safari and sickness

just got back from a three day safari in souther rift valley

lions - 8
distance of one particularly scary male lion from van - 0 ft
cheetah - 3
cheetah hunt of antelope - 1
elephants - 10
zebra - too many to count
giraffes - 8
monkeys stealing hotel goods -15 or so

also visited a masai village. the masai are the people who seem to show up on every picture of the "real, traditional" Africa - stretched out ears and the like. as it turns out, they make up about 2% of the population in Kenya and many speak english. the guy who took us on a tour had actually gotten married to a German tourist who fell in love with him and lived in britain for 3 years before the marriage broke down.

the whole things was really cool but it was not hard to notice how tourist-ey it all was - walking through a "traditional" masai village only to encounter a "gift shop" table at the end was depressing, as was seeing a lion and then having ten other vans roll up next to us to see the same animal (its weird - the animals dont even pay attention to the picture takers anymore)

now ive got stomach troubles