masharti

We traded the Creels for a second helping of researchers from Montana who must have spent a considerable amount of time hoping for an African adventure lacking ease. Their own travels were delayed a day due to airplane mechanics and so the story goes from there. We took them to the Nairobi orphanage on the way out of town, no sooner had we bought our tickets and taken one step past the covered walkway into the coverless park that it started pouring down rain. My head didn’t even get wet, that is how instantaneous the rain had been with step one. Getting our money back wasn’t an option though and we could barely get the guy behind the desk to let us come back tomorrow. The orphanage is amazing by the way. It was worth the delay to enjoy a private tour the next morning. We held two week old baby cheetahs and stood a chain link fence width away from numerous roaring lions. Our guide also told us that the friendly, fluffy, spotted hyena that we were petting was 22 years old. Kenya likes to give you full control of your own safety. There is no moat around the predator cages keeping you, mindlessly, at a respectable distance. My age conforms me to my own fears so I didn’t need the four-inch minimum spacing requirements between bars to keep me from trying to stick my head inside the rhinoceros’s pen - although if you were caravanning with small children I wouldn’t expect their safety to already be managed for you.

Well Happy Birthday America – Sam’s birthday was the day before and we successfully baked a cake for her over the campfire. Then we colored the icing green and I wrote the word PLANT on it out of cookies and candles. Sam’s research includes vegetation monitoring and she jokingly, in comparison to Paul’s exciting carnivore project, says that she just studies plants. I meant to write PLANTS, but ran out of room and hence made her research seem even more specialized. After devouring the baked goods and a bottle of wine, we wished her a happy birthday and apologized in advance since we were going to have to beat her up the following day due to her British heritage.

The next day brought us lion number four which we named Esipata, meaning freedom or truth in Maasai – opinions tend to vary. She was one of the females in Ren’s pride, the male we collared at the end of May. He had been evading us for a few days when we went out to track him, but as we were sitting there waiting for one of the lionesses to get close to us, he meandered on over and butted his way into the carcass feast. We sat patiently while he took his turn, but when he fell asleep at the dinner table three hours into our stake out we unapologetically started up the car to wake him up. The offering was big this time - an entire Zebra that had died from drought. An attempt to partition the carcass led to the release of gases that were still building up in the bloated animal. Instead, Vicki and Chris helped Paul tie it up to the back of the truck and they dragged it across Shompole to an area we were expecting the lions to be. The trail of this process led to some curious phone calls from the rangers in the area.

A few days later we put Chris and Vicki on the bus so they could go to the Maasai Mara. Six in the morning and already jam packed with people, they said they were basically hanging out the door. An hour into their trip they stopped in Magadi and virtually everyone on the bus was kicked off except for the three wazungu, white people. A school choir group had chartered the bus from there to Nairobi, but the drivers must have realized that the white folks wouldn’t know what to do if they were kicked off in this random little town. Two days later we drove back to Nairobi ourselves to renew our overdue car insurance. On the way to the insurance agency we got pulled over by the cops. This has never happened before - ever. They don't have vehicles so they just stand in the middle of the road and flag you down. Paul tried several times to talk his way out of this situation. "They never sent us a reminder notice - can't I just go get it and bring it back to you - how about a warning?" - all to no avail. We had to take a cop with us to escort us to the police station where Paul tried several more times to get the lieutenant to just let us pay our fine and leave. Tickets can’t be mailed or paid on the side of the road so your time, the policeman’s time, the court’s time is taken up for every single traffic violation. We sat in the police parking lot while ACC went and got our renewed stickers and delivered them to us. They assured us that, though rather inefficient, this was standard procedure. Court was Monday morning – but first we were going to Mt Kenya.

We drove to Mt. Kenya with Chris and Vicki for their last night. We stayed at a place called Mountain Lodge where every room has a balcony and view of the watering hole. At dinner they bring around a list of animals and you can check off which ones you would like to be woken up for if they come during the night. We were feeling pretty lucky already because we had just gotten back from our all day hike up the slopes of the mountain when they met us at the door with champagne and as we walked up to the window a herd of elephants came down into view. There was a pond of clean water closer to the lodge that the elephants prefer and a few of them walked over to take a drink and scratch their butts on a cement cylinder. Champagne glasses in hand, we walked downstairs to the underground viewing deck that took you about 20 yards away from where they were. Dessert came with a song and a certificate congratulating each of us on our hiking accomplishment. The lodge is full of little surprises like this and before we left on our hike that morning they had asked Paul to write down each of our names. There was some question over the handwriting and they deciphered correctly all but one name. Paul Schnette – congratulations on climbing to 10499 feet.

Monday morning rolled around and after waiting around for a couple of hours for the judge to even show up in a room dedicated to traffic violations, each case came personalized with the choice of a monetary sum or a jail term. Paul's choice was 6000 shillings or 2 months in jail. The menu of options must have been rather enticing, or Paul was just lacking his morning coffee, because he combined the two and said, "I'll take 6 months." The judge luckily asked for clarification and he answered, “Yeah, I’ll just pay.”