Zebra, crossing.

Well - and I'm not really sure how - but I've finally made it to Kenya. This involved a 5.30 start heading out to Kampala, including a rather amazing spree in Owino market. Then onto a coach (amazing, I know!) to Mbale, just a short 5 and a half drive, travelling along the only stretch of dual carriageway in Uganda, along the road to jinja - and then out toward the eastern unknown. In mbale, we popped on a very squished matatu for 3 hours, to Lwakhaka, a border town where another project is based - the taxi reached a record amount of 28 people, 2 chickens and 4 sacks of maize flour. A quick stop for rice and beans stocked us up nicely for the two minute walk across the border, and as we stepped across the river - we hit Kenya.

Kenya is far, far more developed as a country then Uganda. Telegraph poles line the roads, the very clean, unpot-holed roads may I add, along with small towns with buildings stretching to the sky (well, at least to 3 stories). And trust me, Ive seen enough of Kenya to pass this sort of judgement (maybe). After passing through wakhaka, we popped on a truck, where for two and a half hours, I wast quite sure where my feet where. As we passed through the great plains of the Rift Valley, the sights of Acacia trees spreading horizontally over Savannah grasses, made the next two matatu journeys throungh Bungoma and Eldoret (famous for cheese apparently), mildly more appetising. After five hours, we then jumped onto anouther shuttle, and finally, after eating roasted maize (very good cheeky snack), we reached the town of Nakuru. A town that is literally the size of Kampala, but with better roads, and less red dust, we stayed over night under rather exotic midight blue mosquito nets - rather snazzy, I know. We raced out of bed - well, I slowly crawled out of bed to meet the others for a cup of hot milk for breakfast as we tried to work out conversion rates to pounds, but trying to also convert into Ugandan shillings in order to work out the actual cost of things, although Kenya is mildly more expensive than Uganda. Inevitably, we got through a few too many cups of hot milk.

The journey to Naivasha, a small town on the edge of Lake Naivasha National Park was less stressful, can't say more comfortable - but Ive come to really enjoy being squished in to matatus, with my face against the window, and my arms holding another woman's child. We've began rating the conductor's ability to squeeze into the smallest space; however, I have nothing of interest to give you on the matter - as we have seen nothing above a 6, which really isnt very impressive - perhaps on the way back from Wakhaka again?

We are currently living in a small camp on the banks of the lake, protected by an electric fence to stop the hippos (who are apparently very hostile creatures), attacking us at night. Tomorrow morning we have a 4.30 rise to bike down to Hell's Gate National Park for an early morning safari (without a guide, and with wild game), yay.

From sunny Kenya,

Kez