In this, the apex chapter of my safari to Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, I will tell you about what can honestly be called a once in a lifetime experience. I trekked up a mountain to see the gorillas in the mist, and I do not mean the movie. Curse Dian Fossey! couldn’t she have found some cute endangered species somewhere [...]
Wait…what happened to chapter seven? Well folks, chapter 7 will be all about the actual visit to the gorillas. I am making you wait for it because I had to wait for it for such a long time. At least you are not bouncing around in a lumber truck. Do this math…16×24=384. 384 hours, most of them in less t han [...]
This was the day we crossed into Rwanda. The border crossing was easy enough, but then the truck threw a dive shaft bearing and we were stranded by the side of the road. A man from Sacramento named Casey is a portrait artist and spent time sketching the kids. I took pictures with my Ipad which they laughed at when [...]
We arrived at Queen Elizabeth National Park. Our campsite is called something like Hippo Hill and they say the hippos come in and wander around at night. The hippos left us alone. The park surrounds Lake Elizabeth, which is pretty big. We went on a game drive with elephants and lions and hippos and god knows what else. Then wewent on [...]
Our leader from Intrepid is named Pesh. She is a Kikuyu. Pesh has been a tour leader for a really long time, and I am just a minor annoyance compared to some of her guests in the past. Oh well, I try to be the most annoying, but I seldom reach that status! The issue of the US$100 bill minted [...]
This was my wedding anniversary and I missed my wife. Today we spent nine hours in the truck. The highlight of the nine hours was crossing the bridge over the source of the Nile. Another unwritten Bucket List item. This is the White Nile. The other source is at the top of the Blue Nile. The bridge we were crossing [...]
We climbed into the truck for our first agonizing day on the road. Our destination was Lake Nakura. I had been there a year ago to the day. You can go back in my blogs to see what a wonderful experience I had there and see lots of photos of the wild life and birds. On this Intrepid travel trip [...]
A while back, Travel Bloogers Unite and Intrepid Travel announced a contest to go on a Safari in Africa to, among other things, trek into the jungle and see the Mountain Gorillas. These are the giant gentle critters that were brought to the world’s attention by Dian Fossey. I entered the contest and somehow, maybe I was the only person who [...]
With sincere apologies to Karen Blitzen, I used that title to attract readers, a brazen move to be sure. The more you get to know about any subject, the more you realize you do not know about the subject. Some smart guy said that once, I think he was Greek. I know a lot more about Kenya after one week as a [...]
The day started with the return drive out of Masai Mara Park. The only thing that made it tolerable was thinking back to what a marvelous piece of earth we had just visited. I want to return to Kenya, but I will not return to the Mara until they fix the road. If you are reading this blog with an [...]