Africa Part 1: Masai Mara

Tom bo li de say de moi ya
Yeah, Jambo Jumbo
Way to parti' o we goin'
Oh, Jambali
Tom bo li de say de moi ya
Yeah, Jumbo JUMBO!

Some of Lionel's most famously mistaken lyrics... at least I was always completely clueless when listening to it. Turns out that it is Swaheli, and everytime I heard someone say 'Jumbo'(hello) this past week, I thought of this upbeat-yet-confusing chant...

My friend Mohamed who showed us around Nairobi said it roughly stands for: "Hello Hello, can I have a cent?" Which makes even less sense, but I guess it wasn't all that bad to be singing 'All Night Long' for 5 days. Liz is still singing it to me at home now.

We had a pretty sweet trip once again, and even managed to snap a few fotos.
The first day went about like this:
Airport > travel lodge > road to Masai Mara > game reserve for sun down activity > food at the camp site > campfire beers > bed.

When we got to the lodge, we met a couple of Dutch people, Thijs and Hanukkah ( actually have no idea how to spell her name!), and jumped in a van with them and our tour guide Ben. We then shot through about 7 hours of the bumpiest roads I've seen on this planet. It is hard to describe the roads(not even sure you can call them that) you have to take to get to the game park from Nairobi... but they aren't for everyone! We got to the park, dropped off some gear, and went directly back out to see some sun down activity before it was too late. We managed to see our first Gazelles, Zebra, Wildebeest, Buffalo, Elephants, and Giraffes before heading back for food/beer/rest.
Here's our crew:


We got up and did an 8-5 safari in the park and had a great time! The weather was in the 70's and 80's the whole time, which was heaven coming from Dubai, and so we made the best of it by sticking our head outside our trusty safari van's roof most the day.
Today we saw a couple of Cheetahs, and many Lions... including a full pride of Lions resting on top of a huge piles of rocks ( they stayed warmer up there off the grass )... Un-Be-Liev-Abl-E.














After we got back from the full day safari, we got to visit one of the local Masai tribes that are still living the way they have for hundreds of years. I got to dance with the 'Warriors' ( The 15-20 year old boys that protect and represent the tribe ) and liz got to dance with the female reps. Quite the show they put on for us! Here's a couple of video's:


They live in huts made of trees, mud and cow dung. They have a whole family in a tight little hut, and have about 20 of them in the village. The huts only last about 8 years, so they don't get too attached ;). We got to go inside and hang with a family for a few while they cooked some afternoon tea. We then saw the pens for the cows and the sheep. They create a pretty cool barrier to keep out predators, and have watch dogs and so forth if they do end up sneaking up.




The next morning we got to do an early morning excursion in the park to see the wildlife active during sun-up. Saw some pretty sweet visuals and then scooted off to the next place...






I have uploaded all pics from the whole trip here if you want to see more...
I will follow up with more on Lake Nakuru tomorrow.