Simba

the long road home

Sunrise over the Mara plains from Mara West up on the escarpment

We also saw a cheetah this morning, but it was so far away and it slunk away before we could get close enough for a picture. God was good to me this trip. We had checked the weather report before leaving and it promised heavy rains for every day. We didn't see a drop of rain the entire weekend. I prayed for a good weekend and He gave it to us. We saw so many lions and a bunch of other animals. The leopard I had secretly hoped for, but told God I was okay with even just enjoying the scenery, since they're so hard to find. When I saw the leopards and lions I told God I'd love to see a cheetah, since they're my favorite big cats, but that if he had other plans I would be fine. He let me see the cheetah. I was overjoyed. I had to laugh though, because He only allowed me a glimpse. I think I should have asked to get close enough to a cheetah to get good pictures :) The other thing He did for me had to do with losing a lens cap. We were sitting on the roof of the car, going about 60 kph and both Susan and I heard a clank. It took a moment to register, but we both thought it sounded like a lens cap hitting metal, and sure enough my lens cap was gone from my pocket. So we backed way up and carefully scanned the roadside for it, but couldn't find it. I asked God for help, but wasn't too worried, since a lens cap is just a lens cap. Finally I told the others that we should keep going since it had very likely flown way off. Then I just happened to look down the backside of the vehicle. My cap was there sitting on a ledge, upright. It seemed too illogical to me for a lens cap to fly off at 60 kph and to fall onto a narrow ledge and stay there upright without rolling off as we drove back and forth looking for it. Call it coincidence if you like. I don't believe in coincidence.

These birds (a something something Roller..) have beautiful blue feathers on the underside of their wings.

A Walk to Remember. I've been in two places at once (TZ and Kenya). Appropriately my injured foot on the Kenya side.

Me and my family at the borderpost between the Mara and Serengeti

I got to drive from the Mara bridge all the way to the gate out of the park. Man, those roads can be rough. Washboard isn't the best!

This is the biggest group of giraffe I've seen together. They leisurely crossed the road in front of us close to the gate.

And here we come to my favorites.. the zebra. I think I saw less than ten of them inside the park, but hundreds outside the gate on the way to Narok.

Longonot from a distance across the valley

26 April

Paljon Onnea Laura!

These cute paw prints were in the mudbank below our campsite on Sand River

I'm not entirely cured of my fear of sliding cars, especially coupled with water. Most of the crossings I was able to survive sitting down, closing my eyes and holding onto something. But for this one I had to get out. It's too unnerving to see yourself go down at a near 75 degree angle in mud straight into water. So I got out and took pictures instead :) They still laugh at me..

up close and personal to the little flower

These cute mongoose (or is it mongeese :D ) were at the filling station of Serena Lodge. I followed them around. They would peek around sandpiles and bushes, always so curious.

This guy was perturbed. We bullied him off the road and he trotted off trumpeting and looking back at us accusingly.

Gotta love the roads.. We came through this and almost made it. There was one little dip that our car didn't quite make and left us spinning mud. The Hartzell's car couldn't get good enough grip to pull us ( he almost ended up in the ditch himself) but fortunately another vehicle came by and we were able to persuade them to help us. We were happy to be out of there.

Friday

On our second day we left camp before breakfast and drove around all day.

4wd is cool stuff (except when you're in the car). We circled this rock and then without warning Kent turned to face it and gunned it. It took us two tries to get up, but up we got. Contrary to park rules and common sense, we got out and had breakfast on the rock. Off in the bushes we found part of a grazer skeleton.

Josh, Joshua and Alex on the Hartzell's roof spreading sunscreen.

The grass was really tall all over the Mara. At times the drivers couldn't see anything around them and we up top had to tell them which way to go. I can now imagine how it is out on the prairies.

a Secretary bird

The first leopards I've seen in the wild. Two of them were resting in this tree, but once we got closer they jumped out and walked off into the grass. We saw one more leopard the following morning, but it disappeared so fast that all I saw was a blur of red jumping from the tree.

Topi

a gazelle

hyena. There were lots of them around. We heard them every night.

Where's Waldo? Can you spot the lioness in the grass? We had to chase her off before we could get out and have lunch under a tree. While eating we kept a lookout for her in the grass but couldn't see her. Once we got going again, we saw her off to one side sitting on a mound of grass watching us.

