I’ve been busy readjusting to my real world, which included Michelle’s first Dubai brunch and good-bye happy hour.  I have around four more weeks of actual classes, and then it’s grading, paperwork and exam proctoring.  Plus, the whole selling my stuff and closing out my residency here.  It’s going to be a busy time that’ll fly by quickly.

So, before I get bogged down with all of that, let me blast you with safari pics and thoughts.  There are so many guides you can use, and we checked out a lot of them.  Our plan was to fly into Mombassa and do a 3-night tour that included Amboseli and one night at the Salt Lick Lodge.  We ended up going with Julius T. Safaris based of his fair price and good TripAdvisor reviews, and we’re glad we did.  Our driver Moses was awesome, and all of our accommodations were great.  Moses worked hard to make sure we were comfortable and seeing what we wanted to see.  Asante Sana and a big ole hug to him for making this such a great adventure for us.

Cheers Moses!  We three taking a balcony break at Salt Lick Lodge.  My laptop is out, so I could hurry and post the lion pictures we got that day.   What a high that was!

Safari girls coming out the roof!

I have so many pictures and stories to tell, but there’s not enough time to sort through them all.  All I know is driving through the savannah sunrise and sunset is pretty damned awesome stuff — even better is doing a night drive under the milky way with lions bellowing out their discontent.

These two guys were sleeping when we crept up on them.  Before we got to them we were mostly marvelling at the night sky.  Michelle kept asking if we could turn the car lights off to see more falling stars.  Her request was ignored UNTIL we came up close to these two and woke them up.  Then our spotlight guy told Moses to shut the lights.  Mind you the roof was up, our windows were open, and there were lions just a jump or two away from us.  It was pitch black, except for the stars.  For the first time in my life I empathised with my dogs’ chew toys because I was pretty sure I’d share their fate.  Then the lights came back on, the boys got up, walked away and ROARED at us.  I might have peed a little.

We also got to see lions during the day.  The first time was on our second day of safari where we saw a lioness in the distance, later on in the late afternoon game drive we saw another lioness being chased by a herd of elephants.  Apparently, she was just too close to their babies for their liking.  She ran right across the road in front of our van.  This was our lion highlight until the next day when Moses pulled up to another snoozing couple.

My legs shook for a good while after this one.  Mama lion was all stretched out snoozing while Daddy patiently waited for her.  We were told they were on their honeymoon.

We were so high on adrenaline after that we needed a cocktail break overlooking the waterhole at Salt Lick.  It turned into a freak show for the birds.

but we fed them

We also got to watch monkeys drink and play.

Another highlight of the trip was getting caught in the rain.  All of a sudden the skies just dumped on us and the herd of water buffalo nearby.  I have no pics of this to do it justice, but Michele posted video of our running with the bulls (and one day I’ll put together a video page for this blog).  Our van and the buffalo were hightailing it outta the mud together.  I swear we were living the National Geographic camera crew life.

Dry buffalo wondering why I’m still clicking away — rain is gone in this pic, and so is the need to run.

Elephants and zebras wowed us too!  Lol check out the wild ones in the bottom corner throwing out their “hey bitch!  whatcha doing?”

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But this lil guy was my fave

And all of these animals amazed us too

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I literally have around 2,0000 photos to scan through, so this is just a taste of all the adorableness we saw, and, yes, I wanted to scrub every one of their bellies — even the lions.  But, I like my arms so I kept them to myself.

We also got to visit a Masai village.

And there is so much more to share, but it is Thursday night, and I did just finish my first whole week of teaching again.  I don’t know who was more tired by the end of it — me or the girls.  And, I cannot believe just two weeks ago we were doing all of these amazing things. Luckily, the theme for this trimester is exploration and discovery, so I’ve got plenty I can share with my girls.

Until the next time, here’s a tiny tree tough enough to live amongst the wild.