Day 8 – Fairmont Mt. Kenya Safari Club

Today we traveled from Samburu to Mt. Kenya.  At the exit gate of the game preserve I decided for some unknown reason to buy some bracelets from one of the street peddlers.  They initially wanted me to spend $5 for 4 bracelets but I learned from our friend Michael in Vietnam how to bargain so I got 6 of them for $10 (really got 8 for the $10).  They’re probably just a piece of crap but I have a great marketing idea.  Because they are made of copper, I’m going to sell them on the Internet as the rare African arthritis curing bracelets and will be available for $100 each.  Get them while they’re hot, the price is negotiable.  I’m not making this up, well maybe just a little…. 

We had some of our 3” bananas left over from yesterday so we stopped along the road at a little village.  The children ran out to the car and Judy gave the bananas, one at a time, to the leader of the pack who was all of about 4 years old.  He then handed each one to his siblings.  It was so sweet to see him take care of them.  Here is a photo of the pack.

The Fairmont is a really beautiful place located on Mt. Kenya at 7,000 feet.  It was started by William Holden, the movie actor in 1959.  I heard from a good source that Holden, during his career, did his filming early in the morning because by noon he was too drunk to be of any further use.  They have a 9 hole golf course but I got a sore toe from pushing out the Brit’s van yesterday so I decided against it.  Since the resort is located right on the equator, I thought it would be cool to say I played golf on both the north and south hemispheres on the same day.  We’re now going down to the ZeBar, (get it?), for a drink before dinner.  

 Okay, we had our drink and guess what we had for bar snacks, dried anchovies.  See below, you can’t make this stuff up!

The evening got very cold (like an Arizona winter) and when we went to bed, we had a wonderful little surprise in it.  There were 2 big hot water bottles to warm up the bed and our frozen feet.   We'd never seen that before but but sure were glad they were there! 

Oh, we found out why the wildlife eat elephant dung.  It’s because elephants only digest 30% of what they eat and the nutrients.  The other 70% is available for an appetizer.

In case you didn’t notice, we updated the profile picture of me and Judy.  I’m trying to blend.  Kwa heri.