Matatus, Buses, and Animals!

A Matatu









Dogs aren't the only ones.







Today was an interesting one. We went over another intimidating hurtle today by riding the bus. You may say bus no problem but the buses in Nairobi are a little different. A huge percentage of the city get around using them due to there inexpensive fees which are between 30 and 75 cents. They are run by many different private companies so lets just say they are in competition. They are all yelling out of there Buses saying mostly where they are going but I am not sure what else. Then there are van's called Matatus which are 15 Nissan passenger mini vans that mirror the bus routes. Not sure how they fit so many people into one but after being in one today have a little better understanding. Somehow I had my own seat. It is quite hard knowing where any of the buses go because there is no map of there routes that I can find anywhere. If you can find one online please let me know where. There are ust a lot of numbers like any other city with there end destination. Luckily we knew that we were going to the Nairobi National Park and in a guide book they told us the numbers of the busses that we could take from town to the park. It is a park only 8km from the city center that has almost any animal that you could hope to see in Africa. It even has the largest concentration of Black Rhino in the world. We were going there for Safari ride around the park that they do every Sunday for cheep but it was being used for a "prior commitment" (which was the Rangers doing what looked like training.)
These rangers do need serious training because they are doing it to protect all the animals from poachers many have lost there lives doing so. So we ended up going to the Animal Orphanage and hope to go back another weekend for the ride and walk though the park. Our adventure to the Orphanage was fun.
The excitement was mostly due to the fact that our guide in the park took us back to the little babies which are not in view to the public yet. It was against the rules but so cool. The cheetahs that we saw were only a couple of weeks old and so funny. We also go to get very close to some huge Lions. Don't worry they are lazy and part napping. Following this adventure we made our way back to the the place. Tomorrow off to the Nyumbani Orphanage to meet with some of the people who run it. Can't wait.