Naivasha and Nairobi

Last weekend we traveled to Naivasha for a retreat with the Family Medicine residency to welcome the incoming class of residents.  We stayed at a fabulous place outside of town, and while all the faculty and new residents were occupied with official retreat stuff, I was on kid-duty at our cottage.  But what a cottage!  It was quaint and had an amazing patio and lawn with a great view of the forest around us - complete with colobus monkeys swinging through the trees!  It was incredible!

On our way out of town we stopped at Crescent Island on Lake Naivasha.  It's a place with safari animals like giraffe and zebra and wildebeest, but instead of driving around in a safari jeep you can park the car and walk around with the animals!  There are no predators on the island, which is why it's possible to do that.  By the time we got there, however, it was nap time and two of the three boys were beginning to melt.  We did see animals as we drove onto the island, but by the time we parked it was evident that we wouldn't be walking very far and we certainly weren't going to discover any animals in the short distance we could cover with exhausted children.  But we saw some water fowl and a flock of sheep, which made the boys happy enough.  Oh well!  Such is life with young children.

We then headed to Nairobi for a few days of vacation.  It was the first official time off we've had since moving here, and it was much needed.  Some people teased us for only going to Nairobi (as opposed to any number of other touristy places you can enjoy here in Kenya), but it doesn't take much to please us at this phase of life.  We enjoyed our stay at a guest house where we took turns watching the kids play on the playground while the other ventured out to watch a movie or go to the coffee house or go shopping without kids in tow.  Seeing a movie has become a luxury and we didn't take it for granted that we had the chance to see Star Trek!

We also explored Karura Forest while in Nairobi, which is a large forest with walking trails right in the city.  It was quiet and beautiful, and we literally had to carry all three kids back to the car by the end of our hike, but it was worth it!  Being in the woods and admiring a marvelous waterfall did our souls much good.

We love exploring new places and trying new things, so the past week was fun for us.  It was exhausting, as traveling with young kids will always be, but it was fun and refreshing to have a change of pace from our normal life at the hospital.