The Big Five

*Disclaimer: some of these pictures are mine and some are my moms. We share :)

In the morning, we were picked up by our Safari guide, Moses. We began weaving through Nairobi bumper car traffic. Things smoothed out a bit as we drove on a road created and maintained by the Chinese. We passed an old church made by Italian prisoners of war. We rounded a corner, and there before us, a green Grand Canyon, a deep ongoing chasm, The Great Rift Valley.


I became small and insignificant looking at that valley that stretched forever before me.

Then the good roads disappeared.

For three hours we dodged potholes, weaved around muddy banks, and drove off-road to avoid the terrible pavement, our teeth chattering and heads pounding the whole way.

Getting out of the van at the hotel was like coming out of a concert: I couldn’t hear all that well and I had some slight back pain going on.

A beautiful lady at our beautiful hotel (that's my mom!):

We put our stuff down, ate lunch, then got back into the van for our first game drive. We saw three of the big five that day, as well as some others: elephants, buffalo, and lions, all within a few feet of the van.




We also drove along the border of Kenya and Tanzania. The rock is the border.

That's Tanzania in the background. I know, doesn't look much different than Kenya...





That night we got to see a hyena feeding. Two men carried a big bucket of bones out to the yard, the hyenas pacing silently through the trees. The bones were dumped at 10:00pm. By 10:02pm, the bones were gone and the hyenas laughed loudly in the forest, enjoying their feast.

That night it rained. Thunder and lightning rolled across the savanna.