On our first evening ride, after walking a good bit, Simon called out, “Shall we have a bit of a canter?”. Well I thought, this is what you practiced over twenty hours for, and off we went. I didn’t fall off. Actually, The Tractor turned out to have a competitive streak and I was passing horse after horse. Pretty freakin’ exhilarating, I gotta say. It’s hard to worry about your career when you’re galloping on a horse. When we got back, a long table was set with table cloth, napkins, silverware, wine glasses and candles. And then we had a magnificent meal, cooked over an open fire which included bread that was baked daily in a small metal box heated by the fire. They made pies and pastries in the thing also. We never had a meal that was anything less than gourmet. After the nightly campfire, Flicka and I crawled into our wumphy bed and listened to all manner of animals grunting and howling and barking. We had seen elephants with newborn babies and giraffes which are so much taller in real life, and two male lions lying around waiting for a lioness to make up her mind. This was the first day. We had eleven more before us.
On our first evening ride, after walking a good bit, Simon called out, “Shall we have a bit of a canter?”. Well I thought, this is what you practiced over twenty hours for, and off we went. I didn’t fall off. Actually, The Tractor turned out to have a competitive streak and I was passing horse after horse. Pretty freakin’ exhilarating, I gotta say. It’s hard to worry about your career when you’re galloping on a horse. When we got back, a long table was set with table cloth, napkins, silverware, wine glasses and candles. And then we had a magnificent meal, cooked over an open fire which included bread that was baked daily in a small metal box heated by the fire. They made pies and pastries in the thing also. We never had a meal that was anything less than gourmet. After the nightly campfire, Flicka and I crawled into our wumphy bed and listened to all manner of animals grunting and howling and barking. We had seen elephants with newborn babies and giraffes which are so much taller in real life, and two male lions lying around waiting for a lioness to make up her mind. This was the first day. We had eleven more before us.
On our first evening ride, after walking a good bit, Simon called out, “Shall we have a bit of a canter?”. Well I thought, this is what you practiced over twenty hours for, and off we went. I didn’t fall off. Actually, The Tractor turned out to have a competitive streak and I was passing horse after horse. Pretty freakin’ exhilarating, I gotta say. It’s hard to worry about your career when you’re galloping on a horse. When we got back, a long table was set with table cloth, napkins, silverware, wine glasses and candles. And then we had a magnificent meal, cooked over an open fire which included bread that was baked daily in a small metal box heated by the fire. They made pies and pastries in the thing also. We never had a meal that was anything less than gourmet. After the nightly campfire, Flicka and I crawled into our wumphy bed and listened to all manner of animals grunting and howling and barking. We had seen elephants with newborn babies and giraffes which are so much taller in real life, and two male lions lying around waiting for a lioness to make up her mind. This was the first day. We had eleven more before us.
On our first evening ride, after walking a good bit, Simon called out, “Shall we have a bit of a canter?”. Well I thought, this is what you practiced over twenty hours for, and off we went. I didn’t fall off. Actually, The Tractor turned out to have a competitive streak and I was passing horse after horse. Pretty freakin’ exhilarating, I gotta say. It’s hard to worry about your career when you’re galloping on a horse. When we got back, a long table was set with table cloth, napkins, silverware, wine glasses and candles. And then we had a magnificent meal, cooked over an open fire which included bread that was baked daily in a small metal box heated by the fire. They made pies and pastries in the thing also. We never had a meal that was anything less than gourmet. After the nightly campfire, Flicka and I crawled into our wumphy bed and listened to all manner of animals grunting and howling and barking. We had seen elephants with newborn babies and giraffes which are so much taller in real life, and two male lions lying around waiting for a lioness to make up her mind. This was the first day. We had eleven more before us.
On our first evening ride, after walking a good bit, Simon called out, “Shall we have a bit of a canter?”. Well I thought, this is what you practiced over twenty hours for, and off we went. I didn’t fall off. Actually, The Tractor turned out to have a competitive streak and I was passing horse after horse. Pretty freakin’ exhilarating, I gotta say. It’s hard to worry about your career when you’re galloping on a horse. When we got back, a long table was set with table cloth, napkins, silverware, wine glasses and candles. And then we had a magnificent meal, cooked over an open fire which included bread that was baked daily in a small metal box heated by the fire. They made pies and pastries in the thing also. We never had a meal that was anything less than gourmet. After the nightly campfire, Flicka and I crawled into our wumphy bed and listened to all manner of animals grunting and howling and barking. We had seen elephants with newborn babies and giraffes which are so much taller in real life, and two male lions lying around waiting for a lioness to make up her mind. This was the first day. We had eleven more before us.
