09/22 - Trash Monkey

Three Canadian girls are with us on the safari trip: Carolyn, Jill and Carisa. They are all totally cool and it is fun to reminisce about the T-dot. There are quite a few of us Canucks on this shindig.

The second half of our roadtrip was traveling through vast desert type terrain that is run by the Masai; a wonderfully unique group of people who basically have stopped in time. They are steep in tradition and look straight out of the pages of National Geographic. With no education they are forced to stay in the tribe and become farmers, which isn't bad if you like that sort of thing.

They are staunchly opposed to having their pictures taken and so you basically put down your camera for the last two to three hours of the trip. Half way to the middle of no where we got caught up in some sheep traffic. It was different and so we took some snap shots of the little critters. Out of no where pops up a Masai man that apparently didn't like the sheep getting cameos either. He started running at our van with a stick so we high tailed it out of there. Seriously, not nice.

A little later we got a little delirious and spent some time trying to think of “Masai Scout” badges. My favorite was the teak carving badge and the cow dung house badge. We were going to play I spy with my little eye but then everything is brown or yellow so it would have been a 50-hour game.

Luckily, we had Andy on board to tell us what animals were domestic and which ones were wild. Clearly, he decided by how crazy the animal was running and what kind of sounds they made. I am sure the game would have been 10 times more effective had he been able to tell us which ones had rabies. My guess would have been all of them.

We spent the night in Masai Warrior Animal Camp – a name I totally just made up. The official sign was scratched on a tire - that I did not make up. There was a little cute Masai boy that greeted us with a row of cartwheels; we were just as happy to finally be there. It was surprisingly nice, expect for the huge spiders that came to visit later in the evening. Sally claimed to have “lion repellant” on her mosquito net but none of us were prepared for the itsy bitsy spiders. I would recommend Raid as a Kenya must have.

The first thing we saw when we got to the camp was the trash monkeys. Plain and simple, monkeys in the trash. We spent quite some time trying to figure out why they had blue balls. Sally was quite afraid they were going to come into our tent during the night. Little did she know that they had glorious trash to consume. No wonder they get ebola.

Off we went on a sunset safari. Before we got in the gate we were confronted by a load of Masai women with homemade crafts at outrageous prices. Good thing I crafted the bargaining art in China and was ready for a battle. I always get my way.

Inside the park we saw giraffes, elephants, water buffalos, wildebeests, antelopes, gazelles, lionesses (with a fresh kill) and ostriches. It was so amazing and I totally felt like I was on the Animal Channel. At one point we had an elephant stare-down but we parted ways peacefully. I have to say I was a bit disappointed; it would have been a better story had he charged us and tipped over our van. The sunset mid-safari and so we called it a night. I love being on safari!

It was so nice to be able to stretch out and see the stars. Being in the country is pretty amazing and the air, sights and smells were a much needed change from the city.
Much love….