Well its been awhile since I last posted, mainly cause not that much has happened! Caitlin (Cait - a new volunteer, a resident from Wisconsin, not to be confused with Cait the volunteer coordinator, they spell it the same way) arrived on Thursday night with Doug, from Entebbe. Thursday I just worked on assorted projects of mine around the clinic. Friday was more of the same. Friday night we all ended up staying up really late, listening to comedy routines and random stuff from Doug's hard drive and just hanging out.
Saturday, Lisa, Cait, and I went over to Bududa. We stopped first at the Arlington Guesthouse, where I hung out with other Cait while the two of them went to the FIMRC guesthouse so new Cait could meet Ryan, who manages the clinic there now. Since I had already been to the FIMRC clinic and guesthouse and to Kikholo, I figured I could skip the excursion.
Then Lisa and Cait decided to run to the Zaale's, I hadn't brought sneakers so Dr. Cait (this seems better than calling her new Cait all the time!) and I decided to just walk there, about 3 miles. Well this was fine until I started to get a stomach cramp and feel REALLY sick on the way there. We were actually just about at the turnoff in Bunaporo where you turn to get to the Zaale's, so I ended up just taking a boda the rest of the way and then resting for a bit when I got to the house. This was really the first time since I've been here that I felt sick at all, and I'm not really sure why. Weird.
So we had a typical night at the Zaale's, really good food, and they make you stay up way later than you're used to to talk and hang out with them (this means staying up past 10 PM, shocker!) In the morning, we had to talk our way out of the house, since they always try to get you to stay overnight. Then Dr. Cait, Lisa, Lacey, and I went back to Matuwa. Lacey came up with us since on Monday the TOMS distribution would be at Bupoto Primary School, which is much closer to our guesthouse than to the Arlington one in Bududa.
Sunday afternoon, we just vegged out, eating easter candy that Doug had brought back from the US (they have starburst now where you can get just the red flavors, imagine that!), watched a bunch of Lonely Island videos and then watched America's Best Dance Crew until the laptop died (we didn't have power from last Wednesday until yesterday, so one full week). It was raining pretty bad and totally gross out, so we ate a big dinner and just did nothing the rest of the night.
Monday Cait and I went with Lacey to the TOMS distribution at Bupoto Primary. I have pictures but I've already uploaded a bunch of TOMS pics and I'm lazy. It was a good school, quick and decently organized. The only real glitch was that since they are all out of the smaller sizes, we only gave shoes to P4 through P7, so the younger kids were pretty bummed I think.
Tuesday, Cait and I went to Jan's clinic, the one I went to previously with Rachel. A British resident equivalent, Charlie, was there too, so I got to shadow/work with both her and Cait.
Yesterday, Cait and Lisa went to Mbale so Cait could see Mbale Regional, Cure Hospital, and Jan's Hospice, and to do the shopping. I worked on clinic projects, and making materials for my Girls Group curriculum.
I should mention that Monday night and Tuesday night the neighbors were BLASTING music all night! One of their family members had died, and they do this for several days after the death, just to let the whole sub-county know about it and to draw attention to themselves. So we really didn't get much sleep all week. Monday night I took a sleeping pill, and Tuesday night I took some Benadryl to try to sleep, but by last night I was so exhausted from two essentially sleepless nights that I didn't take anything. I'm still tired. They played the music last night, which was mostly drowned out by the rain. It has been raining really hard! I guess the rainy season is finally here. Honestly on days like today and yesterday, it doesn't really affect me, since the clinic is right next door and I could do work in my living room in the guesthouse if I really didn't feel like going anywhere.
I loaned Aidah, our housemom, my Georgetown hoodie last night since she was so cold! It was super adorable how she put the hood up and tied it and then tied her headscarf on over it (I took a picture, but I haven't uploaded from the camera to my ipad yet).
Today I spent some time in MCH with Cait and Agnes, who is maybe being hired as a midwife by the clinic. Irene, our old midwife, was fired, and they are trying to replace her, so different midwives have been working here on sort of a trial basis. Agnes seemed to really know her stuff. I shadowed while they examined two pregnant women, and I even got to feel for the head and the height of the baby and listen to the heartbeat. It was pretty cool. Maybe ob/gyn is back in the picture... hmmm
The afternoon I mostly spent doing my projects (Grainsacks, girls group visuals, etc.), including some grainsacks for the meeting of the Pregnant Womens Group that Cait and I have organized to lead tomorrow. So I made visual aids for preventing STIs in pregnancy and PMTCT of HIV (Preventing Mother To Child Transmission). I've also been finalizing my personal statement and resume for our Gtown Pre Med committee application process, which if I do them right the first time, I won't have to do as much for my actual medical school application. Cool.
So that's pretty much the past week. I also just emailed the deposit for the Murchison Falls safari that Cait and I are doing next week. I leave the village to head to Kampala next Saturday, the 28th - its ridiculous that I only have 9 days left in the village! This weekend Cait and Lisa are going to Sipi Falls, and I'll be staying here to lead my first Girls Group meeting... so hopefully that goes well.
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Thursday, April 19, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Entebbe and Back
I think when I left off, I had arrived at the hostel in Entebbe. Entebbe backpackers is quite a place. I didn't take any photos there (I'll be back for a night before I fly out to South Africa), which I don't think was any major loss! I was in a dorm with 8 beds, and both nights all the roommates were guys... there was one kid, Ekky, who was from the UK, who was about my age, but everyone else was like creepily old. The hostel in Kigali was pretty much all people about my age, maybe a little older or younger, but this vibe was just completely different. Unlike at Discover Rwanda Youth Hostel, I don't think you go to Entebbe Backpackers with the intention of making lots of friends to hang out with.
So I stayed there Sunday night, and Monday morning I set out to see Entebbe. There's not much... pretty sure I covered all of it in a day. First I went to Aero Beach, which is on Lake Victoria to check that out... you pay 3000 shillings (about $1.20) to get in, and they gave me a ticket so I was able to go back later, which was pretty sweet. Then I went to the Entebbe Botanical Gardens. It was pretty nice, and I had a guide who was very knowledgeable take me around. He smelled like the local brew (like reeked... it was Easter Monday at like 10 am!) and pretty much guilted me into giving him a 20,000 shilling tip (about $8) after already having to pay a 10,000 shilling admission fee ($4). This is RIDICULOUSLY expensive for East Africa, especially if you consider that for both my safari and gorilla guides, I gave them each $20, which I considered to be a good tip, and I was with the safari guide for 3 days, and the gorilla guide for 2. I was with this local-brew-smelling-brah in the gardens for mayyyyybe an hour.
These are royal palms. I did get to see a lot of stuff, I was surprised by how much it was trees and bigger plants and not as many flowers. But still very cool. He said that they filmed Tarzan there (like the old version? I'm not sure since I'm sure I haven't seen it), and showed me the vines and whatever where they filmed:
It was a very scenic spot. Then it started to rain, so he walked me to the edge of the garden where there start to be hotels and restaurants. This was when he finangled the tip out of me (he had already mentioned it earlier, so it was pretty ridiculous). I ended up at Goretti's Pizzeria, where the ovens weren't ready yet to make pizzas, and so I got the cheapest thing on their otherwise overpriced-for-touristas-menu - Goat Brochette. This is basically like seasoned grilled goat on a skewer along with some onions and peppers. This place served it with matoke (not the mashed up kind, just literally the cooked green bananas, tastes the same both ways to be honest), the place in Kigali my first night served it with matoke chips (fried, therefore, better!). I actually really like goat, I can't believe Kigali was the first time I had it, and I think I've had it 3 or 4 times now. Its kind of like a slightly tougher, fattier lamb, but its quite good on the skewer.
