Crater and the Indian Ocean

Jambo,

Em and I are currently using the internet in a barber shop in the town of Mombassa. We are surrounded by wonderful posters including one that’s all faded titled, “POWERFUL HAIR KUTS.” It’s straight out of the 80’s and has all these rap stars on it. This is next to a picture of Kibaki (the president) and of course an Obama poster. You wouldn’t believe how much Obama is plastered around Kenya. His face even graces patterned fabrics.

Well our last week has been nothing but amazing. We traveled to Tanzania (Tzed) to visit the Ngorongoro Crater which is the largest inactive volcano caldero in the world. We traveled to Arusha on Thanksgiving and we were thankful that before we left, Leah (Simba’s wife’s sister), had bought sliced turkey and cheese for us the day before. We were excited to eat some Turkey on Thanksgiving, especially me cuz it was the 1st time in I think 13 or 14 years! We stayed at this cute little motel that was also an Ehtiopian restaurant, so we had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner. Josh, I enjoyed some food for you :)

We booked a safari to the crater before we left Nairobi. There was actual drama when the people on the Tzed side came to pick us up, but it all worked out. No need to go into the negative parts which were quickly resolved and things worked out just great. It ended up being private so it was just the 2 of us with our driver and a cook. They picked us up in a white Land Rover with a pop top. This is exactly what Emily was envisioning us to go in so she was all smiles.

After about 3 hours we arrived at the crater and we were staying in a public campsite so we asked to be dropped off at one the nice lodges to have a drink out on a veranda overlooking this amazing wonder. We found a nice spot out of the deck and watched as the sun setting behind us cast all this beautiful light across the crater. I had a beer (cold!) and emily a gin and tonic. They brought us out hot roasted cashews, and we were in heaven.

Well, I need to skip ahead a bit cuz we need to go catch a bus. The crater drive was amazing. All the big east African animals are on the crater floor as well as others. We saw large herds of just about everything including around 15 Lioness’total. We spent all day on driving around and headed back to Arusha that night. We have lots of pics to you’ll get to see what some people call the “8th wonder of the world.”

We headed out of Tzed back to Kenya to the coast. We didn’t know where we would stay but we were recommended somewhere on the southcoast called Tiwi. We found this place that had cottages right on the shoreline over looking the ocean. We had our own private bungalow with all the amenities. We were blessed with basically having a 3day mini vacation on a tropical beach. The ocean was filled with coral and we went snorkeling everday. Unfortunately the reef is dying and the locals walk all over it and take many things from it to sell.

This doesn’t even do our last week justice, but hopefully the pictures will. We are heading back to Nairobi now, we have an 8 hour bus ride ahead of us that should be interesting. I’m going to soak it all in as this will be our last drive through the Kenyan country side. I’ve feel so grateful for all that I’ve experienced on this journey and I’m trying not to feel sad about it all coming to a close very soon, but it’s challenging.

I hope everyone is doing well in the States and we’ll either see or talk to you all very soon. I should be able to post some more from Nairobi while we’re there, so check back.

Kwaheri