Cody in the Forest

Today I had to wake up pretty early, don't know what time it was but I could barely keep my eyes open I was so tired. So I got up, brushed my teeth, brush my hair, and packed up everything I needed for the night in the forest. We locked up the house and started walking down the road to the matatus. We asked some people if they were going to the forest and we quickly got on one, but we didn't actually leave for like 40 minutes. The ride was pretty bad but not as bad as all the other rides. We stopped at a sign that said 'Kakamega forest reserve'. It said it was 600m and that felt pretty accurate. The Lonely Planet book said 2km; don't know how they got that number. Any ways right when we got to the gate, I immediately saw monkeys jumping from tree to tree. It was pretty cool. So we bought our tickets, rented a banda and walked down the road, again, to the offices. I didn't see anymore monkeys on the way so I was a little disappointed. We got there and met up with Patrick, one of the forest guides. He talked a little bit about the prices, short walks and long hikes, and a little bit about the snakes, I think. Anyways after we paid, he told us that he wasn't going to guide us, instead we ended up with a girl wearing a dress and little slipper shoes. No binoculars, no hat, no hiking boots, no nothing. So we started on our first walk, the nature walk. The forest was so dense there was barely a trail to walk on. So as you probably imagine, we didn't see to many animals. Saw glimpses of monkeys, not many birds, but we did see snakes. We saw a bush viper, which is poisonous, and a forest cobra, 7 minutes to get to a hospital before you're finished. After our nature walked we went up to the view point. We had to climb up a hill that was pretty much straight up. We got there and the view was magnificent. You could see over the entire forest. Now, we started our journey to our next walk, the falls. We walked for a ways and ended up at the falls. Well it wasn't really a waterfall, which is what I was expecting, it was more like rapids. It was pretty nice there, got a good picture of some butterflies and saw a pretty cool bird. When we got back to our banda, I was dead tired, but I was also very thirsty, so we walked over to the Canteen and bought some water and a couple Sprites. After our drink we walked back to the banda, and just chilled. Mom did some journaling, Terry read his book, and I just listened to my music. I dozed off for like 40 minutes and then it started getting a little dark. We were going to go for a bit of a walk to see bats and flying squirrels, but then it started pouring down rain. It was a huge storm, there was lightning and thunder and it was raining a little sideways. So we stayed in instead. I talked to mom a bit before drifting off to sleep. The next morning, mom woke me up and said that she and Terry were going for a walk, to try and see the sunrise at the view point. I didn't really feel like going, so I just kept on sleeping. When she came back, she told me that she saw baboons right on the trail, so she didn't get to see the sunrise. But baboons are a pretty good substitute for a sunrise. She said that if we left right now we could maybe see them again. I went, but I didn't think we were going to see the baboons. I thought wrong. At first there was only one walking down the trail. Then there were two. Then there were like 10 walking down, little babies on the moms' backs, big buff baboons, and I guess children running around in the bushes. We only got to watch them for like 5 minutes but it was worth the entire trip just to see them. So when they went back into the bushes, we walked back to the banda and got all our stuff and headed out. On our walk back to the gate, we saw some red-tailed monkeys run across the path and climb into the trees; I thought it was pretty cool. We got a couple pictures of them and kept on walking. But then we saw more red-tailed monkeys jumping from tree to tree. So we watched them for a bit and got some more pictures. So when we got to the gate and were about to leave, we saw more monkeys. But these monkeys were black and white and the ends of their tails were white. I don't remember what they're called, but they looked really old. We saw them jumping around, got even more pictures, and started walking down the road to the matatus. But then we saw even more monkeys outside the forest, munching on some branches. So we stopped and got even more pictures. A little ways down the road, we saw some goats that got all tangled up and couldn't really get any food. So me and Terry untied them and they seemed pretty happy. So we got to the place where the matatu would pick us up and waited for one to come by. The first couple were all full or could only take one person so we waited some more. I thought this was going to take a while, so I got a Fanta while we waited. Then we got in the back of a truck, the kind where in movies you see like immigrants riding in. It actually wasn't bad at all. Well it was worse then driving in your own car but compared to a matatu it was great. We got back to Kakamega, but we got off in a different place then we were used to. So we had to find our way back to familiar turf. We were pretty hungry so we went to a 'restaurant' that was mentioned in the Lonely Planet book, so we thought it must be pretty good. It actually wasn't that bad. It was way better then the Stallion, where everything was cold and crunchy and nasty. Our food was actually fresh this time. After we left we went to the cyber café. I went on facebook, sent my dad an e-mail, then went on facebook some more. Mom did some blog stuff and Terry tried to do some banking, I think, but it was going really slow, so he only got in like 5 minutes of work done in an hour. Me and mom finished before Terry, so we went down to Jeremiahs place and had some chipati with some vegetables that reminded me of the taste of those kimchi noodle bowls. It was really good. Jeremiah started talking to us about the prices of stuff, but then he told us to finish our food before we talked business. We finished and Terry came down and had some chipati, and even after he was done, Jeremiah didn't come back. So we left and went back to our house. I finished my second book and was kind of sad because now I had nothing to read. So after I finished my book, I went to sleep.