Well, I'm definitely late in getting out a Beijing post. It's now been about a week over six months since we were there. We were only there for a few days, though, so there really isn't all that much to it.

When we got there, we did the typical: we went shopping! Like Hong Kong, haggling is the norm in Beijing. We went to many of the markets, including the famous Friendship market. Apparently, it used to be the only place foreigners were allowed. These days, we can go almost anywhere.

We also went to see Tiananmen Square as well as some of the other nearby sites. Although full of formal guards, we were never bothered. All over the city were signs and displays for the Olympic mascots. The Olympics are definitely a huge event for any city, but they seem particularly so for Beijing.

On the last day we had planned to go out to the Great Wall. Unfortunately, I got sick. We decided that Laurie should still go on her own. After all, we had already scheduled for a car to come to pick us up. So, she did go on her own. She had a really good time, too, even though I couldn't go with her. :o

 She did find that it was nice enough that we will return again so I can see it and she can see more of it.

The hotel would give us fruit, which was great.  One day we got a piece of fruit that we did not recognize.  I spent the next hour searching online for it before we even cut in to it.  Eventually, we determined it was a dragonfruit.  Turns out that the taste is much less strong than the looks.  It was like a weak melon in flavor, but stil tasty and quick to eat with a spoon.

. . .

Well, that concludes this series of memories on our trip around the world we took last September for our honeymoon.

I hope this didn't bore too many people, but it has helped both of us remember more of our trip.

We left South Africa many days after we had planned on leaving.  Our travel changes only included the times of the tickets and not the route.  So, our first hop dropped us back in to the Johannesburg airport.  We didn't spend much time there and I hardly remember it. 

Not long after, we were off on a decent length flight to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.  Here, we spent about 12 hours waiting for our next flight.  We didn't have to leave the secure section of the airport and we decided not to.  As it turns out, this was in the middle of the day and Ramadan had just started.  Our guide books told us that the most likely place to find food would be in the Chinatown section.  Well, see, we were headed off to China anyway, so we decided to go get some slept -- we had already been up a long time. 

There was a transit hotel in the security section that rented by the hour, although mostly in four hour blocks.  I forget if we stayed four or six hours, but it went very fast and only marginally helped our fatigue -- but we did get to shower, which was nice. 

After that, we headed out in to the great KLIA which, like any modern airport, is basically a shopping mall.  This proved to be entertaining so we went around looking at things and grabbed a couple of trinkets and ended up with some of the local money.

Our next flight was quite short since it was just going to Thailand.  We landed and proceeded to have the next eight hours to wonder around the Bangkok airport.  This was not quite as good of an experience as KLIA since we had to exit security, pay the taxes, etc.  Then, we couldn't check in right away so we had to make do for a couple of hours on the external section of the airport, which didn't have quite so many shops to kill some time.  However, we saw plenty of the military presence we had heard about.

The coup, as it turned out, was mostly non-violent and we probably would have been fine had we not changed our plans.  However, there were a few issues that made us very glad we did change our plans.  First, banks and ATM's were closed the first few days, so money would have been a problem.  Many other shops and sights were also closed.  Finally, the weather was absolutely terrible the whole time we would have been there.  We didn't leave the airport because the middle of the airport had a very large enclosed courtyard where we could see the massive amounts of wind and rain, even though it was protected on all sides by a many-story building.

Our next flight to Beijing was a bit longer, at over five hours, but that wasn't the interesting part.  This turned out to be what felt like a very budget flight.  The plane was noticeably old and hadn't been retrofitted with new seats or signage.  It still had ash trays on the seats and other signs.  This was also a flight between two non-English speaking countries and with a destination that is relatively rare for English speakers.  That didn't prevent them from speaking in English on the announcements, when there were some.  The rest of the flight was uneventful and we got some needed rest. 

I recall choosing the local breakfast rather than the western breakfast that didn't look all that good.  As it turns out, it was this huge thing of rice porridge that was both quite good and very filling.  I say it was good mostly because I like rice and it can be spiced up some.  It was relatively bland, though, but after being in transit (including driving to the airport in South Africa) for over 40 hours, food was food.

We landed and had a decent drive in front of us to our hotel.  That's another story, though.

I was probably most impressed with South Africa.  We were originally only going to be there a few nights to do some wine tasting, see some of the area, and go shark diving.  That got extended due to last minute notice of the coup in Thailand and the media black-out while we had to make our decision. 

I have a number of good memories from South Africa.  We had this great little VW car that had an amenity list that included seat belts and head lights.  It had no air bags, no radio, no fuel injection, and pretty much nothing else that you might find in a car these days.  And yet, it was a brand new car, although certainly not legal in the US.

Our meal at the top of a hill had a fantastic view and lots of really good meats and foods to eat.  It was a bit cold and windy, but it certainly was memorable.  I was a little surprised at how empty the restaurant was, but it was a weeknight and not anywhere near town.  It looked like it could serve really large functions.

