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These are pictures from Chris and i's trip to Kenya, Africa this July. For those of you who don't know, Chris' dad lives in Africa and works for KLM (the dutch airline). We were there for about a week and a half. A few days into the trip we took a trip to Mombasa, which is on the east coast of Kenya, and stayed at a hotel called the leopard beach hotel (because his dad knows the owner). In kenya, we did lots of fun things, and saw a lot of cool sights. We visited different animal places, includng an elephant orphanage, a giraffe sanctuary, and another local animal orphanage. We went on safari (a day trip out into the protected areas outside civilization) and saw wild animals. We did go-karting and produced some nice buises :P ... went to different restaurants, including one that was ranked in the top 5 in the world. We even went bowling.
Enjoy the pictures, and don't forget to sign my guestbook! i always love to see who's checkin in!!!
We left halifax and flew Canjet on passes out to Montreal, and my family drove up from Ottawa to see us off. We met up with Chris' dad and sister (who were staying in Halifax) and got aboard to head out to Jomo Kenyatta Airprot in Nairobi (via Amsterdam). First class, all the way baby! MY first time too! It was everything i had imagined, and then some. A great start to my vacation.
GO-KARTING... i beat chris' time, but not by much. we both walked away kinda sore, but it was great fun.
the elephant orphanage, where about a dozen baby elephants that were in danger out in the wild are taken in cared for 24 hours a day (the keepers even sleep with them!)... until they can be set free out into the wild again.
we went to the giraffe sanctuary, where you get to feed them little pellets and pet them... it was really cool. they have VERY slimy and strong tongues! I learned that there are 3 types of giraffes, and these are the more endangered (i think there's only about 500 left in the world!) Around their feet little warthogs scurry around on their elbows picking up pellets we dropped.
at the regular animal orphanage we saw all sorts of fun things, but it was really like any zoo you'd see in north america (except for the fact that these animals were still very wild, and are usually there to ger better and be released back into the wild). We ran out of film there, and i took mostly videos with the digital, so i don't have very many pictures of this part that i can put up.
Down in Mombasa, on the east coast of Kenya, we stayed at the Leopard beach Hotel for a few days. We flew Kenya airways down from Nairobi (in a 737-200, which iused to work on!)... while we were there, we lounged around the beach, played in the Indian ocean, rode camels, chatted with local vendors, and just relaxed.
Chris' dad Pieter. See any ressemblance?
vendors on the beach can be very persistent, and will follow you down the beach talking you up trying to get you to buy things. this little set up was close to our hotel and we went to take a look.
Back in Nairobi, we went to Carnivore, a restaurant specializing in exotic meats, and ranked in the top 50 in the world! You sit down and they take your drink order, and bring you a little spinning display with all sorts of sauces for the different types of meat they're going to bring. On top is a little white flag. Walking around are emplyees/carvers with huge skewers with one type of meat on it, and they walk around the tables asking if you'd like some. They put the skewer on your plate and use a giant sword to cut you off a piece of the meat. It's almost like a buffet that comes to you, you just keep on accepting whatever they come around with. When your table just can't eat anymore, you take the little white flag, wave it, and put it down on it's side in defeat. Then they take your desert order (IF you have room) and you go home full. It truly is an experience because they have very different types of meat... When we went, I tried regular things like pork, chicken, beef, sausages... but i also tried things like ostrich, ostrich meatballs, camel and crocodile! And apparently when it's in season, they have other things like zebra, gazelle, antelope and other game meats. All the meat is cooked in a giant charcoal pit (picture)
We can't do touristy things everyday! We went bowling. I got my butt handed to me, but hey- it's all in fun.
On safari we got a chance to see all sorts of animals out in the wild. For those of you who aren't really sure what a safari is, it's just a tour around a protected park full of wild animals. This one was just outside Nairobi, and was actually visited for ideas by the people who made the lion king! Since Chris' dad lives there, he obviously has a car, a honda CRV. So, with his dad driving, we spent a few hours in the park, drivin around, seeing all sorts of beautiful things like landscape, birds, giraffes, water buffalo, ostrich, gazelle (and other kinds of deer-like critters), and the highlight of the day was seeing a mother lioness and her 3 cubs. We have really cool video of them, and took lots of gorgeous pictures of the cubs that we had enlarged. All these photos aren't taken with a huge zooming lens, we really are quite close.
On our way home from Kenya, we flew up to Amsterdam and had a few hours there to waste. Chris' grandmother and Pieter's mother lives in de Haag, and was going to take the train up to the hotel near the airport that we rented to relax in to see us. Chris and i decided to take the train out to her house, to see the countryside, and take the train back with her to visit. I really love europe, and we're already planning to go back and spend more time there.
we took a drive down the street to the waterfront close to chris' grandmother's house. Even if i was dressed up (since we're flying on passes, you gotta look nice) i HAD to run down to the water and put my hand in the north sea.
This is the southern most part of greenland. Normally it's too cloudy to see anything, but this day was clear flying, so we got to see the icebergs, it was so beautiful!
We left Amsterdam and headed back to Toronto, to go back to our normal everyday lives... We took a zillion pictures, too many to put here, and enough memories to last a lifetime. I loved Africa and would recomend it to anyone
