After 46 hours of traveling, we have finally reached our first destination! I middle-seated my way through ~19 hours of flying, and we arrived in Nairobi, Kenya with perfect timing to see the sunrise! We left Nairobi in a cute and spacious bus at around 8:30 am this morning, and it literally only took us 5 minutes to spot our first giraffe and zebras!! I also saw a lot of superb starlings on the drive, which are medium/small birds with a greenish-blue body and yellow belly. I also saw Mount Kilimanjaro and camels!
Group photo pre-departure at Rice
On the bus leaving Nairobi
We waited in a long line to cross the border from Kenya into Tanzania, but cool passport stamps are always worth the wait. We got beautiful views of Mount Meru while driving further into Tanzania, and we later arrived at a mall in Arusha at about 3:30 pm.
In line to cross the Kenya-Tanzania border
Mount Meru!
Lots of driving to start the day! We fueled up (scarfed down lunch) and got some Tanzanian currency, and then we hopped into Toyota Land Cruisers to head to Ecoscience Lodge right by Tarangire National Park! My car didn’t spot anything, but Dr. Solomon’s car spotted impalas and dik-diks. It’s a bummer that I missed a sighting of my taxonomic group, but I’m optimistic that we will get a chance to see them again! I think we would have seen a lot more antelopes had we not taken the trip mostly in the dark.
We finished the night with an amazing three-course dinner at Ecoscience and the first shower in two days! Marlo and I are rooming together in a screened-in luxurious tent with a private bathroom, desks, and linens! It’s so nice here, and I can’t wait to fall asleep to lulling African savanna noises and wake up to the cheery sounds of bird songs! I’m just going to ignore the “ooooWUH!” predator-like sound that I keep hearing nearby.
Philip Johnny Bob at Ecoscience Lodge
Here’s to hopefully sleeping off my jetlag in one night!
