Mike and Amy's Blog

Mike and I are starting to look forward to getting home… we will be home in about 16 days or so… in about 2 weeks time. We still have a lot to see on the trip. We will be back in Kenya soon. Last week we crossed the border from Kenya into Uganda. the border crossing was an interesting experience. From about 5km away from the Ugandan border there was transport trucks just sitting. We were able to pass them as we were a tourist vehicle. Our tour guide said that it can take up to 3 or 4 days for the trucks to cross the border mainly because of disorganisation. We got out of our truck about 200m from the customs office and walked to make it quicker. There was signs all around saying “NO Hawkers” – but the local people didn’t pay attention to this. There was people selling drinks and vegetable samosa- the indian influence seems to be everywhere you travel, we don’t mind thou as we both love Indian food. Until I had met Mike I hadn’t had Indian five years ago on a date he took me for Indian, now it’s one of my favourites. In total the it took about 2 hours to cross the border, which was quicker than we had expected. On the Ugandan side of the border there was two kids, one selling Banana’s and the other snacks. They asked us if we wanted to do business with them. One of them told us that his name was “Mr Potassium” – It was rather funny, how do these kids now that. When we were leaving he said to us… you do business with me when you come back….. We will have to buy some potassium off him on our way back through just so we can get a photo with them and of them. We drove through many rural communities on the way through Uganda many of the communities are Rural communities and rely on farming for their income.

We spent three nights at Jinja, which is the source of the Nile there was many optional activities that we could have done, but Mike and I just enjoyed a few days sitting around reading and walking into the local village. We have posted some pictures of some of the villages we have pasted through.

Since our last post we have arrived at camp which is the base for all the gorilla trekking in Ugandan. We have seen the gorillas… it was an amazing experience, Our next blog post will be on the gorillas. We have had some many experiences and have so many images but it’s impossible to share them all on the blog. We still have another two national parks to visit, we will also stopping over in Kampala on our way back to Kenya, hopefully we will be able to see the Chimps there. We look forward to sharing more with you all.

We hope that all is well at home – feel free to send us through emails – we are heading back to Kenya shortly and will have better internet access so will be more than happy to answer any questions.

Amy xx

Mike and I have now started the second leg of our trip in East Africa. We are on a Kumuka tour which will take us through Kenya and across to Uganda to see the mountain Gorilla’s and than back to Kenya for game drives through the Masai Mara National Park before completing our journey in Nairobi. We are excited about this leg of our journey as it will take us to Lake Naivasha, Masai Mara, Jinja- Nile River and Buagali falls, just to mention a new highlights.

Yesterday was day one of our tour which took us from Nairobi to Lake Nakuru National Park. It was about a four hour drive because of traffic. We left our truck and boarded a smaller 4×4 as the Kenyan government has recently changed laws that no vehicle unless they are registered in Kenyan can enter the national parks. Our vechle is in fact registered in the UK.When we arrived at the gate of the national park we made our lunch as one of the monkey’s stole a follow travellers lunch. It’s rather funny the local people call these monkey’s “naughty monkey’s”. Lake Nakuru is famous for it’s large population of pink flamingos which featured in the movie “Out of Africa”. We unfortunately didn’t seen barely any pink flamingo- our tour guide said possible because it was such a hot day when we visited the park. Aside from Flamingos the park also has a sizeable population of rhino- both black and white. We didn’t see any black rhino but seen it’s more sociable cousin the white rhino. We were able to get fairly close to them which we though was great. The park also has lion (we didn’t see any 😦 ), buffalo and plains game such a Zebra and Impala. We were lucky enough to see a leopard but couldn’t get a great shoot as it wouldn’t turn back and look at us… a little disappointing.

The only game we would really love to see now is a herd of elephant and a pride of lions. We are hoping we will see these when we visit the Masai Mara National Park at the end of our tour.

Tomorrow we have a rather long drive ahead of us to get to Jinja… which means we are crossing the border into Uganda. We have had an afternoon to rest through so the drive wont be so tiresome.

Mike and I have reasonable access to internet but may still take a few days to contact us and for you to get a reply.

For our here are a few images of Mount Kilimanjaro and some images of the game in the Nakuru National Park. Looking forward to sharing more images soon.

Amy xx

Mike and I are now back in Nairobi after completing our first tour with Intrepid. Before Kilimanjaro the last part of the tour with our group took as the Ngorongoro Crater. The Crater is a conservation area and is about 250km square and boasts the largest concentration of animals in east Africa.

