Day 3 – On the Way to Amboseli National Park

On the morning of Day 3, we left Nairobi for Amboseli National Park.
I have to admit I am geographically challenged. I grew up in New Jersey, which gave me a fair understanding of the east and west coasts of the USA. I absolutely know where Texas is. Since I have lived on the Illinois/Wisconsin border for almost 20 years now, I am pretty clear about where Illinois and Wisconsin sit. I also know that Indiana is easy to find if you take the wrong exit out of O’Hare airport. Other than that, well, let’s say it’s hazy, like a crazy kind of nearsightedness, like I try to focus on those other 40 or so states, but I can’t see them. So imagine how I am with other countries… Right, not any better and TBH it’s actually a lot worse.

I found the map above on another website that is not at all connected to my trip. It puts a pin in most of the places we visited in Kenya. We started in Nairobi. It is centrally located, below the equator. Our next stop was Amboseli National Park, which is southwest of Nairobi, on the border with Tanzania. Mount Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania. Mount Kilimanjaro is visible from Amboseli.

The trip from Nairobi to Amboseli took close to 7 hours. It was quite a ride over some pretty bad roads. The tour guides called the roughest parts “very good massage.”
During the trip, we had a chance to see several small “centers.” Centers are like small villages, but nothing like what we see in the USA. There may be a few stores strung together by common walls, like beads on a string and a few homes. All very modest, one-room places, not more than 10’x15′. Some were just a series of stands with s few shelves and posts for hanging produce to display.

About 4 hours south of Nairobi, some giraffes crossed the road and the earth turned red and dry.

Long forgotten images of the Massai and Himba people wearing red ochre flowed through my chest. It was as if I could see them with my heart. I breathed them with my lungs. Wide awake inside the van, I drifted off, remembering stories of African warriors and women that I had read about when I was a kid. Africa Adorned. Ochre. Red earth ground into a powder and mixed with oil, then rubbed onto the skin and hair for power, agility, health, beauty, luck, protection. I came back to the tour van as the red powder billowed up in clouds, sucking the moisture from the air before it settled back onto itself. This is when it hit me that I was finally on the trip I had waited 50 years to make. That dream, now a reality.

All this had been Massai country until the British imposed colonialization on the 40+ tribes that predated them on this land. As we continued southwest, we began to see more Massai men, almost always wearing a red shuka or drape, herding their cattle.

Interesting facts about the Massai: The Massai are a proud people who have clung to their nomadic ways. They still hold a strong presence in Kenya. Traditionally, they are pastoral people. The men tend the cattle while the women manage the children and home. The women also build the houses. Their diet consists of cow’s blood and milk mixed together so that it curdles. They do not eat vegetables. More about them later.

After about 7 hours travel with a couple of stops for restrooms and leg stretching we arrived at Amboseli National Park. We checked into Ol Tukai Lodge http://www.oltukailodge.com . First thing, the hostess greeted us with fresh mango juice to drink, and a warm damp towel to wipe the dust off our faces.  Then the porters led us to our rooms. This was the view from our front door. Lots of pretty wild vegans!

And, of course, there were the rowdy vegan neighbors…

We settled in and went to the dining room for lunch. I had a conversation with the chef and told him how I eat. And Houston, we had lift off.

After lunch, Safari time!

Lots of elephant family time, right up till sunset.

Then it was time to go back for dinner. Then, good night, Felicia! In Swahili they say, “Lala salama.”