5-3 and 5-4-2014 Final Day in Kenya and Travel

We had a hurried breakfast before the safari because the kitchen staff had to clean up from a rather loud group of about 25 that arrived after 10pm that was also pretty loud while having a meal around 4am before departing for wherever they went.  It made for a short night of fitful sleep.  At least for once in wasn’t ugly Americans, the group clearly was being noisy in Swahili! Our 6:45 scheduled meal turned into after 7am and we scrambled to get to the Nairobi National Game Park on the outskirts of town.  Our driver from during the week, Stephen and I paid the fees for our group and the van to enter the park.  We spotted some giraffes and zebras right away, but Stephen sped past them, much to the group’s dismay.  I knew what was up, he had been alerted to several lions nearby by other drivers over the CB radio.  People love to see giraffes, but they don’t realize if it’s their initial trip to Kenya that getting to get up close and personal with some lions doesn’t happen more than once every 3 or 4 trips.  I got some great pictures in the warm yellow early morning light with my 55-300mm Nikon zoom lens on my DSLR camera, but they seemed a little cloudy.I soon found out why.  I had taken the lens from the warmer drier room into the relatively cool and more humid van and condensation had formed inside the lens.  A good lens has 9 or more elements or lenses within it and this is not good.  If not dried out quickly, mold can form and render the lens ruined.  I removed it from the camera and it road in the sunshine on the dash the rest of the morning. I switched to my standard 18-55mm kit lens and continued shooting.  The good news is that with a 24MP camera like I have, I can crop and zoom in quite a bit on the rest of the pictures and get good results.  We saw almost every bird and animal I had ever seen at this park with the exceptions of the saddle-billed stork and the rhino.  Considering Nairobi had been getting rain, which scatters the animals to higher ground when water is plentiful and it means the grass and other vegetation is much taller and thicker making the animals harder to spot, we had a very successful morning indeed. 

 

After the safari, we went to the Veranda restaurant and gift shop as planned and had a great lunch.  Charles and Shirley had a dish made out of a huge avocado, Michelle had fired prawns and Stephen and I each had fish and chips.  We went back to the Little Sisters lodge around 2:30pm and waited for the arrival of the Salem team.  They ran a little late and got in around 4pm.  We loaded up our luggage and footlockers in a truck, said our fond farewells to Catherine and headed for the airport a little earlier than planned, around 6pm, because of reports of heavy traffic.  Getting though security was uneventful and we waited about 3 hours to board, sharing meals and stories with other teams at the Java House in the airport.  We took off on time around midnight, our next stop will be early Sunday morning in London.  Dinner was served about 45 minutes after takeoff and the choice was fish or beef. I had the beef, which was actually pretty good.  Then it was lights out, except for those who were reading.  I got a fair amount of sleep, but it was a little more difficult than it needed to be.  A large blonde German man, maybe in his 50’s, came and forced himself into the middle seat next to me.  He wanted more leg room.  He overflowed his seat in both directions.  He was a nice enough guy, but didn’t speak a word of English and I’m no whiz at Deutsch.  I had done it the right way, having gotten up at midnight Friday to choose my seat online.  I got to meet another character in my life. 

As I write this, we are about an hour and a half from London. The cabin lights have just been turned on and the crew is beginning to distribute special meals to passengers who requested them.  A small box breakfast can’t be too far behind.  I was right, the breakfast consisted of a croissant with tomato in it, a Frosted Flakes bar, strawberry yogurt and coffee.  I gave my yogurt to the German guy and another lady from Nairobi gave hers to him as well.  He won the lottery on this flight. 

We arrived at Heathrow about 5 minutes late after circling for about 15 minutes waiting for a landing slot.  Everyone cleared the heightened security smoothly this time and set about to having breakfast with old friends from past missions, shopping or just lazing around.  We have about 2 hours until we need to worry about a gate assignment and checking in for British Air Flight 195 to Houston.  More to follow and plenty of pictures soon after we return to Austin.  Thank you Jesus!