Then I caught a boda with little time to spare (since it took them about an hour to make the brochette) to the Uganda Wildlife Education Center, where I was supposed to be there at 12:30 to leave on the boat to Ngamba island at 12:45. Ngamba island is a chimpanzee sanctuary on an island in Lake Victoria (Entebbe is right on the lake shore). Well I got there at 12:40 and literally RAN to the docks, where I met this woman named Christine who worked there. She SUCKED. She was like "oh we tried to call your hostel and cancel on you earlier this morning." I said that was ridiculous, that I had made reservations weeks ago, and had confirmed them TWICE (true). She made up some bullshit story, and I called her out on it (I used the word bullshit, I really hope she understood me) and got VERY mad. I talked to her supervisor on the phone and let her know that even for Africa, this was horrible customer service, and that as soon as I got a decent internet connection I intended to go on all the travel review sites and write truthful, poor review of them, and her in particular. Well she got all worked up about it, and they were trying to get me a spot on the boat, but it obviously wasn't going to work since they had overbooked it.
At this point I was kind of over going at all, since the boat trip was going to be $107 USD in total, and I had just spent a ton of money on the rest of the excursions. But I didn't let them know this, and I continued to rant and rave. As it turned out, no one got to go since the water was too rough. So I chalked it up to getting to see some monkeys in the park, and having an extra $100 in my pocket to use in South Africa.
So I went back to the hostel where they were watching Vertical Limit (pretty bad movie), had a Nile Special, and then Ekky was going to go to the beach so I decided to tag along. We walked there, the long way, and finally arrived around 3:30 or so. We were the only people there who spread out towels and sat on the beach. Everyone else was dancing, standing by the water, and partying it up. I went in the Lake and made friends with a bunch of teenage Ugandans who tried to get me to teach them how to swim... unsuccessful. Its pretty weird here that most people don't know how to swim, even the ones who live on the lake.
Then we were sitting on the beach having a beer (Club) when two kids rode by on a camel... and I decided I had to do that. So here it is:
It was pretty awesome. We definitely stuck out like sore thumbs (whatever that means) at the beach, since we were sitting on towels, I was wearing a bikini, we were clearly foreigners, etc. Some people came over and asked to take a picture with us. Weird. Little kids came over and just bothered us, and finally we took a couple pictures of them and they went away. It was just a weird place, people were obviously weirded out by us. Before we left, we made sure to take some touristy shots on the airplanes that they have there (its a weird place):
We walked the shorter way back to the backpackers, and then later I went to dinner at the Red Rooster sports bar (just down the road from the hostel) with Ekky and another of our roommates, Ricardo (a Brazilian working for the UN in South Sudan).
Tuesday morning, I took a matatu to Kampala, once we hit traffic I got off and took my life into my hands by taking a hair-raising ride on a boda boda to the Elgon Flyer bus station. Grabbed a bite up there, and then took the noon bus to Mbale. Got in at around 4, ran some errands for Lisa (stuff for me really, like bread and candles and mosquito coils, also passion fruit for cocktails!), and then took a matatu to Bubulo and a boda boda from there up to Matuwa. Quite a day of traveling. I was supposed to travel back in a private car with Emma, since a new volunteer Cait was supposed to get there (hence the order for the trip and the ending in Entebbe and waiting until Tuesday to return to the village). However, her flight from NYC to Istanbul got delayed such that she missed her connection to Entebbe, and now will get in very late tonight (actually I think technically it'll be Thursday morning), so she and Doug will come up together on Thursday. So I got to ride the bus. Awesomeeeee.
Today I just worked on the grainsacks I need for the Girls' Group (menstrual cycle and Tanner stages of male and female development). This meant I ended up covered in flour... like disgustingly so. Good thing tomorrow is laundry day.
We also have two visitors today from the FIMRC clinic, residents from Philly (I think one is an MD and one is a DO, not sure). So they saw patients today and are staying over tonight before going back to Bududa.
I also realized that in exactly one month from today (May 11) I'll be back home... crazy. I'm in the village for the next three weeks (drive to Entebbe on May 2 and fly out to SA on May 3)... so posts will be less exciting than they've (hopefully) been. More later.
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So I stayed there Sunday night, and Monday morning I set out to see Entebbe. There's not much... pretty sure I covered all of it in a day. First I went to Aero Beach, which is on Lake Victoria to check that out... you pay 3000 shillings (about $1.20) to get in, and they gave me a ticket so I was able to go back later, which was pretty sweet. Then I went to the Entebbe Botanical Gardens. It was pretty nice, and I had a guide who was very knowledgeable take me around. He smelled like the local brew (like reeked... it was Easter Monday at like 10 am!) and pretty much guilted me into giving him a 20,000 shilling tip (about $8) after already having to pay a 10,000 shilling admission fee ($4). This is RIDICULOUSLY expensive for East Africa, especially if you consider that for both my safari and gorilla guides, I gave them each $20, which I considered to be a good tip, and I was with the safari guide for 3 days, and the gorilla guide for 2. I was with this local-brew-smelling-brah in the gardens for mayyyyybe an hour.
These are royal palms. I did get to see a lot of stuff, I was surprised by how much it was trees and bigger plants and not as many flowers. But still very cool. He said that they filmed Tarzan there (like the old version? I'm not sure since I'm sure I haven't seen it), and showed me the vines and whatever where they filmed:
It was a very scenic spot. Then it started to rain, so he walked me to the edge of the garden where there start to be hotels and restaurants. This was when he finangled the tip out of me (he had already mentioned it earlier, so it was pretty ridiculous). I ended up at Goretti's Pizzeria, where the ovens weren't ready yet to make pizzas, and so I got the cheapest thing on their otherwise overpriced-for-touristas-menu - Goat Brochette. This is basically like seasoned grilled goat on a skewer along with some onions and peppers. This place served it with matoke (not the mashed up kind, just literally the cooked green bananas, tastes the same both ways to be honest), the place in Kigali my first night served it with matoke chips (fried, therefore, better!). I actually really like goat, I can't believe Kigali was the first time I had it, and I think I've had it 3 or 4 times now. Its kind of like a slightly tougher, fattier lamb, but its quite good on the skewer.
Then I caught a boda with little time to spare (since it took them about an hour to make the brochette) to the Uganda Wildlife Education Center, where I was supposed to be there at 12:30 to leave on the boat to Ngamba island at 12:45. Ngamba island is a chimpanzee sanctuary on an island in Lake Victoria (Entebbe is right on the lake shore). Well I got there at 12:40 and literally RAN to the docks, where I met this woman named Christine who worked there. She SUCKED. She was like "oh we tried to call your hostel and cancel on you earlier this morning." I said that was ridiculous, that I had made reservations weeks ago, and had confirmed them TWICE (true). She made up some bullshit story, and I called her out on it (I used the word bullshit, I really hope she understood me) and got VERY mad. I talked to her supervisor on the phone and let her know that even for Africa, this was horrible customer service, and that as soon as I got a decent internet connection I intended to go on all the travel review sites and write truthful, poor review of them, and her in particular. Well she got all worked up about it, and they were trying to get me a spot on the boat, but it obviously wasn't going to work since they had overbooked it.
At this point I was kind of over going at all, since the boat trip was going to be $107 USD in total, and I had just spent a ton of money on the rest of the excursions. But I didn't let them know this, and I continued to rant and rave. As it turned out, no one got to go since the water was too rough. So I chalked it up to getting to see some monkeys in the park, and having an extra $100 in my pocket to use in South Africa.
So I went back to the hostel where they were watching Vertical Limit (pretty bad movie), had a Nile Special, and then Ekky was going to go to the beach so I decided to tag along. We walked there, the long way, and finally arrived around 3:30 or so. We were the only people there who spread out towels and sat on the beach. Everyone else was dancing, standing by the water, and partying it up. I went in the Lake and made friends with a bunch of teenage Ugandans who tried to get me to teach them how to swim... unsuccessful. Its pretty weird here that most people don't know how to swim, even the ones who live on the lake.
