Our 2023 African Safari

This map just shows the places we visited in Kenya, and not Dubai and Abu Dhabi, which are, of course in the United Arab Emirates. The pin with no name is Sweetwaters (the Safari Club covered the name).

Preamble

In 2022, several of our friends went on an African safari, and after hearing their stories of the trip and seeing their pictures, we signed up to go in 2023. We asked several couples if they wanted to also go on the trip. Rhona and Reid (Marc’s sister and her husband) and our friends Hazel and Paul (and their son Elan) decided to join us on the trip.

One of the things this particular trip does is to visit a school. We were told that if we wanted to bring some supplies for the school, they would be appreciated. Jackie is part of a group at work that had changed their logo earlier in the year and had a bunch of swag with the old logo that they were not allowed to hand out. She asked if she could give the stuff with the old logo to the school. Everyone thought that that was a great idea. Jackie brought home a bunch of folios, notebooks, pens, coloring books & crayons, phone chargers, and tote bags. She weighed it all and it came to 85 pounds. Which was problematic, because there is a 50-pound limit on checked luggage, and we kind of wanted to bring clothes, too.

Jackie sent an email to Brian Judd Tours (our tour company) asking how we could get 85lbs of supplies to Africa when we have a 50lb limit on checked bags and a limit of one checked bag. Turns out the one checked bag limit was a tour limit, not a plane limit. Steve instructed us to put all the school supplies into two bags (preferably ones that we could leave in Africa). He said that Brian (our tour guide) would take one of the bags and we would take the other. He also gave a long list of instructions on how to get the school supplies through customs. For example, don’t say that they were donated. If they were donated, they will want to tax them. They will probably want to tax them anyway. Steve said to just pay the tax. Steve said to say that we got the supplies on sale at a thrift shop and that we paid $100 for everything.

We were amused at how detailed the instructions were, so we forwarded the email to Marc’s sister. She asked if she could add some supplies to our bags. She gave us almost a thousand pencils and some drawstring bags. In end, the two bags weighed 48.5 lbs each, and we still put some stuff in our checked luggage because we didn’t want to push the 50lb weight limit.

Saturday, July, 22

We had a 4:40pm Air Emirates flight to Dubai,, where we were spending the first three days. We had been instructed to arrive at LAX four hours before the flight. We decided to take the Flyaway bus, and normally the 11am Flyaway (which should get us to LAX at noon) would be fine, but we decided to give ourselves an extra half hour and take the 10:30 Flyaway. We asked Jennifer to give us a ride to the Flyaway, and at 10 we set off. We got on the 118, and as we passed the Reseda exit, we noticed that a lot of people were exiting the freeway. And then the freeway came to a complete stop. We learned that the 118 East was completely shut down, everyone had to get off at Balboa, and Google predicted that we wouldn’t get to the Flyaway until after 11. We beat ourselves up for not checking traffic before we got on the freeway, but even the 11:30am Flyaway would get us to LAX 4 hours before our flight, so we would be fine.

We texted Rhona (who was also planning to take the 10:30 bus, but would not get on the 118, and was unaffected by the freeway closure) telling her that we would not make the 10:30 bus, and she should not wait for us. She didn’t respond, which was weird. Turns out that she didn’t respond because she had inadvertently left her phone at home, which she didn’t discover until they had already been dropped off at the Flyaway. They contacted Dave, who found her phone and brought it to her.

Turns out that Google’s initial estimate of when we would arrive at the Flyaway was actually high, and we arrived at the bus about 7 minutes before 11. There was no line and we were able to get on the 11am bus. Because of the phone, Rhona and Reid had missed the 10:30 bus, so as it turned out, we ended up riding to LAX together as planned!

We had no trouble connecting up with the tour, most of whom had flown in from Utah that morning. The flight was uneventful. Air Emirates is great – the seats are pretty comfortable, and we got fed three meals on our 16-hour flight. The first meal was surprisingly tasty, the second was good, and the third was less than what we would like. On the flight, Jackie watched Crazy Rich Asians, A Star is Born (with Madonna), and Jerry & Marge Go Large and knit and slept.

We arrived, went to baggage claim, and met up with Hazel, Paul, and Elan (who had come on a separate flight from San Francisco). Our tour had arranged for chartered buses to take us to our hotel (the JW Mariott) and we checked in around 9pm. Our room might be the largest one-bed hotel room we’ve ever stayed in and had the largest hotel towels we’ve ever seen. It also had a bathroom scale. We’d never seen a bathroom scale in a hotel bathroom before. The bathroom had all the typical American hotel amenities EXCEPT for plugs in the bathroom. That was weird. Jackie had to leave the bathroom to use the blow dryer and curling iron. Some people on the tour went for dinner, but we just went to bed.

