Now. I can believe that I'm in Kenya.

Day 14 (9/18)
Today. Was the best day of my life. We went to Amboseli National Park and drove around for about 5 hours in the land cruisers. And we opened the hatches and stood and saw so so soooo many animals. Giraffes, Zebra, Impala, Grants gazelle, Thomson’s gazelles, Warthogs, Wildebeests, HIPPOS, ELEPHANTTTTTS, LIONSSSSSS, Cape Buffalo, Eagles, tons of Ostriches, Oryx, Reedbucks, . It was totally and completely insane. I loved every second of it. One lion was about 5 feet from our Land Cruiser, and there were 8-10 more about 50 feet away. And some elephants were in the marsh but others were feeding on vegetation literally right next to the road, others were crossing and we saw the littlest baby Elephant I could have even imagined.

The zebra and wildebeests got ridiculously close to us. There were quite a few dead zebras and wildebeests unfortunately and it made you think about how there really isn’t enough food to go around and hopefully the drought ends soon! We didn’t see really anything else that was dead, no dead Elephants, but plenty of babies and sub adults, which is a good sign. Amboseli has the largest population of Elephants in Kenya and even though I see Elephants weekly at the zoo (and I do love Kate, Alice, and Ginny), seeing them in the wild just makes you feel so complete, on the way back there were about 3 medium sized herds crossing the road right in front of us each time and we got to see one baby without a tail, as in it just had a stump? Interesting.

The lions were amazing too. To see a lion is awesome but to see one laying around 5 feet from the road (a young male) makes me feel so lucky. On the other side of the road, about 50-60 feet out was a large male with about 8 females, halfway in a swamp, just hanging out. I love my life. The one that was super close to us was gorgeous, and it was around 2 so he was lying around and stretching out, yawning, and grooming himself. I could have watched him for hours.
Two words. Cape Buffalo. Possibly the biggest cow-like mammal I have ever seen in my life, short, stocky, and mean. Their skull cap is massive too. Everything about them is just robust. They kill people here, they are at the top of the list NOT to mess with. Seriously.

AND hippos are much bigger than I imagined. Haha they were all so goofy looking in the water and there were a few on the shore, from a distance they look like squishy rocks. They open their mouth and their tusks looked like the size of my arm. They basically just open their mouth, and chomp down while birds try to get the algae and stuff left on their lips.

Some of the land there has a good amount of vegetation, but I would assume most of it isn’t actually able to be eaten because it is still there. Other parts are just desolate. And there seems to be a decent amount of water, however it’s been taken over by invasive species so its slowly disappearing, even more-so with the drought. Pray for rain. Do a rain dance. Hopefully something happens soon.

P.S. In our Land Cruiser, there are 4 rows of seats, first one for the driver and passenger. And the last 3 are for the students, I was in the 2nd row and had the first hatch to stand up in (there are 3 for each student row). Anyway, Cecily, Tiffany and I sang Disney songs, and then when we ran out of disney songs we sang classics like Celine Dion and Backstreet Boys for HOURSSS. It was karoke and we were amazing. Haha sometimes I wish we had a camera crew following us around.

I can now die happy.