"People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle." -thich nhat hahn
This week we went on our safari; what a neat experience!! Going on a safari is one of those things you always hope you can do one day, but you never think you’ll be lucky enough to go so soon! There were 9 of us all together: Nat, Graham, Heather, Brock, Amanda, Charis, Corinne, Linsday and Amanda. Brock grew up living in Canada and Zambia, his parents work for an NGO. Most recently, he graduated from TWU, and he’ll be getting his Masters here in Africa. He works for Village of Hope, where Graham was originally placed in Kisumu. Charis is Cherie’s daughter, and Linsday is her friend from home. Amanda has been around for days (she came with us on the Kibera clean-up Saturday) and she’s from Vancouver. She has been at school in South America this year, along with Corrine, who happens to be from SFU. So that was our group.
We left Nairobi early Monday morning. The trip started out like any road trip: plenty of snacks, laughs, and fun car games (“I’m going to the Masai Mara and I’m bringing an...”). Peter, our driver, stopped for us at the Rift Valley lookout, where we could see for miles over the valley. Heather put her bartering skills to good use at the roadside souvenir stand. The man wanted 2000 shillings for the 3 greeting cards I wanted...
Heather: I’ll give you 50 shillings.
Store Owner: No, no, 2000 for all three.
Heather: Well, no. I mean, they’re just paper....(walks away)
Store owner: Okay okay...200 shilling for all three
Delaney: Sold!
Then we were on the road again, racing down pothole-covered dirt roads towards the Masai Mara game reserve. A few MintChoc stops later, we were cruising through the park gates. Peter had to get out of the car to pay for our entrance fees, and the van was swarmed by 6 Masai women in their red tribal outfits with beaded jewellery all over their bodies. They kept tapping on the windows trying to sell all sorts of beaded things, and wouldn’t leave the van until Peter came back and drove away. Another hour or so and we were at the resort.
It was AMAZING. We pulled up and were offered lemongrass scented cool towels to freshen ourselves with the second we were off the bus. A walk across a wooden bridge and we were in the wide open lobby being offered fresh passion fruit juice. A huge signed picture and letter from Richard Branson was hanging on the wall, apparently we stayed at the same resort as he stays in when he’s in the mood for a safari.
Once we checked in, we headed for our “rooms”, which were big canvas tents. They had three beds, hard wood floors, and a full bathroom with the best, hottest showers. As an energy saving practice, the hotel turns off power between 4-6pm and 12-4am, which is neat. Even more awesome is that every evening they come and put a super long-lasting hot water bottle in your bed, so no matter when you go to sleep, your bed is roasty-toasty to climb into.
Once we got settled into the hotel, we went for our first safari expedition. As it turns out, old Peter isn’t a safari guide, he’s just a driver, so while we saw a bunch of awesome things, we didn’t really learn anything. Charis and Brock were able to tell us a lot more than Peter could. The first day, we saw lions, zebras, and warthogs, which are the cutest animals in the world; their tails stand straight up and they waddle so funnily.
Then we headed back to the hotel for food. The hotel food was AMAZING. They had full buffets for each meal, complete with Indian, African and Western food. You could charge any pop or booze to your room, which was wicked since it meant not worrying about carrying cash around. After dinner that night, we sat together outside talking and playing silly games like “Would you rather...”. We were all in bed asleep by midnight.
The next morning we were out the door by 6:30am, just in time to see the sun rising. It was so beautiful! We drove through herds with hundreds of wildebeests, which migrate this time of year. Then we saw about 5 lions eating one of the wildebeests, it was one of the grossest things I’ve ever seen. Nothing like a carcass at 7am to start off your day!! The smaller lions were all eating, but the older ones were just watching the wildebeests, we were sure they were going to go try to get another one, but we waited around for some time, and eventually decided to try our luck elsewhere.
The most horrifying thing we saw were a pack of vultures picking at a dead diseased wildebeest. Vultures only go in through the orifices, so you can imagine how repulsive that was to watch. Most of our group thought it was like a car accident, you don’t want to look but you can’t stop. While I had no problem looking at the lions just chowing down on their wildebeest, the vultures were too gross for words. I actually couldn’t bear watching.
We headed back to the hotel for breakfast, and then decided to head right back out in hopes of seeing some more really awesome animals. We ended up at this little stream where Peter let us get out to stretch our legs. The river was filled with hippos! All you could see were the tops of their heads and their nostrils sticking out of the water, but when they lifted out of the water at all, you could see that they were HUGE! We ran into another van of people, and their driver told Peter where to find an entire herd of elephants! We raced over and it was AMAZING... probably over 10 elephants all around us! Apparently elephants give off three signs when they are angry and could attack (flat ears, shaking their head, and stomping the ground) and when we got really close the big elephant did all three at once, so we had to do an emergency reverse, but then we just kept our distance and spent several minutes just watching and taking TONS of pictures. Next we went driving off in search of giraffes. We finally found two together, one standing in a little stream, the other eating leaves off a tree. They were so tall!!!
It was so neat driving around. In some spots there was tons of hills and lush green bushes and trees. In other areas the land was flat as far as the eye could see, and the grass was so long and tall. In the places like that, it was hard not to feel a little vulnerable. You were out in the middle of nowhere without anyone else in sight, it was such an overpowering feeling. At one point Peter stopped the van in the middle of a road, and for some reason, we all fell totally silent and the only sound in the world seemed to be the wind rushing through the grass all around us. It was a pretty unreal moment.
The last evening we spent a bit of time in the pool immediately following the safari, and then hid out in our tents during a HUGE storm, which was complete with crashing thunder and lightning. Once it cleared up, we headed over for our last dinner, which was followed by a Masai warrior dance, which was so fun! They have this creepy cool way of chanting, and they are famous for jumping. They can easily just hop over a foot and a half in the air. Naturally, once the show was over we challenged each other to a jumping contest, and it is WAY harder than it looks. We could barely clear 6 inches. After the jumping contest, we sat around the fire and Brock told us super scary African ghost stories that got us all totally spooked before bed.
The next morning we had to be on the road extremely early again, and the drive home took almost 6 hours. We were all so hot and tired and cranky by the time we got home. We had a really laid back night and celebrated Canada Day by making cupcakes. I decorated mine with red icing maple leafs, and brought them to work the next day, which was a total hit. Overall, the safari was an amazing experience. To see such wild animals just free in their natural habitat was an adventure that I will certainly never forget.
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