WE ARE BACK

I am not sure I am going to do our experience any sort of justice by trying to describe the past 4 days while we were on Safari.

Safari in Swahili means a journey, and journey it was!!!!

As we landed in our double engine prop plan on nothing more than a strip of red dirt, we immediately saw animals. There were giraffe grazing on the tops of trees, zebra eating on a small patch of grass and wildebeest looking at us like we were crazy. Joesph (our guide) loaded our stuff in an amazing Land Cruiser, that both Jerram and Darren marveled over for the entire trip, and we were off. He took us first to the Mara River were we saw about 20 -25 hippos basking in the sun, they looked very peaceful-until Joesph mentioned they are probably the most dangerous land mammal in the Mara. As we pulled up to camp we were greeted by Masai Warriors who were dressed in there traditional beaded, bright red attire. They grabbed our bags as we were steered to the right and handed a cool towel to wash our hands and face and a cool glass of pineapple juice, we were then greeted by Jarrod the manger of the camp and he went over the do's and don'ts of the camp. (only rule we really needed was do not leave your tent at night with out a armed Masai Warrior) Trust me I paid extra attention to that one. We then went to our tent, which was amazing, it was beautiful. It had a queen bed and two twin beds, two areas to hang and store clothes, a cute tik-wood bathroom, all of the windows had been rolled up so we could see the trees and flowers (and skinks), and a welcome note from the staff greeting us again. The staff was very friendly and personable-I know I am probably sounding like a commercial for Kicheche Camp-but they were all really nice. After we settled in the lunch drum sounded and we went down to our first meal there-which to US standards all of the food at Kicheche would be considered 5 star!!! WE were then off to our first afternoon game drive, we saw giraffe, wildebeests, zebra, different birds and then we saw two leopards. Both cats were asleep at first, but we waited and waited and waited and they finally woke up and we were able to take some great footage along with Darren's amazing pictures. We then set off to film the sunset and have our sundown snack. I have never seen a sunset that fast-the sun went from seeing a beautiful pink ball in the sky to 3 minutes later completely gone. Then Joseph took us back to camp-we cleaned up and prepared for dinner.

The first nights sleep was a little rough for all of us, you have to realize we were sleeping in tents (made out of thick plastic) in the brush of the Mara Valley-nothing protecting us between the animals and elements. We all agreed we had never been anywhere that dark either. I could not even see my own hand in front of my face. It was a little cold but one of the nice perks the camp provides is they put hot water bottles in your bed for heat-NICE!!!

Our second day was very exciting as well, we saw all of the animals that we saw the first day but we also saw rhinos and lions. LIONS 10 to 15 feet away from our jeep-LIONS!!!! The guys thought it was great I was freaking out on the inside-Joseph assured me we were safe, I'm not sure I believed him. We were able to go out on 6 game drives, each one exciting and different from the last. WE saw sleeping animals, lions eating (bone crushing an antelope) a herd of elephants (with 2 small babies) vultures, baboons (eating a gazelle-which we did not realize baboons were carnivores) ostriches, the only thing we did not see was a cheetah. Joseph said cheetah are very rare and hard to see, because they are so fast and they hide well.

Darren and Jerram got some amazing footage and photographs which I am sure some of which will be posted soon.

Another part of the camp that I really enjoyed was meeting all of the interesting people from all over. We befriended two couples one of which who was from Scotland who was doing work in Kabira(which is the largest slum in Nairobi, Mathare is the second largest) kind of like what we are doing here at MITS, and the second couple was from London and they were on their honeymoon.

We were sad that our mini vacation had to end but we were also eager to get back to the farm to see how things were panning out with the 9 new boys. Mbuvi picked us up with the good news that all 9 arrived at the farm on Wednesday. The girls welcomed us back with hugs and smiles. It was good to be back!