11th May
Today I am off to Nanyuki for the second attempt at getting a SIM card. I take the dogs for a quick walk, feed them and the cat and then leave at 8.
Early morning walks |
Going anywhere here means a game drive on the way, which is great. We saw Bat eared fox, the jackal cubs, this time 4 of them and mum, 2 tawny eagles as well of the usual zebra, giraffe, etc.
I realise this is just 3, I couldn’t get a picture of all 4 together |
I am attempting to learn Kiswahili so use the car journey and a Kenyan colleague to teach me some new words on the way. Words retained: 0 more work to be done.
SIM card registration successful, you can’t just pick up a sim from the pound shop like you can in England, you need to register it to you with your passport, another way for Big brother to keep an eye on you. I also set up Mpesa which is a way of paying for things on your phone, many Kenyans Malawians, Tanzanian’s, and I am sure other countries, don’t have bank accounts they just keep money on their phone, you can send money to other people, pay bills, buy data and airtime (no contracts for phones out here) pay for your cable TV and electricity it’s great, I think the UK needs to get on board – unless I have been out of the country so long that it does actually exist now?
While in Nanyuki I took the opportunity to get some junk food, KFC to take home for dinner (we didn’t have a KFC in Tanzania) and get a bit of shopping (Amarula, Jamesons, dog treats – all your necessities) checked out the local Mitumba – a second hand clothes market, which is where ALL of my clothes come from these days and then back to Lewa. On the way back we saw a beautiful (very poisonous) **puff adder on the road, trying to get some heat from the sun. We watched her on her way (interestingly they don’t slither like you would expect, they undulate so it almost looks like they are walking.
** Edit: after doing some research on Puff Adders I have to now edit this and put ‘very venomous’ not poisonous – poison is something which is inhaled or swallowed, Venom is a specific type of poison that is injected. So there you go… every days a school day.
We got back to the house at around 4 (there is no quick pop into town, it’s about at 3 and a half hour round trip and everything takes time). Quick dog walk, then the other manager joined us for our junk food dinner and a few glasses of wine.
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