On our first evening ride, after walking a good bit, Simon called out, “Shall we have a bit of a canter?”. Well I thought, this is what you practiced over twenty hours for, and off we went. I didn’t fall off. Actually, The Tractor turned out to have a competitive streak and I was passing horse after horse. Pretty freakin’ exhilarating, I gotta say. It’s hard to worry about your career when you’re galloping on a horse. When we got back, a long table was set with table cloth, napkins, silverware, wine glasses and candles. And then we had a magnificent meal, cooked over an open fire which included bread that was baked daily in a small metal box heated by the fire. They made pies and pastries in the thing also. We never had a meal that was anything less than gourmet. After the nightly campfire, Flicka and I crawled into our wumphy bed and listened to all manner of animals grunting and howling and barking. We had seen elephants with newborn babies and giraffes which are so much taller in real life, and two male lions lying around waiting for a lioness to make up her mind. This was the first day. We had eleven more before us.
On our first evening ride, after walking a good bit, Simon called out, “Shall we have a bit of a canter?”. Well I thought, this is what you practiced over twenty hours for, and off we went. I didn’t fall off. Actually, The Tractor turned out to have a competitive streak and I was passing horse after horse. Pretty freakin’ exhilarating, I gotta say. It’s hard to worry about your career when you’re galloping on a horse. When we got back, a long table was set with table cloth, napkins, silverware, wine glasses and candles. And then we had a magnificent meal, cooked over an open fire which included bread that was baked daily in a small metal box heated by the fire. They made pies and pastries in the thing also. We never had a meal that was anything less than gourmet. After the nightly campfire, Flicka and I crawled into our wumphy bed and listened to all manner of animals grunting and howling and barking. We had seen elephants with newborn babies and giraffes which are so much taller in real life, and two male lions lying around waiting for a lioness to make up her mind. This was the first day. We had eleven more before us.
On our first evening ride, after walking a good bit, Simon called out, “Shall we have a bit of a canter?”. Well I thought, this is what you practiced over twenty hours for, and off we went. I didn’t fall off. Actually, The Tractor turned out to have a competitive streak and I was passing horse after horse. Pretty freakin’ exhilarating, I gotta say. It’s hard to worry about your career when you’re galloping on a horse. When we got back, a long table was set with table cloth, napkins, silverware, wine glasses and candles. And then we had a magnificent meal, cooked over an open fire which included bread that was baked daily in a small metal box heated by the fire. They made pies and pastries in the thing also. We never had a meal that was anything less than gourmet. After the nightly campfire, Flicka and I crawled into our wumphy bed and listened to all manner of animals grunting and howling and barking. We had seen elephants with newborn babies and giraffes which are so much taller in real life, and two male lions lying around waiting for a lioness to make up her mind. This was the first day. We had eleven more before us.
On our first evening ride, after walking a good bit, Simon called out, “Shall we have a bit of a canter?”. Well I thought, this is what you practiced over twenty hours for, and off we went. I didn’t fall off. Actually, The Tractor turned out to have a competitive streak and I was passing horse after horse. Pretty freakin’ exhilarating, I gotta say. It’s hard to worry about your career when you’re galloping on a horse. When we got back, a long table was set with table cloth, napkins, silverware, wine glasses and candles. And then we had a magnificent meal, cooked over an open fire which included bread that was baked daily in a small metal box heated by the fire. They made pies and pastries in the thing also. We never had a meal that was anything less than gourmet. After the nightly campfire, Flicka and I crawled into our wumphy bed and listened to all manner of animals grunting and howling and barking. We had seen elephants with newborn babies and giraffes which are so much taller in real life, and two male lions lying around waiting for a lioness to make up her mind. This was the first day. We had eleven more before us.
