Physical geography I was really surprised to see that the landscape in Kenya is so varied. My favourite bit was the coast around Mombassa, but then I love the turquoise sea, white sand and palm trees. When I finally dragged myself back to work I went to Nairobi, which is a big city very much like a city anywhere in the world. I followed the Rift Valley down the middle of Kenya, and this is where I found all the lakes and extinct volcanoes. I also went to Lake Victoria, the largest Lake in Africa, where I met a couple of hungry hippos who seemed to have me on their menu. Apparently my mistake was to stand between them and the water as they like to make a quick get away. One day I managed to stand with one foot north of the equator and one foot south. I remembered hearing something at school about water going down the plughole a different way south of the equator, but I'd forgotten my sink and it started to rain so we moved on. It rained a lot when I was there and seemed to start at exactly 4o'clock every day. Apparently it rains most between March and May, and then a bit in some areas between October and December. Mount Kenya is 5,199m tall so way too high for me to want to walk up it but I met a man who had. He said that it's like being on the moon near the top, apart from the fact it's covered in snow. North of Mount Kenya the landscape gets very dry and rugged, so we didn't stop very long. Instead we went on safari (travel) to the Maasai Mara where we saw lions, buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, crocodiles, leopards, elephants, cheetahs, hyena and jackals. Then, whilst driving through Tsavo, I saw a herd of pink elephants! My first thought was that someone had swapped my soda for pombe (beer), but it turns out that it's because of a special type of mud that the elephants bathe in.