Our campsite was on the rim of the crater and was a little cooler than the previous places we had camped. We were treated to a gorgeous sunrise before heading down into the crater. I must say it was the most beautiful campsite we have ever stayed in. A little different to normal too as there were armed rangers patrolling at night to keep the elephants out of the camp site… I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see one! 😦 We took smaller 4×4 vehicles into the crater which was a little change compared to the Intrepid truck we had been in for our Safari through the Serengeti. The crater is still perfectly intact and is home to some 30,000 animals including the black rhino, lions, leopards, elephants, impalas, zebra and hippos. We got to see a family of hyenas up close and so warthogs.

We stopped for lunch at a hippo pond. That completed our last game drive for this part of our trip. We than made our way out to the crater and meet back up with our Intrepid team to head to our final campsite at Meserani which is about 45min out of Arusha. The morning after we and two other bid good bye to the crew and follow travels and headed for Kilimanjaro.

Tomorrow we start our second part of our trip which will take us through Kenya, across to Uganda and back again. We will still be able to be contacted via email so feel free to send us through an inquires.

Amy xx

Mike and I are having a great time in East Africa. We really loved our few days in the Serengeti so wanted to share some more with you all. Our campsite was right in the heart of the Serengeti. It was an unfenced area but the long grass had been mowed so that it was ok for camping. The grass wasn’t really mowed back enough- well that’s what us and the other 9 people on our tour thought. The male toilets had long grass right up to the the enterance. All the guys were a little uneasy about going to their toilet at night so they opted to use the ladies toilet if they needed to go at night.

Camping in the Serengeti was certainly an experience. All the food preparation was done in a caged area so that once we had gone to sleep the door was such to prevent animals such as the hyenas couldn’t get to our cooking utensils and left over food. At night when you laid in bed the hyenas laughed and the lions roared. The first night camping I was horrified but learnt the next morning that because the animals had no idea what the tents are so they stay away and they are also scared of the light from torches. I was right after that and slept very well the second night.

We headed out of the Serengeti after two nights camping there and made our way to the crater. On our way to the exit gate we spotted a cheater with her two cubs… it was pretty awesome. They were a little hard to spot at first, I yelled out “lion” to the driver and than we stopped before realising it was actually a cheater and her two cubs were following. They walked right up to the side of our truck and across to the other side of the road… it was pretty cool.

We stopped for lunch a the exit gate and than headed out of the national park. Just outside the exit gate was a black rino. We werw all pretty exited to see it as they are very few left in East Africa. Before heading to the carter to camp we stopped at a Masai village. The village we stopped at was really a imitation of a realy village but none the same it gives you a glimps of how the Masai people live. They did the welcoming dance which includes the jumping which was pretty cool! The only down side was how pushing they were for you to buy from them!

Our next entry will be about the crater and the following our experience on Kilimanjaro.

We do have limited access to internet, so please feel free to contact us.

Amy xx

It’s been a while since our last blog entry and we are now in fact a little behind with our blogging. Mike and I actually brought a local internet connect in Kenya which was meant to work in Tanzania however it only works in some places hence why we have fallen behind.

On the first day of our Intrepid tour we went through the great rift valley and then headed to Kisii a small town. The rift valley is not really what I expected. I thought it there would be no villages through the valley I just thought that it was a corridor that the animals crossed but there are Masai Villages all through the Rift Valley. It’s a very beautiful and interesting drive. We arrived in Kisii town in the late afternoon and stayed in a small dorm.  The following day we did a border crossing into Tanzania and then headed over to Lake Victoria where we spent our first night camping. We went for a ride through a local village. The response from the locals was a little hostile. Some waved and yelled our Jumbo which means hello in Swahili other spat at us. LOLSome of the local people were very happy to see us other not so. They didn’t wont to have their photo taken so there was little photo opportunities in this small town.

After our night at Lake Victoria we than headed over to the Serengeti. Our drive into the Serengeti was really amazing. It had just been raining so the animals were very active. We seen a male elephant wondering the plains by itself. There was lions, zebra and giraffe. We camped in the Serengeti in an unfenced camp site for two nights. It was a little scary the first night as you could hear the lions roaring and the hyena’s laughing at night. Mike and I awoke rather early one of the mornings to take a balloon ride of the Serengeti as the sun rose. It was amazing. The Serengeti is so vast… really beautiful!!! We flow over a hippo pond and seen various other animals.We than celebrated with an awesome breakfast in the middle of the Serengeti.

Mike and I have so many more stories to share already but we are about to leave our cabin and start our 6 day hike up and down Mount Kilimanjaro. We are very excited but also a little nervous. We are looking forward to sharing more photos with you all soon.

Amy xx