Neither of us slept well. Jackie’s phone wasn’t on silent and went off around 1am. Jackie, thinking that that was the alarm, got up to take a shower. Fortunately, Marc put her straight and sent her back to bed. Then Marc got up to use the bathroom at 3am, and woke Jackie up in the process. Neither of us slept much after that. The bed was pretty hard, which Jackie likes, but made Marc’s arms hurt. And the pillows were feather pillows, which set off Marc’s allergies.

Monday, July 24

Breakfast in the morning was a buffet – probably the largest and most varied breakfast buffet we’ve ever seen. There must have been over a hundred types of food there including a bunch of stuff Jackie had never heard of. There was all the typical American breakfast food – eggs, bacon (beef), sausage (chicken), waffles, pancakes, hash browns, cereals, yogurt, pastries, muffins, fruit. Plus Chinese, Indian, and Greek dishes often associated more with lunch or dinner. You could grind your own Nutella. Plus there was ice cream. You could get seriously fat eating breakfast there.

After breakfast, we went to Al Fahidi Historical Neighborhood village. These are homes that were built by Persian merchants in the 1890s. They were going to demolish them in about 1989, but King Charles (who was prince at the time) visited Dubai that year and suggested to HH Sheikh Rasid bin Saeed Al Maktoum that the district be preserved as a historical monument. After walking in and around the homes, we took a water taxi across the creek to an Arab market and learned how to tell the difference between good saffron and cheap saffron. We learned that saffron is red until you put it in water. Then it turns yellow. We had time to shop in the market, but we didn’t buy anything. There weren’t many people around and we wondered how the shops stay in business, but maybe the lack of people was because it was close to noon. It was certainly hot, humid, and uncomfortable.

We then went to the Dubai mall and Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world. The tour people bought us tickets to go to the observation deck on the 124^th floor. We were told to get lunch in the mall after we were done and to meet up in an hour and a half. But one of the elevators was down, and so it was 45 minutes to get up to the observation deck. We only spent 15 minutes looking around, but then it was another half hour wait in line to get down. So there went our hour and a half. But everyone on the tour was in the same boat, so they gave us another half hour for lunch. All the tables in the food court were in use, but we were able to snag two tables as people left. We spotted another couple (Jason and Nicole) from the tour looking at all the full tables and waved them over to join us. Our food took a long time to arrive, so we had to eat and run. We came back to the hotel for a break, and then went to dinner. Dinner was a buffet at some hotel (not ours). Burj Khalifa has a water show every night (like at the Belagio in Vegas) and we think that the tour chose the restaurant because of the vantage point to the water show. Certainly not because of the amazing cuisine. After watching the water show, we went back to the hotel, and despite it being only 8:30, we went to sleep. We slept much better the second night, in part because Marc was able to get the feather pillows replaced with regular ones, and he was able to get a mattress topper for the bed.

Tuesday, July 25

For breakfast, Jackie decided to eat only things that she couldn’t identify. Some were good, some were boring. She finished breakfast with something she could identify – ice cream! We then set off for Abu Dhabi, about a 2-hour drive. We visited the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, which has the world’s largest hand-knotted carpet and the world’s longest chandelier. The women had to wear long sleeves and long pants (or a long skirt) and cover their hair. We joke about “fashion police” but there actually were people there instructing women to cover up if their hair became uncovered. We had a buffet lunch at a nearby Marriott, and then went to the Qasr Al Watan, the presidential palace that was built in 2017 at a cost of $6 billion. It was pretty impressive. It gets used for state events, but it isn’t being used as a residence. Dinner was on our own, and we decided to just skip it.

Wednesday, July 26

We had set an alarm for 5:15, but we woke up before the alarm. Our bags needed to be downstairs between 6 and 6:15. After dropping off our bags, we went for one last amazing breakfast at the Marriott. At 7:15 we left for the airport for our flight to Nairobi. We got there and checked our bags. At LAX, Jackie had stressed because there were signs saying to tell them if we had batteries in our luggage and we had 26 phone chargers for the school (not to mention two or three of our own.) At LAX we didn’t volunteer any information. But at the Dubai airport, they specifically asked about batteries or chargers, and we weren’t willing to lie. But when we described them as small phone chargers, the woman said they were fine. Jackie thinks that they are not Lithium, so she was stressed for nothing.

We went to the gate and found that the gate was next to a smoking area, which was not well screened from the gate, and so the waiting area for the gate reeked of cigarette smoke. Which was a good thing, because it caused us to find another place to sit, and the place we found was much nicer than the waiting area. When they started boarding, we had to wait in a line near the smoking area, so we broke out the N95 masks we had brought. They did a good job of filtering out the smoke smell. Nice to know they actually work! Once we got through that checkpoint, we went down some stairs to a waiting area, where we waited again. Then we had to go through another checkpoint before we got on the plane. The plane ride was uneventful. Jackie watched the movies Chevallier and Signs of Love and knitted. Marc watched Avatar: The Way of Water and Onward. They served us a meal, but the food was mediocre.

