Safari Flashback!

Mondays, amirite?  It's a particularly blah one today - it rained overnight and is gray and dreary this morning.  After a 10 day break, getting everyone up and off to school was a challenge.  We're also still feeling bummed about Grandpa not being here: he was supposed to arrive Saturday evening to spend the week with us, but only made it as far as the Denver airport before being informed that he couldn't travel since his passport expires in June.  (It needs to be valid for 6 months from your travel date, for some reason.)  He rebooked to come in May, which is good, but still meant an adjustment in our expectations of what this week looks like.  Athena had a particularly droopy morning... she's still struggling to make connections and isn't excited to go back to school, and on top of that, she hurt her foot yesterday jumping over something in the yard.  (I think she's fine, but it's just one more thing bringing her down.)  So yeah, kind of a blah day.  But we managed to get the kids off and I figured I'd cheer myself up with a fun flashback to the safari we did with Nana and Livi a few weeks ago!

As our second set of visitors, Nana and Livi got the benefit of more experienced hosts - we picked some of our favorite experiences from Ahya's visit and went back to those places, and did a few new things around town too.  They arrived on a Friday night and we did a short trip to Lake Ruhondo over that first weekend, and then came back to Kigali for the week.  Livi went to school with Mazie on Monday (and had lunch with Athena, which made her really happy), while Nana and Caleb and I explored a little and ended up buying some art from this local artist, Selek.  We loved how his work captured little images of everyday life (and have now gotten a whole little collection of these pieces).

On Tues, we did a tour of the Nyamirambo neighborhood, organized by a local women's cooperative that makes handicrafts and provides employment.  The tour ended with a home cooked meal at the home of one of the women from the coop.

  

On Wed morning Nana and Liv visited the Genocide Memorial, and then we picked the kids up from school and spent the afternoon at Nature Kigali, a boutique hotel and restaurant that is one of the kids' favorite spots.

And then... safari time!  We got up early on Thurs and drove to Akagera with our guide, Anaclet.  Once again, the park was fantastic - we saw buffalo and rhinos and zebras and baboons and hippos on our first drive around the south end of the park.

Oh, and Lexi practiced her latest gymnastics tricks over lunch.

Then we headed up north towards the Karenge Bush Camp.  As we approached the camp, we found a whole herd of elephants - probably at least 40 of them in a large swamp a ways off from the road!

We would have stayed and watched them longer, but it was getting late and we needed to get up to the camp for our night safari... except when we arrived at the bush camp, we found out there was a problem with the booking and we weren't able to do the night safari after all!  That was a disappointment - the night safari was a highlight of our earlier trip.  But on the upside, we got a relaxed evening at the Bush Camp, including a great dinner, a hot shower (they bring the water to these little outdoor open bathrooms), and some nice time around the campfire (which Caleb loves).  And we resolved to get up nice and early (5 am!) for an early morning drive. 

And we were sure glad we did!  The morning safari did not disappoint.  We set out when it was still dark and almost immediately, a leopard crossed the road in front of our car!  Since this was the only one of the "big five" we hadn't seen on our first trip (remember: buffalo, elephant, rhino, lion, leopard), this was especially exciting.  

A few minutes later, we found some hyenas!

Then we almost hit a buffalo standing in the road - he jumped to get out of our way, and an elephant was standing right there!  

So now it's about 5:50 am and it's hardly light out and we've already seen 3 of the big five!  We see a herd (nope), a DAZZLE of zebras, and there's something about the way they're all moving out of the savannah that makes Anaclet think some predators could be close.  We keep driving down into the valley, stop for a quick photo...

And then BAM!  Anaclet spots a whole PRIDE of lions!!  He drives quickly up the road and we stop the car and get to just hang out and watch them for a while.  Apparently there are 17 lions in the pride we spotted - as we approached, most of them moved up into the bush, but a few of the younger ones are curious about us and hung out closer to the road with us.  Just magical.

To cap off this amazing morning, on our way back to the camp for breakfast we spot three white rhinos. So we were 5/5, before breakfast!  Unbelievable.

After breakfast, we said a rainy goodbye to the bush camp and drove back down to the south end of the park.  

Spotted lots more animals along the way, including some giraffes - we saw lots on our first safari but had a harder time finding them this trip, for some reason.  Another highlight: because of the rain, hippos were a lot more active - we saw several walking around out of the water.  And several large gatherings of baboons in the road too - it looked like someone had called a meeting and asked them all to pair up for an activity of some kind (probably picking bugs off of each other).

Safari-ing complete, we drove out of the park and stayed at the Akagera Rhino Lodge again (beautiful).  

On Saturday, we took Nana and Livi back to the Cultural Village (all 4 kids were good sports and went up on stage to get a traditional dance lesson - they forbade us to take pictures while they were up there), and then headed home.  

Lexi made a friend

On Saturday night, we took the big girls out with us for a night on the town while our friend Kevine babysat the littles.  

Sunday's main event was a relaxing afternoon at Pili Pili.   

And then it was time to say goodbye!  Nana and Liv flew home late Sunday night (technically early Monday AM).  A really great visit, with some adventures and some normal "here's what our life looks like" stuff.  Mazie was a different person with Livi here... all giggles and smiles.  I think it was also helpful for Mazie to see some of this place through Livi's eyes - more "this is really cool!" perspective.  One good example: our neighbor kids, who Livi saw as super cute and friendly, while Mazie tends to be annoyed by them.  I think she's been a little friendlier to them since Liv left.  In any case, grateful for the memories from this chapter... they're flying by pretty quick at this point.