Kenya Dig It?!?!?!

As usual, my travels can best be summarized through pictures. Please enjoy the montage made by Alison! Below the video you can read my commentary :-)


Well, once I again, I have pushed this blog off my to-do list week after week, month after month. I guess it's time to post about my time in Africa. In no way is my neglect of updating this blog correlated to the amazing, wonderful experience I had visiting Kenya. It was a short trip, but every moment of it was an experience I will never forget.

Alison, Akiko and I landed in Nairobi, Kenya and were greeted at the airport by our guide, Steve. He would be with us the entire trip as a driver, guide, safari director, animal specialist, interpreter, and friend. He took us straight from the airport to our first stop, a restaurant called Carnivore. This place was right up my alley. Open pit fire, cooking huge skewers of meat. As you sit and eat, the waiters just come around with all different types of meat and carve it onto your plate. It was delicious.

Next we hit the road.. the long.. bumpy.. dark... road, to our first stop at Lake Naivasha. Here we stayed in an adorable little hotel room that was like a lodge. We had a small porch off the back of our room where there were wild Water Bucks grazing. In the morning we did a lake safari, and saw some awesome animals. Those pictures are all embedded in the video above.

After leaving Lake Naivasha we headed to Masai Mara. Here we did the traditional safaris and saw so many animals. It was amazing how Steve and the other safari guides communicated via CB radio to help each other find animals, so every tourist would be able to get the full experience.  We also visited a village of the Masai tribe, which was truly an eye-opening experience. The tribe lives in small huts and has no modern technologies. They still make fire by rubbing wood together, and survive on only what they can do by hand.



Most of the pictures from the trip are in the video above (made by Alison), but here are a few pictures that I like the most.

 

 I love this picture of the lone giraffe and the lone tree I took. I am not much of a photographer, but this one turned out nicely.

Also, in my travels, I have become fascinated by the worldwide domination of Coca-Cola products. This bottle commemorates the 50th National Day for Kenya.

As always, anywhere I travel, I am less fascinated by animals, scenery and architecture, and more fascinated by the people and culture. Everywhere in Kenya, people are walking. In the city, the streets are busy with cars, and busier with people. Most Kenyans do not have cars and walk to work, the store, anywhere and everywhere. Most places we saw, even in Nairobi, do not have sidewalks. We were there during some rainy days, therefore the people were walking through mud on the sides of the road.

Many businesses and homes in the urban areas near Nairobi looked like this.

In the rural areas, there would be people walking out in the middle of nowhere. It stunned me how children as young as 4 or 5 would be walking miles and miles to fetch water. It also stunned me that they could find their way back home on their own considering there were no streets, homes, or landmarks, sometimes not even a tree to guide the way! Here is a picture I took of some youngsters outside their village. If I go back to Kenya, I am definitely going to bring some toys to give some of these babies. They were so sweet and so excited to wave to us as we drove by!

 

 

Here are a couple more pictures of our visit to the Masai Village. These men got ups! Give this boy a scholarship!

 

Making fire...

 

Once again, my travels have been eye-opening and humbling. My trip to Kenya was amazing, and once again left me with a heart of gratitude and appreciation for the life and opportunities God has provided me.