So long Kenya..

Thursday
It was my last full day in Africa and I decided while the kids were in school I would play tourist. I chose to go to a place called 14 falls, a mini version of Niagra falls. In order to get there I had to take two different matatus and walk a bit. Matatu #1 was completely empty, unheard of. I even had my driver take a picture of me to prove that there was not a soul behind me. Eventually a few more people got on and we were on our way. The guy that sat next to me happened to be the town doctor and was nice enough to walk me to where I needed to be to transfer to the second matatu. He spoke with the driver and told him that he was to drop me off and point B and that he would die a slow painful death if he didn’t. About 30 minutes later we are in the middle of nowhere, nothing but desert and tall grass; and that is where he tells me to get out. “Just walk maybe 350 meters that way” he said as he was pointing to more middle-of-nowhere-ness. As I am walking up the dirt path I see two men walking toward me coming through the grass, my first reaction was bitch mode. They told me that they were guides to the park (which I had a feeling they were) and they had just finished guiding a group of school kids. Likely story huh, so where are these school kids? I turned around and there was a group of like 30 kids walking out of the park. And that is how I met my guides for the day, Joseph and Nicolas.

I knew I wanted to get a guide because it was so cheap and adds to the experience but didn’t really need two.. But I didn’t want to break up the team because they were so nice. So I negotiated the price a bit and for about $15 I had myself two guides to show me around the park.

Started off this little “adventure” as they call it with crossing the really wide river, that flows above the falls. It wasn’t very deep but the rocks were so slippery it was like walking on ice. Joseph took my backpack and small point and shoot camera and went ahead of Nicolas and I. It took us about 25 minutes to cross going slower than snail speed.

After we crossed we met up a friend of theirs who was hanging out in his underwear and wanted to show me some yoga. No joke, the guy just busted out some crazy yoga move! So Mr. Underwear Yoga Guy and I did a little Pilates/Yoga on a rock overlooking the 14 Falls. I was having what I call “a moment” when Nicolas goes FLYING off the rocks above us. Joseph and Nicolas apparently double as cliff divers. After 45 minutes of watching my guiding, cliff diving, yoga masters plummet to their death, we moved on.


I went on the most perfect day ever. There was nobody else in the park, the weather was perfect, and my guides were amazing. They walked me through the park and stopped every 45 seconds to take my picture. Joseph put me in a tree so he could get my picture, finally maneuvered my way up and it was COVERED in ants. I itch just thinking about it. It was a just a 15 minute walk up the river to my final surprise… HIPPOS! I was so excited, they even move their ears all cute like on TV.

Two matatus and a motor bike ride and I was back at the orphanage. The whole ride back I had a huge smile on my face, it was a perfect end to a great month. Last day at the orphanage was surprisingly not that sad. I had a hard time saying bye to the kids before they went to school though. I know I can do more for the organization not being there. I will be able to do more with the faster internet here in Prague. But I will miss things like Baby Joyce busting out Michael Jackson dance moves and buying bags of tomatoes for 10 bob ( $.12).

You know the racing game at Bullwinkle’s that you can pick which country you are in? Ok well my ride to the airport was just like that game. Going crazy fast, dodging people and pot holes, stop go, hot, dusty, stop go, gag barf. Met with Geoffrey before Zach dropped me at the airport. We talked about the website changes and some other things that could use improvement. Made it to the airport around 5:30pm which left me more than enough time to make my flight that was at 22:50. Now just so everyone know, 22:50 is NOT 8:50pm. This was pointed out to me at around 8:20pm by one of my new friends from Georgia. Awesome. My Georgia friends were a group of Pastors visiting a sister church of theirs near Nairobi. One of them had a guitar and we all sat in a little stairway and sang country songs like “big green tractor”. Good company, good coffee, bad food.. airport food is always gross. To make up for the bad food I had the best seat on the flight to Prague. I had my very own row! The flight attendant gave me extra salad because they didn’t have a vege meal for me and gave me free wine.  I feel asleep watching Twilight for the first time. It was dumb, sorry all you Twilight lovers.

I love to travel, I love the different cultures, I love the street food, I love the poor road systems, I love over priced bottled water, I love coffee, I need to work for the Travel Channel. I love meeting people and asking them their story. Dread when they ask mine, I have to decide which version to give them. Everything feels as if it is finally coming together. It used to feel like I was trying to put together a puzzle but someone gave me a box full of pieces from 3 different puzzles. Now it is finally getting easier, I have the border of the puzzle done, just working on the rest. My sister has always told me that God has a plan for me. Obviously my life plan took a turn because the path I was on wasn’t the plan he had for me, it was suppose to be something better and this is only the beginning, I can feel it.