Our drive over to the coast took us through a great pass that was scenic and rocky in much the same way that my drive over Highway 17 in scenic and full of redwoods.  It wasn't all that much higher or longer of a pass, either, especially if compared to taking Highway 9, instead.

The coast I recall as being absolutely wonderful and very much like our own coast here in central California.  The coast road is windy with lots of great views.  Every stopping point has a view south of vast openness of water filled with whales and dolphins.  Our own view occasionally has a whale; we've seen one while we've been here, but we've never seen a dolphin from the coast. 

The jackass penguins were really quite fun.  You walk on boardwalk over their area while they are right under and around you.  The only thing separating you from them is a fence with fairly narrow slats.  These slats are too narrow for a foot but not too narrow for a penguins beak.  I got pecked by one!

Naturally, one of our strongest memories was sitting in our hotel watching TV within about 18 hours of our flight to Thailand.  Flipping through the stations, we saw mention of a coup in Thailand!  There wasn't much information about it and while we were watching for more information we got word that Thailand had cut off media communications from inside the country.  That meant we wouldn't learn any more about it.  So, we quickly contacted our travel agent, had our flights moved, and contacted a place Laurie had stayed in her first trip to South Africa, Phantom Forest eco-lodge in Knysna.  All of our changes went off without a hitch and instead of heading to the airport the next day, we drove farther our towards Knysna.

This turned out to be convenient since our shark diving trip had been cancelled and possibly pushed off to a date when we wouldn't be in the country because of rough weather.  So, we got to stay at the wonderful Phantom Forest that will be my best memory of there.  The huts are on a steep hill and partially up in trees.  It makes for a very private, very in-the-forest feel.  It was very pleasant and truly wonderful.

Our shark diving trip turned out to be shark watching, which still got me seasick.  The waters were still filled with silt and had maybe a foot or two visibility.  People who did go in the water couldn't see anything where we could see all of the action from the top deck.  It was really quite something!  I hope to go back sometime and actually get in the water with the sharks.  (Hopefully when I go back I'll have figured out my motion sickness issues.)

After our wonderful time in South Africa, we were off for a long journey to Beijing.

Many of my best memories still come from the Mara Bush Camp.  It was our first stop and our most rugged one, too.  It's a real, moving camp that gets set up in a different location yearly.  There was no power to speak of in the tents, except for a battery to keep some LED bulbs powered for night use. This probably helped give it some lasting impact.

At the end of the day, we often all gathered in a lounge in the dining tent (there were some power plugs there) and all had either Tusker or Amarula.  It was one of the few times during the day that we could actually just relax.  Outside of that, we were usually out and about taking pictures and roaming around on the dirt roads, keeping an eye out for critters.  This turned out to be particularly tiring.  That's part of why there weren't daily blog entries from that time.

During one of our outings, we had a great encounter with a number of baby lion cubs.  There were lots of other vehicles around, but that didn't seem to bother any of the lions.  They pride had various lions about to watch for food and threat, but the vehicles clearly weren't considered a threat.  They walked right in the middle of the autos and even very close to us.  They were so amazingly cute.  Laurie got some great pictures and we may have even gotten some good video (sure, it's been 6 months, but that doesn't mean we've had time to go through all of our media).

After the Mara Bush Camp, we headed over to Fig Tree, which wasn't far away and allowed us similar routes during our drives.  Sitting in the tree patio drinking Tusker, avoiding the monkeys, and watching animals out on the plains are my main memories here.  In fact, I almost forgot about them before I went looking through the pictures again.

After we left the Masai Mara, we stayed in Amboseli.  My main memories of here were of lots of elephants and mosquitos.  It was very odd that our previous camp, which was right on a river, had no mosquitos but in a permanent structure, there were tons of mosquitos.   We got to see lots of elephants, including many baby elephants. 

Our next adventure was a high-speed convoy between Amboseli and Tsavo.  Supposedly, there had been previous conflict in the area which led to a weapons build-up.  We weren't allowed to leave Amboseli without being part of the convoy.  For most people, this wasn't a problem since they weren't driving themselves.  We, however, were the only people who were self-driving.  Although it was worth it and no one bothered us about it, it wasn't normal. 

The drive itself was uneventful until we missed our turn-off to Finch Hatton's and got ourselves in to some sharp volcanic rock that we could have avoided.  This gave us a flat that we had to deal with at the gate.  Some people tried to help us with the jack, but it wasn't until someone came up that was familiar with how to fix a dust-caked one that we got it working.  It worked as we thought, but being front mounted it got the brunt of the dust and thus got all muddle up.  Everyone was very helpful though and gave us better directions to backtrack and get in to Finch Hatton's.

Finch Hatton's itself was absolutely wonderful and is probably my best memory of the whole trip even though we were there alone.  It was certainly the best place that we stayed.  Our tent was right over a water hole with lots of hippos and crocs.  We're hoping to return soon. ;)

The final memory, which still lingers on many of our bags, was the massive amount of dust that was kicked up in many areas.  Even with all of the windows and hatches closed, the car would not seal and would fill with dust that got all over and inside of absolutely everything, including out lungs.  We can see the color of the dust on many of our bags still.  It was truly permeating.

