Safari - Day 3

Today was another early start as we had to pack, eat breakfast, check out of the hotel and be in the safari vehicle to leave Nairobi by 7am for the long drive to Samburu. We managed to miss most of the traffic - going into Nairobi the traffic was at a standstill for miles and miles. We stopped of a couple of times, each time stopping at a curio shop - a community run stopping place where we could go to the toilet and then be hassled by the shop keeper to barter for and buy some goods "for the orphans" and could the look at the small coffee plantation. We crossed the equator, but did not stop on the basis that we would stop on the way back on Thursday.

After arriving at the lodge, having lunch and a bit of a rest - during which we watched elephant and baboons from the balcony outside out window, we went out for out first game drive. We were very lucky, and in addition to the reticulated giraffes and Somali ostrich (both of which only live in the northern hemisphere), impala, dik dik, garanuk, oryx, olive baboon and giraffe saw a small pride of lions - more precisely 4 lionesses with their 3 cubs including one male, a nervous cheetah and a huge herd of around 50 elephants which crossed right in front of the jeep.

Returning to the lodge for our evening meal, we saw a crocodile, hyena and a couple of jenit cats that had come to eat the food thrown for them by the waiters.