We arrived in Nairobi and went through immigration control. That took close to an hour. Then we got our bags, changed some money, and went through customs. They had flagged our bags with the school supplies (by chalking big Xs on them) before we even got to customs. At customs, they were X-raying our carry-ons, and while they weren’t x-raying most of the checked bags, they x-rayed the two school bags. Then they wanted to know what was in them. We told them and they had us pull out a sample of the items to show someone. They told us we would have to pay a tax on the items (which we had expected.) Brian and the customs people disappeared for a really long time. Finally, he came back and we went on. Later I asked if he had to pay a tax. He basically said that he had sweet talked them out of charging the tax. He said that the fact that he had talked to them in Swahili helped.

We got on buses and went to our hotel. We went to a sitting area so that Brian could tell us about the plans for the next few days. The sitting area was very cool. It had a cathedral glass ceiling that was 5 stories high, and the hotel room floors were on corridors that overlooked the area. There was a bunch of nice art in and about the hotel, including a wooden boat that was about 12-14 feet long and looked to be a couple of centuries old.

Our briefing was about how we needed to pull out the small duffle bag that we had all brought with us and pack it with clothes for two days. Our big bag would then be driven to Masai Mara, while we went with the duffle to Amboseli National Park for two days. After we left Amboseli, we would fly to Mara Masai and meet up with our big luggage. We were also told that we would see all the souvenirs that were available for purchase multiple times during the trip and we should wait until the end to buy, so that we didn’t have to shlep our souvenirs all throughout the trip. Jackie saw a small, quilted purse that she liked and it was only $6, so she got it, and was glad she did, because she only saw quilted bags in a couple of places, and she never saw one that she liked as much as the one she bought. She also saw a small soapstone cat and did not buy it and regretted that, because she never saw another one.

After the briefing, we went to our rooms to rearrange our bags, and then went down for a buffet dinner. Afterwards, we pretty much went straight to bed.

Thursday, July 27

Marc slept better than he had so far, despite the fact that the bed was pretty hard. Jackie woke up several times but was about to get back to sleep each time until she woke around 4:30. But since we had to have our checked bags outside our door at 6:30, at 5:30 Jackie gave up trying to sleep and took a shower. The breakfast buffet was not as good as the Marriot’s, but it still had everything we would like to see at a breakfast buffet and more.

Transportation to Amboseli National Park was in the vans that we would be using for our safari drives. These vans were 8 passenger vans with a roof that could be raised. With the roof raised you could stand in the van and see out – well, unless you were Rhona’s height, and then you really needed to stand on a seat to see out. There were six vans for the 34 of us, plus one extra, which turned out to be very useful.

At 7:45 we piled into the vans, and off we went. In small towns, Nairobi forces drivers to keep their speed down by having bumps in the road. After we had been on the road for about 3 hours, we went over one of these speed bumps and our van just died. The driver got over to the side as far as he could. Fortunately, we had been the second van, and all the other vans (except the first one, which was the one Brian was in) saw that we were in trouble and pulled over. They pushed the van to the side of the road, and then there was a long conversation about what to do. I understood none of it because it was all in Swahili. Most everyone took advantage of the break by getting out to stretch our legs. Unfortunately, at one point Reid went to get back in the van, and lost his balance and fell backward, scraping his elbow and leg, and bruising his tail bone pretty badly. The vans all carry first aid kits, so we patched up his scrapes, although we couldn’t do anything for his tailbone.

Finally, the decision was made to put us in the extra van and leave our driver behind with the broken van to arrange repairs. And on we went. Driving had been slow, because there was a lot of slow traffic on the roads, but with the unscheduled stop, it was about 6 hours before we finally got to our destination (Serena Hotel in Amboseli National Park). We had been told it would be 4 hours. We went directly to lunch. Afterwards, we got our rooms, and relaxed for about an hour. We went onto the back porch of the main lodge and admired the elephants, an African Pied Wagtail, a Striped Kingfisher, and a Superb Starling that were nearby, not to mention the vervet monkeys that were hoping we would leave food for them. Then we went on our first game drive.

On the drive, we saw lions, elephants, giraffes, zebras, gnus, Grant’s gazelles, Thompson’s gazelles, impalas, and a hippo. We saw Grey-Crowned Cranes, Cattle Egrets, Egyptian Geese, Blacksmith Plovers, Three-banded Plovers, Kori Bustards, African Drongos, an Ostrich, and probably several dozen other species that we couldn’t positively identify. The sun went down as we were returning, and it was lovely. We came back, had dinner and basically went straight to bed.

Friday, July 28

The next morning, we did a game drive before breakfast. We saw all the animals we had seen the day before except the hippo; we also saw warthogs, African buffalo, and a waterbuck. We added Helmeted Guineafowl to our list of bird species we had seen. At one point we were watching a giraffe, and something spooked it and it took off. It was lovely to see it running – you don’t get to see that in a zoo!