Unlike our feeling for Egypt, where even now we don't want to go back, we've been wanting to go back to Kenya since.  That said, we never truly felt all that well while we were there.  We were taking all the various medications and such, but whether it was from different food, too much dust, general fatigue, or something worse, we were always not feeling quite right.  Maybe next time we go we can spend longer to get more adjusted to the climate and food.

It's been six months since we took our honeymoon around the world, going through Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, airports in Malaysia and Thailand, and China.  Overall, the trip was absolutely great.  We tried to blog through the whole trip, but a number of things got in our way, not the least of which was simply fatigue after keeping busy all day.

The farther away you get from a memory, the more those memories seem to consolidate on just a few moments in time.  This time in September, we'd already left Egypt and were in Kenya.

I thought I would share some of my strong, lasting memories of Egypt and perhaps along with a new picture or two.  That doesn't mean I'm going to go over everything I remember, but just some of the big, important items. Laurie has also posted her memories of the Egypt part of our trip on her blog, Naturally Speaking.

My main memory of our visit was that everything was very dirty and dusty.  And by dirt, I mean that there was garbage everywhere, in particular, in the streets and where one walked.  This was particularly notable in the markets where you literally had to walk on refuse while looking up out of the throng of people at old, crumbling buildings that look like they would collapse at any moment. The waterways, although covered in filth, also had many egrets in them, as can be seen here.

Also, don't trust what anyone says on the streets.  We got convinced to go off in one direction, only to find out they just wanted our money for a camel or horse ride.  We didn't want to comply, so they sent us further along only to find out we (supposedly) weren't supposed to be there.  On our way back out, guards and others were cracking looks and probably laughing.  It was not a pleasant experience but we fully learned that flat-out lies were expected. (And that's isn't of the misleading type of, "Buy this, best quality, real," that we would become so familiar with at the other end of our journey.)

Within the Citadel, I happened across the filthiest restroom I'd ever seen.  It was also probably the oldest.  Scary, too, was the fact that locals were filling up their water bottles.  From the looks of it, it would have been safer to fill up a water bottle from a puddle in an overcrowded cow pasture.  I didn't have any small notes on me at the time, so the tip I gave to the attendant was a bit larger than normal (by about 20x), but was barely $2 US.  After he realized what it was, he came running out when I was already 100 feet away or so thanking me profusely. 

A while after that, we got to hear the call to prayer while overlooking the city.  That was an absolutely amazing experience.  The sound and enormity of it was profound.  It's just not possible to miss the right times with that sort of announcement.  Naturally, off in two directions groups of pyramids could be seen through the haze, too, which just added to the mood of the view. 

The last impression was the absolute chaos at the airport on the way out.  I wrote about that before, so I won't go in to much detail  now.  Suffice it to say, if there had been a panic from real or a false threat, people would have died.  It could have been from being knocked over and trampled during a brief break in the crowd wide enough to fall in to.  It could have been from one of those metal luggage carts being dropped, since they would be handed over people's heads when they were in the way.  It didn't help that there were absolutely no other white people in sight.  We felt very out of place and a bit disturbed by the whole experience. 

However, it should be noted, that the people who actually did work there were actually all nice.  Sure, they had to deal with the chaos, but we never had any problems with them giving us a hard time, either going through the entrance security, checking our bags, checking our passports, or even at the gate security where Laurie kept setting off the metal detector.  (Eventually they let her through after asking if she had a knife or gun because they couldn't wand her because they had no female staff.  I suspect if that had happened here and no female was available for "wanding" she would have been held until someone was found.)

Those are my main memories that help remind me that if we ever do go back to Egypt we'll skip out on Cairo and head off to the other sites.  Hopefully they'll be a little more official and organized than the pyramids.  I'm not counting on that, though.

I'm a bit sad that the whole month has come to a close -- but there are exciting things coming up, so I'm looking forward to those and moving on with various life events.

This flight has been reletively long.  The sleepy pills only made me miss the end of the first movie that was on.  After that, I was restlessly tired for hours.  I must have slept some more, though, because I don't recall having been sitting around bored for the last 8 hours. 

I never really got on to Beijing time.  The laptop (which is still doing great) says it's 1:40am on Oct 2, but I'm not terribly tired at the moment.  After switching back to our normal time zone, we're now at about 10:40am on Oct 1.  Neither of those times feel right to me.  Getting un-jet lagged is going to be lots of fun.

As Laurie has just mentioned, one thing we're really looking forward to is getting of the planes.  The air is way too dry, the seats are largerly way too uncomfortable, and this particular flight started with the cabin being way too hot.  Most of the planes we've been on have not had invididual air controls, too, which just makes matters worse.  This plane right now doesn't even have overhead light control.  The lights are there but invidiual buttons can't turn them on and off.

