She's here!

Everyone, worry not, my mother is here. She arrived about 12 hours later than originally planned. What happened was that her first British Airways flight was delayed by three hours, causing her to miss her second British Airways flight from London-->Nairobi. She had to run around the airport, from Virgin Airways to Kenya Airways, everyone trying to put her on a flight then telling her to go somewhere else. She did eventually get on a Kenya Airways flight that got her in Nairobi by 7am. When she arrived though, the luggage never appeared. Anyone who travels knows this nightmare, looking around the carousel over and over hoping that somehow you missed it, that of course it's coming. But in this case it didn't.

Good thing though, she had an extra set of clothes and some basic things she needed, and I have all the toiletries a lady could want here with me. We had to go on the safari without it, but when we got back the luggage was at our house in Nairobi, all in one piece, with nothing taken.

While in Nairobi we visited the giraffe center (enjoy pictures on Flickr!) and the Nairobi arboretum. Both were fun and we got to see some different parts of the city. My good friend David accompanied us. After that, we headed out for a safari in the Maasai Mara! It was absolutely amazing. We saw a cheetah family with cubs, lions eating a kill, herds of elephants, tons of huge giraffes, all sorts of gazelle and antelope, tons of beautiful birds... The list goes on and on. Mom said that it was like being in a Discovery Channel documentary.

I took a lot of pictures, but by some stupid move I erased them all... BUT WORRY NOT, viewers, there was a professional photographer with us who will send me all the pictures. Part of the reason all the pictures disappeared is that I got a new camera, and I was fiddling with it... Apparently I "formatted" the memory card......Which means all the pictures go bye-bye, and there's not even a confirmation prompt. Oh well.

Overall though, things have been really good. Mom hasn't been sick, her jetlag isn't too bad, and the baggage deal was quickly resolved. We've been safe and well fed. The next leg of our journey is to go to Kisumu by bus in just a couple of hours. There we'll visit a tropical rain forest, see the sunset over Lake Victoria, and meet the host family there.