Leaving the Springlands hotel we got our first taste of "African Time," which basically means, things don't happen when they are scheduled, or when it says they will on whatever ticket you might be holding. It means things happen whenever people get around to it.

We were booked on the shuttle bus from Moshi to Nairobi and it was supossed to pick us up at the Springlands Hotel at 10:30 am. That plan turned into a cab that came to get us around 11am to take us to the main bus station where we waited until 12 before our departure. We got to Arusha, where we waited in the parking lot of a hotel for no apparant reason for an hour and then we were on our way again. We got into Nairobi around 6:30 pm, 1.5 hours late for our Masai Mara departure meeting. Having arrived after dark, there was NO WAY either or us were going to venture out of the hotel. Nairobi isn't nicknamed "Nairobbery" for nothing (please forgive the double negative.) We ate in the hotel restaurant with one of our friends from the Kilimanjaro Trek, Lee, who had arrived earlier in the afternoon from Moshi. Coincidentally, he was on the same Masai Mara trek as we were and was staying in the same hotel as us. He told us of his afternoon in Nairobi being followed up and down the streets by guys trying to scam him. Nairobi is not a safe place.

We got a cab to the Boulevard Hotel where we were supossed to leave from at 9:30am. Evans, our driver, a native Kenyan, exemplified the typical African mentality, and our 9:30am departure didn't really get underway until noon. The road to the Masai Mara was absolutely awful. Seven hours and one flat tire later, we arrived at the campsite where we were greeted with lovely "tents" that had beds inside.

We left early the next morning for a game drive. We saw:

Impala, gazelles, buffalo, topis, zebras, wildebeast, lion, hippos, giraffe, elephant, ostrich, baboons, warthogs, zebra, hyena and some crazy huge green spiders.

Unfortunately, no rhinos or leopards... yet! :)

On the way back we stopped at a Masai Village where we stopped in for a visit. Here is what I learned about the Masai People:

1. They cut up Firestone tires and strap them to their feet as shoes.
2. The women make houses out of cow dung.
3. The men are responsible for the hunting.
4. Boys are circumsized at age 15 and then sent into the bush to live for 3 years, they are allowed to rejoin the vilage when they have successfully killed a lion.
5. If a man has 5 cows, he can use them as payment to a womans family as a dowry for a wife.
6. Polygamy is allowed, and each man has a different house for each wife. It takes 2 months for the wife to build their house out of cow dung.
7. About once/month, a lion jumps the fence to the village and tries to kill the cows. The masai kill them with spears.

It was a really interesting visit to the village; incredible to see how different their way of life is. I loved the colors in their style of dress and the intracacy of their jewelry. It was also amazing to see the children and their innocence.

This morning we left the Masai Mara for Nairobbery again, it took about 7 hours down the bumpy road to get here and our bus broke down in the middle of the city. It was a bit daunting, all the people surrounding our bus, we hopped off and just got a cab the rest of the way back to the hotel.

Leaving again tomorrow morning! Headed down to Cape Town which will take me 6 weeks. Probably the next place I'll be able to update this will be from Dar Es Saalam, Tanzania! Till then!