We arrived in Nairobi late at night, and we were picked up at the airport by our hotel, 67 Airport Hotel. We did a self drive tour of Southern Kenya, so not wanting to drive though Nairobi we chose a hotel in the southern part of the city right off the highway. Nairobi’s traffic can be a nightmare. The location of our hotel was a great place to start and end our self drive tour.
Our first morning we had a good breakfast. We waited along with our suitcases of donations, for Isaac from Joy House to come pick us up, and to take us to his school. Joy house, is now named the Dorothy Schwartz Community Centre. The school is located in the Mukuru slums in Nairobi. The school has about 450 students. One of the many items the school was looking for, were laptop computers. Pat, (Tam’s mother) found a man that refurbishes laptops, so we were able to bring six used laptops, and donate them to the school.
This is the teacher’s break room.
This was our second time to visit Joy House/Dorothy Schwartz Community Centre. We gave them clothes, school supplies and the laptops. It really broke our hearts to see how crowded the classrooms were, and the overall condition of the school in which these children were trying to learn.
Later in the day, after returning to our hotel, Road Trip Kenya delivered our Rav4. We reserved their vehicle complete with the camping gear. The young man, that delivered the Rav4, went over details about the Rav4 and what was included with our camping gear.
The next morning we were up early, had our breakfast and were off. It was really easy to get on the highway from the hotel and head down the road. There were not many cars, but lots of slow trucks that appeared to be overloaded. The trucks that were going our direction were headed to the port city of Mombasa.
Near our turn off for the road to Amboseli National Park we filled up the Rav4 with fuel and noticed a good looking grocery store right behind it. We stopped at the store and bought ice and some cold drinks. We made some sandwiches, and had lunch in their parking lot while watching in amazement the traffic pass us by.
We turned off the main highway onto the C102. Look at what we saw along the road! We were not even in the park yet!
Continuing down the C102 we missed the first turn off for Amboseli National Park. The map we had showed to drive down farther to a town called Kimana. So that is what we did. We drove to Kimana turned right onto a long dirt washboard road. We finally arrived at Amboseli National Park.
At the Kimana Gate we paid our fees and went to find the KWS campsite inside the park. See the large mountain in the background? That is Mt. Kilimanjaro.
We like to stay inside the park, so we can get up first thing in the morning and start our drive. Driving around the park was very easy. Our Rav4 had a sun roof which was very handy for taking photos.
Amboseli National Park is known for its large herds of elephants with big tusks. The photos below are some of the animals that we saw while staying in Amboseli National Park.
