Amboseli Day One

This weekend I went with Rosa to Amboseli. She had wanted to go on a real safari while she was here because honestly how often are you in Kenya or Africa for that matter you have to take your safari oppurtunities while they are there. Harriette planned the whole safari for us which was nice and above and beyond what I had initially thought she was going to do. We used the same safari company that we used last time and we even had the same driver. So we left a little before seven and were off. First though we stopped at the KWS headquaterers (Kenya Wildlife Service) to see if we can pay a student rate for our park fees. When we got there we kindly and politely asked and I gave them my I am just a poor student and volunteer please help me look but they said no. To get the student rate which is $20 as opposed to the adult rate which is $60 you have to apply at least two weeks in advance and have a signed note from your school about why you are here and want to go to the park! That is just crazy they should encourage more students to come not make them have to jump through ridiculous hoops. So we paid the $60 and hit the road. I always sleep on road trips and as soon I got in I fell completley asleep. I didnt wake up for about 2 and a half hours and by then we were already more than half way there.

As we were pulling up to the park gate we could see a glimpse of the top of Kilimanjaro and it was so beautiful. It was huge and you can see the whole montain from where it starts to the peak, it was amazing. When we finally got to the hotel they gave us a nice glass of passion fruit juice and hot towels to clean our hands. After checking in we went to see our rooms, which turned out to be so nice. It was like a big tent and with two nice sized beds and even a shower, toilet and sink inside! It was like the fanciest camping ever. Rosa and I then went to eat some lunch before the first game drive. The food was so good we singlehandedly ate half of their apple crumble type dessert. We were able to rest for a little while then got ready to head out for the drive. We saw tons of elephants. Amboseli is elephant country and they were everywhere. There also were tons of zebra, ostriches, vervet monkeys, baboons, wildebeests. I saw my first hyena. They are not very cute though they look like dirty homeless dogs. The whole day we were driving around all Rosa could talk about was seeing a lion and as the day was winding down they were finally spotted. When we finally got to where they were there were like 6 or 7 cars all around. But from where we were we couldn't even see anything. They were hiding behind like 5 bushes and were super far away, there isn't any off roading at all in Amboseli. So we waited around and finally were able to get in a better position and with the binoculars you could only see the sleeping lions outline camouflaged in the grass. So we decided to keep ourselves busy by taking funny pictures and after a while when they still weren't waking up headed back to the hotel hoping to try our luck the next day. Our evening was pretty relaxing eating a huge dinner and watching Glee episodes on my computer till we went to sleep.