Safari Time

Well this is about the limit of my IT abilities!! I arrived in Nairobi after 2 days of traveling. I had a 7 hour stop over in Perth so i thought what better way to spend a few hours than at the little creatures brewery. My flight didn't leave until midnight so I had a few (too many) drinks before a frantic dash back to the airport. I slept quite well on the flight, with quite a lot of snoring i am sure.

We had heard many bad things about Nairobi, but it felt like quite a safe city. The main danger was not getting crushed by the thousands of safari salesman ambushing you on the street like a pack of hyenas. We spent a day looking for one and eventually went for planet safaris (after getting stuck in their elevator. We thought they must be good if they could afford a elevator even if it didn't work).

We went out to Lake Nakuru for the first day of the safari. The highlight here is the millions of pink flamingos covering the lake. I didn't think that i would be all that amazed by a few birds, but it was pretty impressive!! It was a good introduction to the safari. We also saw giraffes, rhino, buffalo, baboons, warthog and zebra. the roads were absolute shit and our second day involved bouncing up and down on a dusty bus to get to the masi mara.

The masi mara was amazing. Just like something out of a national geographic doco. The first day was brilliant, we saw everything apart form the elusive leopard. We were lucky enough to catch the tail end of the wilderbeast migration. These stupid animals migrated in their thousands to greener pastures and with them the bring all of the cats!

We saw plenty of lions, the highlight being watching three of them feast on a two recent kills. we spent 1/2 hr just sitting there watching them from about 5 yards away!! while they were feasting a cheeky hyena was picking at the second carcass. this did not go unnoticed. with some great driving by the guide, the van was positioned in between the the two kills so that the hyena could not see the advancing lion. the lion used the car as cover for his attack and got within feet of clawing the hyena. the roar was deafening!! We spent 2 more days there trying to see a leopard but we had no luck, maybe in Tanzania. I got some amazing photos, more are on facebook so join up!!

From here it is to see the gorillas either at Uganda or Rwanda (depending on where we can get the expensive permits).

Photo link http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=27732&l=7048f&id=722635930