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Delinquent
Well-known member
Left on June 27th and got back day before yesterday.
EDIT: Pics are lower down in this thread
This is REALLY long read so if you're not that interested, you'll probably wanna skip this. I'll have cliff notes at the bottom
So we started off from Orlando to London where we would stay a little more than a day before flying to Nairobi, Kenya. When we were in between Ireland and England, someone decided to die in the lavatory. They did cpr for almost 45 minutes for some odd reason before deciding to reroute to Shannon, Ireland. Once in Ireland, we sat for about 4 hours before leaving once the police took the body away. This all happened in the lavatory that was about 15ft from us. Never stood up to see as seeing a dead body wasn't on my list of things to do.
Once we get to London, we checked in to the Corus Hotel in Hyde Park. Due to us running so late, we didn't get to do much except walk a few blocks and listen to someone bitch about american accents lol. The room as like many rooms in the UK I guess was ridiculously small. I could barely stand up in the shower and I'm only 5'6. .
We left for Nairobi the next morning. Another 8.5 hour trip. During this flight though, we got to see what I think were the Alps. Then watched as we came up to the coast of Africa where the scenery became quite boring as the Sahara was the only thing to see for hours.
We decided to spend a couple extra days in Nairobi to get used to the time difference and we were really glad we did that as the jetlag was bad the first couple days.
On July 2nd, we left Nairobi and headed for the Masaai Mara Game Reserve. This reserve backs up to the Serengeti which is in Tanzania. If our little tour bus, we had a couple from Belgium on their honeymoon and a father and son couple. On the way, the woman apparently didn't take her epilepsy pills that say and had a seizure. We had to pull over while she recouped from the episode. She then got sick a few times once we got back on the road. On the subjects of roads...
I wouldn't call them roads but more like trails of asphalt that looked to have been continously bombed during a war or something. That's not what happened but I'm trying to get a picture in your head. Now imagine riding in a van, averaging 50mph for 5 hours on these roads and that's what we experienced many many times. It was kinda fun and part of the adventure for the first couple days but that got really old really fast.
The hotels at all the locations were very nice but the staff was pretty imcompetent. Something was always forgotten when asking for something. They would also run a scam where 2 guys would carry your luggage instead of 1 so both could get tipped. That got old so I just tipped each of them half of what they would have received by themselves. This was a scam as it happened all the time yet we had girls carrying both bags sometimes. The reception would also never give you the smalled bills knowing that we needed change for tips.
As for the people of these countries. With the exception of the five star hotel that we stayed at in Nairobi and the 2 tour guides we had, I didn't meet a genuinely courteous person. The only reason they would pretend to be nice was to sell us something. Of course the tour companies all received kickbacks from the shops that they took us to and all the people working in these shops would follow you around like a shadow pushing and pushing to sell. That also got really old.
Even the Masai tribe were like this. I was really interested to talk with them as they seemed to really live off the land like an ancient tribe would. That's not entirely true anymore. They choose to live in houses made of sticks and cow shit yet they buy clothes and cell phones. They also panhandle more than the modernized people. We visited a village where they showed us their houses and danced. Then they of course took us to their "market" where they were trying to sell mass produced objects stating that they made them.
Everyone in both Kenya and Tanzania all lived in truly horrible conditions yet they all wore brand new clothes and had cell phones. Sound familiar?
Anyways, I'm realizing now that I would have to type of freaking book to describe everything that happened so I'll just summarize where we went
Masaai Mara Game Reserve - Saw a pride of about 12 lions including a couple cubs. also saw many other animals such as elephant, gazelle, impala, giraffe, etc
Hotel staff would feed the hyenas the scraps from the day which was fucking cool as hell. We were about 30ft on a deck watching as they tore into the scraps. Jackyl and mongoose would sneak up to get some. There were even a couple cats that would hiss and swipe at the hyenas while trying to get some food lol
Lake Nakuru National Park - Saw thousands of lesser flamingos line the lake shore, a few white rhinos, tons of baboons, zebra, many giraffe where a couple males kept swinging their heads and bumping each other which is some dominance thing.
Lake Naivasha where the hotel that we stayed at had black water so taking a shower was a no go that night. Didn't feel like getting in a boat just to see hippos so we skipped that.
Amboseli National Park which is located at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Was pretty overcast so we didn't get to see it until the morning we left. We saw hundreds of elephant, plus a ton of wildebeest and zebra.