Then we were sitting on the beach having a beer (Club) when two kids rode by on a camel... and I decided I had to do that. So here it is:
It was pretty awesome. We definitely stuck out like sore thumbs (whatever that means) at the beach, since we were sitting on towels, I was wearing a bikini, we were clearly foreigners, etc. Some people came over and asked to take a picture with us. Weird. Little kids came over and just bothered us, and finally we took a couple pictures of them and they went away. It was just a weird place, people were obviously weirded out by us. Before we left, we made sure to take some touristy shots on the airplanes that they have there (its a weird place):
We walked the shorter way back to the backpackers, and then later I went to dinner at the Red Rooster sports bar (just down the road from the hostel) with Ekky and another of our roommates, Ricardo (a Brazilian working for the UN in South Sudan).
Tuesday morning, I took a matatu to Kampala, once we hit traffic I got off and took my life into my hands by taking a hair-raising ride on a boda boda to the Elgon Flyer bus station. Grabbed a bite up there, and then took the noon bus to Mbale. Got in at around 4, ran some errands for Lisa (stuff for me really, like bread and candles and mosquito coils, also passion fruit for cocktails!), and then took a matatu to Bubulo and a boda boda from there up to Matuwa. Quite a day of traveling. I was supposed to travel back in a private car with Emma, since a new volunteer Cait was supposed to get there (hence the order for the trip and the ending in Entebbe and waiting until Tuesday to return to the village). However, her flight from NYC to Istanbul got delayed such that she missed her connection to Entebbe, and now will get in very late tonight (actually I think technically it'll be Thursday morning), so she and Doug will come up together on Thursday. So I got to ride the bus. Awesomeeeee.
Today I just worked on the grainsacks I need for the Girls' Group (menstrual cycle and Tanner stages of male and female development). This meant I ended up covered in flour... like disgustingly so. Good thing tomorrow is laundry day.
We also have two visitors today from the FIMRC clinic, residents from Philly (I think one is an MD and one is a DO, not sure). So they saw patients today and are staying over tonight before going back to Bududa.
I also realized that in exactly one month from today (May 11) I'll be back home... crazy. I'm in the village for the next three weeks (drive to Entebbe on May 2 and fly out to SA on May 3)... so posts will be less exciting than they've (hopefully) been. More later.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Rwanda, continued
Continuing off my earlier post...
The Finnish woman (the slow one in particular) was INFURIATING. I pretty much channeled my mother and expressed my rage. I was just really getting annoyed, and knew that if I was assertive and said something, they'd split up the group. And I was right, because once I vocalized my concerns, the other guy chimed in, and they did split the group. Honestly, this snafu didn't even register on my radar once we got to the gorillas.
They are just so big and majestic. You're soooo close to them, it is really incredible. One legit brushed up against me, I couldn't believe it. We got to see pretty much all the age ranges, and even the three week old baby I posted the picture of earlier.
Our group was the Titus group. They split off from another group awhile back, and Titus' son is the silverback who is the leader now (the one I posted a picture of earlier, but here's another one):
He was HUGE. Sam likened him to king kong! Sam took a bunch of videos on her camera that I stole, so I'll post to fb or show them to people when I'm back. Sam was super stoked to go to the gorillas, and it's not that I wasn't excited but I didn't really know what to expect (she had done more research about the different families of gorillas and whatnot). But the experience blew me away, it was so awesome.
After, Jean-Louis drove us to Gisenyi, on the shores of Lake Kivu, and just across the border from Goma in the DRC. It would have cost about $200 US to cross the border, so we were content to merely look across the many rope borders they have. There are like 2 legitimate border crossings, and then there's just like streets that go from Rwanda into the DRC and there's just a rope and you're not supposed to cross. Some of these crossings have a guy with a gun there. Jean-Louis said that the kids can cross there on their way to school. I guess some of the kids end up going to school in another country, which sounds pretty crazy to me, haha.
We found a place to exchange money by the border, so Sam was able to convert some Tanzanian shillings and have some money! Yay. Then we went to our hotel, the Palm Garden Resort. It was a really nice place. Our room was about 100 meters up the road from the main compound, but it was actually really nice. Nice hot showers, and a cool common room next to our room that had a fire going in the fireplace for us when we got back up there from dinner. View of Lake Kivu from the resort:
It was really nice. We got up MaD early today to catch our bus to Kili, and from there Sam went to the airport to continue her airline nightmare. Her flight got messed up again, and apparently she's connecting to Kili through Nairobi and won't get back to Arusha until about 11 tonight. Ugh.
I headed to the Hotel Des Mille Collines (hotel of 1000 hills, Also is rwandas nickname/slogan), the hotel that the movie Hotel Rwanda is based on (the hotel where they filmed that is actually in South Africa, not Rwanda). You can pay to go in and use the pool, so I swam and hangout and had lunch poolside. It was just a beautiful place and the weather was actually really nice.
The pool (it says Hotel Des Mille Collines on the bottom of the pool). This pool apparently kept the 1200 people staying here during the genocide hydrated. And I have swum in it.
Me by the sign. The security guard was super cool and insisted don taking these for me haha. He also made me take pictures of him guarding and gave me his email so I can send them to him. Then I took a moto (what they call a boda boda in Rwanda) to the airport, and flew back to Entebbe, where I am now. Staying at the Entebbe Backpackers hostel where I have been watching football with a bunch of people, using the Internet, and just had a hot shower.
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The Finnish woman (the slow one in particular) was INFURIATING. I pretty much channeled my mother and expressed my rage. I was just really getting annoyed, and knew that if I was assertive and said something, they'd split up the group. And I was right, because once I vocalized my concerns, the other guy chimed in, and they did split the group. Honestly, this snafu didn't even register on my radar once we got to the gorillas.
They are just so big and majestic. You're soooo close to them, it is really incredible. One legit brushed up against me, I couldn't believe it. We got to see pretty much all the age ranges, and even the three week old baby I posted the picture of earlier.
Our group was the Titus group. They split off from another group awhile back, and Titus' son is the silverback who is the leader now (the one I posted a picture of earlier, but here's another one):
He was HUGE. Sam likened him to king kong! Sam took a bunch of videos on her camera that I stole, so I'll post to fb or show them to people when I'm back. Sam was super stoked to go to the gorillas, and it's not that I wasn't excited but I didn't really know what to expect (she had done more research about the different families of gorillas and whatnot). But the experience blew me away, it was so awesome.
After, Jean-Louis drove us to Gisenyi, on the shores of Lake Kivu, and just across the border from Goma in the DRC. It would have cost about $200 US to cross the border, so we were content to merely look across the many rope borders they have. There are like 2 legitimate border crossings, and then there's just like streets that go from Rwanda into the DRC and there's just a rope and you're not supposed to cross. Some of these crossings have a guy with a gun there. Jean-Louis said that the kids can cross there on their way to school. I guess some of the kids end up going to school in another country, which sounds pretty crazy to me, haha.
We found a place to exchange money by the border, so Sam was able to convert some Tanzanian shillings and have some money! Yay. Then we went to our hotel, the Palm Garden Resort. It was a really nice place. Our room was about 100 meters up the road from the main compound, but it was actually really nice. Nice hot showers, and a cool common room next to our room that had a fire going in the fireplace for us when we got back up there from dinner. View of Lake Kivu from the resort:
It was really nice. We got up MaD early today to catch our bus to Kili, and from there Sam went to the airport to continue her airline nightmare. Her flight got messed up again, and apparently she's connecting to Kili through Nairobi and won't get back to Arusha until about 11 tonight. Ugh.
I headed to the Hotel Des Mille Collines (hotel of 1000 hills, Also is rwandas nickname/slogan), the hotel that the movie Hotel Rwanda is based on (the hotel where they filmed that is actually in South Africa, not Rwanda). You can pay to go in and use the pool, so I swam and hangout and had lunch poolside. It was just a beautiful place and the weather was actually really nice.
The pool (it says Hotel Des Mille Collines on the bottom of the pool). This pool apparently kept the 1200 people staying here during the genocide hydrated. And I have swum in it.
