"Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba" (Here comes a lion, Father)

Here is some weekend updates! It was another great one! 

Saturday = FOOD. The day started with Daisy and I walking to her old professors house right down the street from us (he is working on another project in Nairobi until October, when he will go back to teach at MIT). Apparently he is famous for his homemade pancakes, and since we have not had much American food besides froyo, we were looking forward to trying them all week. The pancakes were amazing (although no chocolate chips?!?) and it was nice to have a nice American meal. But it actually felt weird to have a breakfast with 7 other mzungus and only one Kenyan (who had never had pancakes before and did not seem too impressed). 

After that, Daisy and I went to Yaya shopping center because we had seen a delicious looking cafe there a while back and decided it was time to splurge and enjoy more American food. We had been planning this lunch even before we planned to have pancakes, so it was just an American food filled day. We sat in one cafe for a few hours to use their internet, and I got an amazing banana-mango-strawberry smoothie (although it wasn't cold - Kenyans don't like cold things…my host mom microwaves pineapple and watermelon before she eats it lol). Once we were hungry enough, we went to the cafe, where we got to sit outside on a balcony. I felt like we were in Paris, and have never enjoyed a toasted ham and cheese sandwich with mango juice more. The best part was the chocolate ganache for dessert. Lack of sweets here has definitely made my tolerance for desserts decrease…it was even hard for me to finish that cake (sorry dad, I am ashamed at myself too, we can go to DQ when I am back for a big blizzard!)

As if we hadn't eaten enough for the day, we then met up with Jeffrey, Molly, and David at Jeffrey's apartment in Kibera for our second weekly Saturday night feasts. Since we did chicken last weekend, we decided on fish for this weekend. They sell pre-fried/dried tilapia everywhere on the streets in Kibera, so we bought four, along with some veggies, and omenu (really small fish, like sand-eels). Jeffrey and David actually bought the food on the street while us 3 mzungus hid so they didnt get over charged haha. We wanted to make s'mores over a jiko (the little charcoal stove they have in their houses), but Nakumatt was out of marshmallows, so we brought popcorn to make instead. The sukuma and ugali was good as usual, and I really liked the tilapia, but the omenu was a little hard to eat. I ate all parts of the fish - even the head and eye ball! The Luo tribe says they are smart because they eat the head of the fish, so maybe I am smarter now. For dessert we made popcorn and then mixed some chocolate with it to make it sweet and salty. 

After dinner, Jeffrey took us out 'clubbing', because most Kenyans go dancing every night, so we had to at least once during our time in Kenya. The clubs are completely free, so you can basically just walk in and dance and leave whenever you want. It was so much fun, and we all just danced and acted like fools in our little group. Plenty of people wanted to dance with us but Jeffrey did a good job of stepping in the way haha. The club was very diverse - quite a bit of mzungus, Indians, Kenyans, even some Asians. We got home around 3 am…the latest I have been up since being in Kenya.

Sunday morning Daisy and I met Molly bright and early, headed into town on a bus, and boarded a matatu to Nakuru, a town about 2 hours north-west of Nairobi. When we got there, we haggled a good price for a taxi, and went to Nakuru National Park. We drove around the entire park and saw zebras, water buffalos, flamingoes, reed-bucks, rhinos, hippos, lots of other birds, baboons and more! It was absolutely beautiful, and the whole time we were singing Lion King songs. 

Afterwards we boarded a matatu to Naivasha town center, and then another one to Fisherman's Camp, the 'hotel' we were staying at for the night. The hotel was more like a little cabin - even equipped with big spiders. We had dinner there (BBQ chicken, chapatti, and steamed vegetables - more American food since there were only mzungus at the hotel). With only four hours of sleep the night before, I slept like a rock in the African wilderness :)

Monday we woke up early (to Molly singing the opening song of the Lion King), packed up our room, tried to get breakfast at the hotel but they had locked the key to the kitchen in the kitchen, rented bikes, and headed to Hell's Gate National Park. We stopped at a little cafe for some food - hard boiled eggs and mandazi, and took along some bread and eggs for lunch. After a 5 km ride, we arrived at the park, and entered a completely different world. It felt like we were the only ones in a huge area of African savannah, and were biking past zebras and gazelles. We went rock climbing at Fisher's Rock in the park and it was probably my favorite experience of the whole weekend. I did the beginners trail first, then a harder trail to the very top, and then the instructor, James, let us do the hardest trail for free. Sitting on top of the rock was amazing - I felt like I was sitting atop Africa, looking out onto the savannah with mountains in the distance, and giraffes and zebras below us. While we were up there, James said he needed to meet someone at the gate, so he left us up at the top of the rock, took my bike, and was gone for 20ish minutes. I was fine with it because it meant more time at the top, but it was pretty funny that it was perfectly acceptable for him to just leave us up there. His only instruction was to not touch the clips that latched us to a rock at the top, and left. He was a pretty amazing guy - his wife and son lived 220 km away, but he stayed at Naivasha to take tourists climbing to provide for his family. He was also very good at climbing - he climbed up the rock without any rope or harness and belayed us from the top. I definitely would have died without that rope haha. 

The view from atop of Fisher's Rock.

Our lifeline as James left us to just hang out at the top.

Next we biked another 7 kms to a gorge, which we got to walk through. It was beautiful, and there were hot springs that we got to touch (and yes, they were very hot). We didn't get to see them all though because we wanted to get back to Nairobi before dark, so we sped back 13 kms to our camp, dropped off our bikes, and headed back to Nairobi. 

Molly and I

We got home safely and took a much awaited shower (dirt was literally caked on my entire body, I almost looked African). My body was exhausted after all of that biking and rock climbing, but it felt good. And I didn't get malaria (yay bug spray and mosquito nets) even though Jeffrey got malaria a few weeks ago at Naivasha :)