Nile having fun without Matt

While Matt was flying home to Seattle, Nile went to Zanzibar and stayed at the Paradise Beach Bungalows.

There we met up with our friend Yuka, who is working in Yuganda at an AIDS orphanage. Takashi was showing off his GPS unit.

Zanzibar has beautiful ocean, and the color really is just like this.

One day we went looking for clams with the local children. They were much better at it than we were.

We had Jon and Marcy's wine by the beach.

Nile, Yoshie, and Yuka purchased cloth together to have dresses made.

Yoshie and Nile with the finished product.

One day we went on a tour to go swimming with the dolphins. On the way Yoshie was very conservative and said that she wished she would just see a dolphin. Takashi and Nile were thinking bigger and gave her a lecture that the point was to swim with them, not just see them.

Out on the water we saw a lot of fishing boats like this one.

... and sail boats like this one.

... but this is as close as we got to swimming with dolphins. The dolphins stood us up.

After Paradise Beach Bungalows, we stayed at the best hotel of our trip, the Tembo Hotel. Tembo is Swahili for Elephant.

At the elephant hotel, Yoshie was attacked!

We bought all of these rambutans for $3 which we thought was a great deal until we tasted one. They were so sour we didn't think they were a good deal after all.

In Dar es Salaam we went to tinga-tinga villiage. Tinga-tingas are painted on canvas with house paint. House paint is a lot cheaper than oil paints.

Back in Nairobi we went to the National Museum.

This monkey is not part of the national museum. He was just hanging around outside. He shortened Nile's life by 10 minutes when he jumped up on the fence and surprised her. She's at least 5 times bigger, but he wasn't afraid of her at all.

These are "London" taxis in Nairobi. They seat 6 passengers plus the driver. Earlier in Nairobi we took one of these and it broke down before we got to our first destination.

Nile's friend Esther lives and works at an AIDS orphanage/hospice in Nairobi called Nyumbani. We met up her several times in Nairobi. Here they are at the Starbucks of Nairobi. They had yummy chai frappacino like drinks. mmmm.

Nile spent a month in tropical weather, but in Frankfurt on the way back, the plane had to sit for an hour while the wings were de-iced with green liquid. It's a lot colder there.

Our Route

Our flights were long, but well worth it. We flew from Seattle to Chicago to Frankfurt to Cairo. We spent just over a week in Egypt, 3 days of which were in Luxor. From there we flew to Nairobi and spent a week on safari.

Our safari route took us from Nairobi north past Mt. Kenya to Samburu. This park has a lot of impala, elephants, vervet monkeys, and reticulated giraffe. We also went to a Samburu villiage there. We then headed east to Lake Baringo. Here we went on a boat tour and saw hipos swimming all around us. It was a lot like whale watching because they were underwater most of the time. We then went south to Lake Bogoria which has geysers and flamingos. We continued on that day to Lake Nakuru which is a fantastic park with many more flamingos, water buffalo, white rhino, and baboons. Our last, and most exicting stop was Masi Mara where there are lions, black rhinos, cheetah, and many species of grazing animals.

Safari A-Z

On our safari we saw a lot of different animals. We almost saw enough to complete a safari alphabet book. We're missing a few, but here are our favorites.


A is for ant hill. This ant hill cheats a little because it is on top of a wall, but it even extends about 3 meters above the top of the wall. Ants are crazy in Africa.

B is for baboon. Baboons run this picnic site. Baboons can be mean, so it's probably best to wait until this guy is done with the table before sitting down to eat. The sign in the background reads "Keep the picnic site clean," and it looks like the baboons do a good job of it.

C is for camel. These camels, like nearly all camels in Kenya, are domesticated. We couldn't see their owner or any sign of restraint, but they have probably been let out here to graze.

D is for dik-dik. The dik-dik is very shy, and it's difficult to get a good picture. He blends in to the ground in the middle of this picture. Dik-dik form very strong monogamous bonds with their mates. They are the only animal known to be capable of comitting suicide because of the loss of a mate.

