Saturday morning, Gabby picked us up at 5am and so began our second safari adventure! We of course slept almost the entire way and woke up with one hour to go to Nakuru. There are tons of police stops along the way, and because they are so corrupt, the police try to make a dollar any which way they can. We had passed through the first five or so stops with no problem, but when we came to the sixth stop, the policeman waved us to stop the vehicle. Usually when they do this, they speak to the driver and they exchange some words in Swahili, and off we go. But this wasn’t the case. The police wouldn’t let go of the fact that there was a crack in the windshield and insisted on taking Gabby and all of his passengers to court. I thought “court” was a different way of saying “getting a ticket”, but we were wrong. The policeman said the he would seize the vehicle and all of us had to go to court. Of course we knew this was ludicrous since in the six weeks we’ve been here, we go through on average at least 2 stops a day and have never been hassled. In the end, Gabby had to pay off the policeman in order to let us go. We told him that he should’ve stood his ground, but he explained to us that it is the way things work here, and there was nothing we could do it about it. On top of everything, the gear box in the car seemed to be giving Gabby trouble and told us that he hoped it would make it to Nakuru. Once we arrived, Gabby decided to take the car to get fixed. Our initial plan was to do our safari on the Saturday, but because of the car issues and the time, we decided we’d postpone it to the next day and spend the rest of the day walking around Nakuru and going to the market.
That was good news and bad news. Good news because we had lots of time to pick out exactly what we wanted. Bad news because we had lots of time to pick out exactly what we wanted, and it turned out that we each wanted a lot of things! After spending 4 hours at the market, I managed to get a combination of bowls, statues, earrings, bracelets a globe (don’t ask) and a bag. All of which I’m going to have to lug around with me for the next 6 weeks. Before heading back to our hostel, we of course made stopovers at the Nakumatt and Tusky’s, since no trip would be complete without them! We somehow managed to get upgraded to a triple room at our hostel. We were all so exhausted that we made it an early night so we could get up the next morning.
At 6am we were out and ready to go. Nakuru National Park is only a 10 minute drive from the city, so it took us no time to get there. We were greeted by a bunch of little baboons in the parking lot, all being cheeky and trying to get into our windows. Although we tried to pull the same stunt as we did in Masai Mara by getting a discount on the entry fee, it didn’t work and we had to pay the standard $90USD. The park was so beautiful and peaceful with greenery everywhere, the complete opposite to the arid desert-like appearance of the Mara. While in the Mara you see animals at every turn, it’s a little more difficult to find them in this park. Our first stop was to head to the river where we were greeted by a sea of pink. Although there were not as many as there are other times of the year, the flamingos were stunning and graceful, just as we expected. You are allowed to get out of your vehicle in the park (unlike the Mara) when you are near the river, so we got out and took a bunch of pictures. Just as we got back into the car we saw a herd (not sure if they’re called a herd) of rhinos looking straight at us. They were so close to us we could hardly believe it. Gaby was getting scared because one of the rhinos had a little baby with them and Gab said that the most dangerous animal is a rhino with a child in tow. After that, we headed to my favourite part of the day, baboon point! Since I was little, monkeys have been my favourite animal! We headed to the lookout point and when we got there, we were surrounded by baboons. They were the cutest! We saw them checking one another’s hair for fleas, checking one another’s bums and even doing some cheeky business. It was the best! I was so happy! The rest of our safari was also awesome as we saw many buffalo, zebras and giraffes, but sadly no lions! We knew we were so lucky to have seen all the animals we did at the Mara, so we weren’t disappointed at all. The park was beautiful and definitely worth it!
On the way home, we passed through a town called Kericho. For those of you who are familiar with Kenya, Kericho is known for its tea! Our lonely planet booked recommended a place called the “Tea Hotel”, where we could stop in for an “amazing cup of tea”. The hotel was beautiful and was surrounded by ample greenery and flowers. We entered this large tea room where we each enjoyed a cup of tea. I, myself had one of the best cups of masala tea ever! Yum yum! It took us about 7 hours to get home, and on the way saw people selling carrots, chickens, and most disturbing of all, bunny rabbits. They literally held these bunnies by their ears and smashed them against the window asking us if we wanted them. I wonder when a day will come when things here don’t surprise me…
We had Monday off because Mr. Okidi wanted us to visit his family. Since Gaby’s family lives close by, we were also invited there. And a family that lives near the Okidis in Rongo invited us to their house for dinner. We knew we were in for a long, long day. Mr. Okidi’s family lives up a mountain that took us at least 90 minutes to get to. Word got around that we love chapatis, so when we got there, we were treated to a fest of chapatis, beans, rice and pineapple. They had a pineapple patch on their property and we saw how pineapples are grown. It is the coolest thing! A plant sprouts and on top of it is a pineapple! Google image it! We spent quite a bit of time at Mr. Okidi’s place (mainly because he left in between for a 2 hour meeting that we knew nothing of), and then headed 45 minutes to Gaby’s house. Gaby has the cutest family and has three boys, Charles, Joseph and Wellington. We laughed when we saw that his wife had also prepared for us our favourite meal; yup, you guessed it, beans and chapatis. We gave their family some toys and played volleyball with their children for a while. It started raining hard as we headed out, and by the time we got to the last house, there was a complete power outage. You can never cancel here (it’s looked upon as very rude), so we headed out with our headlamps and Gaby dropped us at the last house. We were stuffed by that point but knew that we would have to eat. When the mother of the girls brought out the food, we wanted to die when we saw that it was once again, beans and chapatis. They told us that they had heard it was our favourite and we could do nothing but laugh and force down another plateful. What an eventful weekend!
This past week at placement has been quite eye-opening, and I will shortly write a blog about our last week’s experiences. But, I would like to say CONGRATS!!! to all my OTs who have officially finished their last day at placement, which means you are officially done school!!! In two weeks, we will soon be joining you, although, it’s a bit of a different situation here since none of us want to leave! But nonetheless, congrats, congrats, congrats!!!
Love & Chapatis,
Shahla
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