Now we were on our way into Tanzania where we stayed at Lake Manyara. Lake Manyara national park had numerous baboons plus many hippos. I even caught some hippos nudging a dead hippo as to try and wake it up which was a little sad I guess. Lake Manyara was also the first place where we saw the giant baobab trees or sometimes called upside down trees. These trees are 2nd only to the redwood forests for being the oldest trees on the planet. There are some that over over 3,000 years old.
After Lake Manyara, it was off to the great Serengeti. The plains looked like an ocean of grass. We were greeted by a few lions on the way in which was pretty cool. The hotel we stayed at gave us a two story room which was pretty nice. We could see zebra and waterbuck walking from our balcony. You could also hear the zebra all night. The serengeti is where we came upon 5 lioness and 1 young lion digging in to a hartebeest. The kill looked to have happen about 30 minutes before we got there. We filmed that for quite a while as they ripped into it. We also got a chance to get out of the vehicle when we drove up to a hippo pond. One hippo didn't take to kindly of us and kept charging at us but not coming all the way up. We also saw a few cheetah and a leopard but both were quite a distance away.
After the Serengeti, we visited Olduvai Gorge where some of the oldest human fossils have been found. They even had many of the fossils there which was really cool to see.
After that, it was on to the Ngorongoro Crater where it was fucking cold as hell. We were up around 7800ft where it was overcast and of course winter since we were in the southern hemisphere for all of the vacation. The crater itself was incredible. Animals all over the place. Right at the end of the game drive, we came up on a bunch of lions just laying next to other tour vans. We pull up and a decently size male starts rubbing on the van and lays down. Then a lioness does the same. Eventually more popped up out of the thick grass and were all around us. They were so close, my wife almost touched one (dumbass).
The final park we visited was Tarangire National Park. This was Baobab country. They were all over the place. What was really interesting was that every single baobab had these huge pieces ripped out of them and some even had holes right through them. We were told that since the wood is very soft, the 4,000 elephants that frequent this park will dig into them with their tusked during the dry season to get water. Hopefully a drought like the one that happened the least couple years doesn't happen for a while or most of those trees aren't gonna survive.
We then head back to Nairobi to do some tanzanite shopping with a person that had very good connections so it was very cheap. We tried to purchase it and our card was declined. I called the bank only to find out that somewhere along the way, someone at one of the hotels must have copied my credit card numbers and tried to purchase clothes in korea for $2995.00 then about 8 purchase attempts in Saudi Arabia consisting of jewelry stores, shoe store, etc. All were denied but the security lock left us with only about $180 in cash left to get home. But before we were heading home...
At the end we flew to Zanzibar which is an island located off the coast of Tanzania. The hotel we stayed at was very nice and located in the historic Stonetown. The water was caribbean like with the architecture of the old hotel being incredible. We didn't get to swim with the dolphins, snorkling, etc because we didn't have the money. We stopped tipping completely as we were scared we weren't gonna have enough money to make it home. We did, however, get to see the red colobus monkeys that only live on the island. Most were very friendly and would let you walk right up to them and take pictures.
After a few days, we flew back to Nairobi. On the way though, the pilot flew up right over Kilimanjaro where we were so close, we could have seen people on the peak if there had been anyone. Once in Nairobi, we sat for 5 hours until we left for london. Once in London, we had to pay for a bus transfer from Heathrow to gatwick which cost about $80.
After breakfast, we were left with $3 but were safe as we were heading home. Somewhat glad to be back as I'm really enjoying everything piece of technology that most of us take for granted. Food is exponentially better here also. I'll include a couple more details in the cliff notes.
Cliff notes:
Someone died on our initial flight to London
Saw tons of lion, elephant, all of the Big Five as they call it
Roads sucked..would definitely spend the extra money and fly to each park if we did it again
All the national parks never let us down
The people were rarely nice and only wanted your money. Severe poverty but only because it seemed most were reluctant to actually go to school or learn a trade.
Credit card number was stolen resulting in a security lock
And the worse news about the whole trip? We found out my wife is pregnant. But due to the extremely potent antimalaria pill which was actually a potent antibiotic plus all the drinking, smoking cigs and pot, etc the doc may just advise to get rid of it. She goes in next week. She, of course is hoping everything will be fine so she can have a kid. Who knows though, maybe this is the reality check we need to make us more responsible and actually start to act like adults. I guess you can't have fun your whole life.