Our routine was to get up early (5:30 or 6:00) and have a coffee. After our morning ride we’d have a huge sumptuous breakfast. The staff would fill two basins of hot water, which sat on tripods outside our tents so we could wash our faces. Our horses were already tacked up and our morning ride would begin at about 7:00. Our rides would last two to three hours. Simon led our party and Daisy or Rosie would take the rear. Simon carried a bullwhip which he could make sound like a gun shot. The first morning, as the trail led us through tall brush on both sides, Simon called back that if anything rushed us, we should turn our horse and go back the way we came with “some dispatch”. Now to me, that raised a lot of questions, but everyone just nodded and kept riding so I did too. Felicity and her brother had ridden across the Maasai Mara on previous safaris, but we were in Laikipia, which is the hill country in north west Kenya. We would cross great plains and then climb into the hills which gave us some breathtaking views. Simon and our Maasai guide, Netti, were astounding in their ability to spot game, and they had encyclopedic knowledge of everything we saw. Simon would suddenly shout “Fish Eagle!”. And I would stare at a black lump in an Acacia tree wondering if I was looking in the right place, and then this monstrous bird, which looks a lot like our Bald Eagles, would open his massive wings and glide effortlessly over us. Or Simon would reign his horse and whisper, “elephants”. And I would scour the bush not seeing any elephants. Until one moved. And then I’d see seven elephants. And they are big. I mean really big. Even the little ones are big. I feel stupid saying elephants are big – we’ve all been to the zoo, but when you’re in the cage with them, they get a lot bigger. They are such improbable animals with their kind wise faces and their adorable giant babies, that you have to remind yourself they kill a lot of people every year. Cape buffalo kill even more people and we saw a lot of them too. But because there were twelve of us on horseback, and Simon had his bullwhip, I didn’t ever feel we were in real danger. Then we saw the lions.
Our routine was to get up early (5:30 or 6:00) and have a coffee. After our morning ride we’d have a huge sumptuous breakfast. The staff would fill two basins of hot water, which sat on tripods outside our tents so we could wash our faces. Our horses were already tacked up and our morning ride would begin at about 7:00. Our rides would last two to three hours. Simon led our party and Daisy or Rosie would take the rear. Simon carried a bullwhip which he could make sound like a gun shot. The first morning, as the trail led us through tall brush on both sides, Simon called back that if anything rushed us, we should turn our horse and go back the way we came with “some dispatch”. Now to me, that raised a lot of questions, but everyone just nodded and kept riding so I did too. Felicity and her brother had ridden across the Maasai Mara on previous safaris, but we were in Laikipia, which is the hill country in north west Kenya. We would cross great plains and then climb into the hills which gave us some breathtaking views. Simon and our Maasai guide, Netti, were astounding in their ability to spot game, and they had encyclopedic knowledge of everything we saw. Simon would suddenly shout “Fish Eagle!”. And I would stare at a black lump in an Acacia tree wondering if I was looking in the right place, and then this monstrous bird, which looks a lot like our Bald Eagles, would open his massive wings and glide effortlessly over us. Or Simon would reign his horse and whisper, “elephants”. And I would scour the bush not seeing any elephants. Until one moved. And then I’d see seven elephants. And they are big. I mean really big. Even the little ones are big. I feel stupid saying elephants are big – we’ve all been to the zoo, but when you’re in the cage with them, they get a lot bigger. They are such improbable animals with their kind wise faces and their adorable giant babies, that you have to remind yourself they kill a lot of people every year. Cape buffalo kill even more people and we saw a lot of them too. But because there were twelve of us on horseback, and Simon had his bullwhip, I didn’t ever feel we were in real danger. Then we saw the lions.
Our routine was to get up early (5:30 or 6:00) and have a coffee. After our morning ride we’d have a huge sumptuous breakfast. The staff would fill two basins of hot water, which sat on tripods outside our tents so we could wash our faces. Our horses were already tacked up and our morning ride would begin at about 7:00. Our rides would last two to three hours. Simon led our party and Daisy or Rosie would take the rear. Simon carried a bullwhip which he could make sound like a gun shot. The first morning, as the trail led us through tall brush on both sides, Simon called back that if anything rushed us, we should turn our horse and go back the way we came with “some dispatch”. Now to me, that raised a lot of questions, but everyone just nodded and kept riding so I did too. Felicity and her brother had ridden across the Maasai Mara on previous safaris, but we were in Laikipia, which is the hill country in north west Kenya. We would cross great plains and then climb into the hills which gave us some breathtaking views. Simon and our Maasai guide, Netti, were astounding in their ability to spot game, and they had encyclopedic knowledge of everything we saw. Simon would suddenly shout “Fish Eagle!”. And I would stare at a black lump in an Acacia tree wondering if I was looking in the right place, and then this monstrous bird, which looks a lot like our Bald Eagles, would open his massive wings and glide effortlessly over us. Or Simon would reign his horse and whisper, “elephants”. And I would scour the bush not seeing any elephants. Until one moved. And then I’d see seven elephants. And they are big. I mean really big. Even the little ones are big. I feel stupid saying elephants are big – we’ve all been to the zoo, but when you’re in the cage with them, they get a lot bigger. They are such improbable animals with their kind wise faces and their adorable giant babies, that you have to remind yourself they kill a lot of people every year. Cape buffalo kill even more people and we saw a lot of them too. But because there were twelve of us on horseback, and Simon had his bullwhip, I didn’t ever feel we were in real danger. Then we saw the lions.