We came back and had breakfast and then walked around the compound for a while with Hazel, Paul, Elan, and Rhona. At one point there was an electric fence with a gap in it and we went through the gap. We hadn’t gotten very far when one of the employees came and told us we weren’t supposed to be there. Turns out the gap in the fence was actually a gate, which was open because some workers had left it open, not because it was OK for us to go through. We hung out, had lunch, and hung out some more.

At 3:30, we went on our afternoon game drive. We added hyenas, baboons, and bushbucks to our list of mammals, and an African Fish-Eagle, Pelicans, African Jacanas, Black-winged stilts, Flamingos, African Spoonbills, Hammerkops, Glossy Ibises, Black-crowned Night-Herons, Grey Herons, Sanderlings, and Swallows to our list of birds. Some high points from this excursion: A momma baboon walking with a baby clinging to her belly and then switching to riding on her back as she walked. A hyena family with three adults and 6 cubs just hanging out. A hippo munching on greens in a swamp within about 5 feet of our van. Seeing birds mobbing the African Fish-Eagle, which was on the ground. Visiting a viewpoint that allowed us to see for miles in all directions. Sunset with the sun dipping below the clouds before dipping below the horizon. Seeing the top of Mount Kilimanjaro poking above the clouds. We came back, ate dinner, hung out for an hour and went to bed. That morning Jackie had had a tickle in the back of her throat, which she attributed to all the dust she had breathed in on the game drive the previous night, but just before bed, her nose was running like crazy, so it was starting to feel like more than that.

Saturday, July 29

Jackie woke up and went to take a shower and was having severe problems with dizziness. She was OK if she was sitting, or even walking, though. She wasn’t the only one who was sick, although everyone else seemed to have food poisoning, which Jackie did not have. We had breakfast, and drove to an airstrip, where we got on a 37-seat prop plane for Masai Mara. The ride was actually pretty smooth, and not as loud as one might expect. We disembarked the plane and boarded game vans for the drive to Masai Mara. We added Topi to our list of animals, Maribu Stork to our list of birds, and a sausage tree to our plant list (what plant list?)

When we arrived, we gathered in the bar area waiting for our room assignments. Jackie was grateful for the extensive cushioned bench seating, because her body wanted to be horizontal. There was lunch available but as soon as our room opened up, Jackie went directly to it and crawled into bed. There was a game drive that afternoon, and she skipped it. Around 4 pm, housekeeping came to her room, and asked how she was. When the housekeeper learned she was sick, he said there was a clinic at the lodge. Jackie’s response was that she wasn’t well enough to go to the clinic. So the housekeeper offered to send a doctor to her room, which Jackie accepted. The doctor diagnosed her with the flu and gave her a three-day course of antibiotics.

Marc returned from the game drive and Jackie asked him to bring her some yogurt. He started feeling ill himself, and went to the clinic. The doctor gave him some pills, which seemed to help. We went to sleep, hoping that this would pass quickly.

Sunday, July 30

Jackie took a shower in the morning and found both the water temperature and the water pressure to be sorely lacking. The morning plan was a game drive and then breakfast. Reid skipped this game drive because the bumpy game drives were hard on his bruised tailbone, and he wanted to be up for the visit to the Masai village in the afternoon. Marc and Jackie both felt well enough to go. We first took some pretty awesome sunrise pictures. We added a hartebeest to our animal list and a Secretary Bird to our bird list. Then we came across a lioness eating breakfast – maybe a wildebeest, hard to tell – with two jackals waiting in the background for her to finish so they could grab some lunch. That was pretty cool. Scott, one of the guys in our van, was feeling ill and noticed that the extra van was nearby. So he took that van back to the lodge, and the rest of us kept going. Our driver heard that there was a leopard and we drove to where it was, but it was in the trees and we couldn’t get close enough to see it. Some of the other vans reported that it had walked between the vans, and they had gotten great shots. Turns out Scott made a good choice by heading back when he did, because we didn’t see anything else new after that, and we came back really late. We heard that Brian was kind of mad about that because they had to hold breakfast for us. Jackie just had a little yogurt and some bread for breakfast and both of us just slept until the time to go to the Masai village.

At the Masai village, we were greeted by just outside the village about a two dozen Masai, male and female, who did a performance for us. First chanting, which both the men and women did, and then the men jumped (straight up). Jackie didn’t feel too bad, but standing was problem. Fortunately, there was a bench nearby. Unfortunately, the bench did not give her much view of the performance. Afterwards we went into the village. We were told that, in the past, in order to get a wife, a man had to kill a lion. The man who told us that said that his father had killed 15 lions and had 15 wives. But now the Masai don’t hunt anymore. Now men prove their worth by jumping. He said that much of their income is from tourists like us. We were able to go inside a Masai hut and see what it looks like. The huts are built using sticks for a frame and then using dung and mud to seal the walls. Half of the hut (which was maybe 10x10) was a main room, and the other half was divided into a cooking room and a sleeping room. After this, we had a chance to visit the tourist trap items the village had for sale. Jackie had had enough of standing, and skipped this and went back to her bench. The good thing about doing that was that she got to see the goatherd return with the goats. This was especially cute, because apparently, they only take the adult goats out, so when all the mamma goats came back there were a lot of excited baby goats. It was pretty humorous to watch them try to nurse as their mommies kept walking.

