Doug awoke us at 6:30am; it was merely a matter of stuffing my bags and I was ready. We cycled up the road to a restaurant, passing by these huge Maribu storks standing on the road—the things must be waist high. (David tells me they're the equivalent of seagulls.) At the restaurant we had some omelettes and chapati—a flat bread—and slightly watery passionfruit juice. At breakfast I was feeling particularly anti-social. As we headed off down the paved road it took a while before I felt like greeting people again.

The road portion went relatively fast; the scenery changed to a grassland flavour—flat with small trees, shrubs and high, brown grass. We saw herds of impalas (like deer) by the side of the road, as well as cape buffalo; in fact, both crossed in front of us every now and then. The first time we encountered the buffalo Nathan shouted up at us to keep us at a safe distance. Apparently they can be quite unpredictable.

A big truck stopped in front of us at the side of the road and offered us a lift. They seemed surprised when we declined; I don't think they could understand that we WANTED to bicycle. At one point we arrived at the equator—they had arches at the side of the road showing where the "line" passed through. We stopped for photo-ops.

Shortly afterwards we turned down a sandy side road—a 22 km stretch running into QE Park. We saw antelopes, impalas, warthogs, cape buffalo, fowls, vultures and a big salt lake as we rode. We went slowly to watch for wildlife; overall the ride was fast and easy going, though the road got quite bumpy in places and the soft sand made it hard to cross over the middle at times.

We hit the gatehouse to the park and rested while David paid and got information. There were some faded, yellow postcards of the park in the gatehouse window. I pulled out two Powerbars, most of which were eagerly devoured by the others. We entered the park and cycled 8 km to the 'town' up here. After a bit of lodge-searching and information gathering we cycled down to a restaurant overlooking the water.

In the corner of the restaurant hung a Star Trek calendar from the 70's. I was tempted to offer to buy it for a friend back home, but we decided it had a nice home here. Though the service was extremely slow, we finally were served; I had fish—likely Nile Perch—in a sauce with a plate of rice and some veggies. It was delicious. While we waited forever for our (initally incorrect) bill someone spotted an elephant and hippoes down by the water with their binoculars.

We came back up to the lodge where David got us double rooms (she offered singles, but they don't really exist). I showered in the nearby room under a trickle of water, borrowing/exchanging my moccassins for Doug's new shower sandals—the one thing that, so far, I missed bringing.

As I was resting, a warthog was out grazing on the lawn. Nathan recruited me because he wanted his picture with it, but when he got too close it snorted at him and Nathan bolted. Later, I could hear two warthog bulls were chasing each other around the building in full snort. Christine and Nathan played a game of Chess together outside their room.

We walked down to the getty for our 5:00pm boat ride. The 'overlanders' (a group of youth travelling in a big truck) were still out, their truck parked nearby—big, tall and crowded with a canvass top—out of Nairobi. When the boat pulled up they all got off—guys and girls about my age.

There was our group and about three others on the boat, making for a lot of room. We cruised by scores of different birds, creeped by hippos as they surfaced and went under, yawned and snorted. There must have been hundreds of them. We also spotted our share of cape bufallo—a scruffy old gray one, too—and more impalas. And a whole lot of birds. Later on we passed close by a couple of elephants (we had seen some in the distance as well). About halfway through the ride I ran out of film, which was a little bit irritating. Doug shot a least 6 rolls of film as we went. I was inwardly hoping he'd offer me a roll, but he didn't.

At one point we passed a small village; several children came out into the water; as Doug took a picture one put her hands on her hips in a defiant pose as a joke. (For that picture alone I wish I hadn't run out of film.) For practically the entire ride we saw nothing but wildlife. Far more than I had expected. The African fish-eagles were particularly nice to look at as they flew up and dived straight down into the water like little torpedoes.

We went straight from the boat to the restaurant, presuming it would take a while to be served again. We pulled a couple of small, rickety tables together outside the restaurant and ordered—rice and meat for me. She gave us guacamole, which was particularly appetizing. Just after we had ordered, the power went out, which was somewhat amusing because of the consistency at which it happens. By the end I was anxious to head back, growing tired of being on constant alert from the stealth mosquitos out and about.