All things considered, though, both of us feel relatively healthy right now.  Neither of us are feelin 100%.  I missed going to see the Great Wall because of really not feeling well before.  Laurie got to see it and she really enjoyed it.  We'll be returning to see it as well as other sights and other locations of the Great Wall.

Overall, we've really enjoyed our trip complete with all of it's changes.  Except for the extra long transit from South Africa to China, the changes were an overall improvement from what we can tell.  While we were at the airports in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok the rain was torrential.  This would have put a big damper on our photography and hiking.

The weather in Beijing, on the other hand, was very interesting.  It reminded me a lot of Atlanta, although a bit warmer.  Most days were very hazy and comfortably warm.  We did have at least one clear day.  The haze appeared to be from humidity, but we're also sure there was plenty of regular smog in it... though not nearly as bad on the clear day (nothing like Nairobi).

14 hours earlier

We landed from a long flight out of Cape Town via Jo'berg.  The first stretch was about 2 hours and the second stretch was about 8 or so hours.  We also had about 1.5 hours in the plane at the Jo'berg airport.  We both took some sleeping aids to try to sleep on the flight.  That worked OK for me and not quite so OK for Laurie. 

So, by the time we got in to KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) we were exhausted.  It was about 0630 local time.  Luckily, we spotted signts to an internal hotel within the wing of the airport we were in.  Although not cheap, they had reasonable rates starting with 6 hours of time.  We checked in, showered, watched some National Geographic channel (one of the few available, discovered the free KLIA WiFi was in range, checked email, and crashed with the TV set to 4.5 hours. 

4.5 hours later

Having gotten some much needed rest we decided to check-out of the hotel and go in search of food.  After some meandering, hitting up the ATM (we couldn't change in our spare Kenya Shillings that I still have in my wallet), and scouting out the options we decided on a noodle place.  One large, shared bowl of noodles and two teas later we were ready to go shopping (have you seen a large airport without a mall lately?).

We found some fun stuff as well as some stamps for our postcards that we didn't have time to mail while still in South Africa.  Prices were not too bad, considering we were in the secure section of the airport and the international terminals.  That said, things like soda were about twice what they were in the SA airports, so it's all relative.

I found the Malaysia version of the T3 gadget magazine for just over US $2.  It's normally about $9 at a borders, so that was nice.  Laurie found a great shirt that looks absolutely wonderful on her.  It's a great color of green in an asian style.

It was a while before we were able to check-in to our flight (one that our luggage was checked through to).  That made me a bit nervous (come back 3 hours before ... now come back 2 hours before, etc.) but all was well.  Who knows about our luggage; it could be anywhere still. ;)

Present

Now, I'm going to run off to other, older posts and see what I can prepare for when we get a net connection again.  I've been a bit behind on the writing so I'm trying to write current stuff before catch-up stuff, but I need time for both.  This should mean I'll be able to get up some of the SA stuff now as I think I've posted most of the Kenya stuff that I've written.

I still have some Egpyt and Kenya stuff to write, but I think doing the most recent stuff will result in overall better posts... who knows, though.  Besides, it's all relative and it's not like anyones reads these. :)

Well, food time on the plane now...

Our first day out was to go out to Tsitsikamma park where we could take a short walk (about 1km) out to a suspension foot bridge at Storms River mouth.  This was a great place, with lots of neat costal areas and nice views of the river and cliffs.

This took all day and we returned after dinner had started.

Even though there was virtually no violence, a number of services closed down including the banks and ATM system.  This would mean possible trouble and delays for us and since we were only going to be there a few days we didn't really have the time to mess around with such things.  Not only that, but with martial law and the streets full of tanks, it wouldn't really be an indicative time to go there.  So, we decided to stay longer in South Africa.

We got a great three-night package at Phantom Forest.  We were lucky to get one because this is a three-day weekend for the country.  Laurie had stayed here before, so we knew it would be nice.  The rooms aren't really rooms; they are small cabins.  And by small, I mean large enough to live in for a short period.  There is a large bathroom with nice, two-person bath and large glass windows.  A living area with some nice chairs and windows and a bedroom with a nice, soft bed.  The deck has a fridge and hot water pot. 

The weather here is wonderful, even though it's basically a rain forest. The drive down was a bit long for me given everything we've been doing.   Laurie had to drive a little.  She ended up having a couple of long waits for road construction, too.  She has much more practice with driving on the "other side" of the road than me, so I've been doing much of the driving here and in Kenya.

I've been resting for a few hours.  Travel is always so much more tiring than expecte.  This extra time in South Africa is nice we get to relax and the package comes with massages.  Laurie is now resting.  She had gone through a bunch of the pictures we've taken.

I'm now trying to sort through various notes and such to get some blog posts up.  We've been so disconnected that even writing anything down for a blog post has been difficult.  There has been power everywhere, but finding the time and energy just hasn't happened.  That means that the last few posts or so were (or will be -- time is strange when talking and past things that haven't happened yet) summaries and afterthoughts of things that have already come to pass.

