Mount Kenya, Safari, other stuff

Hi everyone,

We ended up having to pay $270 (including everything) for the safari, but we didn’t mind because we couldn’t really find it cheaper anywhere else, also he picked us up from the orphanage and dropped us off there again, so that was good.

Current volunteers are: British: Me, Lara
American: Ann, Devin, Alena, Doug, Vishnu and Cassie
Slovakian: Jarka
Spanish: Ana
Canadian: Sabrina
German: Lara

Ben and Mila have gone to Rwanda for 2 weeks.

Last week, Friday 17th, me, Sabrina, Danny and John went to Nanyuki which is a town at the base of mount Kenya. Someone, I think it was Danny or John, had read in a guide that there was a place that did really cheap 4 hour camel rides, 1500 Ksh, about 11-12 Gbp. So that was our sole purpose of going really, Sabrina leaves soon and doesn’t have a lot of money so we tried to do it cheaply. After a really long matatu ride (in which a guy towards the end said he’d show us where the hotel was, I said we had a map, but he put his hand on my shoulder and insisted that he would show us. He pointed to it out of the window and asked for money for his trouble, we didn’t give him any) we arrived there and asked at the hotel desk what the cheapest way to stay in the hotel would be. This turned out to be room 409, a double room, with 2 biggish single beds, for 700 Ksh, 175 Ksh each, about 1.30 Gbp each. We took it, Sabrina and Danny shared a bed (mum and dad) and me and John shared a bed, it wasn’t comfortable. After we had checked in we went to a place recommended by the guide book for food. I got a samosa, fish and chips, and a cheese burger, and shared a pizza with Danny and John. The food was great, but at the end the bill was about 1100 Ksh over what we ordered, so dad (Danny) went and argued and sorted it out. They had added a few extra things to the bill, but then in the end had just made up the total anyway. We went to bed fairly early because we had to be at the camel place for 9am, but it was a Friday night so the street below us was very noisy and I was sharing a bed with John, so I didn’t sleep well.

The next day we got to the camel place slightly late, and two girls were just setting off on some camels, but they hadn’t booked ahead and there weren’t enough camels for all of us, so they had to get off. The camel ride was good, it was uncomfortable towards the end, and there wasn’t too much to see (a dead dog is the most memorable thing I can remember seeing), but it was fun to be on a camel, I called mine Henry. We left the camel place after our 4 hours and got some lunch, it was rubbish, and then we got a matatu back to Thika which was really good, because it only had 11 seats, and it had a TV, even though it only played rubbish music videos. It also didn’t stop until thika, so it was a much shorter journey than the previous day.

On Monday 20th ten of us went on safari in the Masai Mara, me, Ben, Mila, Jens, Melda, Lara (German), Cassie, Alena, Ana and Jarka. It took sooo long to get there, around 8 hours in total, but it was definitely worth it. We had lunch as soon as we got to the camp, and then went to the park. The first day was probably the best, we saw zebras, gazelle, buffalo, lions, then we saw some elephants, but as soon as we got there Stanley (the driver) got a message over the radio that there was a leopard near by, so we sped past the elephants (leopards are supposedly really rare, and we didn’t see any more after the first day) and headed towards where it had been spotted. We saw the leopard from the other side of a big ditch, quite a distance away, it was walking, unluckily for the leopard, into the path of a lioness that was waiting behind a bush. Stanley said in 7 years of safari driving he’d never seen a stand off between a lion and a leopard. Eventually the leopard got too close and the lioness chased it until it ran up a tree, then the lioness and a male lion sat around at the bottom waiting. At this point our safari bus (kind of like a fancy matatu with a roof that opens up and less seats) and around 10 others that were watching from over the river sped round to the tree to watch what would happen, along with vehicles from all over the masai mara, at one point I counted 50 vehicles around this tree, by far the most we saw at any point over the 3 days, I think the next most was probably around 7 or 8 around lions or elephants. I think all the safari drivers wanted to see what would happen just as much if not more than the people they were driving. In the end the leopard sat in the tree until the sun set and the wind changed direction (so the lions couldn’t smell him from where they were sitting) and then ran away.

The next day we set off to the park around 8 ish I think. I forgot to mention that Jens missed the first day safari because he was sick. Unfortunately Melda was feeling unwell on the second day, came along anyway, and started to feel worse and worse as the day went on. At one point we were watching elephants and Melda really needed the bathroom/bush so we had to go through the herd of elephants as fast as possible but there was a big one on the road, Stanley was driving at it really fast and it was running away making loads of noise, then it turned around to face us, looking quite angry as if it might run at the bus, but then it turned around and carried on running, eventually doing the sensible thing and just getting off the road. Melda made it to the bush in time, for anyone wondering. This day we also saw some of the wildebeest migrating, although the river that you see them crossing on TV was dired up, so we didn’t get to see any eaten by crocodiles. We did see crocodiles though, and hippos, and some vultures eating a dead wildebeest, a couple of hyenas, cheetas, giraffes and warthogs. At the picnic site that we stopped at for lunch there were lots of monkeys, they stole food off women, they weren’t afraid of white men, but they didn’t steal food from them. They were afraid of black men. Stanley demonstrated that they were afraid of spears by picking up a small stick and threatening a monkey with it, it ran away. We also crossed the border into the Serengeti plains in Tanzania, so that’s another country that I can tick off. Jens and Melda went back to the camp after lunch as Melda really wasn’t well. The rest of us carried on in the other bus.