Our routine was to get up early (5:30 or 6:00) and have a coffee. After our morning ride we’d have a huge sumptuous breakfast. The staff would fill two basins of hot water, which sat on tripods outside our tents so we could wash our faces. Our horses were already tacked up and our morning ride would begin at about 7:00. Our rides would last two to three hours. Simon led our party and Daisy or Rosie would take the rear. Simon carried a bullwhip which he could make sound like a gun shot. The first morning, as the trail led us through tall brush on both sides, Simon called back that if anything rushed us, we should turn our horse and go back the way we came with “some dispatch”. Now to me, that raised a lot of questions, but everyone just nodded and kept riding so I did too. Felicity and her brother had ridden across the Maasai Mara on previous safaris, but we were in Laikipia, which is the hill country in north west Kenya. We would cross great plains and then climb into the hills which gave us some breathtaking views. Simon and our Maasai guide, Netti, were astounding in their ability to spot game, and they had encyclopedic knowledge of everything we saw. Simon would suddenly shout “Fish Eagle!”. And I would stare at a black lump in an Acacia tree wondering if I was looking in the right place, and then this monstrous bird, which looks a lot like our Bald Eagles, would open his massive wings and glide effortlessly over us. Or Simon would reign his horse and whisper, “elephants”. And I would scour the bush not seeing any elephants. Until one moved. And then I’d see seven elephants. And they are big. I mean really big. Even the little ones are big. I feel stupid saying elephants are big – we’ve all been to the zoo, but when you’re in the cage with them, they get a lot bigger. They are such improbable animals with their kind wise faces and their adorable giant babies, that you have to remind yourself they kill a lot of people every year. Cape buffalo kill even more people and we saw a lot of them too. But because there were twelve of us on horseback, and Simon had his bullwhip, I didn’t ever feel we were in real danger. Then we saw the lions.
Our routine was to get up early (5:30 or 6:00) and have a coffee. After our morning ride we’d have a huge sumptuous breakfast. The staff would fill two basins of hot water, which sat on tripods outside our tents so we could wash our faces. Our horses were already tacked up and our morning ride would begin at about 7:00. Our rides would last two to three hours. Simon led our party and Daisy or Rosie would take the rear. Simon carried a bullwhip which he could make sound like a gun shot. The first morning, as the trail led us through tall brush on both sides, Simon called back that if anything rushed us, we should turn our horse and go back the way we came with “some dispatch”. Now to me, that raised a lot of questions, but everyone just nodded and kept riding so I did too. Felicity and her brother had ridden across the Maasai Mara on previous safaris, but we were in Laikipia, which is the hill country in north west Kenya. We would cross great plains and then climb into the hills which gave us some breathtaking views. Simon and our Maasai guide, Netti, were astounding in their ability to spot game, and they had encyclopedic knowledge of everything we saw. Simon would suddenly shout “Fish Eagle!”. And I would stare at a black lump in an Acacia tree wondering if I was looking in the right place, and then this monstrous bird, which looks a lot like our Bald Eagles, would open his massive wings and glide effortlessly over us. Or Simon would reign his horse and whisper, “elephants”. And I would scour the bush not seeing any elephants. Until one moved. And then I’d see seven elephants. And they are big. I mean really big. Even the little ones are big. I feel stupid saying elephants are big – we’ve all been to the zoo, but when you’re in the cage with them, they get a lot bigger. They are such improbable animals with their kind wise faces and their adorable giant babies, that you have to remind yourself they kill a lot of people every year. Cape buffalo kill even more people and we saw a lot of them too. But because there were twelve of us on horseback, and Simon had his bullwhip, I didn’t ever feel we were in real danger. Then we saw the lions.