This lodge (eco reserve) has wifi in the lounge.  It's slow (only around 80kbps) but works just fine.  That's been great for checking in on things a little more frequently.  We also had WiFi at our previous location (a Sheraton of sorts) which allowed us to check in on bills since we didn't have any sort of connection while in Kenya.

Things like work are starting to enter my thoughts a bit more since we only have just over a week left of our trip.  Although I have a rest day before returning to work, I imagine it'll be fairly busy with unpacking and sorting through things.

We've been trying to send out post cards regularly, but it's been difficult.  In Kenya, we only knew how many stamps to put on a normal sized post card and almost every card we got was a large size.  If you haven't received a card from us (and expected to) we apologize -- finding posts and being ready for them has been a bit more difficult than expected in the previous countries.

Well, I better get back to the past posts before that doesn't happen, once again.  Until before now... ;)

We landed in the late evening, got our car, and drove the long distance to our hotel (maybe 600 meters).  The hotel had a very small room, inclusive breakfast, and a soda machine (5 rands for a soda or 6 rands for a beer).  However, it was very functional and served it's purpose well -- we got to roll off the plane and in to the hotel.

The car is amusing.  It's a brand new VW Chico 1.4.  It has four doors and a hatchback trunk that is large enough to hold our big bag.  For amenities it has a heater, a clock, and a trunk cover.  It has a very efficient use of space, especially between the pedals... you can press all three at once with a single foot without even turning your foot sideways as both Laurie and I discovered.  (Of course, at night it was dark and I was wearing boots and as I learned the next morning a mat was also helping press the accelerator when the brake was pressed.)

Yeah, that's about it.  There is no radio, no air bags, no power steering, vritually no storage pockets, and really not much of anything.  It doesn't even have fuel injectors.  Yes, it has a nice choke control for the carbuerator -- something I missed when trying to start it late at night.  It also has a gear lock -- a switch you can flip when in reverse that requires a key to unlock the gears for shifting or driving again.

The next day we went out to Stellenbosch area to do some wine tasting.  We didn't get to as many of the wineries as we had hoped, but we did have a good time doing the wine tasting.  Lunch was at a fun place that had lots of well fed birds (mostly just Peking and Mallard ducks, but some other birds you don't see in the states).  It also had a place for some cheetahs and bird of prey.

After that, we had another night at the airport hotel.  The breakfasts there were actually not bad at all.  It was just your ordinary continental breakfast affair, but with eggs and some meats, should you want them. We then drove off towards Hermanus and our Arrabella Cape Hotel and Spa. 

This drive took us passed the African Penguins.  We stopped there for a little while.  Luckily, we got there early before other people and had a pretty quiet time to film and take pictures.  The park rules did not include not feeding the penguins, which was curious.  So, when kneeling down next to the railing, some would come right up to it.  I actually got pecked on the sole of my shoe by one!  They were so cute, though. (And no, we didn't feed them anything... fingers included.)

The coastal drive was quite nice.  I had observed that we were at about the same latitude as California.  The weather was very similar to home weather, too (although it's just getting to be spring now rather than fall).  I wasn't expecting such neat mountain ranges. I actually really like them a lot.

It's also very cool to almost always be seeing whales and dolphins off the coast.  Sure, we can see them off our own coast in Santa Cruz, but it's not nearly as frequent of an occurrance without going out on a boat.  Besides, you won't see dassies (aka rock hydrax) all over, either.

Arriving at the Arrabella, we found lots of staff although not as nice as other places we had been.  It is a golfing community and well know around the area so we suspect they're just a little on the "uppity" side and we come in wearing backpacks and want to carry our own stuff. ;) (No offense to anyone there; the food and service was great.)

Well, more about this time in the next post... Laurie wants the laptop now. ;)

Felt very commercial after MBC. The food was very western; meat and potatoes. Food seemed to be processed and pre-prepared; lots of preservatives. Didn't feel as welcome. We were the only people in the car park.

Havings drinks up in the deck in the fig tree itself was quite nice. Just have to watch for the baboons and vervet monkeys. Maasai would walk around and throw stuff at them yet there was a large bird feeder that seemed to feed the primates, as well.

Herds of people were ushered into safari vehices everyday. Yet we completely self-drove at fig tree (we left Kiswe at MBC, where he normally stayed) and saw more animals than were reported in the log books.

Our first navigational experience was with just Willem, Laurie, and Shane. Monika was not feeling well enough to go out with us.  We had no trouble finding everything we wanted to find on our own. We did use the GPS with a rought map to try to find things. Our drive took us out to some very nice river viewings along the Mara River.

Kept seeing maneless male lions -- often only identified after seeing them in pictures. Most of them did look fairly young, but they were also very large. 

The roads inside Masai Mara were much better than the roads to and from Narok. That said, the river crossings definitely required a 4x4.

Pooled our pack lunch materials on the way back from MM to Amboseli. We handed these out to kids, who were very thankful -- in some cases, the parents that may have been nearby were, too.

