Discovering Central East Africa (Volume1)

As you all may know, my brother was living in Rwanda for 2 years aprox, just left it a few days ago. I was excited about visiting him because I loved the idea of seeing his life there, know the people that surrounded him and of course, not least important, discovering a new piece of the world I hadn't seen before.

First stop: Nairobi, Kenya

In Nairobi they speak very good English because of their british influence. They got their independance from UK in 1963.

But they also speak swahili, which is the local language. Why am I saying this? Because it surprised me a lot when I went to inmigration, the great pronounciation they had when asking the typical questions of: how long are you staying, put your fingers here for fingerprint scanning...

The first interesting moment was having my first dinner: we went to an ethiopian restaurant and ate "tef" with various "wat" and meat from an unknown animal. All hand eaten. Great.. my first reaction was to ask my brother if in Africa they always eat with the hands.. Yes, Im not used to that, but he told me that there is no other way to eat the ethiopian flatbread, as if I couldn't notice - I have moments of ignorance, they don't come very often, but they come =) -.

The morning after, we were up to the Masai Mara. I believe a 5 hour trip (aprox), going from Nairobi. The experience of being in touch with nature at a different level to what one is accustomed, felt great. An open savanna with the most amazing animals you could see, all in their natural environment. The opportunity of having a picnic in the middle of nowhere, reminds one of the impact of enjoying simple things.

Below a taste of our first contact with this incredible National Reserve:

After this, I was both curious and anxious to see where we were going to sleep. Of course, my great brother was making me doubt on whether we were going to sleep in a camping or not, because the Masai Mara is full of them. To my surprise, the truth was that we were going to sleep in a camping, not the typical one but a hotel camping or I would say a luxury camping.

It was a hotel that had the most amazing view. A pool with the savanna as background. Just perfect. Wild boars around, small monkeys.. Vamos! Eso que vemos todos los dias!

So far a 10 to my first Central East Africa encounter. More in the chapters to come.

Sidenote: The Masai Mara National Reserve (also spelled "Maasai Mara" and known by the locals as 'the Mara') is a large game reserve in south-western Kenya, which is effectively the northern continuation of the Serengeti National Park game reserve in Tanzania.