After the Masai village, we went on a game run, and we saw a rhino (probably a black rhino), a Lappet-faced Vulture, and a cheetah. The cheetah walked right between the vans that were on the road to a termite mound where it was sat for a while watching the nearby wildebeests. And we all sat watching the cheetah. After the cheetah, we saw a trio of Lappet-faced Vultures – an adult and two juveniles feeding on a carcass. (not to mention the ostriches, giraffes, hartebeest, etc.) We finished the day with another great sunset picture.

Dinner looked great, but all Jackie could manage was some soup, to which she added rice, and a little bread. She tasted a bite of the whole tilapia that Hazel ate and it was delicious. But nothing looked appealing, and with all the gastro-intestinal problems that everyone was having, caution seemed to be the prudent course of action. The “nothing looked appealing” was a clear sign that she was still sick, because food always looks appealing when she’s healthy! It was too bad, because we were told that this lodge had the best food so far, and Jackie basically didn’t get to try any of it. After dinner, we went back to the room, repacked for the next day, and went to sleep. Jackie’s caution turned out to be a good thing, because she woke up after a couple of hours with stomach cramps. A trip to the bathroom didn’t help, but sleeping on her stomach did, and she was able to get back to sleep without too much difficulty.

Monday, July 31

Monday was a travel day to Masai Mara. Jackie was pleased to find that her dizziness seemed to be gone, although her appetite had not yet come back. She had yogurt and bread again for breakfast, despite a plethora of yummy goodies that were offered. We piled into the vans and set off for Lake Nakuru. On the way, Jackie spotted a Pied Crow. It only took us four hours to get there (we had expected five) which was nice, except that it meant that lunch wasn’t ready when we arrived. Jackie was feeling better, but Marc was worse, and spent the entire ride lying down across the back seat. Well, the entire ride on the well-paved road, anyway. When we got to the road where the driver spent a great deal of time dodging potholes, he sat up.

We arrived and went to the sitting area to await our room assignments and for lunch to be ready. To the left of the sitting area was a tree with dozens, maybe hundreds, of Weaver bird nests, and dozens of Masked Weaver birds making more. There was also a bougainvillea bush that a bunch of swallowtail butterflies were enjoying. Nearby, Jackie spotted a Superb Starling and an African Drongo, both of which she had seen before, but not at a lodge. For lunch, Jackie stayed on her soup with rice and bread diet, since that seemed to be working, and still nothing was appealing.

After lunch, we got our rooms and walked past several baboon families on the way to the room. Jackie wondered whether having baboons on the grounds sometimes results in adverse interactions with tourists trying to get too close. The rooms had been getting gradually less and less plush with each stay, and Masai Mara was definitely a low point. There were no blow dryers in the rooms, although Jackie was able to go to the front desk and check one out. There was no Kleenex either. There was only one power outlet. And the beds were hard as can be. Despite the low bed quality, during the down time before the afternoon game drive, Marc slept. Jackie felt well enough to sit outside and journal – that is until the wind picked up and she felt too windblown.

The goal of the afternoon was flamingos. Brian rode in our car on this drive, which made us happy, because he is a wealth of information. At the very beginning we saw Helmeted Guineafowl that were so close to the van that we could almost reach out and touch them. We went down to the lake and Jackie was in birder heaven. In addition to both Lesser and Greater Flamingos, and a ton of Great White Pelicans, we saw Sacred Ibises, Marabou Storks, Grey Herons, a Purple Heron, Black-winged Stilts, White Storks, Grey-Crowned Cranes, Great Cormorants, Long-tailed Cormorants, Egyptian Geese, Gray-Headed Gulls, African Jacana, Blacksmith Plovers, and an Eagle of undetermined type. Then we moved on and found three rhinos (two adults and a juvenile), waterbuck, and impala. We moved on again and found a male lion sleeping beneath a tree. We watched it sleep for a long time and our patience was rewarded when a second male lion came out of the brush and walked up to the sleeping lion. The two lions greeted each other, and then laid down together, rolling back and forth several times in the process. Best of all, Jackie videoed the whole thing! “What could be better than that?” we all thought. When we finally moved on, we came to a spot where there were a bunch of vans obviously looking at something. As cars left, we inched forward. The “something” turned out to be a lioness in a tree, maybe 10 feet from the road. Jackie was shooting pictures without zoom. Brian said that seeing a lion that close was pretty amazing; you can go years without getting that close. As we left, it started to rain, which helped hold the dust level down to a dull roar. We came back, and for the first time in a long time, neither of us felt the need to sleep before dinner. Jackie was adventurous at dinner; in addition to the soup and rice, she ate four bites of honey baked ham. It was delicious, and some Tums took care of the repercussions. There was entertainment, but we decided to turn in early instead.

