Safari Part I: The Adventure Begins ~ Our Mission in Kenya

Safari! You don't have to pay big bucks to go on a safari -- you can just look at my pictures. Ha ha.

Elder and Sister Petersen invited us and any senior couples that were able, to go on safari with them to the Masai Mara. We're so glad we accepted the invitation. We did four game drives over parts of three days. I thought four game drives might be a little much but I totally enjoyed them. We stayed at the Mara Serena Lodge in the Masai Mara. No camping in tents like our sons did when they were here in February although that was a cool experience for them too and maybe we'll have to do it yet.

I took too many pictures (as usual) so it was hard to wade through them all. I've decided to divide them up into posts according to animals. That way, if you're interested in a particular animal, you can look at that post and if not, I'm not offended if you don't look at it. There is a very cool picture of a giraffe with an oxpecker on its back that I hope you'll look at though. This first post is just about the lodge and the surrounding landscape, which was very lovely.

Elder & Sister Petersen and Elder & Sister Jensen drove from Nairobi with our guide, Harrison. Elder & Sister Pehrson drove from Eldoret. Elder Torrie and I opted to fly. Was fun to fly in a small plane and not too high above the earth. We saw a lot of very dry landscape. Parts of Kenya are really hurting for water. This river wasn't flowing much. Looked mostly like mud.

The plane landed at several lodges and this was the air strip for the Serena Lodge. We were glad we had a 45-minute flight rather than a 5-8 hour drive over bumpy roads.

Fun to land in the middle of nowhere!

We were just a little south of the equator. I thought it might be too hot but it was very nice. Cool enough in the evenings and mornings that we needed jackets. Not too hot in the day. Who would guess that it would be this cool on the equator.

Hmn. . . what kind of a hotel is this? Something out of Lord of the Rings? Or the Flintstones?

Here we are in our little hut. Cool interior design! Today we are Hobbits!

The main building has similar Hobbit-ville designs. We loved it!

And outside, a lily pond.

I'm a farm girl from Alberta and I love the wide open spaces. That's what the Mara is like. Very different from what I had supposed.

I remember reading my kids a book about strange animals and there was one about some kind of a monster that looked just like this. These lizards scurry really fast wherever they go. I would rather have lizards than mice in my house.