For the past couple of days we have been in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya, which is about a 5 hour drive south from Nairobi. It’s one of the smaller national parks for doing the ‘safari’ which we did and were simply amazed. We spent about 4 hours in the evening, then the following day (all day) on Safari – literally stopping so elephants, zebras, giraffes, etc. could cross the road. Overall a spectacular place, with the backdrop of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background – which we saw the first afternoon and as we were leaving. We did get lucky on our full day as there was cloud cover, so the animals were out most of the day – usually during the heat of the day they will retreat to shade/cover.

We had a great guide, although the drive out and back is a little nerve racking with the traffic and needing to pass trucks into oncoming traffic on a regular basis. We were about 20 yards ahead of an almost head-on truck-to-truck collision – one veered right, the other left and it worked out, but the sound of a semi locking up its brakes gets your attention. On the road into the park, you do about 20km of the “African Massage” – basically driving down dirt washboard road at 40 mph seeing if your fillings will stay in.

Once you are in the park though, it is spectacular. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when doing this, but the number of animals just out and about is amazing. (And we’re not in serenghetti yet.). I’ve never seen an elephant in the wild, but the number that I saw 70% submerged in mud was quite remarkable – you’d think they were hippo’s. Sitting in the mud, slowly walking through, with birds on their backs and eating grass.

Wilderbeast were everywhere – they spook very easily so always standing, then running around, then stopped looking at you. We saw an entire hippo family out of the water – yes Gloria, she’s a big girl…

I keep telling the boys this is “African scout camp” which worked perfect when we showed up at the park and our rooms were tents.

We are now in Rwanda after a late night flight, leaving for Uganda today – and doing our Gorilla trek tomorrow vs. on Monday – so our schedule is a little up in the air. We do know we fly from Rwanda to Tanzania on Monday pm – so that’s the next phase after doing the jungle thing.