That time i had to pee and a lion almost ate me (aka...SAFARI!!)

ahoy ahoy! Brace yourselves, this is gonna be a long one!!

So Joanna and i got back from safari yesterday and OMG it was THE MOST PERFECT TRIP!! Holy poop, friends, it was such an incredible adventure!! It was worth every single penny, and i'm pretty sure i'm gonna be recalling this trip with a big grin on my face for years and years to come!

i'm attaching a very small sampling of photos, mostly of the animals, so you can get an idea of the animals we saw (i've mostly omitted landscape photos because i'm pretty sure no one but my dad would be that interested...) But seeing as i took over 600 photos and Joanna's got almost 400, consider yourselves invited for a safari-themed-photo-viewing party when i get back home! 

Alright, but let's start at the usual place (aka, the beginning!). So we got picked up at 8am on Friday morning and off we went. It turned out it was just the two of us on the safari and we had THE BEST guide, Peter, who looked exactly the way you would think a safari guide should look like, dressed in khaki with grey, distinguished looking hair. Our safari van didn't have a radio, which initially kinda freaked us out because that's how these guys find animals, and then they radio other cars and then everyone comes and sees whatever it is they found. But this man could've found a needle in a haystack. A haystack that was 1km away. Without using binoculars. With his eyes closed. You get the picture? This was actually super awesome because it meant that for the most part, when we found animals it would just be out vehicle in the middle of nowhere, and not the circus of 20+ vehicles that erupted any time these other guys found a lion under a tree. Like i said, incredible. 

But i'm getting ahead of myself just gushing about how awesome Peter was. Let's continue with the timeline. So the drive to the Mara was about 5 hours and took us right through the Great Rift Valley, which was a spectacular sigh to behold. We got into the camp around 1:30pm and holy crap did we get WAY more than we signed up for. Being poor students, we of course chose the cheapest possible option offered to us by the safari company, that being the budget camping option. Now Joanna's sister had just come back from a 2 week safari through Kenya and Tanzania and had terrified us of stories of squatty potties, no toilet paper, sandwiches for every meal, and disgusting dinky tents to sleep in. So needless to say, we were prepared for the absolute worst, and i even brought a 4-pack of toilet paper to get us through. So we get to the camp site and it turns out that, yes, technically these are tents, but they were actually like those military tents with doors and windows, and they were actually built into little huts, with thatched roofs and built into the back was a BEAUTIFUL stone-tiled toilet, complete with hot shower and flushing toilet. Budget camping? Um, more like luxury camping. We definitely felt like a pair of rich mzungus all weekend in that pimp pad! And they fed us like it was going out of STYLE! When we got into the camp on Friday afternoon, they had set up a table on the porch of our "tent" and brought us some soup. We thought that was lunch, so we scarfed it down and ate all the bread they brought. And then they brought us salad. We woolfed this down as well, thinking that was supposed to be dessert. And then they brought us a giant plate with fish, rice, spaghetti, a crap load of vegetables and other stuff i can't remember. i ate maybe a third and considered vomiting, at which point they brought us a big plate of mangoes and pineapples. And this is what meal times looked like all weekend. Just when you thought there was no way you could fit anything else in, they would bring you another plate of delicious food. And we thought we would only be eating sandwiches! 

So after lunch on Friday we drove into the Mara. We saw giraffes, zebras, gazelles and their kin, and then our car broke (around 5:30 or so, no big deal since we'd have to drive out of the park at 6 anyways). So Peter dropped us off at the camp and went to get the van fixed. We had another few hours before dinner, so we befriended a Masai guy, Daniel, and the three of us went on a hike to watch the sunset. This was AMAZING folks. Daniel was way open about everything and we got to ask him all the stupid questions we would never want to ask anyone (examples include: "why do you guys all wear blankets?" "what's with the ear cutting?" and "you get circumcised at WHAT age?!?".....the answer to the last question is 15 and all i could do was just give Daniel a look of sympathy and never mention this again). Daniel was pretty interested in all things Canadian too, so we filled him in on such pressing topics as pre-marital sex, what happens when a mate cheats and being married to only one person. It was so great to get an unfiltered lesson on all things Masai, and he told us all about their cultures, traditions, etc. We learned lots, and it turns out Daniel has slain a lion (after they get circumcised at 15, they spend 5 years in the bush and this is where the lion got slain...) He was telling us all about this and then looked at us and asked "can the men in your country slay lions?" and we just awkwardly laughed. So because he speared a lion and because he can jump the highest in his village, he didn't have to pay any cows for his fiancee (he's getting married in December). Can you imagine if that's how it was with us? What a different world! 

Seriously though, the Masai are going through some tough times nowadays (and they already had it pretty rough before, so you can just imagine). The drought has SERIOUSLY affected them as they are primarily pastoralists who pasture cows and sheep and goats. Cows are their main source of income and these animals are so pathetic looking, it just makes one so sad. Peter said that if it doesn't rain soon, most of the cows we saw would probably die within a week or so, and it's so true. These animals are so frail, they can barely walk. So let's all send some positive vibes and hope for rain! 

