After my parents settled on the dates for their Kenya trip, we received word from my Uncle Bruce (mom's brother) and his wife Ann that they were planning an Africa trip and wanted to meet up with all of us in Nairobi. Terrific! They live in Michigan and we haven't seen them since our wedding almost two years ago, so we were really looking forward to catching up with them, plus, we really liked the novelty of our extended family all being in Kenya at the same time. Since we didn't have a spare room in our house to set them up in, we booked them at a guest house by the embassy we found on TripAdvisor, called the Gigiri Homestead. Normally, we don't like to use our family as guinea pigs in these scenarios, but they place had good reviews and turned out to be a real find (Bruce and Ann were very pleased with the place, to our great relief).
We picked them up Saturday morning, dropped their bags off at our place, and proceeded to the Great Rift Valley Lodge just outside Lake Naivasha. Like our harrowing drive up the escarpment in the Masai Mara, the drive to the lodge included--what is becoming increasingly standard on Cook vacations here--a 30 minute drive up a ridiculously bumpy and poorly maintained road. Everyone agreed never to complain about the state of roads in the US again, in what also has become an increasingly common refrain from visiting guests here.
The lodge was fantastic. Kerry booked us in a three bedroom cottage that was within walking distance to the main lodge area. Given the road down the mountain, we decided to just relax at the house/lodge. Had a great dinner that night and retired early.
The following day, my parents stayed behind and Kerry, Bruce, Ann, and myself traveled back down the brain-scrambling road to go on a boat ride of the lake to see the hippos. For those that are not aware, hippos are responsible for the majority of human deaths in Africa, not the big cats, so we totally expected to be riding around in a rather thickly-hulled boat to keep us protected. However, as the pictures below showcase, we traveled around the lake in little more than a canoe.
The tour lasted a little over an hour and, in addition to the hippos, we saw many animals grazing on the shore, as well numerous birds, including a fish eagle that we got to see demonstrate it's fishing technique when our boat captain tossed a fish into the water.
Following the boat ride, we went into Naivasha town to the only restaurant we know, the La Belle Inn, for a late lunch. We then drove back to the lake to Crescent Island, which is a bit of a misnomer because part of it was filled in in the 1980s during the filming of Out of Africa, technically making it a peninsula. While we are on the topic, it still amazes me how much of this country was used in the filming of that movie. Everywhere we go there someone points out to us where part of the movie was filmed. It reminds of traveling through old towns in mid-Atlantic and the south where every old house and barn you see was used as a civil war hospital. Kind of makes you wonder what's fact and what's fiction. Anyway, the movie crew transported a bunch of wildlife to the Island for the movie and left them all there when they were done, so the Island is now a great place to walk around and get close to giraffes, buffalo, zebras, wildebeest, and the like. We had a nice two hour walk around the island then got back in the car and journeyed back up the hill to get ready for dinner.
Stepping back a minute to the first day, my mom wanted to order me a birthday cake that we would have at dinner on the last day at the lodge. After much go around trying to explain all this, we were fairly confident that there would be cake at dinner, possibly with my name (or something close to it) on the top. We arrived at for out meal to an empty dinning room, where we were escorted to our reserved table in the corner and had a fantastic meal. Shortly after we finished, the lights went out and the staff struck up some music and began dancing towards our table with a lit birthday cake singing an African birthday song. As my mom would stated in later retellings of this story, this was her best experience of the entire trip. Forget the Mara, forget the Museums, forget Mosby, Africans wishing me happy birthday for approximately 30 seconds was the best. I have to admit, though, it was pretty cool.
I had to go into work the next day so we packed up and headed back to Nairobi rather early. The whole family was together for another two days--my parents were headed back home and Bruce and Ann were departing for Samburu and then onto Rwanda to see the Gorrilas--so we had Jimmy take them around to the Elephant Orphanage and the flower farm, with a stop at Talisman in Karen. We had a fantastic time with the family and were so glad with the time we were able to spend with everyone, even if it had to be on the other side of the world.
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