Zdravstvuj From Moscow!

I've been in Moscow for the last week and a half for work and had the opportunity to do some local sight seeing with my colleagues. The sights here are beautiful...

St. Basil's Cathedral

Komsomolskaya Metro Station

I wish I could bring home this vodka filled glass gun or bullets as a souvenir. It's a shame I don't have the extra space in my suitcase!

Happy One Month Anniversary!

Time has flown by once again and today, MH and I have been married for a month!

Happy anniversary MH. You are the love of my life, my companion, my spouse. Cheers to today and every anniversary yet to come.

2011 Adventure aka Our Honeymoon:Days 16 & 17

To conclude our honeymoon, MH and I flew back to Los Angeles through London again and decided to take it easy this time around. MH let me sleep in till 8!!! and then we went to the British Museum before we had to head to the airport to catch our flight home.

As we sped through the museum to try to catch a glimpse of everything it had to offer, we saw a woman with a brochure instructing how to visit the museum in 3 hours. I wonder what she would have thought of MH and my speedy 1.5 hour visit.

British Museum Reading Room

The Rosetta Stone

The museum had a fairly large North and Central America exhibit. However, we didn't feel bad speed walking through them when we realized that they were pretty weak sauce in comparison to the exhibits we have at home.

At the Harrod's boutique in the Heathrow airport I spotted this super cute cake print apron. If I didn't already have one I don't think I could have resisted it!

In retrospect, I kind of wish I bought the tea towel set, but oh well. This picture will have to do.

2011 Adventure aka Our Honeymoon: Day 15

MH and I spent one last day in Nairobi before we had to head home via London. On the way back to Nairobi, we experienced a truly "only in Africa" moment... After waiting for our plane that was 45 minutes late for no reason, we walk out to our plane (on the tarmac of course), only to be shooed away by the stewardess. Apparently, the flight crew decided to take an hour break for lunch. Can't miss lunch! So, we ended up being 2 hours late to Nairobi...

We visited the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, an elephant and rhino orphanage on the edge of the city. There, human keepers take care of elephant and rhino orphans 24/7 until they are well enough to be released into one of the neighboring wildlife conservancy areas. The Trust allows the public to visit the orphanage on a daily basis for a small fee during the early afternoon. Alternatively, you can foster an orphan(s) and visit the orphanage during a special foster parent time in the evening. MH and I opted to foster Naipoki, a baby female elephant who had been rescued having fallen down a well, and Solio, a baby female black rhino who had been rescued because her mother was unable to care for her. As a result, we got to visit the orphanage in the evening with other foster parents.

Naipoki & Her Keeper

Solio

It was an amazing experience to be able to be so close to these magnificent creatures. It was remarkable to see how responsive they were to their keepers call and loving touch. Naipoki and Solio's keepers called them to the front of their pens so we could meet them through the gates. We got to hold Naipoki's trunk and pat Solio's horn!

In the evening, we dined at The Carnivore. Had we visited 6 years ago, we could have tried a wide variety of exotic meats. However, since the ban on game meat consumption our exotic meat offerings were limited to camel, crocodile, and ostrich meatballs.

Menu Board @ The Carnivore

Aside from the abundance of meat on the menu, the other great part about the restaurant was its offering of sauces to pair with the various meats. It you read the reviews about the restaurant on Trip Advisor, many say the restaurant is well past it's hay day, but MH and I still had a great time and enjoyed everything that we ate.

2011 Adventure aka Our Honeymoon:Days 13 & 14

After nearly two weeks of driving around in a dusty car, we were looking forward to some tropical time with sunshine and white sand. Luckily, Zanzibar has both and is a short flight from Nairobi.

Zanzibar is famous for being the historic center of trade between the far east and europe, especially for spices. Zanzibar has nice beaches, historical Stone Town (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), fresh seafood, and is only quick trip from mainland Africa.

Old Portuguese Fort

Zanzibar is famous for ornate doors. Houses all looked the same, so homeowners would use their door to mark their ethnicity, profession, and wealth.

"Indian" door

We went on a guided tour of Stone Town that included a trip to the central market. The market is like a time warp back to when it was originally built. Merchants sell their wares and food the same as those 150 years ago. The spice section was everything you could imagine about a place as famous for spices as Zanzibar- a collage of vibrant colors and exotic aromas!

Central Market

Our lodge was on the eastern side of the island, about an hour from Stone Town. The beach was very flat with fine white sand- exactly what I was dreaming about. In low tide, we could walk about a 1/4 mile from shore in ankle deep water. The leftover tide pools were filled with sea grass, clams, urchin, and other sea life. Even more striking was the amazing reflections of the vivid blue sky.

Low tide outside our lodge.

Sunrise at our lodge. (Yes, MH gets up at sunrise on vacation!)

