August 24th, 2016

Day 146: Amboseli National Park – Day 1

At 8AM sharp, Joseph picked us up for the last time. He was in a good mood (whether it was because he was home, or because he only had to work a half day, or he was pleased with the tip we gave him the night before, we weren’t completely sure – hopefully a combination of the three) and was super chatty with Igor as we drove back to the Namanga border. Given the chaos we experienced the first time we crossed, we knew it was going to be a long morning. Again, leaving the country was pretty easy, getting back into Kenya required a few more hoops to jump through.

We have noticed some inconsistencies with Kenyan Immigration. When we first entered the country via the Nairobi Airport, our agent had no issue with Igor pulling up our e-visas on his smart phone. When we tried that at Namanga, the agent told us we needed a PRINTED version! How the hell are we going to print this from our phone? Well, conveniently enough, there is a guy with a computer and a printer around the corner who will let you login to the Kenya visa website and print your documents for about 6,000 shillings (about USD$6). Lindsay noticed that the stack of visa behind the counter also had photos attached, but the agent let us get by without them. In fact, the agent didn’t even keep our printed e-visas, he simply scratched over the visa to make sure it couldn’t be used again! Well, he did that to Lindsay’s. Which is very silly as we know how easy it is to reprint it! Plus, our visas were technically single-entry visas, although our safari company assured us that going to Tanzania and back doesn’t seem to “count” as far as Kenya is concerned. Whatever, glad we got through in under 2hrs.

We returned to the Land Cruiser to say our farewell to Joseph, and meet Edward, our Kenyan safari driver. Edward was a young guy, with admittedly very good English, but even so, he wasn’t very chatty. Igor had taken to sitting in the front seat with Joseph so he could have conversations while we were commuting from park to park, but Edward was a tough nut to crack.

As we turned off the paved road toward Amboseli National Park, we passed a Maasai man walking on the side of the road and Edward pulled over. “This is my friend; he is going the same way we are – do you mind if we give him a ride?” We were caught off guard and said yes, assuming he just needed a lift down the road. After all, he was travelling by foot, so we assumed he couldn’t be going that far, and besides, we had been feeling guilty for weeks now, passing locals and being unable to offer a ride. After driving off road for over an hour, however, we were getting very suspicious that Edward was going out of his way and using our safari van as a taxi service. But our suspicions were unfounded, as it turns out the Maasai passenger worked at the hotel – we can’t imagine how long it would have taken him to walk the 30+KM back from where we picked him up!

Edward helped us check-in, then told us to meet him back at the lobby at 4PM for an evening game drive. At first we were excited, as we never had a game drive fter dark before – everything with Joseph was from breakfast to sunset! Turns out, in Kenya a “full day” game drive ends around 3PM. Anything after that is considered an “evening game drive,” which also ends at sunset. Oh well, at least we got into the park for a couple hours. Kenya is proving to be very, very different from Tanzania.

 

We arrived at our hotel in time for the buffet lunch. While we were initially disappointed that our tour company gave us a minivan instead of a Land Cruiser, one look at the hotel’s parking lot showed us that this is the standard in Kenya. Only the really expensive companies – like A&K – have 4×4 vehicles.

 

While our tent was very nicely constructed and the screens were fully zipped, we soon discovered it was infested with mosquitos. We spent our entire afternoon hunting them down – we tried to keep count, but we lost track after killing about 50. Edward recommended that we ask for a can of bug spray, so when the maid came for turn down service later that night we asked for a can of Doom. At first she just giggled and nodded that, “Yes there are a lot of mosquitos here,” then she plugged in an air freshener and tried to tell us that it would repel the mosquitos. “But where will they go? The tent doesn’t have any holes!” Igor said. “They will just go away.” She said with a smile. We insisted again that we wanted SPRAY, which she finally brought after dinner. By then we had killed another 50, but the can was still useful in destroying that last handful that tried to hide on the roof. NO MALARIA FOR US, THANKS.

 

We left the hotel at 4PM for our “evening game drive” through Amboseli National Park. Even though we are a short 5-10min drive from the park entrance, we had to wait another 30min at the gate while Edward paid our entrance fees. As we were waiting, about a dozen Masai women were going around from car to car, aggressively hawking souvenirs. “No, thank you,” didn’t seem to work, so we eventually just slid down in our seats and refused to look out the window until they left.

 

Once we entered the park, we drove slowly in a long line of safari vans along the dirt roads. The dust kicked up by the wind and other cars was intense – we were absolutely filthy by the end of the drive. While Amboseli is famous for stunning views of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the hazy atmosphere completely blocked the mountain – we couldn’t even tell it was there.

 

A herd of zebra wanders through the dusty terrain, looking for grass

 

Amboseli is most famous for its large elephant population – we easily found a large herd grazing & bathing in the waterhole

 

Our evening game drive was supposed to end at 6:30PM – which is when the park gate closes – but we were out and heading back to the hotel before the sunset.

 

It was a LONG day – but nothing that a campfire under the stars and a big jug of cheap wine won’t fix! GOOD NIGHT.