Jambo from Africa

Hi, we finally got on the internet by borrowing from the second camp we're at. So I'll have to be brief. So far the trip has been beyond our hopes. We stayed the first three days at a tented camp in the Selenkay Conservancy, next to the Amboseli National Park. The conservency was formed when a safari operator pursuaded several Maasi tribes to put aside 15,000 acers of their land for conservation and to build a safari camp to funne some of the tourist dollars into education and healthcare for their people. All the employees, managers, guides and chefs are from the local villages.
We stayed in the beautiful luxurious solar powered tents with flush toilets, running water and a queen bed. The camp does all the cooking and baking with pellets of recycled coffee bean byproducts, and the meals are outstanding gourmet meals. On a typically day we'd have tea at 6:00 in our tent, breakfast at 6:30 and be on a drive by 7:00. We'd have a picnic lunch out in the bush under an umbrella acacia tree, then be back in camp by 4:00 for a bucket shower. After that we'd go for a "sundowner" where they'd bring us to a rise and set up chairs and a campfire, serve you drinks while the sun sets and lights up the snow on the peak of Mt Kilimanjaro. Then we'd spend 1/2 hour stargazing while the guides pointed out all the constellations and important stars. Then back to camp for a gourmet dinner under the stars and drinks arond the camp fire.
We've also been on night drives to find nocturnal animals like civit cats and owls with a huge spotlight. We went a vistited a local Maasai village and went on a walking safari where they surprised us with breakfast up in a tree house overlooking a watering hole. The first three days we saw over 85 new species of birds (sometimes they came so fast and furious I couldn't even write them all down), 5 or 6 species of antelope, wildabeast, hundreds of elephants some so close you could almost touch them, lions, jackels, buffalo, hyenas, and ostrich. The highlight of the first three days had to be one night as we sat around the fire, the local Massai warriors, including our giudes, gathered outside the ring of our fire and started singing and chanting as the marched into the firelight. They did their traditional dance and I and two of the other men participated in the jumping competition. The they proceeded around the fire and the chef joined in last and presented sue with a birthday cake that read "Happy 50th birthday Mrs Mazouat". She cried.

Sue says congratilations to the BRMS graduates and hi and thanks to the ladies at work. Hi to our kids. We miss you and wish we could have taken you with us.

I'll try to post again tomorrow to tell you about the magnificent resport we're at now.