With all that, there are only 100,000 foreign visitors per year?! Sounds like paradise right? Well, paradise needs tradewinds... Being nearly on the equator, Zanzibar was boiling hot and beyond sticky humid. Can you imagine the mosquitos? I finally started to see why MH is less interested in going to tropical locations.

Don't think I am complaining, it was definitely a wonderful experience! Apart from the history, who could forget a beachside fresh local seafood feast like this:

Seafood feast for 1, that we shared and couldn't finish.

2 lobsters (about 3/4 lb each), 1 spiny lobster, 5-6 jumbo prawns, over a dozen crab claws, squid, all BBQ'd to perfection. Plus enormous portions of salad, rice, and french fried potatoes (not french fries per se). This was without a doubt the most memorable meal of our trip.

2011 Adventure aka Our Honeymoon:Days 11 & 12

For our last park, we headed back to Kenya for Amboseli. I was very excited because the park is famous for huge elephant herds. MH was excited because this was the closest we got to Kilimanjaro. Unfortunately, all the excitement was burned up in our long wait at the border. Our guide's car broke down, so we were waiting at the border for two hours! Combined with the long drive, we were exhausted and glossed over the multiple herds of elephants crossing the swampy land.

Rare cloud-free view of Kilimanjaro

Yes, I said swamp in africa! Apparently the soil conditions cause all the water to come down off Kilimanjaro underground, and then it springs up in Amboseli. We could actually see the water bubbling up from the ground. As you know, water brings plants, and plants bring animals- in this case lots of elephants and hippos.

Hippo snacking/playing with lunch.

We were lucky that the weather was cool enough that the hippos were active during the day- usually they simply float around.

Young elephants playing

Of all the elephants we saw, this place had the biggest. Even the babies were the size of a car. Check out this lady:

Bigger than a land cruiser.

Our lodge was like a flashback in bad animal conservation. We were told, "you have to see the animal show at 9pm". We decide to check it out, and it turns out the show is the bartender putting meat scraps on a rock for the neighboring animals. Since we know feeding wild animals is a cardinal sin against keeping animals wild, so we left in disgust (were we being hippies? not really). At this point in our trip, we had been waking up early, driving for many hours, baking in the sun, and needed a rest...

Despite the unsual entertainment, the lodge was nice and the park was a great closure to our safari adventure. We were also fortunate enough to see some rare animals.

Fringe-eared Oryx (only oryx we saw during our trip)

Eland (one of two we saw).

Elands are the largest antelope in Africa. It was about the size of a young moose or small car.

This was the end of our safari adventure. We were lucky enough to see a wide variety of environs, the Big Five, and many other great animals! Next, we head to Nairobi for dinner and then our flight to exotic Zanzibar.

2011 Adventure aka Our Honeymoon: Day 10

Today we headed to Tarangire National Park. The park name added to our Swahili vocabulary: "taran" means warthog and "gire"means river. So, the park is Warthog River, but strangely we did not see that many warthogs...

This place turned us into first time bird watchers with the help of our guide. We saw many varieties of birds, from small-to-large and earth toned-to-vibrant. This park also had a variety of terrain from river bed to savannah, so we saw a variety of animals.

Giraffe with Ox Peckers

We learned that birds are a key part of the animal kingdom, and play key symbiotic roles. For example, Ox Peckers eat the bugs of many larger animals hide. They get food, and the host gets rid of itchy bugs. There is no DEET for giraffes!

An indirect relationship is with the "Go-away" birds. These fairly large birds are the first to see a predator. So, when they fly away, it's time for the gazelle herd to "go-away" as fast as possible. They also have cool mohawk heads.

White Bellied Go-Away-Bird

Tawny Eagle

Red and Yellow Barbet

We also saw a very large group of buffalo. They got spooked by something and started running like mad. The ground was definitely shaking and we were happy to be in the safety of the land cruiser. A bit of danger added to the safari experience.

Stampede?

The highlight of tarangire, and possibly the whole safari, was seeing a lion couple on honeymoon. We got as close as 10 feet, er... a few of meters, of the lions.

First View of Lions from our Land Cruiser, we got closer later

Lion and Lioness on "Honeymoon"

After viewing a QUICK National Geographic moment lion style, I scared the male lion. I was moving in the back of the land cruiser, and the lion roared at me! It was like the beginning of an MGM movie, only WAY louder and scarier. Even our guide freaked out! He quickly rolled up his window and snuck down out of view. After a tense few minutes with the male lion showing his teeth and staring us down, he realized we weren't a threat and laid down. Our hearts were racing but we realized that a good safari needs a bit of dangerous animal encounters!

Baby Elephants

As the sun went down, we headed back to our tented lodge under another gorgeous sunset. Along the way, we saw a cute elephant family with many babies playing and our first glimpse of the Tanzania mountains. We could see Kilimanjaro's neighbor, and would see the real deal with more elephants tomorrow.