EDIT: Pics are lower down in this thread
This is REALLY long read so if you're not that interested, you'll probably wanna skip this. I'll have cliff notes at the bottom
So we started off from Orlando to London where we would stay a little more than a day before flying to Nairobi, Kenya. When we were in between Ireland and England, someone decided to die in the lavatory. They did cpr for almost 45 minutes for some odd reason before deciding to reroute to Shannon, Ireland. Once in Ireland, we sat for about 4 hours before leaving once the police took the body away. This all happened in the lavatory that was about 15ft from us. Never stood up to see as seeing a dead body wasn't on my list of things to do.
Once we get to London, we checked in to the Corus Hotel in Hyde Park. Due to us running so late, we didn't get to do much except walk a few blocks and listen to someone bitch about american accents lol. The room as like many rooms in the UK I guess was ridiculously small. I could barely stand up in the shower and I'm only 5'6. .
We left for Nairobi the next morning. Another 8.5 hour trip. During this flight though, we got to see what I think were the Alps. Then watched as we came up to the coast of Africa where the scenery became quite boring as the Sahara was the only thing to see for hours.
We decided to spend a couple extra days in Nairobi to get used to the time difference and we were really glad we did that as the jetlag was bad the first couple days.
On July 2nd, we left Nairobi and headed for the Masaai Mara Game Reserve. This reserve backs up to the Serengeti which is in Tanzania. If our little tour bus, we had a couple from Belgium on their honeymoon and a father and son couple. On the way, the woman apparently didn't take her epilepsy pills that say and had a seizure. We had to pull over while she recouped from the episode. She then got sick a few times once we got back on the road. On the subjects of roads...
I wouldn't call them roads but more like trails of asphalt that looked to have been continously bombed during a war or something. That's not what happened but I'm trying to get a picture in your head. Now imagine riding in a van, averaging 50mph for 5 hours on these roads and that's what we experienced many many times. It was kinda fun and part of the adventure for the first couple days but that got really old really fast.
The hotels at all the locations were very nice but the staff was pretty imcompetent. Something was always forgotten when asking for something. They would also run a scam where 2 guys would carry your luggage instead of 1 so both could get tipped. That got old so I just tipped each of them half of what they would have received by themselves. This was a scam as it happened all the time yet we had girls carrying both bags sometimes. The reception would also never give you the smalled bills knowing that we needed change for tips.
As for the people of these countries. With the exception of the five star hotel that we stayed at in Nairobi and the 2 tour guides we had, I didn't meet a genuinely courteous person. The only reason they would pretend to be nice was to sell us something. Of course the tour companies all received kickbacks from the shops that they took us to and all the people working in these shops would follow you around like a shadow pushing and pushing to sell. That also got really old.
Even the Masai tribe were like this. I was really interested to talk with them as they seemed to really live off the land like an ancient tribe would. That's not entirely true anymore. They choose to live in houses made of sticks and cow shit yet they buy clothes and cell phones. They also panhandle more than the modernized people. We visited a village where they showed us their houses and danced. Then they of course took us to their "market" where they were trying to sell mass produced objects stating that they made them.
Everyone in both Kenya and Tanzania all lived in truly horrible conditions yet they all wore brand new clothes and had cell phones. Sound familiar?
Anyways, I'm realizing now that I would have to type of freaking book to describe everything that happened so I'll just summarize where we went
Masaai Mara Game Reserve - Saw a pride of about 12 lions including a couple cubs. also saw many other animals such as elephant, gazelle, impala, giraffe, etc
Hotel staff would feed the hyenas the scraps from the day which was fucking cool as hell. We were about 30ft on a deck watching as they tore into the scraps. Jackyl and mongoose would sneak up to get some. There were even a couple cats that would hiss and swipe at the hyenas while trying to get some food lol
Lake Nakuru National Park - Saw thousands of lesser flamingos line the lake shore, a few white rhinos, tons of baboons, zebra, many giraffe where a couple males kept swinging their heads and bumping each other which is some dominance thing.
Lake Naivasha where the hotel that we stayed at had black water so taking a shower was a no go that night. Didn't feel like getting in a boat just to see hippos so we skipped that.
Amboseli National Park which is located at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Was pretty overcast so we didn't get to see it until the morning we left. We saw hundreds of elephant, plus a ton of wildebeest and zebra.
