So, it has been a childhood dream of mine to go on safari. I have always been an animal lover. My favorite movie is Lion King. I think Land Rovers are very cool. So, when time came this past weekend to make that dream a reality, I was pretty excited to say the least.
On Friday we loaded up the "mini bus" also known as a mutatu with nine other people from the guesthouse. It was truly a blessing to be able to go with this group of people. It has been amazing to see how quickly we have been able to bond with them, and we consider them great friends. Our time at Tenwek would be a very different place if they were not here. Each one of them seem to be at a transition in life similar to us, whether it be going into residency, finishing residency, or graduating from graduate programs, we all are very excited to be here, but also have big things right around the corner when we return home.
So Josh and I and our nine new friends headed down the bumpy road, amazed by how many herds of cows that we had to wait for to get out of our way, on our way to Masai Mara. About 2.5 hrs into our 3 hr drive the other van travelling with us pulled over, not because they had hit a cow, but because their tire was no longer attatched to their vehicle. So, after the tire being secured by a rope (!?) we continued on our way 30 minutes later to the reserve.
We had been told that we would be sleeping in tents at the resort. Well, these are 5 star tents. We were very pleased with our accommodations in the little oasis in the middle of no where. Yes, it was a tent, but it also had all the amenities of a hotel room. We were woken up each morning with a man saying Jambo outside our tent with our fresh personal pot of coffee. That is, he woke us up if the hippos, which were in the river below our tent didn't wake us up first (they like to migrate in around 4 am).
In total we went on 4 safaris. They were great. We drove around for 2 or 3 hrs at a time and were on the hunt for the "big 5." We saw lots of animals but the big 5 that we were looking for (the ones most dangerous to man) were the lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, and cape buffallo. We saw all but the leopard (but we saw a cheetah instead, so that counts in my book) and got lots of great pictures (thanks mom for letting us use your mega zoom camera, it worked great!). My personal goal was to see all the animals that were in the movie The Lion King, I saw them all except Timon (the Meerkat), they only have mongeese (mongooses?) in the Mara.
After Josh getting out and pushing the mutatu a couple of times through some muddy roads on Sunday, we finally made it back safe and sound. We were very tired, but ever so grateful for this amazing experience.
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