On Horseback with Zebra and Giraffe

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Today is the last day of our trip.  Joyce’s back has not been good and she chose not to try horseback riding, but stayed back at the Borana Lodge.  The rest of us drove out to the stables where the five children rode first:

While the children were riding the adults visited the nearby farm which supplies Boarana with all of its fresh vegetables and spices:

The four adults met the horses and children in the bush, and with Leah continued the ride through a beautiful landscape with zebra and giraffe:

The entire Borana Conservancy used to be a sheep farm and was donated to the Conservancy by Tony and Rose Dyer who still live on the property in the home built by Italian prisoners of war during World War II.  They are very old, but sometimes they feel up to having visitors and today was one of those days.  We sat on their veranda drinking lemonade and looking out over the amazing property while we heard their stories of old Kenya and their role in it.

Finally, after lunch, it was time to meet our plane at the airstrip.  This time Gil helped fly us back to the internal Nairobi airport:

We took one final photo of the family with Andy:

After washing up and having dinner at a local hotel within the game park literally adjacent to the city, went to the international airport for the long trip home.

The only major glitch in the whole trip came after arrival in Newark when we had one of those experiences people write about in travel columns.  We arrived home 5 hours late, and we spent 3 ½ of the 4 hours from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM sitting on the plane going nowhere.  We were only let out for 30 minutes from 8:00 to 8:30, and when we re-boarded at 8:30 there was no A/C on the plane until 9:15.  It couldn’t ruin the wonderful glow we all had of a spectacular time together.