Day 1: Safari

We began our week in Nairobi with a safari today at the Nakuru Game Park, about 3 hours outside of the city. A very good day to rest up from travel, enjoy some overwhelming beauty, and get bitten by a monkey…

Yes, you read that correct.

When we first arrived to the game park, before even entering, Flora had an altercation with a nearby monkey involving minor theft, attempted retrieval, and attack. The monkey’s strategy was to go for her ankle, and from there, bring down the entire woman. Fortunately he was shoo-ed away in time and skin was not broken.

The general consensus was that nobody was surprised that this happened to Flora. In fact, I’ll bet that everyone reading this who knows her is now saying, “Of course that happened to Flora…”

Anyway, the rest of the day was violence-free. We saw impala, cape buffalo, zebras, baboons, giraffe (at a distance), wild boar, rhinos, flamingos and other birds, and… lions! A small group of female lions were lounging in the shade near a recent kill of a cape buffalo. Amazing.

After a sack lunch and the drive back (jet lag catching up to most of us at this point), we have just finished a great meal at the hotel.

Tomorrow: Church services at Pangani (school in the slums), lunch, open-air market…