Trip Report Part I (the not-so exciting travels to Africa)

So I figured I would do this day-by-day to break it up a little, or it is going to be pages and pages long :) So I'll start at the beginning and go to the end and attach links to pictures along the way. Feel free to read as much or as little as you like. Likewise, when you get to the pictures, feel free to skip through if you get tired of looking at the animals (although I could never get tired of looking at them.)

So I started off from Estes Park at 6am on Sunday, June 13th. I had dropped Sherlock off at his doggy-sitting neighbor's house the night before and after smooching Fatness on the head and filling up his food bowl, I was off. It was raining and cold (snowing on the hilltops) and the river was just under floodstage, but I made it down the canyon just fine and to my Aunt Barb's house in Denver. I left Cujo in her garage and she drove me to the airport, where I had my first giddy-international-traveling-experience when I got to swipe my passport to get my plane tickets. I stopped by the Mangelsen gallery (to look at Africa pictures of course) and then went through security. Mom was flying back from AZ the same morning, so I met her at her gate and we chatted for a while before she went to claim her suitcase and I went to find something to munch. My flight left DIA around 11:30 and got to Detroit just fine. I did a couple laps of the Detroit airport (since I was about to be sitting for a LONG time) and then boarded my flight to Amsterdam. I sat next to a very nice Russian lady who was on her way to visit her family near Moscow. She thought I was a little crazy to be going on a safari. I was very excited about watching the free movies, however the plane's system was screwy and they had to reset it several times. Luckily the airline steward on my side of the plane was hilarious!! He did a song and dance routine while passing out drinks, talked up the "suquient" airplane food, and overall just made me laugh :) The movie system never ended up getting fixed correctly, but I messed with it and somehow figured out how to fix mine. I also then fixed my seatmate, the guy across the isle, four people on the way to the bathroom, and a couple of other people who came looking for "the girl that can fix the tv thing." I should have asked for tips :) I ended up watching two and a half movies and did not sleep at all for the 8ish hour flight. I then had about 3 hours in the Amsterdam airport... which was very boring. I also think they are dumb because you have to go through security at every gate, so to get onto the plane for Nairobi I had to do another security check. The second flight (also about 8ish hours) was not as much fun. It was a much bigger plane and I felt very sardine-like. I watched some more movies and napped a little, but was VERY glad to get off the plane. I was lucky to be close to the front of the plane because that meant I was close to the front of the line to get my visa, which went just fine and I got my luggage just fine (although it was a little un-nerving as there were military with very big guns walking around the airport). Then I stood in line again to not declare anything, and finally exited the airport. I won't type the large amount of swear words that went through my head upon seeing the MASSES of people waiting outside the airport with signs and such... but I finally found my name and the very nice safari lady took me away from the chaos and stuck me in a car to the hotel. This was followed by my first (of many) terrifying experiences with African traffic. First of all, they drive on the wrong side of the road - which is weird enough in itself. But I think I could get use to that if they actually had ANY kind of rhyme or reason to their driving. It is, in a word, INSANE. Thankfully Peter (my driver) seemed to know the rules of the chaos (as there are no lanes, no speed limit, and no one pays attention to the few-and-far-between stoplights). I almost kissed the ground when we got to the hotel in downtown Nairobi, (but instead gave Peter a nice tip) and got checked into the Sarova Stanley Hotel (ironically sharing the name with the famous Estes Park Stanley - although I checked the history and, while equally old, are not related). I had a very nice room... but the far-and-away best part was the incredibly wonderful shower. I think any shower would have been wonderful after that much traveling, but this extra-big-tub and extra-water-pressure-shower was heavenly. I might have set the world record for longest shower :) Then it was pjs and bed. I think I hit the pillow around 10:00pm Nairobi-time. I had made it to Africa!!