EAST AFRICA   KENYA TANZANIA RWANDA UGANDA After having been to virtually every other region of the world, the one hub that still remained unexplored for me was Africa. This may not be technically true as, I'd been to both Egypt and Morocco. Yet these countries tend to resemble their Arab counterparts more than their southern geographic neighbors both, in culture and in landscape, so this was basically my first glimpse of "real" Africa, or as many call it, sub-Saharan Africa. The obvious choice for a first African adventure is East Africa. This region has just about everything packed into that epitomizes exotic Africa. There's an ample amount of places to see the "big five" (elephant, buffalo, giraffe, lion, and leopard) out in the wild on a safari, as well as a chance to see many of the world's most endangered species, such as the mountain gorilla. There are many famous geographic landmarks, which often coincide with adventure activities, such as climbing the continent's highest peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro, or challenging grade 5 water rapids at the source of the Nile River, which flows northward from the world's 2nd largest fresh water lake, Lake Victoria. There's also the picturesque Muslim dominated coast, with its many beaches, seaside markets, forts, and water activities. On top of this, you've got a whole plethora of fascinating cultures and languages, such as the Masaai. I went to Africa for approximately 4.5 weeks with nothing but my backpack, ticket, passport, and money. I had my itinerary pretty much planned out in my mind, but nothing booked. Basically the idea was, fly into Nairobi and take a safari, then head down to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro before busing my way westward, south of Lake Victoria - onto Rwanda and then back east to Nairobi via Uganda - hopefully getting some river rafting in along the way as well as seeing the gorillas. My trip went pretty much according to plan. I was able to book a week-long safari at the airport in Nairobi before heading south to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. My original plan was to bus my way all the way to Kigali, Rwanda. However, travel by road can be excruciatingly slow in Africa. When I found out that it was going to take about 4 ½ days just to do the 600km Arusha - Kigali leg, I decided to just break the bank and fly from Nairobi to Rwanda. This extra time aloud a detour along the Indian Ocean coast to the alluring Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, and then back up to Nairobi via bustling Mombassa. I then bused it back to Nairobi from Kigali through Uganda and had many adventures along the way, including the Nile rapids, the gorillas, and a little visit to the equator. To access some photos of the trip, simply click on the country name or the map. You'll notice that this write up is a little different from my previous trip write ups as there is a lot less writing and a lot more photos. I've realized that pictures can describe a thousand words and I also have a lot less time on my hands nowadays. I guess the main reason is that I finally broke the bank and bought myself a nice digital camera - a Kodak DX7590 with a 3 x 10 zoom. This thing takes stellar photos so I wound up taking about 700 of them on this trip. These are the pick of the bunch. I'd say the best photos are found on Kats of Kenya, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the gorillas trekking @ Bwindi NP pages. Anyhoo, enjoy! Any questions or comments, feel free to email me @ .... glennaldo_sf@hotmail.com Cheers Back to Travel Back to Mainsite Email: glennaldo_sf@hotmail.com Sign Guestbook View Guestbook