On the final day of the safari we left the camp at 7 am, did a couple of hours in the park, saw lion cubs and two lions having sex, a picture of which I have now set as this computers desktop. The only animal of note that we didn’t see on the safari was a rhino. After we left the park we had the option to pay to see a Masai camp, but I didn’t because it all seemed a little bit staged. Some of the others did and they said it was good, so maybe I missed out, I don’t know. We then had food and set off back for the orphanage.

That’s it for trips out that I’ve done over the last couple of weeks. Me, Cassie and Lara (German) are going to Lamu (an island on the coast) in a couple of weeks, and I’m really looking forward to that. It’s meant to have a relaxed atmosphere, good food, nice beaches.

At the orphanage things are moving along “pole pole” (slowly slowly in Kiswahili, even though they speak Kikuyu here, but whatever). Devin told me the other day that the biogas is fixed, I asked him if Francis had been, annoyed that I’d missed a chance to question him on the torch, he said “no, that’s why it’s fixed” so I don’t think I’m going to see Francis again. The animal enclosure is moving along nicely, a week and a bit ago me and Devin spent all morning carrying buckets of concrete and pouring it into trenches, very tiring. Then a few days ago I spent all morning shoveling dirt from one place to another, also very tiring. But it has poles now to hold up the roof, so it’s coming along quickly. Ana and Doug took Grace to Nairobi yesterday (not sure if I’ve mentioned Grace before, but she’s 21, does all the cooking, and hasn’t had a single day off in 4 months) she said she had a really good time.

Oh, on the day we went to Nanyuki John shaved my head (I needed a hair cut before I left for Europe but didn’t have time, now almost 3 months later it’s finally been cut) and I shaved my beard (first time since Berlin I think, it wasn’t a good beard, still very patchy, with that weird bald spot under my chin). So I look vaguely human now. It was funny seeing the kids reactions to how different I looked. I had a conversation with Moses as a new volunteer called Jack, and he kept saying that I sounded like another volunteer called David who had longer hair. Lots of them didn’t recognize me, but I’ve asked them all and they say it looks better short.

My left big toenail has come off because I hit it with a shovel a couple of weeks ago, it became loose so John pulled it off with pliers.

I think I’m loosing weight too, I think I was 195 lbs when I got here, I’m now around 181.

Not last night but the night before a dog ripped open one of the rabbit hutches and we lost 4 rabbits.

I’ve not been sick yet, and I’ve been drinking the water in lots of places, eating sausages from street vendors and showering around twice a week.

Things are going well.

India may have to wait for another time...

Citizens of United Kingdom residing in United Kingdom have to apply for a visa to India in person at the nearest consulate of India in United Kingdom. Please note that the application procedures and fees may vary depending on where you apply. If there is no consulate of India in United Kingdom there might be a consulate of India in one of the neighboring countries that covers the jurisdiction of United Kingdom.



I should have thought of that before I left.....

I guess I'll try going to the Indian embassy in Thailand and see if they just laugh at me.

Muriega

Hi everyone,

(This is being written in word and pasted in again, so some stuff may not make sense if I think I spoke about it in the last post but didn’t)

It’s time for a new blog post. First off, this should be the midway point of my time at the orphanage, which I wasn’t happy about, I like it here so I am staying for an extra four weeks, which means that I still have 8 weeks left. For the grown ups reading this, don’t worry, I have enough anti-malarials, it just means that I will have to find extra a little bit earlier in Asia than I thought, I might even try to get more here.

Everything is going great here, apart from a lot of the kids being sick recently. There’s been a big change over in the volunteers that are here recently, only Sabrina, Doug, Alena, Ann and Devon are still here from when I first arrived. Hannes and Maria left a couple of weeks ago and Amanda left last Tuesday. New volunteers are Anne, from Oz, Jarka, from Slovakia, Ben, from Uganda/Belgium, Mila, from Spain, Lara, from Germany, Cassie, from America, Ana, from Spain, John and Danny, brothers from America, and Jens and Melda, a couple from Sweden, which brings me to Henrik’s comment, under 21’s football is irrelevant where ever I am, doubly so here.

