whew. it have been a whirlwind couple of days. we ended up leaving a day late for nakuru because mollie wasn't feeling well, but all worked out. on tuesday we left for nakuru...good lord it was a journey. schools in kenya had just opened again so all the secondary kids were leaving for baording school (most kids board for schooling) so it was a battle to get a matatu out of nairobi. after waiting 4 hours in the blazing sun i had an awesome farmers tan and we were on our way.the drive itself was beautiful. i hvaen't been able to see the rift valley the entire time i have been here so it was really wonderful. its just rolling green hills and fresh air. no wonder kenyans keep fighting over this land. we passed through naivasha on the way and saw some of the IDP camps. it was certainly a somber moment passing the camps we had been hearing about for the past couple of months. there was a whole group of kids outside going to "school". there were no supplies, no board, just one teacher. currently the government is trying to move them back to their homes but many people are afraid to go back.

we finally made it to nakuru later than expected and the hostel we were planning to stay in within the reserve grounds was already closed so we had to go on the search. the first "hotel" we went to was going to charge us 1200 shillings a peaice, which is about 20 us dollars...way out of our price range. we ended up finding a really sketchy hotel where we bargained them down to 1000 shillings total. In the morning we walked to naukuru park. we ended up having to take a sketch taxi around the game drive but it worked out perfectly. our safari in the '88 camry was a trip to remember. we saw a ton of rhinos and even got within 10 feet of two of them!

In the afternoon we headed out to kisumu aka worst 5 hours of my life. i have never been so motion sick in my life. the road couldn't even be considered a raod and it didn't help that my backpack was on my lap and we were crammed in like sardines. i was convinced i was going to puke faor most of the ride. when we made a rest stop, then usual vendors trying to sell s***ty watches and mens socks bombarded us. normally, i try to just be polite...but this day was not normal. I ended up threateing to kill someone and hten puke all over them. looking back i feel kinda bad...but watever, it happens.

we finally got to kisumu and headed off to the backpackers lodge we had booked earlier in the day. when we pulled up...we saw the boys standing outside too! we were expecting to see them until kampala so this was quite a shock. we ended up going out pretty hard that night so our trip to kakmega rainforest was cancelled so we could recover the next day. we just ended up hanging out in the city instead. kisus is my far my most favorite city in kenya. walking around you could see burned down buildngs every once and a while but other than that you would never know that 3 months earlier the city wasin chaos. overall the people of kisumu were extremely friendly and welcoming and i absolutely fell in love.

early friday morning we headed out to uganda. we crossed the border by foot and hten had to catch another matatu to jina. in order to get to the matatu stage we had to take boda-bodas with our back pacsks and all (boda bodas are bicycles with a little seat on the back) i was convinced we weren't going to make it...but we did!

jinja itself is so beautiful. our campsite is on a cliff overlooking the rapids of the nile river. the place is totally child and filled with you backpackers like us. its been really interesting to find out what all the other mzungus have been up to. we met a super chill group that are backpacking to south africa by road.

rafting itself was ridiculous. hands down one of the most incredible days of my life. we rafted grade 5 rapids all day. i got my ass totaslly kicked when we flipped the raft in the rapids but the adrenaline rush was killer. we actually tipped in crocodile water and i thought i was going to lost a limb...thankfully i came out with only cuts and bruises...and alot of swallowed nile water. the last rapid was a grade six (highest possible grade) and the first time we did it we came out without flipping...then we were stupid enough to do it again. this time it didn't really work out. we flipped and i got pulled under for 200 meters. i about pissed myself. in the end we were all ine at it was an awesome day.

we have one more day in jinja before heading off to kampala. today i am bunjee jumping into the nile...so we'll see how that goes.

anywho...thats all for now