Maasai Mara

What an incredible weekend. Adan, our guide, showed up early on Saturday morning to pick us up in a huge old-school Land Cruiser. Took about two hours on smooth highway to reach Narok, below, and then another three hours of bumpy dirt roads to reach the Sekenani Camp.

We were mobbed by very aggressive Maasai salespeople when we reached the Mara gate.

The private tents were awesome.

Yeah. I now realize that we have almost 500 pictures between the three of us and that this is going to take way too long. So here are my favorite pictures -- I'll post more on Facebook later.

We were charged at by elephants twice.

The Mara was beautiful. There were lots of cool birds.

Breakfast in the Mara.

This guy below got up and walked within a couple feet of our window. And then he led us to a group of bushes, where a dozen other lions were passed out in the shade. Some were out cold, like with all four paws sticking straight up in the air.

We saw lots of lion cubs. Thought about stealing one but we didn't want to die.

Chilling on the roof. Jason and I got REALLY sunburned. Kenya is just under the equator and the sun is no joke. My face and shoulders are still in major pain.

We were lucky enough to see this leopard on two days. He had an antelope carcass resting on another limb.

One cheetah is peeing on the tree and the other is taking a dump.

Ok the rest I'll post somewhere else. Below is us playing Settlers of Catan, which was introduced to us by Joel and Melissa, two of our housemates in Kijabe. We were quickly addicted. When we weren't on game drives, you could count on us being planted on the tent porch playing Settlers. I am winning-challenged in this game, which is fine cause the game sucks and is stupid.

The game even survived an attempted kidnapping/eating by a baboon who tore up the bag holding all the pieces, shredded the card-holding box and then stuffed it between rafters in the ceiling of our tent. Fortunately, the game pieces were largely unscathed other than a couple bite marks.

What an experience. Definitely the coolest thing we did in Kenya. On the way home, we stopped by Maai Mahiu to check out the local nyama choma scene. Roasted goat is like a national obsession in Kenya.

Delicious. And it was nice to not have to eat it off the ground this time.

Isaac and I are actually already back in the states, staying overnight in Pearl River before heading back to Chicago. Looks like there's a big snowstorm coming into NY tomorrow, so we'll see what happens. Praise God for bringing us back safely so far.