Now we were on our way into Tanzania where we stayed at Lake Manyara. Lake Manyara national park had numerous baboons plus many hippos. I even caught some hippos nudging a dead hippo as to try and wake it up which was a little sad I guess. Lake Manyara was also the first place where we saw the giant baobab trees or sometimes called upside down trees. These trees are 2nd only to the redwood forests for being the oldest trees on the planet. There are some that over over 3,000 years old.
After Lake Manyara, it was off to the great Serengeti. The plains looked like an ocean of grass. We were greeted by a few lions on the way in which was pretty cool. The hotel we stayed at gave us a two story room which was pretty nice. We could see zebra and waterbuck walking from our balcony. You could also hear the zebra all night. The serengeti is where we came upon 5 lioness and 1 young lion digging in to a hartebeest. The kill looked to have happen about 30 minutes before we got there. We filmed that for quite a while as they ripped into it. We also got a chance to get out of the vehicle when we drove up to a hippo pond. One hippo didn't take to kindly of us and kept charging at us but not coming all the way up. We also saw a few cheetah and a leopard but both were quite a distance away.
After the Serengeti, we visited Olduvai Gorge where some of the oldest human fossils have been found. They even had many of the fossils there which was really cool to see.
After that, it was on to the Ngorongoro Crater where it was fucking cold as hell. We were up around 7800ft where it was overcast and of course winter since we were in the southern hemisphere for all of the vacation. The crater itself was incredible. Animals all over the place. Right at the end of the game drive, we came up on a bunch of lions just laying next to other tour vans. We pull up and a decently size male starts rubbing on the van and lays down. Then a lioness does the same. Eventually more popped up out of the thick grass and were all around us. They were so close, my wife almost touched one (dumbass).
The final park we visited was Tarangire National Park. This was Baobab country. They were all over the place. What was really interesting was that every single baobab had these huge pieces ripped out of them and some even had holes right through them. We were told that since the wood is very soft, the 4,000 elephants that frequent this park will dig into them with their tusked during the dry season to get water. Hopefully a drought like the one that happened the least couple years doesn't happen for a while or most of those trees aren't gonna survive.
We then head back to Nairobi to do some tanzanite shopping with a person that had very good connections so it was very cheap. We tried to purchase it and our card was declined. I called the bank only to find out that somewhere along the way, someone at one of the hotels must have copied my credit card numbers and tried to purchase clothes in korea for $2995.00 then about 8 purchase attempts in Saudi Arabia consisting of jewelry stores, shoe store, etc. All were denied but the security lock left us with only about $180 in cash left to get home. But before we were heading home...
At the end we flew to Zanzibar which is an island located off the coast of Tanzania. The hotel we stayed at was very nice and located in the historic Stonetown. The water was caribbean like with the architecture of the old hotel being incredible. We didn't get to swim with the dolphins, snorkling, etc because we didn't have the money. We stopped tipping completely as we were scared we weren't gonna have enough money to make it home. We did, however, get to see the red colobus monkeys that only live on the island. Most were very friendly and would let you walk right up to them and take pictures.
After a few days, we flew back to Nairobi. On the way though, the pilot flew up right over Kilimanjaro where we were so close, we could have seen people on the peak if there had been anyone. Once in Nairobi, we sat for 5 hours until we left for london. Once in London, we had to pay for a bus transfer from Heathrow to gatwick which cost about $80.
After breakfast, we were left with $3 but were safe as we were heading home. Somewhat glad to be back as I'm really enjoying everything piece of technology that most of us take for granted. Food is exponentially better here also. I'll include a couple more details in the cliff notes.
Cliff notes:
Someone died on our initial flight to London
Saw tons of lion, elephant, all of the Big Five as they call it
Roads sucked..would definitely spend the extra money and fly to each park if we did it again
All the national parks never let us down
The people were rarely nice and only wanted your money. Severe poverty but only because it seemed most were reluctant to actually go to school or learn a trade.
Credit card number was stolen resulting in a security lock
And the worse news about the whole trip? We found out my wife is pregnant. But due to the extremely potent antimalaria pill which was actually a potent antibiotic plus all the drinking, smoking cigs and pot, etc the doc may just advise to get rid of it. She goes in next week. She, of course is hoping everything will be fine so she can have a kid. Who knows though, maybe this is the reality check we need to make us more responsible and actually start to act like adults. I guess you can't have fun your whole life.
Last edited:
