Today’s a low key recovery day. Sleep in, catch up on lit, plan out fieldwork. Have a nice chat with my mom. Friend picks up some (ridiculously cheap, no prescription needed) drugs in Nanyuki. His wife (an MD) thinks the chronic, cyclic GI troubles may be due to Giardia, so I take the special anti-protozoan meds and hope for the best.

I cannot believe this. It felt so good to be back at Mpala, and not 8 hrs later I feel so bad. Woke up at 5am with a slightly nauseous feeling. As soon as I get up I feel the sudden, explosive urgency. I make it to the bathroom just in time and experience my first truly simultaneous GI explosions. Feel better after it all comes out, but now I’m exhausted and weak and need to clean out the wastebasket. Awesome.

Sleep in and lay around all morning. Muster up some strength to get water and some dry tea biscuits for a little energy. Sit outside and read for a bit, a friend comes by and we shoot the shit for awhile. Head over the Director’s house for some sundowners (I drink my oral rehydration solution) and manage to get a little food in my belly for dinner.

Taxi to Wilson airport, nice flight to Nanyuki. Hang out at great café while waiting for pick-up. Passion fruit juice and melty gouda sandwich, mmmm. Head into Nanyuki and stop at the "Spinners and Weavers," a great local women run place. We get a little tour and see how they spin, dye, and weave their sheep's wool. They have about a dozen colors that all come from natural sources, i.e. scale insects on cactus, plant roots, etc. I'm extremely happy to support them in my purchases...
Next we head to Ol’ Pejeda, a neighboring ranch and conservancy. Almost instantaneously we spot a rhino heading to the watering hole. Awesome! Rhinos! And other wildlife. Feels a bit zoo-ish, but then again, it caters to tourists.


You can practically touch the zebras they're so close, and we watched a li’l zebra and mom eat
together.











We spent some time with 'Moroni' the tame rhino and even got to touch him. He felt like solid, ancient wood.








Also got to stand next to a giraffe spine and watch chimps play
and just hang out.












After all the traveling feels great to return to Mpala!

Up at 4.30 to catch my 5.00 taxi to the airport. Flights on time, in jo-berg, take path through parking garage, merchants and all, to change from domestic to int’l terminal. Burn off remaining Rands w chocolate and whiskey. Luggage doesn’t arrive in Nairobi. Wait forever in lost luggage line. Exit and look through mass of people for my name on a placard from the driver from the hotel. Don’t see it – damnit, maybe the drive left because of the luggage delay. Go through again and see it. Hurray! Nice to be back at the Country Lodge hotel, starting to feel like home. Exhausted but can’t sleep. Take an amazing shower and head to dinner at the outdoor café. Grab some more sushi while I can. Nice to be back in regular email contact w the world.

Up early, can’t charge my computer (no compatible outlet) so been writing out notes on talk. Head to conference, finally crack open the computer, and make changes to the ppt, and upload the talk. Catch a few talks, practice talk one more time, and finally, four days in and at 17:00 I give it. The podium is completely lateral to the screen, and I’m a big wigged out as I approach and move away from the mic to highlight things on the screen. Overall happy with how it goes and get some good feedback. Head out with ant crowd at night and we enjoy some “table taps” (=tall tube o beer with tap which sits on table) and a communal dinner of assorted appetizers, the most tender chunk of pork on the bone I’ve ever had, and some take-out chicken from “Mondos” – technically fast food, but it’s the juiciest, tastiest, perfectly spicy chicken I’ve had in a long time. While walking from Mondo’s back to the hotel we consider hitting up the oddly named “Action Bar,” but even with a whole crew assembled, we decide it’s probably not in our best interest.

No alarm, and I rush to catch shuttle for two talks and both are cancelled! But during that time I run into a termite researcher who has done a ton of work around Mpala and we have a good chat. Have a free afternoon (no talks scheduled) and some of wonder how best to get out and see Durban. But then we learn of the transit workers' strike in which they’re quoted in the paper as saying anyone seen using public transportation “should be prepared to suffer the consequences.” The conference cancels its tours because of reports of buses being ignited and taxis being turned over. So I spend the afternoon in the hotel, work a bit on the talk, and wander across the street to peruse the street merchants wares. I grab a handful of money and it works perfected for bartering. Have dinner in a neighboring hotel with some Brits and (enjoy?) some British academic humor. Snap a nighttime view from the hotel room.

Meet Andre at 645a and catch the sunrise over Indian Ocean. After I take my obligatory feet-in-a-new-body-of-water shot, we stash our stuff, grab some boogie boards, and promptly jump off the pier into the ocean. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in an ocean and I’m surprised and delighted to taste the watery salt. I forget how thrilling and relaxing it is to see a rolling wave approach and feel yourself rise and fall and it flows past, almost through you. Andre helps me catch a wave and I get to ride it all the way into to shore. Beeee-utiful. We catch some breakfast at a little beachside restaurant and chat about travel and life and all that’s good. After a quick tour of downtown Durban we part ways with the possibility of meeting up again when travels will bring me through Nairobi later this summer. Thanks again, Andre!

Hit a whole slew of talks and realize there’s a ‘Beach Party’ put on by the conference just a few hundred feet from my hotel. We’re greeted by dancers and we enter a huge tent with a huge buffet and two bars on the sand. Run into a few folks I know and spend a good chunk of time by the water eating and drinking with them. Check out the band under the tent that play American pop songs with an African beat and watch the academics turn it loose on the dance floor. By the end of the night us ant geeks have found each other and end up joining the lifeguards in a game of chuck-the-frisbee-like-plastic-chair-tops down the beach. After that gets old, I walk across the street and turn in for the night.