Our routine was to get up early (5:30 or 6:00) and have a coffee. After our morning ride we’d have a huge sumptuous breakfast. The staff would fill two basins of hot water, which sat on tripods outside our tents so we could wash our faces. Our horses were already tacked up and our morning ride would begin at about 7:00. Our rides would last two to three hours. Simon led our party and Daisy or Rosie would take the rear. Simon carried a bullwhip which he could make sound like a gun shot. The first morning, as the trail led us through tall brush on both sides, Simon called back that if anything rushed us, we should turn our horse and go back the way we came with “some dispatch”. Now to me, that raised a lot of questions, but everyone just nodded and kept riding so I did too. Felicity and her brother had ridden across the Maasai Mara on previous safaris, but we were in Laikipia, which is the hill country in north west Kenya. We would cross great plains and then climb into the hills which gave us some breathtaking views. Simon and our Maasai guide, Netti, were astounding in their ability to spot game, and they had encyclopedic knowledge of everything we saw. Simon would suddenly shout “Fish Eagle!”. And I would stare at a black lump in an Acacia tree wondering if I was looking in the right place, and then this monstrous bird, which looks a lot like our Bald Eagles, would open his massive wings and glide effortlessly over us. Or Simon would reign his horse and whisper, “elephants”. And I would scour the bush not seeing any elephants. Until one moved. And then I’d see seven elephants. And they are big. I mean really big. Even the little ones are big. I feel stupid saying elephants are big – we’ve all been to the zoo, but when you’re in the cage with them, they get a lot bigger. They are such improbable animals with their kind wise faces and their adorable giant babies, that you have to remind yourself they kill a lot of people every year. Cape buffalo kill even more people and we saw a lot of them too. But because there were twelve of us on horseback, and Simon had his bullwhip, I didn’t ever feel we were in real danger. Then we saw the lions.
Our peach trees are amazing this year. They’re two years old. They grow up so fast don’t they?
Our party consisted of Felicity, her brother Moore, our daughters Sophia and Georgia, and our good friends Ripley, Ellen and Kim. We all flew to Nairobi at different times and we met at the Muthaiga Club. When Karen Blixen, the heroine in OUT OF AFRICA, arrives in Nairobi she says, “Take me to the Muthaiga club”. It was founded in 1913 and it’s got Hemingway and Waugh all over it. You have to wear a jacket to dinner. It’s famous. It’s fabulous. After breakfast the next day, we went back to the airport and boarded an eight-seater, single engine plane designed by Orville Wright. Ellen, who isn’t wild about flying, wept the entire two hours we flew into the bush. When we came in to land on the grass runway, the pilot flew the length of the field at about twenty feet and then turned around, and on the second pass, landed. The first pass was to scare the Zebra and Wart hogs off the landing strip. Waiting for us were two Land Rovers with Simon, his wife Rosie and Daisey who would be our guides. We loaded our luggage into the Rovers and Simon said, “Anybody care to sit up top?”. We climbed through the open roof and sat on thin pads to soften the bumps and, holding on for dear life, off we went at breakneck speeds on roads which were more of a suggestion than actual roads. I thought, “This is going to be epic”. We passed elephants and zebra and cape buffalo and all kinds of gazelles and myriads of fantastic birds. After an hour drive, we arrived at our fist campsite. It was stunning. We each had a wall tent with a rug and bed and bedside table. Each tent had a small pop up tent nearby which housed a toilet seat over a hole and a bucket of dirt with a spade. Two tents shared a shower tent, and the staff would fill a thirty-gallon bucket with hot water and hoist it up with a system of pulleys. Best shower ever! Then they assigned us our horses. I got a chestnut with white feet named “Tinga” which they said translated to “The Machine”. Well yeah, I thought, I’ll ride the machine. The third day I heard the guys talking and the translation was not exactly the machine, but more accurately, “The Tractor”.