Me by the sign. The security guard was super cool and insisted don taking these for me haha. He also made me take pictures of him guarding and gave me his email so I can send them to him. Then I took a moto (what they call a boda boda in Rwanda) to the airport, and flew back to Entebbe, where I am now. Staying at the Entebbe Backpackers hostel where I have been watching football with a bunch of people, using the Internet, and just had a hot shower.
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GORILLAS
Thursday night I went to the airport in Kigali to meet Sam. She had had quite the experience in getting to Rwanda... At the Kili airport in Arusha, precision air said they had no record of her buying a ticket, even though she had already bought and paid. Then they would take a credit card so she could buy a ticket and had no ATM at the airport, so she got driven to an ATM to buy her ticket. So by the time she arrived, she was pretty frustrated with the whole thing.
We dropped her stuff at the hostel and went to the Chinese restaurant just up the street for dinner. It was actually really good, and we had a very nice time catching up. In the morning, our driver, Jean-Louis, arrived to take us to the gorillas! But first we went to the Kigali Memorial Center (genocide museum), which was a very nice museum and an interesting and sobering experience. Following the museum, we went to try an ATM for Sam, but she has MasterCard, and apparently everywhere n Rwanda only takes visa. It was another element of frustration to the trip. Also, since it was good Friday, a lot of stuff was closed, and the. Saturday was the national holiday (beginning a week of genocide remembrance), and Sunday being Easter, we knew she wouldn't be able to get money out later. Ugh.
The drive out to volcanoes national park, was just stunning. Jean-Louis was super awesome and kept stopping so we could take pictures. Once we had checked into our hotel, we drove out to lakes bulera and ruhondo. The view from the mountain top we were on was amazing. The two lakes are separate, but they have built a sort of dam so that it provides hydroelectric power. Bulera is at higher elevation, so the water flows down Into Ruhondo. We also got to see the super nice lodge at the top of the mountains where they had a fireplace and it's $600/person per night. Unbelievable.
We went to dinner at a place called Hotel Muhabera that was in the lonely planet guidebook and just down the street from where we were staying. It was pretty good, and we were super tired and knew we had to get up at 5:45 so it was an early night.
Saturday morning, we woke up at 5:45 and had breakfast, then left for the gorilla tracking! You drive first to the park headquarters, where they split everyone into groups and tell you which group of gorillas you will be tracking. We were assigned the Titus group (the head silverback, titus is pictured on the Rwandan 5000 franc note, which is pretty cool). Then you drive to the actual place where your tracking starts. They have trackers out in the mountains early in the morning so that when you start tracking, they tell your guide where the gorillas are and they can basically take you right there. Or group was 2 older women from Finland, and a younger couple (the guy as from "nowhere" and the woman from Switzerland). Well the two old women turned out to be a problem, as one of them literally couldn't hike more than 30 seconds without a break. The one guy had a flight to catch and Sam and I were going to lake kivu and wanted to get there before dark. So after we kept stopping repeatedly, we convinced the guide to let us split into two groups. So the younger couple, Sam, and I went ahead and another tracker met us at the gate to the park. This was after hiking for about 2 hours. Then we finally entered the park, and hiked for maybe another 20 minutes or so, before we got to the point where they go over gorilla etiquette with you again, and you leave your bags and walking sticks to actually go see the gorillas.
Gorilla etiquette means no eating, spitting, drinking, pointing at the, flash photos, etc near the gorillas. When they approach you you're not supposed to touch them (but they can touch you, I called this the "strip club rule"). If they come near you, you squat down and make this grunting noise that tells them you respect them and bring no harm.
The first one we saw was a blackback - a male who is not the dominant male. Even this guy was just huge. They're so big, especially when they stand up, you really can't help but to be a little afraid!
Our first
blackback:
The we saw the silverback next, even more huge!
We saw about 8 in total I think, including a mom and her 3 week old baby:
It was just an insanely incredible experience... About which I'll add more later, since I paid for one hour of Internet at the Hotel des Mille Colines, and it's almost up! Also will write about lake kivu, gisenyi, seeing the DRC, and hanging out at the "Hotel Rwanda", where I am now!
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We dropped her stuff at the hostel and went to the Chinese restaurant just up the street for dinner. It was actually really good, and we had a very nice time catching up. In the morning, our driver, Jean-Louis, arrived to take us to the gorillas! But first we went to the Kigali Memorial Center (genocide museum), which was a very nice museum and an interesting and sobering experience. Following the museum, we went to try an ATM for Sam, but she has MasterCard, and apparently everywhere n Rwanda only takes visa. It was another element of frustration to the trip. Also, since it was good Friday, a lot of stuff was closed, and the. Saturday was the national holiday (beginning a week of genocide remembrance), and Sunday being Easter, we knew she wouldn't be able to get money out later. Ugh.
The drive out to volcanoes national park, was just stunning. Jean-Louis was super awesome and kept stopping so we could take pictures. Once we had checked into our hotel, we drove out to lakes bulera and ruhondo. The view from the mountain top we were on was amazing. The two lakes are separate, but they have built a sort of dam so that it provides hydroelectric power. Bulera is at higher elevation, so the water flows down Into Ruhondo. We also got to see the super nice lodge at the top of the mountains where they had a fireplace and it's $600/person per night. Unbelievable.
We went to dinner at a place called Hotel Muhabera that was in the lonely planet guidebook and just down the street from where we were staying. It was pretty good, and we were super tired and knew we had to get up at 5:45 so it was an early night.
Saturday morning, we woke up at 5:45 and had breakfast, then left for the gorilla tracking! You drive first to the park headquarters, where they split everyone into groups and tell you which group of gorillas you will be tracking. We were assigned the Titus group (the head silverback, titus is pictured on the Rwandan 5000 franc note, which is pretty cool). Then you drive to the actual place where your tracking starts. They have trackers out in the mountains early in the morning so that when you start tracking, they tell your guide where the gorillas are and they can basically take you right there. Or group was 2 older women from Finland, and a younger couple (the guy as from "nowhere" and the woman from Switzerland). Well the two old women turned out to be a problem, as one of them literally couldn't hike more than 30 seconds without a break. The one guy had a flight to catch and Sam and I were going to lake kivu and wanted to get there before dark. So after we kept stopping repeatedly, we convinced the guide to let us split into two groups. So the younger couple, Sam, and I went ahead and another tracker met us at the gate to the park. This was after hiking for about 2 hours. Then we finally entered the park, and hiked for maybe another 20 minutes or so, before we got to the point where they go over gorilla etiquette with you again, and you leave your bags and walking sticks to actually go see the gorillas.
Gorilla etiquette means no eating, spitting, drinking, pointing at the, flash photos, etc near the gorillas. When they approach you you're not supposed to touch them (but they can touch you, I called this the "strip club rule"). If they come near you, you squat down and make this grunting noise that tells them you respect them and bring no harm.
The first one we saw was a blackback - a male who is not the dominant male. Even this guy was just huge. They're so big, especially when they stand up, you really can't help but to be a little afraid!
Our first
blackback:
The we saw the silverback next, even more huge!
We saw about 8 in total I think, including a mom and her 3 week old baby:
It was just an insanely incredible experience... About which I'll add more later, since I paid for one hour of Internet at the Hotel des Mille Colines, and it's almost up! Also will write about lake kivu, gisenyi, seeing the DRC, and hanging out at the "Hotel Rwanda", where I am now!
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Thursday, April 5, 2012
Kigali/Genocide Memorials
So Lucas (one of Alix's cabbies) picked me up Wednesday morning and drove me to the Nairobi airport. Lots of traffic, and it was raining - it seems the rainy season has begun. We made it there in plenty of time and I had time to get a snack, hit the ATM, and change some money. I found crispy m&m's at the duty free shop which was uhhhhmazing, so I got them even though they were $9 US because you can't get them at home anymore!
The flight was fine, it stopped in Bujumbura (Burundi). Kenya airways was super nice, we got a hot towel as soon as we boarded, the plane was empty, food was good, and they had diet coke as well.