Nearly every kid we passed was trying to solicit. On one occasion, there was a young boy who wasn't soliciting but was by himself... we handed him a couple of apples -- he was completely ecstatic and didn't know what to do or say. (He also then had his hands full trying to scramble back up the side of the road).

Drove around Narok while Monika and Willem dealt with getting some cash. Quite interesting... the roads were unmaintained and filthy, but life was going on as normal. We definitely got looks -- mostly because we were the only white people in sight.

Tried to take a short cut to skip Nairobi -- ended up next to some military installation. Was told we could take the dirt road around. That led us out a ways where we were told it wouldn't go through but the road we were on would come out at a town still north of Nairobi. This road turned out to be a road for a cement company. Very rough for our 4x4 vehicle and our rattle innards. We got out of the area fine. Considering we saved about 10 km of driving and the roads weren't really that much slower than the main ones, we probably didn't really lose much time at all.

When driving down the first section of the short cut, the road was pretty good. But there was a part that was washed out. We took the route around that looked most traveled. At one point, though, the car got stuck -- the dust was too slippery for it in 2 wheel mode. Willem got out to lock the front wheels -- and slipped, twisting his ankle, while walking on the same dust! Once in full 4 wheel mode, the car moved out fine -- but it was clearly a very slipper climb out of the dust river.

Dust, dust, dust! The closer we got the amboseli the dustier everything got. It was coming in from every little spot it could.

I apologize for the note-like feeling to this post.  That's exactly what it is, but I wanted to get thoughts down and out quickly so I just took our notes and plopped them in. ]]>

We arrived at the airport without any trouble.  However, the car was not ready.  Although the Avis office was a 24 hour office, some people weren't in that needed to be in.  We waited around in the cafe (called Karibu Cafe -- meaning "Welcome Cafe" in English).

Ultimately, our friends arrived from the UK while we were waiting.  We all then waited around.  We had started talking with another traveler from Iceland.  That was quite interesting.  We've had Iceland on our short list for a while now.  In fact, it was even considered as a stopping over place in Europe before heading in to Africa on this trip.

Finally the car arrived.  It was a 7 seater Toyota Land Cruiser outfitted for safari.  It had two spare wheels on the rear, a support cage for climbing around on top of the car, 7 seats with maybe 2-3 working seat belts, and two full fuel tanks.  The rear had room for all of our luggage, but could only be accessed through the back.  Right behind the rear seats was a metal caging that prevented accessing the rear luggage compartment.

The roof had three opening doors.  The center one was removable and could be stowed in the rear while the other two could be clamped down.  This allowed for all three rows of seats to be able to stand up and look out.  You could even climb out and sit (or even stand) on top of the vehicle.  We took advantage of this frequently.  When I wasn't driving, I would stand in the rear the whole time (this led to a sunburned hand, but was worth not getting car sick).

Willem did the initial driving since they were used to right hand drive on the left side of the road.  Heading out of Nairobi, the roads were completely smogged over with diesel fumes.  This was getting us a bit ill.

Once out of Nairobi, we had some good roads for a while that deteriorated in to terrible roads.  I was sitting up front for this whole leg of the journey, but still had a hard time.  The paved roads were rough and unmaintained and the dirt roads, although better on the tires, were still pretty bad.

Getting out to Mara Bush Camp did take longer than expected, given the distance, but we ultimately go to Masai Mara National Reserve without issues.  We had to call and meet someone at the airstrip to help us find Mara Bush Camp since it was well hidden in the bush near a river.

I had the sat phone on the whole time without charging it.  I then learned that the wall charger wasn't going to work so I had a dead battery on my hands.  Luckily, the car charger did ultimately work and Mobal had provided two fully charger batteries (a standard and an extended -- the standard was the dead one).  We did have to use the phone on our way out because we could dial from it. 

To our surprise, though, there was GSM coverage in most of the area.  Our friends were able to roam on to it, too.  On the coverage maps I had looked at, there was no coverage (or roaming) in most of the areas we were going to be that were outside of Nairobi or off the main Nairobi-Mombasa road.

We were greeted by the entire staff (well, lots of people anyway) of Mara Bush Camp when we did finally arrive.  The camp itself was a temporary affair with true tents.  My first impression was that this would be a problem for us because of showering and charging.  However, the tents had full bathrooms with showers and flush toilets.

We did have serious reservations about the environmental impact of this, though, because the shower water went directly in to the ground and who knows where the sewage went, but we were very close to the river. 

The showers were handled by asking one of the staff members to fill some reservoire with hot water.  Although we were conservative with the amount of water we used, we never did run out of hot water.  And had we, they were ready to fill it with more hot water.  This was nicer than expected.

The toilet was filled from a water tank only a few feet about the toilet's own water tank.  This meant filling was slow and a full flush would only happen maybe every 4-6 hours.  Given some of our "issues" this was a slight problem. 

