3rd Weekend in Kenya, yet another safari adventure

3rd week in Kenya

NGong town market on Saturday morning

This weekend we again were to explore the safari country side. 9 of us left early at 6.30 am on Saturday morning to meet our guides in Nairobi. After meeting up we headed to the Ngong Hill for hiking, still hoping yet for the last civilized cop of coffee at the Java house. We got something as just good. :-) Stops on our way up to the hill in the NGong market really gave the diversity of Kenya. Just 20 minutes drive from city center of Nairobi.  We also crossed the slum with more than 2.5 mill. citizens on a very small area . Reaching our destination Ngong hills being Karen Blixen's mountain with her coffee plantation. We started our hiking. It took a total of 3 hours to reach the top and the views we had were spectacular. Trees with flowers, people living in their primitive sheds cultivating the soil for beans and taking care of their cows and goats. At the top there were more than 10 wind turbines on the top..from Vestas where else.  From the the top of the hills, we spotted a giraffe in the valley which would be on our route to meet the safari wans.  Luckily when we got down to his level, the giant giraffe was still there.... along with another 20 or so ranging from babies to fully grown males and females. We ended up surrounded by giraffes that were closer than I ever thought I would get to them in the wild! It was truly amazing!  So we literaly walked together with this group of giraffes.  We walked up hill again and after 3 hours we were back in the wan for a rest also from the sun.

Mamas place

Next stop was the Olorgesailie being some very old excavations with stone axes and many other evidence of human beings. Here we also had a nice lunch in the shade as this place is also the hottest spot in all of Africa. Back to the wan driving towards the salt Lake Magadi where we again saw a lot of bambooes and landscapes. The trip ended with a bath in the hot springs of Lake Magadi. It was really hot around 45-50 degrees and then very salt. But it was a healthy dip into the water and we all felt fresh and healthy afterwards.

Dinner at Mamas place

The night we spent in a Masai village in the Mamas' place. This was built for the woman  in the village to have a way of making a living. Spaghetti Bologna a Tusker and then we went to bed. The heat kept a lot of us struggling with the sleep but up again at 5 am - into the Wan after a short tooth brush and then headed to the Shompole Conservation Area. Not a lot of tourist go here but it is the home to a really expensive hotel called Shompole Lodge which has been visited by the very rich in the world. It is so remote that you have to fly to its private air strip! Lake Natron is mainly in Tanzania but a small part of it pokes into southern Kenya so we headed to see that. So now we have been twice to Tanzania and we walked on the half dry salt lake . The people we meet were very poor, not water in miles. Landscape was again amazing and we saw different animals and many of these huge termites as I have seen on television. Lunch was served at Mama's place. We were then to start our long trip back to Machakos - but first a stop in another authentic Masai Village  with a lot of kids. For the first time the small kids got scared of us and started crying when they saw us. I spoke to a boy of age 14 and he was a Manchester United fan similar to my oldest son Oskar, so he was to call my son... as they all have cell phones with coverage in the middle of the bush.

The trip back ended up taking more than 5 hours to drive maybe around 250 km- road and traffic is not for fast driving. But the weekend was good and again we saw yet another different landscape of Great Kenya. 
 


 


Henriette