Africa cont'd

Just wanted to jot a few more things before dinner. The group I am traveling with is a mix of 16 people. We have about 8 people from australia, 2 from england, 1 from germany, 1 from switzerland and 1 from poland. Ironically, there is one other american, named Sue, who is from San Francisco and lives specifically in Russian Hill where I lived a few years ago. It is a truly fun group. At least one time a day there is a search for more beer supplies, and casual beer drinking sometimes begins around noon. Everyone actually gets along rather well, and many of the people are hilarious. Certainly helps pass the time. We have been starting our days waking up between 4am (not real common) to 6am, but usually around 530 or so. My daily sleep intake is around 5-6hrs, so there are times I am quite tired, but there are so many things going on, it is doable. The first day we headed northwest to Nakuru National Park traveling in our truck which carrys all of our supplies-tables, chairs, utensils, tents, pads, food, etc. Most of this is either under the truck or on top and the main cabin has seats for all, with a little library in the back for reused books. We have nice large windows which we can pull down when we need a little breeze or to take pictures. The ride can be a little bumpy because the roads here are a little sketchy and Africa has a deep love for speed bumps. Sometimes you can be on a main highway and a speed bump will occur out of nowhere. Mostly they exist because Africa has a high rate of trucks turning over, in fact we had a slight detour due to a fuel truck on its side with fuel leaking all over the road. The Nakuru np was amazing. Essentially on our first day we saw hundreds of zebra, water buffalo, giraffes, a few rhinos, antelope, warthogs, and a couple of lions. All in all, not bad for a first day. I was floored and have already taken probably a thousand pictures. At night time, we all have a few jobs. I share the tent/sleeping pad removal from the top of the truck, which is probably the most potentially dangerous job since we are about 15-20 feet in the air walking on the roof. So far, no falls. We then set up camp and start assisting a little in food preparation. Patrick, the chef does most of the work and is rather a good cook. Never have problems chowing down. Usually it's a pasta or stirfry at night, some sausages and cereal for breakfast and sandwiches or salad for lunch. The next day, we headed out to Eldoret where we visited the Kariandusi school which receives financial assistance from Dragoman, our travel group. Must say, it was quite amazing. It was k-8, and the kids were dressed in basically homemade outfits with many of them with holes or sewn up parts. We visited several classrooms where the children would ask us questions or sing songs in either english or kiswahili. We also had to introduce ourselves and say where we were from. I always mentionned that I was from the US, and that my president was Barack Obama, which always received lots of applause since his father was from Kenya. There is certainly an extremely high level of pride. The kids just loved having us there and were constantly asking to get their picture taken. It was certainly an eye opening experience and made us appreciate what we have. On the way to camp we hit a little snag in the trip as our truck had a major brake malfunction. It was then necessary for us to pull all our stuff off the truck and be carted off into small vans to a campsite nearby, much closer than orginally planned. Luckily we had a campsite with adequate beer supplies and were able to upgrade to small cabins. Our adventure continued the next day onto Kibale National forest after passing into Uganda, where we would have the opportunity to trek chimpanzees. This was indeed a treat. We were in the jungle hiking for about 45 minutes where we came upon a group of about 10 chimpanzees up in a large tree having their morning breakfast, leaping from branch to branch and occasionally tossing used branches down. We also had to dodge a small rain/urine burst from one of the chimps. We watched for about an hour and then suddenly 3 chimps dropped onto the jungle floor where we then followed them through the bush for about 40 minutes where they would occasionally stop to munch on things. It was quite amazing to be that close and able to watch this animals so similar to ourselves. A little fast forward to yesterday which was friday the 29th. We continued our travels through Uganda pasing the equator for the second time. By the way, Kenya's weather was quite comfortable, high 70's to low 80's and with a breeze. Uganda on the other hand was much more what I expected, 80's and humid, much more like a jungle. Oooops, have to go, they are calling me for dinner. I'll add some soon, hopefully. Take care.