Kenya - Back to Nairobi Briefly

Woke up Wednesday morning and realized we are starting the last leg of our trip. My how time has just flown by! Took a taxi into town to the stage and hopped our last matatu ride to Nairobi. So glad to be done with those. We checked back into the Kenya Continental hotel (where we spent our first few nights) and went to meet up with Alyssa and Ryan. We went to a mall we had not yet been to and ate at a very americanized restaurant called Artcafe. Then on to frozen yogurt at Planet Yogurt. 

Yum! We hit up a few stores in the mall for a few souvenirs. We lucked out and today they were having a masai market nearby, so we also navigated that. I think i'm getting decently good at bargaining and I ended up with a good amount of things. I still feel as if I have a lot more I need to get. Back to the room to put our stuff away and shower before we went back out for supper. This time we went to a delicious Thai restaurant. Yum! Then out briefly to a local bar where we hung out with a few more Peace Corps volunteers.

Project Life - Week 15 (April 9th - 15th)

Week 15 of Project Life wraps up the end of my Kenya trip. Chris isn't big on taking pictures, so the homefront has no pictures on what was going on this week.

Left Side:

- My collection of tickets for matatu rides for the week

- The sign for the entrance to Top Camp, where we stayed on Lake Naivasha. We had a cabin complete with a kitchen (including a fridge, which Ali doesn't have at home!) and an amazing view overlooking the lake.

- A story about a night at the bar/restuarnt at Lake Naivasha

- Amy with the head lamp on. We had to walk from where the restuarant was lakeside to the very top of the hill where our cabin was in the pitch dark.

- Getting groceries at a roadside stand.

- Amy enjoying some frozen yogurt in Nairobi. So good!

- We took a boat ride out on Lake Naivasha to see the hippos. It was so very much fun.

- The view halfway down the hill from our cabin to the lakeside.

Right Side:
- I really wanted to keep the receipt from our safari company, so I used 3 slots up for it. Love that I was able to keep it.
- Eating Thai with 2 more of Ali's amazing Peace Corps Volunteers - Alyssa and Ryan. The 5 girls pictured here are the 5 that went on Safari together.
- Skipping the next 2 slots filled with receipt
- Weekly recap
- Return airplane ticket stubs
- Visiting a Masai Village near our safari camp. We actually got to go inside tradional mud huts.
- The 5 of us in our safari van - so very much fun!

Thanks once again for stopping by!

Kenya - Lake Naivasha

Ok, I'm also back with some more Kenya!

On Monday, we woke up bright and early to make it down to the stage (bus stop) where were hopped a Matatu (or I should say a series of Matatu's) to take us from Kisumu to Lake Naivasha. It was a long, hot, dusty trip. No air conditioners in any van and on the longest trip we got stuck in the back. Very very dusty in the back. Here we are at the first stage, waiting for our matatu. I reaaallly needed to sit down and eat in this picture. I was starting to get nausious from being too hot on an empty stomach, and I'm not sure if Amy was feeling so much better.

One of the most unpleasant parts about traveling by Matatu is not the tight squeeze into the van, or the lack of air conditioning, but the people trying to sell you stuff at every stage by sticking their products in front of your face in the window. Very annoying, but it can sometimes be to your advantage when you are starving and want watermelon.

Our trip consisted of 1 tuk tuk ride and 3 matatu rides. The first matatu ride was the longest to Nakuru. There was a lot of road construction, so it consisted of a lot of gravel diversion roads. It was very dusty, but very pretty as we rode through the Rift Valley. The second lag was from Nakuru to Naivasha.Our end goal was Top Camp on the southern side of Lake Naivasha. Unfortunetly, once we got there we had to lug our luggage up the top of the hill.

But, once we got to the top we were rewarded with the most beautiful view. And this picture is only half way up (or down) the hill to the lake! Amazing to wake up to this for a couple days!

Our cabin's name was Kitete. It had a fully equiped kitchen, complete with a mini fridge! Ali doesn't have a fridge at her place, so this was a luxery for her. We loaded up on groceries at a roadside stand closeby and Ali made us eggs in a basket (eggs in toast) for breakfast. Mmmm... good. Showers at Top Camp were heated by boiler which was in turn heated by a wood fire. Our water pressure was crap, but at least it was warm running water! We were able to do our laundry in the bathtub during the day.