Our party consisted of Felicity, her brother Moore, our daughters Sophia and Georgia, and our good friends Ripley, Ellen and Kim. We all flew to Nairobi at different times and we met at the Muthaiga Club. When Karen Blixen, the heroine in OUT OF AFRICA, arrives in Nairobi she says, “Take me to the Muthaiga club”. It was founded in 1913 and it’s got Hemingway and Waugh all over it. You have to wear a jacket to dinner. It’s famous. It’s fabulous. After breakfast the next day, we went back to the airport and boarded an eight-seater, single engine plane designed by Orville Wright. Ellen, who isn’t wild about flying, wept the entire two hours we flew into the bush. When we came in to land on the grass runway, the pilot flew the length of the field at about twenty feet and then turned around, and on the second pass, landed. The first pass was to scare the Zebra and Wart hogs off the landing strip. Waiting for us were two Land Rovers with Simon, his wife Rosie and Daisey who would be our guides. We loaded our luggage into the Rovers and Simon said, “Anybody care to sit up top?”. We climbed through the open roof and sat on thin pads to soften the bumps and, holding on for dear life, off we went at breakneck speeds on roads which were more of a suggestion than actual roads. I thought, “This is going to be epic”. We passed elephants and zebra and cape buffalo and all kinds of gazelles and myriads of fantastic birds. After an hour drive, we arrived at our fist campsite. It was stunning. We each had a wall tent with a rug and bed and bedside table. Each tent had a small pop up tent nearby which housed a toilet seat over a hole and a bucket of dirt with a spade. Two tents shared a shower tent, and the staff would fill a thirty-gallon bucket with hot water and hoist it up with a system of pulleys. Best shower ever! Then they assigned us our horses. I got a chestnut with white feet named “Tinga” which they said translated to “The Machine”. Well yeah, I thought, I’ll ride the machine. The third day I heard the guys talking and the translation was not exactly the machine, but more accurately, “The Tractor”.
Our party consisted of Felicity, her brother Moore, our daughters Sophia and Georgia, and our good friends Ripley, Ellen and Kim. We all flew to Nairobi at different times and we met at the Muthaiga Club. When Karen Blixen, the heroine in OUT OF AFRICA, arrives in Nairobi she says, “Take me to the Muthaiga club”. It was founded in 1913 and it’s got Hemingway and Waugh all over it. You have to wear a jacket to dinner. It’s famous. It’s fabulous. After breakfast the next day, we went back to the airport and boarded an eight-seater, single engine plane designed by Orville Wright. Ellen, who isn’t wild about flying, wept the entire two hours we flew into the bush. When we came in to land on the grass runway, the pilot flew the length of the field at about twenty feet and then turned around, and on the second pass, landed. The first pass was to scare the Zebra and Wart hogs off the landing strip. Waiting for us were two Land Rovers with Simon, his wife Rosie and Daisey who would be our guides. We loaded our luggage into the Rovers and Simon said, “Anybody care to sit up top?”. We climbed through the open roof and sat on thin pads to soften the bumps and, holding on for dear life, off we went at breakneck speeds on roads which were more of a suggestion than actual roads. I thought, “This is going to be epic”. We passed elephants and zebra and cape buffalo and all kinds of gazelles and myriads of fantastic birds. After an hour drive, we arrived at our fist campsite. It was stunning. We each had a wall tent with a rug and bed and bedside table. Each tent had a small pop up tent nearby which housed a toilet seat over a hole and a bucket of dirt with a spade. Two tents shared a shower tent, and the staff would fill a thirty-gallon bucket with hot water and hoist it up with a system of pulleys. Best shower ever! Then they assigned us our horses. I got a chestnut with white feet named “Tinga” which they said translated to “The Machine”. Well yeah, I thought, I’ll ride the machine. The third day I heard the guys talking and the translation was not exactly the machine, but more accurately, “The Tractor”.
