Heading back to the Rift Valley in our new 4x4!

We have finally secured ourselves a 4x4, and we're going to be testing it out this weekend (assuming we get our insurance sorted before then) on a trip back up north to the Rift Valley. It's a 1993 Suzuki Sierra, which is similar to the Suzuki SJ's or Samurai's on the North American market. Sort of like a small Jeep. I'll have a some pictures/video of it up soon, but for now here's a shot that I pulled off the internet which is somewhat similar:

The roof on ours is quite a bit taller, with small windows above the rear windows. Also, there is a cargo rack on top for storage and an extra spare tire. It's a small little 4x4, but it's supposed to be great off road, and also very good on gas.

This time we will be going a little bit further than last week to a lake called Lake Nakuru. It's about 150km away from Nairobi, and is just north of Lake Naivasha where we were last weekend. The lake is famous for it's numerous flamingo which come to the lake to feed on the abundant algae which thrive in its warm alkaline waters. There is a larger variety of animals at this park than at Hells Gate (where we were last week), and we're hoping to see Rhino, leopards, lions, waterbuck, and possibly even pythons! Here's a satelite photo of the park, and you can see Lake Naivasha just beyond it (looking south), and Nairobi (where the 4 thumbtacks are) at the top middle of the photo:

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In other news, this Friday is a big day for me as I will be sacrificing half of my 40 lab mice to test their blood for specific type of bacterial toxin. We infected them with the parasite that causes African Sleeping Sickness about a week and a half ago, and the whole experiment is now two weeks in the making. Hopefully the results are good! Since we are testing for bacteria in their blood, the big risk is contamination during the experimental procedure which could lead to false-positive results. That's what we have controls for though, but if contamination does occur then the past two weeks will be lost!