TRAVEL TALES:A 50-year journey through life celebrated with a safari

Tell us about your adventures in about 400 words, accompanied by a couple of photos that do not have the Daily Pilot in them, and send it all to Travel Tales, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; by e-mail to [email protected] or by fax to (714) 966-4679.

After several months of decision making, we decided to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, which is in June, five months early by going on a two-week safari in Kenya.

Our safari began with a five-hour flight from LAX to New York City, where we stayed overnight.

The next morning, we boarded an 11-hour flight to Dubai, then it was another five-hour flight to Nairobi, where we were met by our tour guides. As we left the airport, we were surprised to see giraffes in a field. After we observed them for several minutes and noticed that they weren’t moving, we discovered they were just statues.

We checked into the Intercontinental Hotel in Nairobi and were taken for a panoramic view of the city in the evening.

The steering wheels are on the right side of all vehicles, and driving is done on the left side of the road. Our tour guide was standing at the front of the bus explaining some beautiful buildings to us, when we thought the bus suddenly started to move by itself. Not being used to a driver on the right side, however, we eventually realized that there was another person driving the bus!

When we returned to the hotel, we were stopped at the gate by a man holding a long pole with a mirror on the end. He proceeded to walk all around the bus looking in the mirror the whole time. We were told that he was looking for bombs that might have been placed under the bus.

The next morning, after breakfast, we were assigned to a seven-passenger van with a driver. Our tour driver was named Moses, and we began our safari to the Masai Mara National Reserve. Most of the roads in Kenya are dirt roads with many holes, but Moses was very skilled at avoiding those holes.

Along the road, we often saw donkeys tied up. We were told that the natives use donkeys to carry items, and they are tied to the side of the road until someone needs them. After a six-hour drive, we arrived at Keekorok Lodge in time for lunch, and we were pleased to discover that everyone spoke English. The Masai people rarely hunt and live alongside wildlife in harmony. Later that afternoon, we were taken on our first game drive. The vans each have pop-up roof hatches, which make standing up to take photographs easy.

In this game drive, we saw zebras, gazelles and a leopard in a tree, but the highlight was two mother lions taking a nap about 6 feet from our van, while five cubs moved between them to nurse. It was impossible to tell which cubs belonged to which mother. After two nights at this lodge, we were driven along the floor of the Rift Valley, the vast prehistoric fissure that stretches from Lebanon to Mozambique to Flamingo Hill Camp, where we actually slept in a large tent for one night.

It was amazing to look out of the camp at a large field, expecting to see cows or horses, but instead see a large herd of zebra. Our two game drives from the camp were along Soda Lake, where thousands of flamingos roam along the shore. We also saw rhinos, water bucks and water buffalo as well as the endangered Rothschild giraffe.

The next day, we were driven to Samburu National Reserve. On our way, we crossed the equator and stopped to take pictures on each side.

We stayed for two nights at the lodge on the Ewaso Nyiro River. We visited a Samburu village, where the natives sang and danced with us, and took us on a tour. Our game drives included many beautiful small birds plus ostrich, gerenuks, reticulated giraffes and Grevy’s zebras. On the afternoon game drive, Moses was told that there were some cheetahs hiding in a field, so he drove over a bumpy field and was able to chase out three cheetahs for us to photograph.

At 6:30 p.m., 16 large crocodiles came out of the river into a fenced-in area, where they were fed by natives who worked at the lodge. After two days, we were taken to Aberdare Country Club, where we had lunch and boarded a bus for the Ark Lodge.

The lodge looks just like the ark, and is designed with decks and balconies for viewing a large salt lick and water hole. The small rooms have buzzers in them. When animals come to the water hole or salt lick in the night, the rooms are buzzed to let everyone know. Each animal has a certain number of buzzes. If you want to get up, you can see them.

After breakfast, we were driven to Amboseli National Park and spent two nights at the Oltukai Lodge. We had a beautiful view of Africa’s largest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, in the early light of dawn and again went on several game drives.

We had a wonderful time watching animals, birds and reptiles in Kenya, and came home with hundreds of pictures of our memories there.