April "The Beginning"

I had a very interesting April break. The schools in Kenya are year round, so they have month long breaks to separate the terms. As soon as school was over all of the teachers had a celebratory outing where we went to an awesome restaurant called the Chicken Palace and stuffed ourselves and just relaxed after a long term of work. The next day Jacob and I went to Hell’s Gate National Park for our first safari. One of our friends is a former Park Ranger so he went with us as a tour guide. We first rode around in a mini-bus and saw a lot of gazelle, hartebeest, impala, zebra, a bustard, baboons, and warthogs. Later we let our tour guide go rest and Jacob and I rented some bicycles and went on our own adventure. It rained every other day that week, but somehow it never did that day. We ended up riding for about five hours. I think they need to hire a new cartographer and sign-maker for the park. We weren’t lost per say, but we couldn’t find where we were for awhile. We did get pretty close to some eland, hartebeests, zebras, giraffes, and finally buffalo. This was going up and down some pretty massive inclines on some pretty janky bikes. At one point we ended up in the middle of a Massai herd of cattle going down the same mountain path. We were supposed to have the bikes back before sunset, but we didn’t quite make it. It was pretty exhilarating riding in the dark in a National Park with who-knows-what animals all around us. We slept quite well that night in a YMCA thatched roof hut. The next day Ranger Gitau(our friend) took us to his former office. We then went down to the lake where I saw my first wild hippos. Very cool. They were just hanging out in the water with their heads sticking out. We then took a little boat to a place with Gnus a.k.a. wildebeests, zebras, and waterbucks. Gnus are very bizarre looking creatures. We then headed back to Gatundu to pack and then Nairobi for Easter. The next day I went to the International Lutheran Church for Easter Service. A few of us YAVs then went to lunch with some amazing friends of ours, Lyle and Terry Dykstra and Cal Brand. I got some awesome lasagna with lots of cheese, finished up with some delicious chocolate cake. The next day I began “The Journey”. Stay tuned for Part II of my April experience coming soon.