Wednesday 12 October 2011

Karibu Kenya!

I'm back! Better just pop a few more Africa blogs out, who knows when I'll be posting again? Turns out that I missed the whole of September - ooooops!

So...where did I leave us? Oh yes, we'd spent the night camping in Lake Naivasha with the scary storks...(shakes fist at nasty storks) but actually on the whole I was more than happy with the camping facilities for our first night, they were a lot better than I expected, maybe even better than some places in England I've camped!

I'm pleased to report that nothing ate us in our sleep on the first night! Katie 1- African wildlife - 0!

However, we literally walked on the wild side before breakfast on a walking safari which was amazing. We walked right near zebras, giraffes and my new favourite animal, the warthog.


There's me, there's a giraffe. Beats a day in the office.

The next few days were choc a block full of animals as we went on a few different safaris, all were different from each other and we very quickly got bored of gazelles and antelopes...and birds. I've got nothing against birds, but I wanted to see teeth and claws baby! The Big 5! I had my safari hat on for goodness sake!

Here's a selection of safari photos from Kenya taken by moi! We went on a boat safari, walking safari then on to Lake Nakuru:








Hey fellas! I LOVE zebras, others got bored of them after a while but I think they're marvellous!

The Big 5 wasn't working out too well for us in Kenya, perhaps they were all off acting out the Lion King nearby, I like to think so anyway. Safari is a game of luck anyway, we still had the Serengeti and the Ngorogoro Crater to visit!

I've been to Africa - Kenya believe it???

Well...plenty has happened since I last popped my blogs! I might have gone to Africa!

Myself and 3 other 'princesses' travelled on an Exodus trip to Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar back on September 10th - that's right, we were in the air on a plane on September 11th...eeeeek!

I will not even attempt to sum up the trip in one measly blog, it wouldn't be fair to Africa!

My new 'wife' Nayani and I started our African adventure on Saturday 10th September as we travelled down to Heathrow airport by train. We made it to the train in one piece with our heavy bags (mine was roughly the same size as a pre-school child and I'd packed light...) only to find that the air-con was broken on our carriage and our carriage alone! Gutted. Well rather than move everything (heat magazine and sweets) we called it our aclimatisation period as it was hotter than the sun in that carriage.


We met Honor at Kings Cross station, she had managed to pack light and her bag was about a quarter of the size of mine...we managed to annoy several hundred commuters in central London with our combined luggage on the underground at rush hour - good job! Several times I swung around to tell them something and knocked several Japanese tourists flying - out of my way!

Heathrow bound, we thought we'd better check the itinerary against our map in our guide book so we actually knew where we were going...turns out it looked like a bloody long way from Kenya to Tanzania on a truck! Damn you Honor! (She chose the trip)

Anyway, nothing we could do about it now :) we met Naomi, the final princess, at the airport, checked in, sank a beverage in the airport for Dutch courage and boarded the long haul flight to Nairobi...

8 looooooooong hours after sitting between Honor and Nayani we landed in Kenya - Jambo! I gave Honor a quick basic Swahili lesson in the airport as it turns out her knowledge of Kenya extends to the Lion King...we clear immigration at a snails pace and all of our bags arrived with us - hurrah!

We met the Exodus guys and all the other tour participants at the airport, and it turns out that the couple sat behind us on the plane were also on the trip! We headed for Nairobi central to meet up with everyone else already in Kenya.

Once we'd collected everyone else, we headed for Lake Naivasha, where Nayani promptly fell asleep on the truck for most of the journey! Sleepy head.
We set up camp for the first time and managed to get our tent up in the right shape, which was a good sign. Went out on a boat trip on Lake Naivasha and saw hippos, giraffe (on land, not in the lake) some birds...terrible with bird names...came back to camp to find GIANT Marabou storks on top of our tent...


Oh My God get them off and get me in to a hotel!!!!

Turns out they are scavengers and not predators, all the same they are horrible looking and super creepy...that night we hit the sleeping bag at 8pm prompt. Wild times.

Also turns out this might be an epic blog post so I'm going to stop there.

Kwa heri for now x