Our party consisted of Felicity, her brother Moore, our daughters Sophia and Georgia, and our good friends Ripley, Ellen and Kim. We all flew to Nairobi at different times and we met at the Muthaiga Club. When Karen Blixen, the heroine in OUT OF AFRICA, arrives in Nairobi she says, “Take me to the Muthaiga club”. It was founded in 1913 and it’s got Hemingway and Waugh all over it. You have to wear a jacket to dinner. It’s famous. It’s fabulous. After breakfast the next day, we went back to the airport and boarded an eight-seater, single engine plane designed by Orville Wright. Ellen, who isn’t wild about flying, wept the entire two hours we flew into the bush. When we came in to land on the grass runway, the pilot flew the length of the field at about twenty feet and then turned around, and on the second pass, landed. The first pass was to scare the Zebra and Wart hogs off the landing strip. Waiting for us were two Land Rovers with Simon, his wife Rosie and Daisey who would be our guides. We loaded our luggage into the Rovers and Simon said, “Anybody care to sit up top?”. We climbed through the open roof and sat on thin pads to soften the bumps and, holding on for dear life, off we went at breakneck speeds on roads which were more of a suggestion than actual roads. I thought, “This is going to be epic”. We passed elephants and zebra and cape buffalo and all kinds of gazelles and myriads of fantastic birds. After an hour drive, we arrived at our fist campsite. It was stunning. We each had a wall tent with a rug and bed and bedside table. Each tent had a small pop up tent nearby which housed a toilet seat over a hole and a bucket of dirt with a spade. Two tents shared a shower tent, and the staff would fill a thirty-gallon bucket with hot water and hoist it up with a system of pulleys. Best shower ever! Then they assigned us our horses. I got a chestnut with white feet named “Tinga” which they said translated to “The Machine”. Well yeah, I thought, I’ll ride the machine. The third day I heard the guys talking and the translation was not exactly the machine, but more accurately, “The Tractor”.
Our party consisted of Felicity, her brother Moore, our daughters Sophia and Georgia, and our good friends Ripley, Ellen and Kim. We all flew to Nairobi at different times and we met at the Muthaiga Club. When Karen Blixen, the heroine in OUT OF AFRICA, arrives in Nairobi she says, “Take me to the Muthaiga club”. It was founded in 1913 and it’s got Hemingway and Waugh all over it. You have to wear a jacket to dinner. It’s famous. It’s fabulous. After breakfast the next day, we went back to the airport and boarded an eight-seater, single engine plane designed by Orville Wright. Ellen, who isn’t wild about flying, wept the entire two hours we flew into the bush. When we came in to land on the grass runway, the pilot flew the length of the field at about twenty feet and then turned around, and on the second pass, landed. The first pass was to scare the Zebra and Wart hogs off the landing strip. Waiting for us were two Land Rovers with Simon, his wife Rosie and Daisey who would be our guides. We loaded our luggage into the Rovers and Simon said, “Anybody care to sit up top?”. We climbed through the open roof and sat on thin pads to soften the bumps and, holding on for dear life, off we went at breakneck speeds on roads which were more of a suggestion than actual roads. I thought, “This is going to be epic”. We passed elephants and zebra and cape buffalo and all kinds of gazelles and myriads of fantastic birds. After an hour drive, we arrived at our fist campsite. It was stunning. We each had a wall tent with a rug and bed and bedside table. Each tent had a small pop up tent nearby which housed a toilet seat over a hole and a bucket of dirt with a spade. Two tents shared a shower tent, and the staff would fill a thirty-gallon bucket with hot water and hoist it up with a system of pulleys. Best shower ever! Then they assigned us our horses. I got a chestnut with white feet named “Tinga” which they said translated to “The Machine”. Well yeah, I thought, I’ll ride the machine. The third day I heard the guys talking and the translation was not exactly the machine, but more accurately, “The Tractor”.
Our party consisted of Felicity, her brother Moore, our daughters Sophia and Georgia, and our good friends Ripley, Ellen and Kim. We all flew to Nairobi at different times and we met at the Muthaiga Club. When Karen Blixen, the heroine in OUT OF AFRICA, arrives in Nairobi she says, “Take me to the Muthaiga club”. It was founded in 1913 and it’s got Hemingway and Waugh all over it. You have to wear a jacket to dinner. It’s famous. It’s fabulous. After breakfast the next day, we went back to the airport and boarded an eight-seater, single engine plane designed by Orville Wright. Ellen, who isn’t wild about flying, wept the entire two hours we flew into the bush. When we came in to land on the grass runway, the pilot flew the length of the field at about twenty feet and then turned around, and on the second pass, landed. The first pass was to scare the Zebra and Wart hogs off the landing strip. Waiting for us were two Land Rovers with Simon, his wife Rosie and Daisey who would be our guides. We loaded our luggage into the Rovers and Simon said, “Anybody care to sit up top?”. We climbed through the open roof and sat on thin pads to soften the bumps and, holding on for dear life, off we went at breakneck speeds on roads which were more of a suggestion than actual roads. I thought, “This is going to be epic”. We passed elephants and zebra and cape buffalo and all kinds of gazelles and myriads of fantastic birds. After an hour drive, we arrived at our fist campsite. It was stunning. We each had a wall tent with a rug and bed and bedside table. Each tent had a small pop up tent nearby which housed a toilet seat over a hole and a bucket of dirt with a spade. Two tents shared a shower tent, and the staff would fill a thirty-gallon bucket with hot water and hoist it up with a system of pulleys. Best shower ever! Then they assigned us our horses. I got a chestnut with white feet named “Tinga” which they said translated to “The Machine”. Well yeah, I thought, I’ll ride the machine. The third day I heard the guys talking and the translation was not exactly the machine, but more accurately, “The Tractor”.
