camel – Round the World Kid

It’s about time for me to wrap up Kenya. Awwwwww! . My favorite hotel is Diani Reef Resort in Diani. It has a buffet and a pool. It was also right next to the beach. As well as all that, they had a kids’ club and kids’ activities. My favorite restaurant is Camp Carnelly’s in Naivasha. There I had the best burger in my life. I enjoy Hell’s Gate National Park. The break, the save (from crashing a bike), the hike, all of it. I especially like the rock-hyraxes. I also enjoy the beach. Snorkeling, playing in the sand, swimming in the pool, everything. I also like Ol Pejeta and the Kuku Joint and the wedding. I got to play with lots of kids about my age! I also liked our time in Nairobi. Man, we did so much there! The safari walk, Bomas, the giraffe center, and the animal orphanage were just some of the things in Nairobi. I remember from the animal orphanage that when they take young calves by the cages, the lions, cheetahs, leopards, and serval go crazy. It affects the lions the most. One lion had rolled on its back, symbolizing our playful puppy, but the next moment all the lions pace up and down, hunger and murder in their eyes, trying to get to that calf. The calf is put right next to the serval’s cage, so close that the only thing that prevents the serval from pouncing on the young calf is the side of the cage. Even though the serval only wants to play with the calf, the calf is scared to death.

In Nairobi, I also play with friends and go to the market. I played Minecraft with my new friend Taye that I had met on Jasmine’s birthday party. That day she had turned five, the biggest party of her life. Taye is a nine-year-old boy with an American mom and a Kenyan dad. Taye also has a little brother named Micah. Micah is four years old.

If you are wondering where we are staying in Nairobi, we are staying with my parents’ friends Alex and Tabitha. I have lots of fun playing with their daughters Jasmine and Njoki (jo-KI) . Njoki is three. Jasmine just turned five. My mom baked a delicious cheesecake for them. Jasmine savored it. Njoki tried to scoop it up, but she hadn’t learned yet. I fed it to her. I let her try to feed herself the last bite. When I checked her plate again it was gone! My mom gave Tabitha the recipe.

“It’s all about the Philadelphia Cream Cheese, ” mom said.

Overall, Kenya is beautiful. The open savannah, the white sand beaches, even the people. You never know what you’ll find in a country… until you go there.

Kenya

Lounging Lion

Rock Hyrax

Feeding Njoki

The Scared Calf

Jasmine turns 5!

It was late at night. The train still had not come yet. I curled up in a ball like a kitty cat and closed my eyes. Suddenly – Tu tu tu tu tu tu tu tu tu. Something had woken me up. The train had finally arrived. We ate dinner. Then I climbed back up to my bed and closed my eyes – I was asleep. Dad woke me up early the next day to have breakfast. We ate – then lazed around. The last eight hours were boring. The train had a bathroom – so we didn’t need to stop. They said it would be 14 hours. Actually it was 18 hours. The train left at midnight and they didn’t serve lunch or an extra dinner, so you can imagine how hungry we were by the time we got off the train.

We took a taxi to Diani Beach. The ferry there took forever! When we got there we stared at the hotel Diani Reef Resort. We ate dinner then went to our room. There was a leak in the ceiling, so we went to change our room. Finally we found the right room. The next day we ate breakfast then chilled for most of the day. We hung out by the beach. I had so much fun playing with my new friend Jason! Then the pool – and afterwards walked out of our resort to the Barclays . We bought a few things at the Nakumat. Next we went back to our hotel. When we came back to our room we made an amazing discovery. There was a monkey under our inside table! We had forgotten to lock our sliding glass door to our balcony! They had stolen our coffee, sugar, and cookies. They had also eaten all our bananas, leaving us just the peels.

“I was gonna eat one of those bananas, ” my dad said.

The room was a mess. Sugar was everywhere, muddy paw prints were on my parents’ bed, and banana peels could be found on the table. So while we ate dinner, our room was cleaned. When we got back, we showered and slept.

We woke up early the next morning to go snorkeling. We had a great time. We saw colorful fish in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, purple, pink, and black coral. There was one skinny yellow fish that was about a foot long! It was swimming above a green coral. We also saw a whole school of gray fish.

When we got back we went to the beach. I played in the water. Then, excruciating pain touched my knees and wrapped around my wrist. I looked at the jellyfish’s tentacle. It was gray with blue rings. It thought it was an octopus.

“Oh my god, I hope I don’t die,” I thought.

I knew that the Blue-Ringed Octopus was the size of one’s hand, but venomous enough to kill hundreds on people in one bite. I pinched the tentacle. The creature let go. If you want to know what it felt like, it felt like the pain of fire mixed with the pain of poison. That hurts! I didn’t even cry. Not one tear. The stings were healed with medicinal cream. By morning I was better. Even so, some of the stings were still visible a few days later! On the last day we just hung out at the beach. Luckily, there were no more stinging jellyfish!