Tuesday, August 1

In the morning, Jackie forgave the poor beds, because the shower was wonderful. Great water pressure and water as hot as you want. It was a welcome improvement over the previous place. We did a game drive before breakfast. We drove and we drove and we drove, and finally we saw a giraffe – we think a Rothchild giraffe, but we couldn’t be sure. Then we drove and drove some more, and just about when Jackie was thinking that maybe this drive would be a bust, we came upon a pride of lions – Five adults, a couple of yearlings and two cubs – in the road and on the side of the road. The mom of the cubs wore a radio collar. They were ambling along, and the cubs were really adorable. We were one of the first vans to see them, and we got great shots and great video. They were so close, Jackie was shooting without zoom. As more and more vans showed up, the lions bedded down, and we moved on to let the other cars have their photo ops. Next find was a Tawny Eagle in a tree and then we saw an African Hawk Eagle on the ground. Jackie got a video of it when it took off. Jackie took a picture of a cape buffalo that looked really pissed off. We found a huge tribe of baboons in the road – maybe over 50 – Jackie counted 30 in a picture she took, and there were a bunch that weren’t in the picture. We came across another Rothchild giraffe – this time we could see the white legs – that was munching on the tops of the trees. And last, but not least, there were white rhinos, two adults and a baby, on either side of the road. The single adult crossed the road to the side with the adult and the baby right behind our van. Again, Jackie did not need zoom to take great pictures. The other interesting thing that was going on at the same time was that there were warthogs nearby. One of them was on its knees eating and walking forward on its knees while it ate. Jackie took a video of that. We went back past the lake, and Jackie spotted an African Spoonbill.

Jackie ate eggs and bacon for breakfast for the first time in four days. And her stomach did not hurt after putting food in it – hurray! We think the antibiotic killed her normal stomach biome, and that’s what caused her food aversion and cramps after eating – because she never did develop any other gastro-intestinal symptoms.

On the walk back to the room after breakfast, we took pictures of a trio of Hadada Ibises in a tree near the lodge, a black and white butterfly with blue half circles on its wings, and some sort of lizard with a short tail. Nice! We sat on the back porch for a while, and then took a walk around the complex. We added a Green Wood Hoopoe and a Scarlet-chested Sunbird to our list of birds. There were also Lesser Striped Swallows nesting under the eaves of the lodge. At lunch, Jackie was enjoying watching them fly in and out of their nests. After lunch, we just hung out around the pool until the afternoon game drive. Hazel and Paul both looked up the weather report on their phones. Paul’s phone (an iPhone) said 30% chance of rain while Hazel’s (an android) reported that there was an 80% chance of rain. So, they had a friendly bet going.

Just before we went out on the afternoon game drive, Jackie discovered rock hyraxes on the upper lawn. To her amazement, nobody else seemed interested. We went out and passed the lion tribe we had seen earlier. Our driver was driving much faster than in the past, which turned out to be because he had heard a report of a leopard. But alas, we were too late, and it had left the tree it was in and disappeared into the brush by the time we got there. We headed off to look for more stuff, and it started to rain. For a while we left the roof up, but when the rain got heavy we had to put it down. We gave up on finding more animals and he took us to a waterfall. The rain had died to a light sprinkle by the time we got there, which was good, because it was much better seen by getting out of the van. Driving back, we went over a bridge, and on one of the bridge posts there was a hammerkop. We had seen this bird before, but this one was really close to the van. We drove past the lion pride (yet again) and they didn’t seem to care about the rain. Our driver said that they probably had a kill nearby, which is why they hung out in the same spot all day. We then saw several Rothchild giraffes. We continued on and came to a vehicle sideways, completely blocking the road. We waited and it eventually moved on. When it moved and we could see what lay beyond it, we discovered a male lion seated *right* beside the road. We think that the car had been blocking the road so that other cars would not scare the lion. We took some great pictures and then as other cars came up, the lion got up and left. So we think the first car was somewhat justified in blocking the road.

Back at the lodge, we went to the room, past the tree with the weaver bird nests, and there was one bird that was at eye level on a branch, fluttering its wings, and calling. Jackie wondered if it was defending a nest from us. We watched it for a while and took a video. We saw a worker chase some baboons out of the lodge complex. He said there was a lion out there, and the baboons were very anxious. As soon as the worker went away the baboons came back and soon there were lots of baboons on the rooftops of the rooms. Those baboons know they are safe in the complex! After dinner, we again skipped the entertainment, packed for the next day’s journey, and went to sleep.

Wednesday, August 2

We said good-bye to Lake Nakuro and set off for Sweetwater. Near the beginning of our vacation, Reid had said something about seeing a camel. He had meant giraffe. And ever since then we had been teasing him about seeing camels. But then, on the drive, we saw a camel. It was probably domesticated – we were on the edge of a town, but still, after all we had teased Reid, it cracked us up to actually see a camel.

