We’ll be visiting our friend Francesca in Nairobi tomorrow and it is therefore time to pack our bags and possibly do some laundry as the sun is shining and it’s warm enough to dry the clothes within the day. Just on the other side of the road a few hundreds meters away there is a shopping mall where we can grab a cup of coffee and a couple of cards to send home. People will start leaving soon, some will be going back to Arusha to start the Kilimanjaro climb (Kevina and Rhys), some will continue to Uganda for a volunteering project (Hayley), some to Burkina Faso (Jenny!), to Egypt (Kat), Israel (Matt) and Greece. The rest of us will go back home to Italy, Australia, Canada and the States. We have been a great group and really made the best out of it!
We are getting to the end of our African trip, which for us is also the end of this amazing journey around the world!
We’ll be entering Kenya just north of Arusha and then proceed to the west of Nairobi where we’ll be spending a few days in Karen at the foot of the N’gong hills, a beautiful quarter of the city, named in honor of Karen Blixen. Myself, Andreas and Matt are getting a lift with a minibus heading for Maasai Mara, and should get off as it passes in the vicinity of the Karen Blixen museum, which is in the original home of Karen while she was in Africa. Well, the driver forgot to stop and when we got off we had to walk and walk, for approximately forever! We couldn’t see the end of it, but after asking a few people for directions, we are at the gate.
Undoubtedly one of the most fascinating natural wonder of Africa, the Ngorongoro crater became a UNESCO World Heritage site for its unique characteristics. This area originates from the explosion and subsequent collapse of a volcano millions of years ago and it is therefore confined by the rims of the crater, which prevents the animals from migrating in and out of it. Nevertheless, the crater has one of the largest concentrations of large animals in Africa and in particular a great number of lions and cheetahs which we are lucky enough to see.