We spent the morning of our only full day at Lake Naivasha on the lake looking for hippos! And find them we did. We got so very close to the hippos. It even scared our guide because we were so close. Ali was able to negotiate a good price for it (it's important to negotiate for everything in Kenya, and it will ususally work, especially when they speak the language). We spent an hour out on the lake.

See how close we got! This wasn't even zoomed in a whole lot. And to think, Hippos are the most dangerous animal in Kenya. They hurt more humans than any of the big cats you typically think of while on safari.

We spent the afternoon heat either napping or reading. This was my view from the cabin next door which was unoccupied while we were there.

We ate all our big meals at the resturant associated with the 'sister' camp on the lake, Fisherman's. The first night we got there, we quickly ate (we were starving) before heading back up to the cabin. While we were there, the hippos came out of the lake to graze on the lakeside. Fisherman's keeps a electric wire live at night to keep the hippos away from the campgrounds, but still enough room for the guests to enjoy the hippos.

The second night, a group of other people invited us to join their table. Our group slowly grew. 2 girls from Australia with 1 girl from Engalnd, 2 guys from England, 1 guy from Argentina, 1 guy from India, and the owner (who was also originally from England). This means there were 5 continents represented, and we were physically in the 6ht. So cool! They kept buying rounds of shots and we hung out together for quite awhile at night. Ali went with a bunch of them to try to get into Hell's Gate National Park to swim in a geothermal pool. No luck getting in though.

All in all, we had a great time at Lake Naivasha!

Project Life - Week 14 (April 2nd - 8th)

It was been a very busy summer thusfar here. And we still have a lot planned for the remainder. How about for you?
Week 14 brings me to the first full week in Kenya. I took so many pictures this week and next, that it was really hard for me to narrow down what to use. Therefore, I choose once again to do a 2 page spread.

Left Side:
- Feeding giraffes at the Giraffe Centre just outside of Nairobi. So much fun!
- We got caught in a downpour at the Elephant Orphanage. We got absolutely soaked, but it was worth it.
- We had supper at an authentic Ethiopian resturant. Very different that what we are used to here, but still very good.
- Weekly Recap
- Spent a lot of time driving on this trip. For our first and longest journey, we took a 'coach' bus cross country. I got a lot of good reading in on this trip, including; The Hunger Games and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I included my bus ticket over these 2 pockets
- There are markets everywhere in Kenya. Here, we are at the food market in Malaba, just on the boarder to Uganda. The fruit in Kenya is amazing! Nothing like fresh fruit, especially the pineapple the ladies on the side of the road cut up and sold to us for something like 10 shillings (10 cents!)
- At the school where Ali teaches we were treated to more tradional Kenyan food. Maize and Beans the first day and Ugali, Sucuma Wiki, & Nyama the 2nd day. Interesting, but filling.

Right Side:
-Early Morning sunrise walk in Ali's town of Amagoro, Kenya. Surprisingly I was up... my clock was apparantly way off from where it would normally be here - lol, and we were rewarded with a beautiful sunrise. We also learned how much of a draw 3 white girls walking in the country can be. ;)
- The Impala Sanctuary in Kisumu was another amazing adventure. Here is where we pet the cheetahs! I included the admission ticket in this pocket as well.
- The hotel that we stayed in in Kisumu
- A tuk tuk ride with 2 of Ali's amazing fellow peace corps volunteer's out to a resort.
- A night out clubbing in downtown Kisumu - fun no matter what continent you are on!
- Celebrating Amy's birthday in Kenya! I brought little debbie cakes and candles from home for the celebration.
- We visited a resort with a pool called Kiboko (Hippo) Bay for an afternoon. It was nice just to sit poolside overlooking Lake Victoria.
- We also decided to visit a hooka bar on Sunday night for Amy's birthday. We had strawberry and mint flavors. It was a fun first experiance for me.

I used a past SC kit for the papers of this weeks Project Life.
Thanks for stopping by!

To the lake!

These are 2 very happy dogs! We were on our way to the lake and they know it! My windows don't open in my car, but the moonroof does work, so Jake tried to stick his head out THAT instead.

Ready for some fun!