We drove through a really pretty part of Kenya – it was green hills and valley and just gorgeous. We stopped at Thompson’s waterfall for a technical break and photo opportunity. As we got close to Sweetwater, the landscape changed again, getting much drier, and looking like the savana from before. Sweetwater is a private reserve – it was originally a British hunting lodge, and both the lodge and the rooms are REALLY nice. The rooms are technically tents, but despite having soft-sided walls, the room did not feel like it was lacking in quality.

From our front porch, we could see giraffe, cape buffalo, rhinoceros, warthogs, bushbuck, waterbuck, Thompson’s gazelle, Grant’s gazelle, and impala. Amazing! We walked around the complex and took pictures of the bushbuck on the premises, and the camels (more camels!) on the other side of the fence. These camels were probably also domesticated, because the place offered camel rides. Birds included Yellow-billed Storks, Sacred Ibises, Superb Starlings, Egyptian Geese, Swifts, Swallows, and a new bird, the Northern Crowned Shrike. The first thing we saw on our afternoon game drive was a reticulated giraffe, so now we had seen all three varieties of giraffe. We then visited the Ol Pejeta chimpanzee sanctuary, which rehabilitates rescued chimpanzees. After we left there, we saw lots of animals, but didn’t see any new animals. We went to a rhino sanctuary, where we met Baraka. Baraka is a blind black rhino who is very tame. We were allowed to pet him and feed him. There was also a room with lots of animal skulls, bones, and fur, which you were encouraged to touch. That was very neat. Jackie was the last to leave. Back at the lodge, we spotted a Lilac-breasted Roller, the national bird of Kenya. We had dinner, repacked for the next day’s travels, and went to bed. A housekeeper came by with hot water bottles for the beds. That was nice, because this was the coldest night so far.

Thursday, August 3

We bid a reluctant good-bye to the Sweetwater Lodge and set off for the equator (a ten-minute drive). There is a place where there is a narrow concrete bar marking the equator and a sign, so we spent about an hour taking pictures standing on both sides of the equator. Then Brian told us the story of his involvement with the Sweetwater school and we set off. When we arrived at the school, there were kids dancing and singing at the entrance to welcome us as we drove into the complex. All the kids came out and welcomed us, first by raising the flag of Kenya on the flagpole and playing on instruments similar to recorders, then with songs and dances. When the welcome was done, the kids went to their classrooms and our group distributed the items they had brought for the kids. The stuff we had brought in the two bags was brought to the office for the teachers to use and hand out. Marc and I went to some of the classrooms, and in one of them the kids were singing a song about using the words please and thank you. It was cute. The school now has an enrollment of 675, which seemed to be a surprise to Brian who had said it was about 500. Jackie pulled the deputy headmaster aside and asked about the older girls missing school once they get their periods. The deputy headmaster said that they get supplies from the government once a year, but it’s not enough. She showed me some of the supplies she has to hand out.

After leaving the school, we drove for an hour or so and took a break at a place that had ice cream bars – yum! It also had some quilted placemats that Jackie liked, but didn’t buy. Then on to Simba Lodge in Samburu.

On the road between the highway and the lodge, we stopped to look at an oryx. Jackie spotted a Hornbill near the gate, but we didn’t stop for that. There was also a vervet monkey near the lodge. We found the Simba Lodge rooms to be much like the Masai Mara rooms – rustic. And again, Jackie had to check out a blow drier from the front desk. They turned off the power between 3pm and 6:30 in the afternoon. At Masai Mara, they had turned it off during the night. Samburu wasn’t as pretty as Masai Mara.

On our game drive, we saw lots of reticulated giraffes, several oryxes, a couple of lions, and a jackel. New animals included a Grevy’s zebra, some dik-diks, and a squirrel (is there more than one type of squirrel in Africa?) We saw more Red-billed Hornbills and a Little Bee-eater. There was also a tree filled with birds that our guide identified as swallows. The sunset was very nice.

After dinner we sat around talking for a really long time. Kaitlyn, the 21-year old daughter of one of the Mormon families joined us and we had fun hearing about her Mission and telling her about ourselves. She’s really nice.

Friday, August 4

We got to sleep in – we set our alarm for 6:15 instead of the 5:45 we had used up until now. We were warned that the drive would be very bumpy – no paved roads. We basically did game drive all the way to the Serova Shabu lodge. We saw lots of giraffes and impala, some baboons, a few more dik-diks, a couple of elephants, and a couple of ostriches. A high point was a cheetah mom and four cubs. The only new animal was a crocodile. We saw a Kingfisher and some Vulturine Guineafowl. We arrived at the lodge and had lunch. No game drive was planned for the afternoon that day, but we heard that one of the other vans convinced their driver to take them out and they say an male and a female ostrich with 4 chicks. The adults were protecting the chicks from a hawk that was try to eat the chicks. We walked around the complex. We spotted a crocodile in the river that runs besides the complex (well, we spotted it after the guard showed us where to find it.) We also saw a Goliath Stork and some yellow-billed storks in the river. There were a lot of vervet monkeys on the grounds. We sat on a bridge over a stream and put our feet in the water and let the fish nibble on our feet. That was a riot. These were big fish, and if they nibbled on a sensitive part of your foot, it could hurt. Jackie just put her heels in the water, because when they nibbled on her heels, it didn’t hurt.

