We woke up bright and early to go to Nakuru Wildlife Park with Solo and a guide, who turned out to be wonderful. Solo, who is exploring being a tour operator, rented a great van and picked us up. Nakuru is $100 per gringo, plus car cost, and minimal for Kenyans. The guys folded up the back seats so as to reduce the car cost.
We spent from 8 am to 2 pm driving around the park seeing animals, plus stopped for lunch at a waterfall. Many more animals here than at Queen Elisabeth and different kinds. Here are the photos:
Finally we needed to wifi but spent a frustrating hour trying to get on wifi at a fancy hotel, did for a few minutes, then went back to the new place where we had found a room, drove again back into town with Solo to the wifi place of the night before. We shared Mexican food!! And the wifi was great. Our moto taxi driver of the night before picked us up as scheduled and we went to sleep early, to get up, make oatmeal again for breakfast and be ready to leave by 8 am.
The guide really tried to sell us big on going to Arusha the following morning, but, in the end we decided to pass and to head out for Nairobi first thing in the morning. Solo got us on the correct bus, informed the driver to help us get on buses in Nairobi.
1/24-25/14: SHABBAT IN NAIROBI
We are staying with Melissa and Daniel with their 2 yr old Jonah. Melissa's Dad is the Conservative Rabbi in Portland, Rabbi Isaak, with whom I organized Aaron's Abayudaya talk in Portland at his Shul a year ago November. It's ironic that Melissa and her family are living in Nairobi, they think for a year. Her husband works for a rocket stove business out of Colorado and he knows the Aprovecho rocket stove folk, including Dean Still.
Arriving in Nairobi a tour operator approached us, saying he would help us get tickets to Arusha, where we are going tomorrow afternoon to join the safari we will be on, led by Donna's company. Of course his boss wanted for us to book with them, but once we explained he just secured the bus tickets for us and showed us where to get the bus, etc. he said it was better to make a dollar than nothing and that meeting us and hearing our gorilla stories made their day.
The same fellow guided us to the public bus to get to Melissa's.
Arriving here, at a very fancy apartment building, we were back in Western luxury, similar to staying in Kigali with Mary Metzer. Nairobi is surprisingly modern, looks a bit like a smaller version of NYC African-style. Large public parks, modern art on buildings, statues, fountains, traffic lights that count the time until they change color.
Played with little Jonah, talked with Melissa, did some wifi stuff, Yehudah secured the safari, talked with the dad about Aprovecho and the beginnings. We washed all our clothes in their washer and dryer, almost an unknown in Kenya. We then went for Shabbat dinner to a new friend of theirs, a wonderful woman married to a fellow from Zambia who had been in the Peace Corps in Zambia, but met her husband in NYC! She works in public health right now, although she has applied for two new jobs. Her three children range from 3 yrs to 13 yrs. Dinner was chicken with potatoes and carrots, rice, lentils with onions and curry, salad brought by Melissa, brownies. Her children led the prayers plus others.
Next day we just stayed home working on computer stuff, Google chatted with Micah and Jenny for the first time. Now leaving for bus to get to bus to Arusha.
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