"Means no worries for the rest of your days....Its your problem free philosophy, Hakuna Matata!"
I know you just sang that to the tune of the well known Disney song on the movie the Lion King. This is what I was wanting to burst forth with in song while driving through Kenya last week. (However, the bumpy roads, speed bumps, and scary 18-wheelers did not allow me that luxury!) I also wanted to break out in the Circle of Life song (especially when we got to watch up close and personal a dikdik being attacked by a rock python!--more details to come!).
Our drive through Uganda and Kenya was just beautiful! I will just post some pictures and let them do the talking!
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| The girls needed a Cheetos snack about 2 hrs into our drive! |
So at one point during the drive the main road was blocked off and they directed traffic onto this little bumpy, down hill road! It was quite the adventure! We had no clue how long we would be on it or where it would come out! HA! TIA is something I have learned to say a lot = This Is Africa!
During our drive to Kenya, on the second day we sighted our first zebra and gazelle on the side of the road! I was more excited than the girls! We stopped at one point in order to get better photographs of the magnificent animals!
On our way back to Uganda we stopped for a night at a wonderful lodge that we will be visiting again one day. It was called Lake Naivasha Sopa Lodge and it was great!
I cannot say enough about it. The service, for the most part, was wonderful and the food even better! The attendant in charge of your cottage came in your room while you were at supper and turned your bed down for you! My girls were just thrilled that there was a bathtub in our room! The grounds were gorgeous and the fact that wildlife was right outside your door made it even better!
You can see the cottages that we stayed in for the night in the background. There were 4 units in each cottage and ours was on the bottom floor. The entire backside of our room was windows that we covered at night with curtains. You could see all of this from our room! If you had to walk from building to building at night you had to call your attendant to be escorted around the premises. You did not want to walk up to a hippo and scare it and become its supper. (Seriously!) On the way back from dinner, our escort shushed us and pointed his flashlight at the biggest hippo I have ever seen! We were less than 15 feet from it!
I loved seeing all the wildlife but some of my favorites were the monkeys! When we first arrived we walked through what me and the girls termed "monkey jungle".
At first we did not see all the monkeys but then......
and....
Then we found a lot of monkeys on the grass playing! Brad and I told the girls to stand back while I got a good shot of this baby monkey. As we are concentrating on getting the best shot, we hear the girls (not 10 feet behind us) shriek in fear! We ran towards them because about 6 monkeys were starting to approach both of them! Needless to say, our walks through "monkey jungle"the next time consisted of each of us holding a girl!
More monkeys...
During the day at the lodge we drove down the road a little bit and took a boat tour of Lake Naivasha. We all got to wear the normal orange life jackets but my girls pulled them off pretty well, I think!
The first animals that we came across on the lake were a family of hippos! The second family of hippos we came across was even better because the baby hippo yawned for us!
We also saw a lot of beautiful birds!
After we got back from our boat ride we decided to take a guided tour of the land the lodge was on. You could walk freely around the premises but had to have a guard go with you if you went past one certain area. As our guard was pointing out the hippo trails and their large mounds of poop we heard some rustling in a bush down to our right. We turned around and saw this guy...
We kinda spooked him I guess (go figure) and he turned around to head back into the bush.
We saw some of his friends running out of the bush on the other side and he darted into the bush to try to get through to join them. However,....
his poor little life ended as a rock python jumped out and smothered the life out of him! Imagine our surprise as we just stood there in awe! Brad was jumping up and down from excitement and wanted to get closer to get some cool pictures. This of course freaked our travel guide out but Brad managed to get close enough to get this close of a zoomed-in shot! Our guide kept telling Brad that snakes can just disappear and reappear anywhere! Bless his heart!
Here are some random animal pictures that I don't want to leave out!
All in all, we had a blast! I can't wait to get back to the beautiful country of Kenya and explore more of our Father's majestic creation!
