ONE8 - Hands Across the World (Official Music Video)

R.Kelly & ONE8 (African artist including my Kenyan Amani)in 'Hands Across the World'... never been this proud of being African. Great track!

COAST O

Trips by urbanites to the Kenyan coast are all the hype due to the night life coupled by the 'Las Vegas' notion of what happens at the coast stays there. From the humid climate to the Swahili foods, from the Coastal culture to the foreign investment... the Kenyan coast has a lot to offer. My trip this year was just that... What has the coast got to offer apart from the rave? Fort Jesus never disappoints especially with a good historians as company. I was lucky to ride the new ferries though the crowds are a disaster waiting to happen. Remember the movie White Masaai? the attraction begun on the old ferries. A visit to the Gede ruins and the Vasco da Gama pillar in Malindi was the highlights. Hope the pictures tell it all.

SAFARI RALLY... Safo!

Though the Worlds greatest rally lost its FIA status the memories of Safari Rally or Safo ( slang/sheng) will forever remain with me. The joy of watching rally cars zoom past at high speeds then getting stuck in the mud is the hallmark of the rally. When rains & Easter holidays were synonymous with Safari Rally. This years event didn't disappoint any bit, the trills, the adrenaline rush characterized the Thika section.

ANIMAL NOTICES

I once saw a warning/notice over a bridge advising elephants to cross singularly because of their weight & found it hilarious. Was it actually directed at the elephants or all animals including the humans. You got to give it up to the Hospitality industry for humour at times.

Archaeological Tourism

Archaeology (also archeology)
... the study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts and other physical remains.

Courtesy of a south african client trying to publish an atlas I ventured into a new frontier, archeological tourism. A visit to local prehistoric sites was a start. On friday I set out to Hyrax hill in Nakuru named after some extinct rodent called hyrax.

Hyrax hill has a museum but main attraction is the Sirikwa excavated sites. Sirikwas are the ancestors of the masaai community. Took me the whole afternoon to locate Gamble's cave in Nakuru. Met a guy called Kabiru (bridgepartnerkenya@yahoo.com) who is trying to market the site due to its difficult terrain. Gamble dicovered it back in the '40s but nothing has been done ever since. The following sunday, it was the journey to Olorgosaile on your way to Magadi. The landscape to lake Magadi is awesame. Here the formation of the rift valley is at its best. According to officials at Olorgosaile, the area was under sea evidenced by type of soil. Olorgosaile did not disappoint. The climax for me was the bones of extict elephant compared to the current elephants we have now. The difference in size trully illustrates the gigantic animals that walked on this earth. cant imagine the size of the dinosaurs. This frontier is worth exploring!

The Marvels of Japanese Technology: Sondu-Miriu HEP

A visit to Sondu Miriu HEP plant was worth every shilling. From Kisumu town it looked like an all weather road on a hill, but the marvel that awaited me was just breath taking. Here's a bit of its background. Water was diverted from the Sondu river at the Intake through a 6.2 km long tunnel. A surface mounted penstock then takes the water down the Nyakach escarpment to the Power Station below. In the Powerhouse, harnessing the water and the head, the turbines are turned to generate the electricity. The water is then returned to the Sondu river approximately 13km downstream of the intake via a 4.7km long Outlet Channel.

ONCE IN A LIFE TIME! THE SOLAR ECLIPSE.

Once in a life time moment. This morning of January 15th, 2010 I set upon to shoot the solar eclipse. Here's a write up from wikipedia on the issue "... the solar eclipse of January 15, 2010 is an annular eclipse of the Sun with a magnitude of 0.9190. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partially obscuring Earth's view of the Sun. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun, causing the sun to look like an annulus (ring), blocking most of the Sun's light. An annular eclipse will appear as partial eclipse over a region thousands of miles wide... the eclipse starts at the Central African Republic, traverses Cameroon, Congo and Uganda, passes through Nairobi, Kenya, and enters the Indian Ocean and reaches greatest eclipse."

Now you understand my excitement? Here below are my shots... ENJOY!