Got to Kigali, got my bag, some money at an ATM, and took a cab to my hostel. It is called the discover Rwanda youth hostel, and is pretty much the only hostel in Kigali. I got directions to get out and see the city a bit. I took a boda to the UTC (union trade center) which is like a brand new mall in Kigali with a nakumatt (like an east Africa Walmart), they also have them in Nairobi. I camped out at a juice bar with good Internet and worked on my premed committee app for a bit. I then checked out the craft market located right behind the juice place. I wandered around the city center for a bit, and just checked it out. Then I went to another craft market, Capulaki, which is a really nice one with lots of little stalls and tons of people calling out, "sister! Come look here sister!" I didn't even buy anything.
I'm super impressed with Kigali/Rwanda. Everything is super clean and organized, particularly compared with Uganda or Nairobi. I actually saw trash cans on the street, which was definitely a first over here. The boda drivers all wear helmets and the passengers have to wear a helmet, too. The boda drivers have a helmet for you when you get on, and all the drivers wear a vest so you can identify them. The taxi drivers at the airport also had a uniform, they were all wearing suits with ties! It was very legit, and nice to know you could take a cab without worrying about anything, which you just wouldn't do in Nairobi. The city itself is beautiful. Once you're here it makes send why Rwanda is "the land of 1000 hills". The whole city of Kigali is built on several hills, so most of the buildings are on top of hills and on the hillsides, and the low parts are all green and natural. So the landscape changes a lot as you drive thru the city.
Last night I went out to dinner with 7 other people from my hostel. We just went to a little local place down the road from the hostel. I had goat on a stick and banana chips. Most of us got the goat, which was quite good. I also got to try the Rwandan local beers, Mutzig and Primus. Both just regular lagers, like the rest of the beers in east Africa. Dinner was fun, the people at the hostel are all really nice. We had a beer when we got back to the hostel, and just kind of talked about where people had been and where they're going. It's a lot of solo people, which was nice, since I'm solo here too until Sam arrives.
This morning I had breakfast with Neil, who was leaving today, Catherine (who is here from the UK doing research for her PhD), and Christina (from Germany and volunteering in Zambia). I made my plans to go to the two churches that are genocide sites to the south of Kigali, Ntarama and Nyamata. Catherine and Paul, another guy staying here, ended up going with me, so it was nice to have company. We took a boda to the Nyabugogo taxi park, where we bought tickets for the matatus. So different than in Uganda, where you just get on! the matatu took us to Ntarama, and we had to take a boda about 2k to get to the actual site.
The church there is covered by a metal roof, like a carpark sort of structure to protect the original roof and structure of the building. Inside the church are floor to ceiling shelves with skulls and other bones on them from people who died there. The windows are all broken, from grenades being thrown through to hit people inside. Tutsis had taken refuge there before in 1992 and been saved, so they thought they could just go there again, but this time they were not saved. Hanging from the rafters and other shelves along the sides of the church are all the clothes of the people. They are all stained with blood and dirt and simply the sheer number of clothes can give an idea of how MANY people were crammed into this tiny church. Just being there felt very unreal, and very emotional. It's just hard to imagine all of these horrible things happening to people. Seeing the clothes and the bones is a more realistic reminder, but it's still hard to actually visualize...
This is the first church we went to (Ntarama).
After Ntarama, we took bodas down to the main road and about 5k until we got to Nyamata. The church there is a lot bigger. Our guide said about 10,000 people died there, and that again, people had sought refuge there in 1992 and thought they'd be saved again, but they weren't. The attackers used bombs to blow holes in the metal bars of the doors. You can see the holes in the ceiling above and shrapnel still stuck there from the bombs. The walls on the outside of the church are all covered in blood stains - they have varnished over the stains to preserve them. Inside the church, all of the benches are covered in the clothes of the people. Clothes are piled over a foot high on all the benches and other surfaces in the church - basically there were enough people in there to be many, many times over the typical capacity. They've built a sort of crypt down below the church where some skulls are displayed and where there is a casket of a woman who was raped by at least twenty men and brutally killed (the attackers shopped a sharp spear up her vagina, all the way up through to to herald, and she died like that. At the other site, they also described killings like that, so it sounds like a pretty common method - just horrible). The guide said the raping was pretty standard, but that they wanted to put this woman in the casket because hers was particularly awful and to honor other women who were killed the same way.
Inside the church, everything is draped in purple and white satin ribbons. The guide said the white means hope and the purple means sadness - so hope after sadness is what they mean together.
Again, illegal photo from inside the church. The white tiled part is the crypt is described that they put in after the genocide. Out back behind the church, they have built crypts that house the skulls and bones. The skulls are on shelves:
4 shelves from floor to ceiling. This is less than a quarter of the space in the crypts, and they are all filled. There are also caskets, each of which houses the bones of about 20 people. Just the sheer number of people, clothes, skulls, bones is staggering. It's just hard to wrap your head around that this actually happened. Here where I am standing. The guides are very matter of fact and clearly saddened, but they also show a lot of hope. It is clear that in 18 years, Rwanda has come a long way. I asked the guide at Ntarama if people still considered themselves Hutus or Tutsis and she said "we are all Rwandans now".
After Nyamata, we got lunch in the little town there and took a matatu back to Kigali, while it started pouring rain. Catherine went to go to the Kigali genocide museum (that I'll go to tomorrow with Sam) and Paul and I went off in search of sneakers for him, which we didn't find at an appropriate price. Then took bodas back to the hostel, where I have now written this and am about to leave to meet Sam at the airport. The next post will have pictures of GORILLAS (and likely be a bit cheerier than me talking about genocide the whole entry - but it was a valuable, good experience to go and see these things).
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The flight was fine, it stopped in Bujumbura (Burundi). Kenya airways was super nice, we got a hot towel as soon as we boarded, the plane was empty, food was good, and they had diet coke as well.
Got to Kigali, got my bag, some money at an ATM, and took a cab to my hostel. It is called the discover Rwanda youth hostel, and is pretty much the only hostel in Kigali. I got directions to get out and see the city a bit. I took a boda to the UTC (union trade center) which is like a brand new mall in Kigali with a nakumatt (like an east Africa Walmart), they also have them in Nairobi. I camped out at a juice bar with good Internet and worked on my premed committee app for a bit. I then checked out the craft market located right behind the juice place. I wandered around the city center for a bit, and just checked it out. Then I went to another craft market, Capulaki, which is a really nice one with lots of little stalls and tons of people calling out, "sister! Come look here sister!" I didn't even buy anything.
I'm super impressed with Kigali/Rwanda. Everything is super clean and organized, particularly compared with Uganda or Nairobi. I actually saw trash cans on the street, which was definitely a first over here. The boda drivers all wear helmets and the passengers have to wear a helmet, too. The boda drivers have a helmet for you when you get on, and all the drivers wear a vest so you can identify them. The taxi drivers at the airport also had a uniform, they were all wearing suits with ties! It was very legit, and nice to know you could take a cab without worrying about anything, which you just wouldn't do in Nairobi. The city itself is beautiful. Once you're here it makes send why Rwanda is "the land of 1000 hills". The whole city of Kigali is built on several hills, so most of the buildings are on top of hills and on the hillsides, and the low parts are all green and natural. So the landscape changes a lot as you drive thru the city.
Last night I went out to dinner with 7 other people from my hostel. We just went to a little local place down the road from the hostel. I had goat on a stick and banana chips. Most of us got the goat, which was quite good. I also got to try the Rwandan local beers, Mutzig and Primus. Both just regular lagers, like the rest of the beers in east Africa. Dinner was fun, the people at the hostel are all really nice. We had a beer when we got back to the hostel, and just kind of talked about where people had been and where they're going. It's a lot of solo people, which was nice, since I'm solo here too until Sam arrives.