This little suni was sitting in a rut in the road and didn't budge until we were very close. When we came back through later, she was sitting right back in the same place.

Mommy and baby

first day

We went to the Mara for our last long weekend with the Crutchers and Hartzells. The first two nights we stayed in tents at the Sand River gate in the southeast corner of the park and then for the last night we drove up to Andy Aho's Mara West camp on the Oloololo escarpment.
I would rank the Maasai Mara right up with Mt Kenya as one of the most beautiful places in this country.

This a small chapel built by an italian in the 1940's along the road down the escarpment by Maai Mahiu.

These beautiful fields stretch along the road. Last September on our way to the Mara these fields were ready to be harvested. It looked really nice to have a field of amber grain with the acacias sticking up in the middle of it all.

Sand River

This place had ticks like none other. Just walking up to the bathroom one evening, Susan, Carol and I brushed off tens of ticks off our legs. They would drop out of the trees right on to you. It was quite disturbing..

Originally I had thought to stay alone in a little tent off to the side, but after we saw these prints in the bathrooms and it got really dark and we could hear a male lion somewhere on the other side of the river, I chickened out and crawled in with the Crutcher's :)

Senior trip

5

viisi viikkoa

fem veckor

fünf Woche

cinco semanas

five weeks

cinq semaines

cinque settimane

пять недель

Aberdare

Nyandarua

vattenfaller

safari

We went to the Aberdare mountains a week ago just for one day. It was beautiful.
The mountains are up at above 3000m and the weather was nice and cold.
Getting there it rained and the roads right inside the park were horrid.
They were soo muddy and we slipped and slid around :/

pitkäkaulat

mombasa

El amanecer

oceano

Going to Mombasa

We went to the south coast, near to Mombasa, last weekend with the entire school. We left Wednesday morning in two buses and arrived after about 11 hours on the road.
The place was wonderful.
Along the way we could see Kili for a long time. They are still working on the first 80 or so kilometers of the road out of Nairobi, but the rest of it was great.
Coming back at one point I could see snow-capped Kilimanjaro rising above the plains through our back window, our Ngong's silhouetted in the setting sun to the left and the hazy base of Mt Kenya far to our upper right. My three favorite mountains :)

I burned myself already on the first day and had to live with it for the rest of the trip. Fortunately the burn wasn't very bad. Other suffered too.
Most of the time we alternated between the pool and the beach. The waves were awesome when the tide came in in the afternoon! We had a blast on Saturday playing in them.

Here's me with my adopted family :)

hoy

Como sobrevivir
Como calmar mi sed
Como seguir sin tí
Como saltar sin red

Con este adios tan salvaje y cruel
me desojaste la piel
La eternidad en final se quedó
y un desierto es mi corazón

Ay si volvieras a mi
Encendería el sol mil primaveras
Si regresaras por mí
Sería un milagro cada beso que me dieras
Pero hoy te vas
Y no hay vuelta atras

Qué habrá después de tí
más que estas lagrimas?
Hasta ja lluvia en el jardin
toca un música sin fin
sombria y trágica

Hoy de rodillas le pido a Dios
que por el bien de los dos
Algo en tu pecho se quiebre al oir
a esta loca que se muere de amor

Ya no puedo más!
Ay si volvieras a mi vida, si volvieras
Si regresaras por mí
sería feliz otra vez

Pero hoy te vas, y no hay vuelta atras...

Climbing again

We went climbing behind the Ngong's again the other Sunday. It was Kylie and I, Chappy, Andrew, Romel and Elvin. It was a nice day and the road wasn't too muddy. I even saw a giraffe alongside the road. I didn't climb with the ropes, but had a good time climbing up to the top of the cliffs. On our way back we stopped by the practice area for shooters and dug up some bullets. Even I found one...

the Mountain

MacKinders camp

my valley

the beginning of scree slope (what we climbed up at 3am Monday morning)

The entire scree slope. It took us about three hours to get up the whole thing.

Point Lenana

sunday hike

These are from our hike from Met to MacKinders on Sunday.

The ground actually had frost on it!!

Saturday afternoon

More Mt Kenya

A miracle happened and my pictures were found after I had already given up on them. So I'm posting more. These are from our hike on Saturday.