Our flight was uneventful and after thirty hours of travel we arrived in Nairobi. I will put a plug in for Delta Airlines as the flights from Phoenix to Minneapolis and then Minneapolis to Amsterdam were about the best from an American flagged carrier we ever we on. KLM did it's usual great job from Amsterdam to Nairobi. Immigration and Customs were incredibly efficient which is really something when you consider a major fire burned down the International Terminal here less than one month ago.
Ninety minutes after getting off of the plane, we were out of the airport and on our way to the hotel in central Nairobi where by 10:30 PM we crashed. We were up at six and on the road for a five hour drive to our first stop at the Ol Tukai Lodge in the Amboseli National Park. We only saw Nairobi through the windows of the Land Rover, but I doubt we'd hurry back from what we saw.
The first three hours on the road reminded us of India with lots of traffic and road side vendors and collection points springing up in the most unlikely places. The vendor economy is certainly very prominent everywhere with people selling everything imaginable next to the roadside.
We made a short rest stop at a place that didn't inspire too much confidence in how sanitary it would be, but what are you going to do. When I walked outside the compound it gave me a glimpse of what everyday life was like for people outside the city.
The further away from Nairobi we traveled, the more walking was the way to get from place to place and it only became truer was we traveled further into the bush. Our mode of transportation was the Land Cruiser, but outfitted for the bush it is a rugged vehicle with a ride to match.
We finally turned off of the main road and headed west toward the Park only to be stopped several times by herds of cattle crossing the road. Our final turn put us on a rutted, washboard gravel road for the last hour of the drive, but we finally were in the bush and getting ever closer to what we came for: the animals. After another herd of cattle stopped us, a few hundred yards later this is what we saw and we knew it was going to be a good trip.
When we arrived at the park gate, we were greeted by members of the local Masai village with trinkets to sell. As our driver went to fill some paper work, they surrounded the truck like it was a lion they were trying to kill and began shoving their wares through every available window. Now they are well known as fierce warriors, but when it comes to bargaining they met their match in Kathy who eagerly joined the fray. In the end, Kathy won, but everyone was happy. It was the beginning of our fascination with most interesting people which I will tell you more about in a later post.
With the gates of the park fading behind us, in a cloud of the ever present dust, our adventure in Africa was finally beginning with the majestic. Mt. Kilimanjaro as a back drop. Monkeys and baboons greeted us as we drove into our lodge to drop off our luggage and go out on our first game drive. This was to be our base for the next two action packed days and what a pleasant base it was. Here's a picture of our room and what our view only a few hundred feet away.
Kathy just came off of the deck and said the native band was playing and the bonfire was lit. It's cocktail time in Tanzania. So we will call our guard to be walked to the main lodge and join in the festivities. Who knows we may encounter something on the walk that will make another good story. I certainly have more to share.
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