But getting back to Friday. So during the night i was awoken by gunshots and freaked. the hell. OUT. i woke up Joanna panicking that Kenyans had finally had enough of us spoiled mzungus and were raping and pillaging their way through the camp. i barely slept a wink after and in the morning it turned out that i'm a silly silly girl! Elephants had gotten into our camp and the park rangers had to shoot to scare them off. Only on safari can a story like that make sense! 

So anyways, on Saturday we woke up to watch the sunrise and had a giant breakfast and off we went for day 2! This was our longest day as we were out from 7am to around 6pm but we saw SO many animals, it was insane! Elephants, lions, cheetahs (this was a funny story actually. So driving around we see this cute little baby topi and stop to take photos. Half an hour later that baby topi is being devoured by a momma cheetah and her three cubs. Okay, so not that funny of a story but interesting nonetheless). We also saw the annual migration of animals from the Mara in Kenya into the Serengeti in Tanzania, and this was an INCREDIBLE sight. Thousands and thousands of wildebeests and zebras all walking in a neat little line towards Tanzania. We were actually VERY lucky to see this as the bulk of the migration happens in August-September and we just saw the very last of the animals making the crossing. Can you imagine what it would've looked like at its peak? i attached a photo of it, look closely and you'll be able to see a snaking line going aaaaaaall the way towards the back of the photo. That would be all the animals making the trek. CRAZY! 

So then about halfway through the day, i had to pee (surprise surprise!). We had just gotten to the (dry) river that divides Kenya and Tanzania and decided this would be a good spot. So we get out of the car and Joanna and i take some photos because it looked pretty and i'm about to do my thang when i look across the (dry) river bed and some 15 feet away from me, there's a giant female lion, just chillin, staring at us. So i didn't actually pee my pants, but almost, and we jumped back into the van and it turns out she had just killed a wildebeest and was enjoying her lunch when we interrupted, so she probably felt threatened, like we were gonna steal her food or something. Again, shit like this can only happen on safari folks! 

So we drove around and saw a crap load of more animals and interesting things, then we went back to the camp for dinner and met some other folks that were safari-ing for the weekend. Sunday we got up super early again and went for an early morning drive through the park as we were on the hunt for a leopard because we wanted to round out the "Big Five" animals that are only in Kenya and Tanzania (lions, buffalos, elephants, rhinos and leopards. We saw all except leopards which are pretty hard to find as they're nocturnal and enjoy hiding from everything during the day. Ah well, next time!) In the afternoon, we left the Mara and drove to Nakuru, which is home to the Lake Nakuru National Park. We stayed in a hotel which was nowhere near the pimp-level of our tent, but you can't have it all. We had dinner in the evening and the three of us (Peter, Joanna and myself) hit the bottle and got dee-runk! The next morning was a lil' rough, and i had to have some three cups of coffee before i started making any coherent sense, but then we went to the park for our last game drive. Lake Nakuru is famous for the ridiculous amount of flamingoes in the lake, so dense that apparently most of the time you can't see the water, the lake just looks like a big pink blob. But unfortunately, because of the drought, the lake is drying out at an incredible pace. Peter had been there three weeks before and he could barely speak he was so amazed at how much of the lake had dried out since then. He said all the parts that we were driving over were full of lake those few weeks before. And this meant that a majority of the flamingoes had migrated to Tanzania in search of food. There was still a lot of them, but apparently this was NOTHING compared to how it usually is. And because of the lack of food, they also weren't as pink as normal. Flamingoes are bright pink because of their food (algae) and these ones were pale, pastel pink because they weren't getting enough to eat. So sad.

But anyways, Lake Nakuru was still amazing. We saw a TON of rhinos, all within a few feet of the van. There was also many of the same animals as in the Mara but in a completely different setting. There was also monkeys and baboons (actually, i forgot to mention that monkeys had broken into our neighbours tents in the Mara and made off with some stuff, luckily we closed our door all the way!). i think all these animals must've gotten it on a few months back because it seemed like every two minutes we saw a baby something (rhino, buffalo, zebra, baboon, etc). The animal kingdom is randy, folks! 

So that was that! We ate lunch and drove back into Nairobi in the late afternoon. We made it home completely pooped out and Joanna and i went out for dinner, drank some beers, exchanged photos, then went out separate ways to pass out. i came into work this morning and, as usual, have done much of nothing all day. Sigh, such is life. One day you're peeing next to a lion, the next you're staring at a computer screen, bored outta your tree. But i'm SO GLAD that we went, Joanna and Peter made for wonderful company and i would do it all over again in a heartbeat. AMAZING!

And since i've already probably taken up half of your day by making this entry so long, i'm gonna leave it at that! Holla!

love love love you all lots!