E is for elephant. The elephants we saw were African elephants, of course. Elephants have a temperment gland which is half way between the eye and ear. It releases liquid when the elephant is stressed or excited. We think that this elephant is particularly happy with his meal.

F is for flamingo. At lake Nakuru there are thousands of flamingos. They cover the water as far as you can see in both directions. When Takashi was here in a different season, there were about ten times as many.

G is for giraffe. This is a masi giraffe. It's coloration is slightly diferent than the reticulated giraffe found in Samburu. This one is more spotty. The yellow on a reticulated giraffe looks like veins.

H is for hipo. Hipos are what we wanted to see most in Africa. Two baby hipos ran down the bank and into the water. In this picture you can see one running and the splash of the first one where he jumped in. Hipos can run pretty fast and are the animal which causes the most fatalities in Africa.

I is for impala. This is a group of female impala. They were very common in Samburu. The male impala has slightly curvy horns.

J is for jackal. The jackal is also a very shy animal. This variety is the grey backed jackal. Jackals are hunters and scavengers. They are friendly with lions who sometimes give them part of their kill to get them to be quiet.

K is for kill. These lions killed a topi around 4:00 am. It was about 7:00 when we took this picture. The lion is trying to get a little more out of the skull.

L is for lion. Lions are common in Masi Mara. They spend a large majority of their day sleeping or lounging around. This is a female lion. Across the road (not pictured) are 5 more lions including an adolecent male.

M is for monkey. This is a vervet monkey. They came into our camp site at breakfast time to steal food. One made off with a crepe from Yoshie's plate. Another took her package of kleenex out of the truck. After that we were more careful about what we left lying around.

O is for ostrich. Wild ostrich look a lot more fluffy than the ones you see on farms in the US. They can run very fast and have very strong legs. Don't mess with an ostrich.

P is for Pelican. This pelican is next to a few crocodiles. I guess the crocodiles know they can't catch the Pelican.

R is for rhinocerous. This is a white rhino which has a square mouth. We call it an armored lawn mower. You can hear the grass being pulled up as it eats. The black rhino is found in Masi Mara an has a pointed mouth.

S is for Stork. This bird is the undertaker of the flamingos. We also say that if the flamingos look like balerinas, this is the conductor in a ratty old tuxedo.

T is for topi. I'm sorry you can't really see it in this picture, but topis have spots on their legs that make it look like they are wearing biker shorts. Their fur is short and shiny and looks a lot like spandex.

W is for warthog. Warthogs are the cutest animal. They eat grass and roots. They are shy and when they run away their tail sticks straight up into the air. We think they use their tails to locate one another when running through tall grass.

X is for orynx. So, it doesn't start with an X, but we didn't see any xylaphone birds or x-ray monkeys.

Z is for zebra. There are three or four types of zebra in East Africa. This is a plains zebra which has a striped belly, and smaller head.

Safari

We went on safari in Kenya. We shot about 12 rolls of film in addition to the digital pictures. We'll have the negatives scanned when we get the film developed. We'll almost certainly make another post with lots of animal pictures after we get those developed.

Lions are very common in Masi Mara. On our last day we took a sunrise game drive and came across this kill which had happened around 4am that morning. Each pride of lions has one mature male which gets to eat first, and then the young males and females get to eat. In this picture, two females are chewing on topi legs and the males is about to leave. The small animal in the background is a jackal which is a relative of a dog. The lions will sometimes throw a bone to the jackals to get them to be quiet.

Elephants pretty much just keep growing through out their life. They live for about 60 years. The little one in this picture is probably about 6 months old.

These are the people we went on safari with, plus a few camp managers. There were 9 of us in this car, plus the driver and the cook. Here we have just packed up on our last day and are about to head back to Nairobi.

Nile at the Nile

By popular demand, here is Nile on the Nile. We took a feluka (sp?) ride on our last day. It was very relaxing to be out on the water in a sailboat. Unfortunatly, there wasn't a lot of wind, so the men who took us out had to row across the river, but then we got a pull upstream and gently floated back downstream to our hotel.

We saw the sun setting on the Nile from the feluka. The sail boats you see here are other felukas.