Bugs were not an issue here.  First off, they said there was no concern of mosquitos because there weren't any.  Well, we never saw any, which was rather odd.  There were some other bugs, but nothing that bugged us (har har).  They did provide bug screens for the bed and bug spray for other areas, but we never had to use it.  We're not sure if there just weren't many bugs there (right next to a river) or if they were putting stuff in the nearby water to kill off things.  It is possible there just weren't any because we were up at around 5300 feet altitude.

They provided flashlights (aka "torches" as non-Americans call them) as well as people to help light the way between the lounge and eating tent and the bed tents.  In addition to this, there was 24-hour Maasai warrior guards.  We didn't see as many animals here as we did at other camps.  This was odd since it was the most remote and natural camp.

The staff was really friendly -- sometimes to the point of folly. ;) Example: Willem wants a beer. The fridge was locked but the key was away with someone. Well, it was the first time we asked. Willem then said he didn't need the beer. They then said that the key had been lost. Willem still insisted he didn't need to the beer right then. Well, they broke open the fridge... it didn't seem to close as well after that. Silly.

The food was fantastic at Mara Bush. Cooked every night, with plenty of reuse of materials. e.g what was bacon one morning became black forest ham salad in the afternoon and a cold starter that night.  The packed breakfasts were very good and in nice heat-retaining containers.  The two we got consisted of bacon, sausage, hard-boiled eggs (a common food in Kenya, as we would learn), juice, coffee, tea, yoghurt, and various breads.  There was always plenty for us and Kiswe, too.

Within the main tent they had a power strip for charging phones or camera batteries off of. This was powered via a diesel generator in the mess tent (which we never saw the inside of).

For light at night in the tents, each tent had a bag with a battery inside and mutiple LED lights. These were charged via solar during the day. This provided plenty of light with little worry of running the battery dry. No inverter was supplied for this, but the batteries weren't all that big anyway.

Kiswe, our Maasai guide for our drives, spoke very little English but was very helpful in finding animals for us and navigating the amazing patchwork of roads and tracks around the Masai Mara. 

Overall, we had two nights at Mara Bush Camp, which allowed for a full day of game drive as well as a half day before we headed off to Fig Tree, which was one of the most well marked camps since we'd seen multiple signs on our drive in to Mara Bush Camp.

It was nice to head over to the lounge, have a drink of Tusker or Amarula with our friends, visit, and check out the books provided.  This was a nice camp with a rough luxury to it.  Our goal had been to get instant, deep immersion -- and it worked. 

Going through customs was quite easy.  We just had to buy some stamps to stick in our passports -- that was 30$ USD each. Other than the line, it took barely a minute and no questions were asked. 

After that, we were bombarded by folks asking where we wanted to go.  That wasn't too fun.  Some dude "befriended" me and wouldn't leave.  Ultimately, he charged $15 for the two of us to go out to our hotel -- about an hour drive from the airport.  That was about a third of the hotel person rate -- but covered both of us. 

As usual, there are always some "first things" you notice when in a new country.  Here, one of the things was that I don't have a clue on how to even start deciphering the Arabic symbols for writing.  The next thing was that the driving is very aggressive and leaves even the nicest cars scuffed on all sides. 

The apartment buildings as we were heading towards Cairo looked relatively normal, but covered with an amazing amount of satellite dishes.  As we were heading back out of Cairo, the buildings all turned to brick.  None of them looked finished, though.  And most had many holes, missing walls, open areas, etc.  Plenty of people looked like they were living in them. 

Also as we headed out on the west side of the Nile, we noticed that there was a lot of farming going on in between the buildings.  Since it was mid-afternoon on a Monday, normal business was in full swing.

The hotel had a security check for cars with two guys and two dogs sweeping the cars with mirrors and noses, respectively.  Around the rest of it was a nice high wall with various types of wire and poky things.

Another thing we noticed was the presence of armed military, both in the airport and in various high locations while driving away from it and at the airport itself.  We just don't see that sort of stuff back home, in normal conditions.

Well, as I've been writing this, the pyramid lighting has been turned off.  I guess it is getting a little late. ;)

Well, time to put this away before room service arrives.

Well, we made it up from Pinkham Notch through Tuckerman ravine.  We even got in before dinner was over so we got some good food.  It's a pretty nice hut; it's basically a hike in hostel, but they don't call it that.  It costs a lot more than a hostel, too.  And it comes with dinner and breakfast, so that's not so bad.

Laurie and I got adjacent bottom bunks, so that works pretty well for us.  The bunks are three high -- at least I won't roll out and fall.  It'll also probably be quieter to get in and out.

There are 62 people here plus 5 crew, so it feels pretty populated. However, they normally get more people and have far more crew people, so they feel understaffed -- and underbooked. Of course, 52 people were reserver, so the food was a little light.

We had some slight trouble coming up.  Laurie pulled a groin muscled and I was starting to have some knee trouble.  The hike is a pretty steep climb -- up about 3500 feet (from 2000 to 5500) over 4 miles, and then back down about 500 feet over another mile.  The down portion was causing me some ankle pain, too.

