Three days in Maasai Mara (scenic blend of rolling, open savannah, animals galore View image a day at beautiful Lake Nakuru (4 million flamingos View image, buffalo, white and black rhinos) and biking through Hell's Gate Park(cliffs, dramatic gorge with hot springs, Maasai village visit).

With everyone in the same vehicle together all day, every day, it was clear that who I spent the safari with would affect the experience as much as what I saw. However, I lucked out and was with a few interesting combinations consisting of: an engineer/author from Winipeg; several delightful Dutch dames; a computer guy from Seattle; a Canadian outdoorsman/housepainter who's dreamt of coming to Africa for 40 yrs; a female Swedish train conductor traveling in east Africa for the next 5 months; a British drummer; an Italian med student of Kenyan descent who speaks Italian, Swahili, English, French, Spanish and German; a finicky Korean couple; a cool Aussie couple; and a few other Dutch vacationers. It made for some interesting conversations.

And how was it? Good, excellent, fabulous at times. The scenery was incredible--I'll try to post some pix as soon as my digitally equipped travel companions send them. The Great Rift Valley was as impressive as the parks, but each place had its own surprises. The nights were cool, starry and capped with a round or two of Tusker Lager. Mornings almost too cold to take even a hot shower. (Kenya straddles the equator but is at a high enough altitude to cool off at dusk. It gets quite cold by sun up.)

Everybody should make one vacation an African safari. Words and pictures can't do justice to the experience.

I go to Tanzania tomorrow (with a different safari company) and will spend Christmas in Ngorongoro Crater. On the 28th I'm on a bus to Jinja, Uganda for whitewater rafting, then will check out Kampala to see if it lives up to Julia Hook's (fellow Mali RPCV) rave reviews.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!