, waiting to be directed to take off, still no eta.  60 minutes later we had reached the front of the queue and were off, this time however, there was no way to alert anyone of the additional delay.    Thankfully, when I arrived in Nairobi, all my luggage showed up, and my driver was still there waiting for me.  We made the 20 minute drive back to our house, through Nairobi morning rush hour in only 90 minutes, and I had finally arrived.  Safe and sound.   I escaped the 36 hour adventure mostly unscathed, now it was time to sleep.

-steve