Our friends made it up before us, but family was after us, so we didn't feel so bad.  I'm not looking forward to going down, though, because of the trouble with the little down portion towards the end.  We're looking at other possible options, though, so we'll see.

We just got in from taking some pictures.  The sunset from here is sectacular.  The primary windows look out over an impressive view to the west.  So, Laurie got some pictures of us towards the sunset (with her Canon 30D with 10-22mm EF-S).  Then I grabbed my Canon 30D with 100-300mmL lens to take pictures of the moon.  I got some pretty good shots of it this time, but they still aren't anything like I've seen others do.  One of these days I'll figure out how to do it right.

Our new Garmin etrex Vista Cx was great for the hike.  It shows the elevation graph, the tracks, etc.  It's got much better battery life than our old Vista (non-Cx) model -- and this one has a nice color screen!  It's about the same size, too, so that's a great improvement.  Not only that, but the support for standard mini-USB (the old one had a proprietary serial port) and the microSD (aka TransFlash) slot is a huge improvement.  We grabbed the MapSource World Map for it so we had a somewhat more detailed basemap to use with it while we travel around.

Lights out is 9:30pm, which is fine since we got up at 7am (aka 4am PST) and we're all a bit tired.  They rise everyone at 6:30am, though.  That said, it's not so bad since we're tryin to keep moving our time zone forward since we're going another 5-6 hours forward.

And now I'm blogging on our wonderful Dell XPS M1210 laptop that is getting wonderful battery life.  I think it was worth hiking it up here, too. I didn't need to bring the AC adapter, either, because of the exceptional batttery life.  At 90% remaining, it's showing 5 hours and 30 minutes left.  Well, with no WiFi or Bluetooth the soak up some and the lowest light setting being good enough for here, I don't think there is much of anything that I could do to kill it before I have to go to bed (both because of light's out and because I'm already tired).

My phone (LG VX9800 "The V") is showing between 1 bar and 3 bars of 1x coverage, but I can't get any SMS out.  I doubt the Sprint phone (Samsung MM-a920) would work up here for data connection, but I'm going to have to try since I brought it all the way up here on reports that cell phone coverage works. ;)

As expected, time is going quick now that we're actually on our trip.  Of course, we've not even been in New Hampshire for 24 hours yet, but tomorrow is Friday and it seems like the week just began.  Then again, we kept thinking Tuesday was Friday.  For us, it almost was since we're starting a really, really long weekend in some respects. ;)

I'm not getting some looks for my use of a laptop here.  I'm guessing they don't see them too frequently, but it wasn't too hard to bring it up.  The hut provides food and sleeping material, so you can pack pretty light.  We packed up with warm clothes (it's freezing out, literally), lunch, the cameras, and the laptop.  Oh, I also brought up the Nintendo DS's so we could play those if we wanted to. 

I'm currently trying to play Animal Crossing DS.  I tried to rent through a bunch of DS games from Gamefly before we came, but we didn't get very far.  It was exactly the one I wanted to take with us, but it's not too bad.  It's actually very much like The Sims.  It's supposed to have WiFi component, but I haven't had a chance to try that out yet.  Laurie has been playing Age of Empires and liking it a lot.  I haven't checked it out yet to see if it has multiple saves available.  We also have Pirates of the Caribbean; I don't think either of use have tried that yet.  I was hoping Star Fox was going to be out soon enough to rent, but it wasn't.  I also wanted Advance Wars DS, (wasn't it named after the Gameboy Advance?) but we didn't have enough time to return a game and get a new one out before we left.

Update on the satellite phone: Mobal gave me a call (while I was still able to check my voicemail, too) and said that they had gotten a sat phone in and they were shipping it out overnight to us!  That's excellent and I'm happing with them for giving me updates.  We'll see tomorrow if we get it or not.

Alright, I just got to try out the Sprint phone.  It shows 2-3 bars of digital roaming, but when trying to make a call it drops out of service.  *sigh* Our friends have a GSM phone and apparently they can get calls out.  It sounds like there might be a GSM cell tower on Mt Washington.  That said, I didn't think it was legal for the cell towers to be up like that (except for the old Nextel towers). 

Well, I guess since I don't seem to have much more to write about, I'll go grab the DS... or join in the next game of Jenga.  Not sure which yet...

Laurie's Note Area:

Quote of the Day: Nathan: "Dad, do you have any earwigs?"

Sitting in the hotel, discussin meds, not really thinking about going to sleep considering my head doesn't really think it's as late as it is.  Planning the day tomorrow; it's a hike up Mt. Washington.

Hey, we've got free WiFi here!  That's nice. ;)  Well, that means I can post from here... if I want to.  Problem is, I'm not doing real-time posting on this trip.  So that means I can't take full advantage yet of the posting ability.

I am, however, using Windows Live Writer to draft the posts.  So far, I'm really liking it.  It's better than any other offline posting tool I've used and it was also the easiest