Our party consisted of Felicity, her brother Moore, our daughters Sophia and Georgia, and our good friends Ripley, Ellen and Kim. We all flew to Nairobi at different times and we met at the Muthaiga Club. When Karen Blixen, the heroine in OUT OF AFRICA, arrives in Nairobi she says, “Take me to the Muthaiga club”. It was founded in 1913 and it’s got Hemingway and Waugh all over it. You have to wear a jacket to dinner. It’s famous. It’s fabulous. After breakfast the next day, we went back to the airport and boarded an eight-seater, single engine plane designed by Orville Wright. Ellen, who isn’t wild about flying, wept the entire two hours we flew into the bush. When we came in to land on the grass runway, the pilot flew the length of the field at about twenty feet and then turned around, and on the second pass, landed. The first pass was to scare the Zebra and Wart hogs off the landing strip. Waiting for us were two Land Rovers with Simon, his wife Rosie and Daisey who would be our guides. We loaded our luggage into the Rovers and Simon said, “Anybody care to sit up top?”. We climbed through the open roof and sat on thin pads to soften the bumps and, holding on for dear life, off we went at breakneck speeds on roads which were more of a suggestion than actual roads. I thought, “This is going to be epic”. We passed elephants and zebra and cape buffalo and all kinds of gazelles and myriads of fantastic birds. After an hour drive, we arrived at our fist campsite. It was stunning. We each had a wall tent with a rug and bed and bedside table. Each tent had a small pop up tent nearby which housed a toilet seat over a hole and a bucket of dirt with a spade. Two tents shared a shower tent, and the staff would fill a thirty-gallon bucket with hot water and hoist it up with a system of pulleys. Best shower ever! Then they assigned us our horses. I got a chestnut with white feet named “Tinga” which they said translated to “The Machine”. Well yeah, I thought, I’ll ride the machine. The third day I heard the guys talking and the translation was not exactly the machine, but more accurately, “The Tractor”.
Our party consisted of Felicity, her brother Moore, our daughters Sophia and Georgia, and our good friends Ripley, Ellen and Kim. We all flew to Nairobi at different times and we met at the Muthaiga Club. When Karen Blixen, the heroine in OUT OF AFRICA, arrives in Nairobi she says, “Take me to the Muthaiga club”. It was founded in 1913 and it’s got Hemingway and Waugh all over it. You have to wear a jacket to dinner. It’s famous. It’s fabulous. After breakfast the next day, we went back to the airport and boarded an eight-seater, single engine plane designed by Orville Wright. Ellen, who isn’t wild about flying, wept the entire two hours we flew into the bush. When we came in to land on the grass runway, the pilot flew the length of the field at about twenty feet and then turned around, and on the second pass, landed. The first pass was to scare the Zebra and Wart hogs off the landing strip. Waiting for us were two Land Rovers with Simon, his wife Rosie and Daisey who would be our guides. We loaded our luggage into the Rovers and Simon said, “Anybody care to sit up top?”. We climbed through the open roof and sat on thin pads to soften the bumps and, holding on for dear life, off we went at breakneck speeds on roads which were more of a suggestion than actual roads. I thought, “This is going to be epic”. We passed elephants and zebra and cape buffalo and all kinds of gazelles and myriads of fantastic birds. After an hour drive, we arrived at our fist campsite. It was stunning. We each had a wall tent with a rug and bed and bedside table. Each tent had a small pop up tent nearby which housed a toilet seat over a hole and a bucket of dirt with a spade. Two tents shared a shower tent, and the staff would fill a thirty-gallon bucket with hot water and hoist it up with a system of pulleys. Best shower ever! Then they assigned us our horses. I got a chestnut with white feet named “Tinga” which they said translated to “The Machine”. Well yeah, I thought, I’ll ride the machine. The third day I heard the guys talking and the translation was not exactly the machine, but more accurately, “The Tractor”.