This morning I had breakfast with Neil, who was leaving today, Catherine (who is here from the UK doing research for her PhD), and Christina (from Germany and volunteering in Zambia). I made my plans to go to the two churches that are genocide sites to the south of Kigali, Ntarama and Nyamata. Catherine and Paul, another guy staying here, ended up going with me, so it was nice to have company. We took a boda to the Nyabugogo taxi park, where we bought tickets for the matatus. So different than in Uganda, where you just get on! the matatu took us to Ntarama, and we had to take a boda about 2k to get to the actual site.
The church there is covered by a metal roof, like a carpark sort of structure to protect the original roof and structure of the building. Inside the church are floor to ceiling shelves with skulls and other bones on them from people who died there. The windows are all broken, from grenades being thrown through to hit people inside. Tutsis had taken refuge there before in 1992 and been saved, so they thought they could just go there again, but this time they were not saved. Hanging from the rafters and other shelves along the sides of the church are all the clothes of the people. They are all stained with blood and dirt and simply the sheer number of clothes can give an idea of how MANY people were crammed into this tiny church. Just being there felt very unreal, and very emotional. It's just hard to imagine all of these horrible things happening to people. Seeing the clothes and the bones is a more realistic reminder, but it's still hard to actually visualize...
This is the first church we went to (Ntarama).
After Ntarama, we took bodas down to the main road and about 5k until we got to Nyamata. The church there is a lot bigger. Our guide said about 10,000 people died there, and that again, people had sought refuge there in 1992 and thought they'd be saved again, but they weren't. The attackers used bombs to blow holes in the metal bars of the doors. You can see the holes in the ceiling above and shrapnel still stuck there from the bombs. The walls on the outside of the church are all covered in blood stains - they have varnished over the stains to preserve them. Inside the church, all of the benches are covered in the clothes of the people. Clothes are piled over a foot high on all the benches and other surfaces in the church - basically there were enough people in there to be many, many times over the typical capacity. They've built a sort of crypt down below the church where some skulls are displayed and where there is a casket of a woman who was raped by at least twenty men and brutally killed (the attackers shopped a sharp spear up her vagina, all the way up through to to herald, and she died like that. At the other site, they also described killings like that, so it sounds like a pretty common method - just horrible). The guide said the raping was pretty standard, but that they wanted to put this woman in the casket because hers was particularly awful and to honor other women who were killed the same way.
Inside the church, everything is draped in purple and white satin ribbons. The guide said the white means hope and the purple means sadness - so hope after sadness is what they mean together.
Again, illegal photo from inside the church. The white tiled part is the crypt is described that they put in after the genocide. Out back behind the church, they have built crypts that house the skulls and bones. The skulls are on shelves:
4 shelves from floor to ceiling. This is less than a quarter of the space in the crypts, and they are all filled. There are also caskets, each of which houses the bones of about 20 people. Just the sheer number of people, clothes, skulls, bones is staggering. It's just hard to wrap your head around that this actually happened. Here where I am standing. The guides are very matter of fact and clearly saddened, but they also show a lot of hope. It is clear that in 18 years, Rwanda has come a long way. I asked the guide at Ntarama if people still considered themselves Hutus or Tutsis and she said "we are all Rwandans now".
After Nyamata, we got lunch in the little town there and took a matatu back to Kigali, while it started pouring rain. Catherine went to go to the Kigali genocide museum (that I'll go to tomorrow with Sam) and Paul and I went off in search of sneakers for him, which we didn't find at an appropriate price. Then took bodas back to the hostel, where I have now written this and am about to leave to meet Sam at the airport. The next post will have pictures of GORILLAS (and likely be a bit cheerier than me talking about genocide the whole entry - but it was a valuable, good experience to go and see these things).
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Tuesday, April 3, 2012
More Safari Pictures
Overlooking the great rift valley (this is en route to the Masai Mara):
Zebras on day 1 in the park:
More lions:
Me in our safari van:
Ostrich:
Giraffe:
The Masai village (with the lions head headdress on!):
Me and Kamwana and my bracelet that I bought I the village:
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Zebras on day 1 in the park:
More lions:
Me in our safari van:
Ostrich:
Giraffe:
The Masai village (with the lions head headdress on!):
Me and Kamwana and my bracelet that I bought I the village:
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Safari Pictures
Grant's Gazelle:
Elephants:
Lions:
Leopard:
Hippo:
Me at the Kenya/Tanzania border (Masai Mara/ Serengeti border):
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Elephants:
Lions:
Leopard:
Hippo:
Me at the Kenya/Tanzania border (Masai Mara/ Serengeti border):
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Masai Mara Safari
Well there's not Internet here... So I'm just keeping a draft as I go and will post upon my return to Nairobi.
So Saturday night Alix and I went to an Ethiopian restaurant that was really good. We had a really fun time, just talking and swapping stories. It's really awesome that we just met and got along so well and had such a good time. She's been an incredible host for me.
Sunday morning my safari picked me up around 9 (about an hour late). The driver is Issac (who after his impressive feats today, I am very impressed with!). There are 4 of us in the van - Kate, who is Australian and working in Ethiopia, and is my roommate in my tent. Then there is David who is from Singapore, and then a younger guy from Korea whose name Kate and I both can't remember (it is Huk Jin). Maybe I'll ask him again tomorrow, or maybe he'll introduce himself to someone else at dinner.
We drove out of Nairobi, and then stopped at an overlook of the Rift Valley. We got out to take some pictures there and then continued on.
Drove for about 2 hours until we got to .... And stopped there for lunch. After that the driving was pretty treacherous. The dirt roads leading to the Masai Mara were NOT in very good shape. Our van (allegedly) had 4 wheel drive, and still in the mud we were skidding quite a bit. One point was particularly bad, where a bridge had Allen down, and we just had to drive through the creek bed. Issac had us get out and then he drove through and we walked around. 3 other fans ended up there at the same time as us, and Issac was like the one in charge, telling them how to deal with it and helping other drivers when they had car trouble. I was kind of terrified on this part of the trip, skidding cars are NOT my thing (as anyone who's ever ridden in a car with me in snow can attest to). We finally got out to our camp where Kate and I took one tent and the guys too, another. 2 beds per tent. Amazingly, they have power from 5:30-7 in the morning, and 6:30-10 at night, and there are even hot showers and toilets in the tents! The tents are pretty decent, but the mosquito nets had quite a few holes... Awesome.
After arriving at camp, we set out on our first game drive. Wow. I wasn't expecting to see everything since its not the great migration or even high season. But on the first game drive, we saw zebra, giraffe, thompsons gazelle, impala, haltbeest, wildebeest, lion, elephant, hippo, helmeted guinea fowl, and African buffalo. There may be more even. The roads in the Masai Mara are significantly better than on the way here. It's amazing all the dirt roads running through the park. Our driver knew just where to go, despite the sheer number of roads (glorified dirt paths) that were there. Isaac has a radio in the van, so he communicates with other drivers about animals to see. He stops whenever he wants us to see stuff and take pictures and so he can tell us about the Masai Mara or the animals themselves. When we saw other vans stopped to see the lions, we stopped too and Issac pulled off the road and got us up super close to the lions. My pictures are just incredible. He really did a good job of tracking and following animals so we could get good pictures.
The game drive was from about 4:30-6:30. We came back to camp and had a hot shower, then went to diner we had fried tilapia, with potatoes, pasta, cabbage, and maybe something else too, I forget. We sat by the fire pit for a while after and talked with Katana, a Masai man who works at our campsite as well. went to bed about 9, so we could get up early!
Day 2 began at about 6:30 when we woke up. Breakfast was at 7, then we left for our game drive at 7:30. The second day was even more incredible than the first. We had three different lion sightings, and a few of the times it was multiple lions! Two cheetah sightings and got to see a leopard as well. Our trip took us to the Kenya/Tanzania border! In Kenya the area is called Masai Mara, in Tanzania it is the Serengeti. I had "Africa" by Toto stuck in my head most of the day after this point haha. They have markers along the border so we stopped at one to take pictures. After that, we went to the Mara river, where there are a TON of hippos, and we had a guide (a Kenyan military guy named Jeff with a huge rifle) take us to where you could see a crocodile. He told us that the hippos sleep all day and laze about in the water, then they go on land at night for food. They're not dangerous if they're staying in the water, but once he had to shoot a hippo that was on land when it tried to attack someone. He said you have to shoot to kill and hat he did so successfully. I was shocked that it is even possible to kill a hippo with one bullet, but Jeff said he did, so i guess I'll believe him. We also saw Egyptian geese in the river.
