After a short hiatus, the daily rod is back with a report. Since last posting I've swung through Kenya, dashed about Rome, floated up the Nile, and trained it to Alexandria. Hosni Mubarak granted a bouquet of democracy to the people of Egypt, Syria may pull out of Lebanon, Iraq is a flowering democracy, and I'm celebrating by accepting a job in our department of war.

In January I traveled and in February I entertained. I stopped first in Nairobi, Kenya, where I breathed clean air for the first time since Eastern Europe. But this air was real clean - Africa clean - if that exists (it should). My friend Marianne picked me up at the airport, and that week we visited the Masai Mara Natural Reserve, spotting 4 of the Big 5 (Lions, Leopard, Buffalo, Elephants), missing out on the Rhinos. But the Kenyan great plains compensated us with beautiful scenery and cheetah sightings galore. During the high season one sees millions of animals while they migrate across the continent, but one sees hundreds of vans stuck in a line, and from what I hear, it feels like you see more people than animals. We went during the low season, and at times, had the place all to ourselves. From the northern planes we flew south to Mombasa and took a two hour bus ride to the small resort town of Watamu. After 2 nights of a tent and no shower, the hotel looked very nice. We laid out on the white beaches where Hemingway went deep sea fishing, and tried our tongues at Italian (well, I can't speak a word, but Marianne proved proficient). The highlight was my dad's birthday gift - nothing less than a 5 foot wooden giraffe, crafted by a 4 and a half foot tall Watamu native, who must have used a step-stool to finish the piece, whittled from a solid log of wood. The craftsman assured us that he'd wrap it up nicely for us (it had to get back to New York, I explained), which meant newspaper and paper bags. The two-hour bus ride into Watamu changed into a two-hour shared van ride which looked just like the pictures you may have seen - a 14 person van filled with 25 sweaty Kenyans and two sweaty, tired, nervous Americans (my Short Hills nose proved fragile, I can assure you). Nervous because our flight left in three hours and we had zero time to get there. But we arrived and a taxi sped us to the airport, where we actually had time for a beer and a proper wrapping of the wooden giraffe (apparently that's what they do best at the Mombasa airport).

More later, enjoy the pictures.