You can't really see the Nile in this photo, but it is behind the little wall across the street. There are a lot of these "Nile Phones" around.

The show on our way to the Karnak light show

We spent the past few days in Luxor. Here we are standing in front of the Nile. The valley of the Kings, and many other sites are in the mountains on the other side of the Nile

These are the ruins of the Karnak temple. This was Nile's favorite site. It is very big and quite diverse. Many kings and queens of Egypt added their own part to the temple.

This is inside the Temple of Luxor. It was burried under sand for many many years. While it was under the sand a mosque was built on top of it. The door here used to be at ground level.

This is the Temple of Hatepshut. They carved out part of the sandstone cliff for this temple.

We had an adventure on our way to the Karnak Temple Light Show. Hiring transportation at a reasonable price always requires negotiation.@@Takashi is good at negotiating with taxi drivers, but he decided to stay home because he is coming down with a cold and he saw the show 3 years ago when he was last here.
We got the impression that Luxor is less expensive than Cairo, and in Cairo we were able to get across town by taxi for 5 Egyptian Pounds (a little less than 1 US dollar). Here in Luxor we were able to hire a horse drawn carriage for LE 5 to get us from our hotel into town. We thought that we should be able to hire a cab for LE 5 to get us from our hotel to the light show, across town. There are always cab and carriage drivers waiting near the hotel and they approach you as you walk down the street. We started negotiating for a ride in either a carriage or a taxi for LE 5. The first person that took us up on our offer got us into a carriage, but then asked a younger driver to take us, and he refused, so we got out and walked on. A few meters down the street, I hailed a cab who said he would take us for LE5, and at exactly the same time, Nile hailed a carriage and negotiated the deal g5 pounds to Karnak.h Since Yoshie likes carriages, we took the carriage. The driver was very nice and chatty, but not honest. After a few blocks he started changing the deal. He said that there are two Karnaks, the hotel, and the temple and said that the temple was too far for only LE 5. So, Nile said, gfine, take us to the hotel for 5 pounds.h The driver said, g5 English pounds, yes?h Five English pounds is about LE 50. When we said, that it was Egyptian Pounds, he started trying to negotiate other prices. Nile wouldnft let him have it. She insisted that he either take us to Karnak hotel, or Karnak Temple for LE 5. He refused. At that point, Nile pulled on my coat and we all jumped out of the carriage. Fortunately for us the horse was slow, so this was easy to do. Unfortunately for the driver, we jumped out right in front of a policeman who we heard giving the driver a hard time. A minute later the same carriage passed us and offered to take us for LE 15 to Karnak Temple. We refused and he drove on.
In the end, we got a taxi for LE 10.

Egyptian pancakes today!

These are the mail boxes here. They are labeled "Poste Aerienne" and "Ordinary Mail".

This is a pond outside the Egyptian museum. Matt saw the mummies there and we all saw the artifacts that used to be in the pyramids.

This is an ornimental garden in Cairo.

We had Egyptian pancakes today. This guy is stretching the dough. The dough is stretched very thin, and then folded over and restretched several times to make a filo like dough, but softer and not as flakey.

We left early on new year's eve

Crossing the street in Cairo is perilous. Takashi is pointing out a person crossing this busy street. Everyone has to cross when the street is this busy. 2/3 of the cars don't have their lights on either, making it harder.

We visited the pyramids. Here we are in Giza near the Sphinx. These are the "newest" and largest pyramids.

This is a display garden near the pyramids. We thought Nile's co-workers would like a look at their competition in Egypt.

This is the countryside near the pyramids. They grow some sort of root vegitable under the palm trees here. The harvest the tops as fodder for the camels and mules.

Here we are in front of the Sakkara pyramid.

This is the red pyramid. Matt went inside and it was really really smelly.

Packing for the big trip!

Natalie sent us some Canada flag patches to put on our bags. Thank you, Natalie!

Pokie and Ellie helped Nile pack today.

In completely unrelated news, they have been replacing the mortar between the bricks on our building. Most of our windows are covered in plastic on the outside so it's very dark all day.