We stopped for lunch, and there were mongoose and monkeys all around. A monkey stole David's banana and my juice box. They are very aggressive and the guides said absolutely NOT to feed them. We didn't try to feed them but I guess ended up doing so inadvertently, which ends up perpetuating the problem. Oh well.
After lunch we saw baboons, which we hadn't seen yet. The drive back had fewer animals in general, since the sun was high and when it's that hot out they all take cover as much as they can. But we still saw a ton of zebras, giraffes, and the various antelope, as well as elephants, and a lion sighting.
Overall summary of animals: (ignore the numbers, they are for my reference in the approximately 1000 photos I took over the three days!)
Thompsons gazelle: small, males have horns, females have little horns. Bold black stripe on their side
Impala: males with horns, often in bachelor groups. Also find harem groups with one dominant male (7,8,9)
Wildebeest/gnu: very dumb! Get eaten fast, poor instincts. travel with zebra, because zebra has good inst cts. Eaten by lions
Topi: males and females similar, both have horns, brown (22,24)
Jackals: scavengers
Cheetah: 15 years lifespan, pregnant 3.5 months, 3-4 babies, fastest on earth. Have small muscles so they don't tire easily, head is smaller for good wind resistance/streamlined, big tail is good for balance, claws are always out to grip onto things. Good dew claw to drag animals. "tear marks" on face - leopard doesn't have them. Very good eye sight and hearing. Longer/slimmer body than leopard.
Giraffe: keep their babies up the mountain so predators don't get them. Lions won't go up the mountain
Grant gazelle: (58,59,60) bigger than Thompson, lighter black on flank
Lions: only social cat
Elephant: life to 60 years. 2 year pregnancy. 6 sets of teeth in their lifetime, 1 set of tusks.
Masai giraffe: different coloring, lions will kill when they bend down to drink water. Usually lions eat wildebeest or buffalo, 4-5 lions to take down 1 buffalo
Leopard: 50 km/hr. live to 15 years
Eland: bigger antelope family
Water buck: (300,301) the common Water buck are the ons with the white ring, these are different.
Haltbeest: like topi (399,400)
Crowned crane
When we returned, Kate, David, and I went to the Masai village. You pay $20 and they take you around. Our guide was Kamwana, also known as Peter. They tell you a lot about the village. There are ten families, but more than ten houses since men have multiple wives. There are about 160 people in the village. Houses are made of mud and sticks and every 9 years they move the village to a new site. Now that they have a school built by this site, in 4 years when it is time to move, Kamwana said they won't go far. Boys are circumcised at 15, and at 20 they spend 5 years in the bus all together where they learn to make knives, spears, shoes (out of tires), and how to be a warrior/hunter. At the end they have to kill a lion. Then at 25 they get married to a girl who is 17, chosen by the parents and paid for with 10 cows. However, if you can jump very high, you may pay fewer cows. If you are horrible at jumping, you might have to pay more. They showed us the jumping dance that the do, which involves wearing a lion's skin/headdress on your head. I got to wear it, and it was from the lion that Kamwana had killed. The men also showed us how they make fire (with sticks, and they are super good at it - they are also really good at jumping!). They let us try to make fire, and of course, we failed. We got to go inside a house, where they tried to sell us stuff. I liked one of the bracelets, and they told me 3000 Kenya shillings (about $35 dollars). I ended up getting it for 1000 shillings (like $12.50, expensive, but still reasonable), but then Kamwana wanted me to swap for my watch... Which I refused to do, on the premise that I need it for taking pulse and respiratory rates! Really because it's my tide watch and it's waterproof and I need that for the beach in the summer... Sorry Kamwana.
They took us down the the school next, and then that was the end of the tour, and Katana walked with us back to the campsite. Took a hot shower and then went to dinner - vegetable soup and bread to start, then ground meat (beef?), rice, some kind of lentil thing (I think?), potatoes, and greens (which I skipped, I still hate greens!). Good overall. I wanted a soda, but I forgot money and then it was pouring rain so I skipped it, figuring the with leaving for our day 3 early morning game drive at 6AM, and early night would be best!
So on Tuesday morning, we woke up at 5:45 and left just after 6 on our final game drive. We saw the usual suspects (zebra, antelope varieties, wildebeest, elephant), and also saw lions. This time it was a whole pride of lions, with a few males mixed in as well. For a total of 13 lions! It was just incredible. I also got some nice shots of the sun rising over the Masai Mara. Stunning. We also saw a pair of cheetahs, which is unusual since as I noted above, the lions are the only social cat, so usually cheetahs are by themselves. After we returned from the game drive, we ate breakfast and hit the road. The road out of the area was much better and drier the it had been on the way in. I never felt like we were going to die, which was a definite plus! We got out to the main road much faster, and stopped at a tourist trap/curio shop, where they tried to sell us beaded flip flops for approximately $55 USD. No chance!
Then Issac told us there was a problem. Apparently the first day we had crossed some body of water to se a lion that he wasn't supposed to cross. Two other vans had done it too, and they had already crossed out of the area and been questioned about it since someone had reported it (what idiots!). So the other vans said it wasn't them, that they had just arrived in the park yesterday and had only spent one night. Issac told us to do the same. So when we stopped at the gate and they asked us, we just said yup, we came in yesterday, aww it was way too short a trip, but what can you do? And we got right through. Stopped for lunch along the road, and then continued on back to Nairobi. I got dropped off at the Junction Mall by Alix's place, and she met me here a little bit later, so I'm still here now, at an Internet cafe that is really nice and has pretty amazing food. Case in point is the chocolate lava cake (with white chocolate and dark chocolate) that I had earlier.... Mmmmmmm.
So my safari on the whole was awesome. Next up is flying to rwanda tomorrow morning, and then meeting up with Sam Thursday night!!
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So Saturday night Alix and I went to an Ethiopian restaurant that was really good. We had a really fun time, just talking and swapping stories. It's really awesome that we just met and got along so well and had such a good time. She's been an incredible host for me.
Sunday morning my safari picked me up around 9 (about an hour late). The driver is Issac (who after his impressive feats today, I am very impressed with!). There are 4 of us in the van - Kate, who is Australian and working in Ethiopia, and is my roommate in my tent. Then there is David who is from Singapore, and then a younger guy from Korea whose name Kate and I both can't remember (it is Huk Jin). Maybe I'll ask him again tomorrow, or maybe he'll introduce himself to someone else at dinner.
We drove out of Nairobi, and then stopped at an overlook of the Rift Valley. We got out to take some pictures there and then continued on.
Drove for about 2 hours until we got to .... And stopped there for lunch. After that the driving was pretty treacherous. The dirt roads leading to the Masai Mara were NOT in very good shape. Our van (allegedly) had 4 wheel drive, and still in the mud we were skidding quite a bit. One point was particularly bad, where a bridge had Allen down, and we just had to drive through the creek bed. Issac had us get out and then he drove through and we walked around. 3 other fans ended up there at the same time as us, and Issac was like the one in charge, telling them how to deal with it and helping other drivers when they had car trouble. I was kind of terrified on this part of the trip, skidding cars are NOT my thing (as anyone who's ever ridden in a car with me in snow can attest to). We finally got out to our camp where Kate and I took one tent and the guys too, another. 2 beds per tent. Amazingly, they have power from 5:30-7 in the morning, and 6:30-10 at night, and there are even hot showers and toilets in the tents! The tents are pretty decent, but the mosquito nets had quite a few holes... Awesome.