The last few weeks I’ve been helping Njeroga (said Jeroga) a lot on the shamba (farm). Harvesting beans, weeding the maize, watering the crops, which is very tiring, you have to drop a bucket into a well, let it fill, which is faster if you can make it hit the water upside down, and then pull it up on a rope, pour it on some crops, then do it again. Some days it’s worse than others, as the wells can dry up and you have to go to one further away to fill your bucket. Me and Devon have also been stirring the cow poo on alternate days so that it doesn’t build up and dry out, which means it takes longer and you have to do bigger loads which means your more likely to have it splash up into your face or on your clothes or whatever. We also discovered just yesterday that one of the taps in the pipe to the kitchen has a leak, which should hopefully be fixed soon. The guy that they paid to do all of this biogas stuff, Francis, doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. The first time we managed to fill the biogas chamber he came to connect the stove and decided there was a leak in the pipe because the gas wasn’t coming out in the kitchen so he immediately started smashing stuff up to get to the pipe, efficient for a Kenyan, apart from the fact that he just hadn’t turned the taps on and there wasn’t a leak or blockage at all. Then he stole Hannes’s torch, which I am determined to get back, or at least steal something of equal or more value, when he comes to fix the leak he created while trying to fix a leak that wasn’t there. Also we’ve just started to clear the area that we are going to use for the animals and tool sheds. When the orphanage started the animals were kept away from the buildings a little, but as it’s expanded it’s kind of grown around the animals, so the pigs, cows, goats, chickens and ducks are now right next to a lot of the volunteer dorms. So these are all going to be moved out of the way. Yesterday morning we had to cut down two trees that were in the new area, and because we didn't want stumps there either we had to dig down and axe/machete through the roots, then eventually we pulled it over with a rope.

Last weekend me, Doug, Amanda, Danny and John went to Naivasha (spelling may be wrong) on Saturday, then on Sunday we went to Nairobi and came back to the Orphanage on Tuesday Morning. We set off to Naivasha pretty late, but we got there just in time to do a boat ride on the lake and see some Hippos bobbing about and yawning. We also saw some fish eagles, and our boat driver bought some fish from some fishermen (not sure if they were supposed to be fishing or not) and then put something in them to make them float, whistled for the eagles and threw them into the water to make the eagles swoop down for them. Later we managed to have a few beers and some food that didn't have maize or beans in it, so that was good. While we were eating hippos were coming out of the water and up to the electric fence, I got some photos, but it was pretty dark, so I'm not sure how good they will be, I kept trying to get closer, but there was a man there who was telling me off. On the Sunday we got up early and rode our rented bikes to Hells Gate national park, we stopped for ages at the first lot of zebras that we saw, then we went around the corner and there were loads of them. We also saw warthogs, buffalo, gazelle and monkeys. I got a flat tyre, but we managed to find some people to fix it near Hells Gate gorge. We didn't see any giraffes, which was a little disappointing, but it was still a great day, we even chased ostriches. Next we headed to Nairobi.

When we got to Nairobi we wanted to stay at hotel Africana, because it was fairly cheap, we didn't know the way, but we did have a map to work it out. I foolishly accepted the request of a man to lead us to the hotel (he obviously wanted money, but i didn't mind giving him a little if he got us there), he took us the wrong way, so we just started following the map, and despite us telling him we didn't need him, he continued to follow us around. When we got to the Africana they didn't have any water, so we headed towards the marble arch in a very roundabout way, with this guy still refusing to leave us alone. By the end of the walk I was just swearing at him, telling him to go away and that he was useless at his job, but in much more colourful language. He almost definately understood me, but his whole thing for being there was that he didn't understand "go away" so he couldn't really get cross without breaking the act. Amanda tried the more polite approach of "Sir, please leave us alone, we know where we're going" , which unsurprisingly didn't work. He left us when we got to the door of the marble arch. Doug reeled off his speech about us working for an orphanage, so we got a good deal at the marble arch anyway.

The next day we went to an orphanage for baby elephants and rhinos, it also contained the most white people I have seen in 4 weeks. It was really good though, they had lots of baby elephants that walked about and you could touch them and stuff. Then they got a baby rhino out and it ran around lots and spun in circles, they said it was born prematurely, so John assumed it was retarded, I don't think it was, it was just messing about. After donating to the animal orphanage we went to carnivore, a restaurant that lets you eat as many animals as you want. The selection was sheep, cow, pig, chicken, turkey, ostrich, crocodile (disappointing) and maybe others that I can't remember.

On the Tuesday morning we waved bye bye to Amanda as she went to the airport, and the other four of us went and sat on matatus for a couple of hours to get back to the orphanage.

John, Danny, Angie and Ashley are going on a safari this weekend to the Masai Mara, for $200 (American) each, when the guy came a few days ago to pick up half the money from them 10 of us organised to go for the same price a week after, but then last night he phoned Doug and said actually it'll be $270 for you guys, Doug said we'd all discuss it, but no one wants to pay that much, as he said $200 first, so when he comes to pick the guys up early tomorrow I'm going to get up and tell him its $200 or nothing. We shall see how that goes, I think he'll just agree, he doesn't want to lose $2000 worth of business to someone else. I'm making sure i'm the one to speak to him though.

I also think I've decided to go to Thailand after Kenya, and then back to India. Geographically it makes sense to do India first, but I think rural Kenya straight to India will be a bit too much, especially with my extra 4 weeks here.

I think that's everything I need to say, so I'm going to go buy some fruit and possibly samosas or sausages and then get the Matatu back to Punda.

Bye all.