After we were done walking, we sat outside around a table and drank water or tea and talked. At one point a monkey ran up and jumped on the table. There was a small bowl with a couple of sugar and a couple of sweet & low packets, and he grabbed them and dashed off. It was quite the surprise. Our group broke up, and everyone went back to our rooms. After a bit, Marc and Jackie went back to play a game of pool. A little before 7, they started beating on a fence with sticks. They were telling the crocodiles that if they came to a certain spot, they would get fed. After about an hour, a couple of crocodiles did come to the spot, but the employees didn’t feed them. Then we went and had dinner.

Saturday, August 5

In the morning, we set off for Mt. Kenya, our last stop. After a couple of hours, we stopped at a place to buy souvenirs and paid way too much for the stuff we bought. We continued on and stopped at the place where we had bought ice cream. This time Jackie bought the placemats for her mom. We arrived at Mt. Kenya Safari club. Hollywood sensation William Holden together with oil billionaire Ray Ryan and Swiss banker Carl Hirschmann founded the club in the 60s. In 2007, the hotel was acquired by the Fairmont Hotels and Resorts group, which operates it to this day on behalf of Kenyan billionaire Humphrey Kariuki. The rooms were spacious and luxurious. The rooms had fireplaces and signs that had “light a fire when you turn down the room” on one side and “don’t light the fire when you turn down the room”. We left it on the “light a fire” side and had a wood fire burning in the fireplace when we returned to the room. And hot water bottles in the bed. After lunch, Marc, Jackie, and Hazel went to see if we could get a free birding tour while Paul and Elan had a golfing appointment. Our timing was perfect, and we were told a bird guide was available, but only if we left right then, which worked for us perfectly. The guide was amazing and found us two dozen birds we had not seen previously, most of which were not on Jackie’s bird card. He also told us stories about the birds. For example, we saw an Egyptian goose mom with babies, he said that there was a swan pair that had lost their babies to a mongoose, and tried to adopt the Egyptian goslings. He was really amazing at identifying birds. After that, we explored the small church, and then the maze. We followed the signs to the river and met a guard. Hazel struck up a conversation with the guard because he was using a stick to clean his teeth, and she was curious about that. The guard escorted us past the “do not go past this point without a hotel guard” sign, down to an entertainment spot at the river. He also showed us several medicinal plants and pointed out the animals near us. When we came back onto the manicured grounds (we were looking for golden zebras), we were on the golf course. Coincidentally, Paul and Elan happened to be at the hole that was closest to us. We watched them golf for a little bit and found the golden zebras. We wandered some more and then went back to the room to relax until dinner.

Sunday, August 6

We went to the orphanage right after breakfast. They had a caracal, a pair of rock hyraxes, baby waterbuck, Thompson’s gazelles, llamas, baby bongos, a baby eland, an ostrich, a genet (a what?), a 150-year old tortoise, an owl, a leopard, a couple of two-year old lionesses, some Syke’s monkeys, some palas monkeys, two bush pigs, three cheetahs, and a hedgehog mom and her babies – also a couple of hours kass. The leopard was high in an acacia tree and hard to find, but the lionesses came right up to the fence. We were encouraged to feed several of the ruminants and the ostrich. Some of the Sykes monkeys were outside their cage, and we were given some food to feed them too. Jackie was told to stand with her back to the cage and her arm with the food outstretched. She was also told to remove her glasses, because the moneys will snatch glasses right off someone’s face, and it is tough to get them back. She followed the instructions, and the monkey, instead of taking the food, grabbed the animal foldout that she had only partially put back into her travel pouch. The monkey then went onto the roof of the cage and tried to determine if the foldout was tasty. The guide tried to use food to entice the monkey to drop the pamphlet, but the monkey wasn’t interested. So he got some better food, which turned out to be bananas. First the monkey ignored the banana; then it took the banana and did not drop the pamphlet. Finally, the monkey got more interested in the food and dropped the foldout – on top of the cage. Our guide climbed up the cage and retrieved the pamphlet. It had a few teeth marks, but was mostly undamaged. Jackie tucked it firmly away, and then we went back to the business of feeding the monkeys. We also got to hold the hedgehog mom and one of her babies. They’re pretty cute. We had lunch and set off for the airport.

After a couple of hours, we stopped at another souvenir shop. Marc and Jackie tried to negotiate for a giraffe, but they wouldn’t bring the price down to something they were will willing to pay. The flights home were uneventful – lots of waiting in airports, lots of security gates, and lots of walking between gates, but uneventful. While we were waiting in the Kenya airport, we picked up a few more souvenirs. Unlike LAX, some of the Kenya airport shops actually had better prices than the souvenir shops.