After arriving at camp, we set out on our first game drive. Wow. I wasn't expecting to see everything since its not the great migration or even high season. But on the first game drive, we saw zebra, giraffe, thompsons gazelle, impala, haltbeest, wildebeest, lion, elephant, hippo, helmeted guinea fowl, and African buffalo. There may be more even. The roads in the Masai Mara are significantly better than on the way here. It's amazing all the dirt roads running through the park. Our driver knew just where to go, despite the sheer number of roads (glorified dirt paths) that were there. Isaac has a radio in the van, so he communicates with other drivers about animals to see. He stops whenever he wants us to see stuff and take pictures and so he can tell us about the Masai Mara or the animals themselves. When we saw other vans stopped to see the lions, we stopped too and Issac pulled off the road and got us up super close to the lions. My pictures are just incredible. He really did a good job of tracking and following animals so we could get good pictures.
The game drive was from about 4:30-6:30. We came back to camp and had a hot shower, then went to diner we had fried tilapia, with potatoes, pasta, cabbage, and maybe something else too, I forget. We sat by the fire pit for a while after and talked with Katana, a Masai man who works at our campsite as well. went to bed about 9, so we could get up early!
Day 2 began at about 6:30 when we woke up. Breakfast was at 7, then we left for our game drive at 7:30. The second day was even more incredible than the first. We had three different lion sightings, and a few of the times it was multiple lions! Two cheetah sightings and got to see a leopard as well. Our trip took us to the Kenya/Tanzania border! In Kenya the area is called Masai Mara, in Tanzania it is the Serengeti. I had "Africa" by Toto stuck in my head most of the day after this point haha. They have markers along the border so we stopped at one to take pictures. After that, we went to the Mara river, where there are a TON of hippos, and we had a guide (a Kenyan military guy named Jeff with a huge rifle) take us to where you could see a crocodile. He told us that the hippos sleep all day and laze about in the water, then they go on land at night for food. They're not dangerous if they're staying in the water, but once he had to shoot a hippo that was on land when it tried to attack someone. He said you have to shoot to kill and hat he did so successfully. I was shocked that it is even possible to kill a hippo with one bullet, but Jeff said he did, so i guess I'll believe him. We also saw Egyptian geese in the river.
We stopped for lunch, and there were mongoose and monkeys all around. A monkey stole David's banana and my juice box. They are very aggressive and the guides said absolutely NOT to feed them. We didn't try to feed them but I guess ended up doing so inadvertently, which ends up perpetuating the problem. Oh well.
After lunch we saw baboons, which we hadn't seen yet. The drive back had fewer animals in general, since the sun was high and when it's that hot out they all take cover as much as they can. But we still saw a ton of zebras, giraffes, and the various antelope, as well as elephants, and a lion sighting.
Overall summary of animals: (ignore the numbers, they are for my reference in the approximately 1000 photos I took over the three days!)
Thompsons gazelle: small, males have horns, females have little horns. Bold black stripe on their side
Impala: males with horns, often in bachelor groups. Also find harem groups with one dominant male (7,8,9)
Wildebeest/gnu: very dumb! Get eaten fast, poor instincts. travel with zebra, because zebra has good inst cts. Eaten by lions
Topi: males and females similar, both have horns, brown (22,24)
Jackals: scavengers
Cheetah: 15 years lifespan, pregnant 3.5 months, 3-4 babies, fastest on earth. Have small muscles so they don't tire easily, head is smaller for good wind resistance/streamlined, big tail is good for balance, claws are always out to grip onto things. Good dew claw to drag animals. "tear marks" on face - leopard doesn't have them. Very good eye sight and hearing. Longer/slimmer body than leopard.
Giraffe: keep their babies up the mountain so predators don't get them. Lions won't go up the mountain
Grant gazelle: (58,59,60) bigger than Thompson, lighter black on flank
Lions: only social cat
Elephant: life to 60 years. 2 year pregnancy. 6 sets of teeth in their lifetime, 1 set of tusks.
Masai giraffe: different coloring, lions will kill when they bend down to drink water. Usually lions eat wildebeest or buffalo, 4-5 lions to take down 1 buffalo
Leopard: 50 km/hr. live to 15 years
Eland: bigger antelope family
Water buck: (300,301) the common Water buck are the ons with the white ring, these are different.
Haltbeest: like topi (399,400)
Crowned crane
When we returned, Kate, David, and I went to the Masai village. You pay $20 and they take you around. Our guide was Kamwana, also known as Peter. They tell you a lot about the village. There are ten families, but more than ten houses since men have multiple wives. There are about 160 people in the village. Houses are made of mud and sticks and every 9 years they move the village to a new site. Now that they have a school built by this site, in 4 years when it is time to move, Kamwana said they won't go far. Boys are circumcised at 15, and at 20 they spend 5 years in the bus all together where they learn to make knives, spears, shoes (out of tires), and how to be a warrior/hunter. At the end they have to kill a lion. Then at 25 they get married to a girl who is 17, chosen by the parents and paid for with 10 cows. However, if you can jump very high, you may pay fewer cows. If you are horrible at jumping, you might have to pay more. They showed us the jumping dance that the do, which involves wearing a lion's skin/headdress on your head. I got to wear it, and it was from the lion that Kamwana had killed. The men also showed us how they make fire (with sticks, and they are super good at it - they are also really good at jumping!). They let us try to make fire, and of course, we failed. We got to go inside a house, where they tried to sell us stuff. I liked one of the bracelets, and they told me 3000 Kenya shillings (about $35 dollars). I ended up getting it for 1000 shillings (like $12.50, expensive, but still reasonable), but then Kamwana wanted me to swap for my watch... Which I refused to do, on the premise that I need it for taking pulse and respiratory rates! Really because it's my tide watch and it's waterproof and I need that for the beach in the summer... Sorry Kamwana.
They took us down the the school next, and then that was the end of the tour, and Katana walked with us back to the campsite. Took a hot shower and then went to dinner - vegetable soup and bread to start, then ground meat (beef?), rice, some kind of lentil thing (I think?), potatoes, and greens (which I skipped, I still hate greens!). Good overall. I wanted a soda, but I forgot money and then it was pouring rain so I skipped it, figuring the with leaving for our day 3 early morning game drive at 6AM, and early night would be best!
So on Tuesday morning, we woke up at 5:45 and left just after 6 on our final game drive. We saw the usual suspects (zebra, antelope varieties, wildebeest, elephant), and also saw lions. This time it was a whole pride of lions, with a few males mixed in as well. For a total of 13 lions! It was just incredible. I also got some nice shots of the sun rising over the Masai Mara. Stunning. We also saw a pair of cheetahs, which is unusual since as I noted above, the lions are the only social cat, so usually cheetahs are by themselves. After we returned from the game drive, we ate breakfast and hit the road. The road out of the area was much better and drier the it had been on the way in. I never felt like we were going to die, which was a definite plus! We got out to the main road much faster, and stopped at a tourist trap/curio shop, where they tried to sell us beaded flip flops for approximately $55 USD. No chance!
Then Issac told us there was a problem. Apparently the first day we had crossed some body of water to se a lion that he wasn't supposed to cross. Two other vans had done it too, and they had already crossed out of the area and been questioned about it since someone had reported it (what idiots!). So the other vans said it wasn't them, that they had just arrived in the park yesterday and had only spent one night. Issac told us to do the same. So when we stopped at the gate and they asked us, we just said yup, we came in yesterday, aww it was way too short a trip, but what can you do? And we got right through. Stopped for lunch along the road, and then continued on back to Nairobi. I got dropped off at the Junction Mall by Alix's place, and she met me here a little bit later, so I'm still here now, at an Internet cafe that is really nice and has pretty amazing food. Case in point is the chocolate lava cake (with white chocolate and dark chocolate) that I had earlier.... Mmmmmmm.
So my safari on the whole was awesome. Next up is flying to rwanda tomorrow morning, and then meeting up with Sam Thursday night!!
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