[ THIS SITE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION ] «EQUATORIAL RUSSIA» Trip To East Africa : Kenya, Tanzania 22 December 2006 -- 6 January 2007 Presentd by Konstantin Yakovlev ( USA )

Hello !      Don't be surprised or confused by the name of the site ! This site has nothing to do with Russia. It describers our trip to East Africa : to Kenya and Tanzania. We are a group of 12 tourists from different countries who went to Kenya and Tanzania to sea the countries, to see the wildlife, to see how the local people live. I gave the site this name because I am originally from Russia and my first three impressions of Equatorial Africa were the weather which reminded a fair summer in central Russia : moderetly warm ( ~20°C in daytime, ~10°-15°C in nighttime ) and enough cloudy, wet and rainy, then the bad and dirty roads crossing the wide green fields, some agricultural areas, some groves and poor villages as one can see it in the rural Russia, and definitely very familiar problems with exchanging the money : like in Russia, not all US Dollars bills which are the legal tender in the USA were accepted in Currency Exchange. Besides that, after a first few days in that Africa I got so sick of being cold and wet, that I was just unable not to use this site to mention Russian conditions.      Our two weeks Kenya Safari & Usumbara Mountain Trek (DKD) trip was arranged by «GAP Adventures» Travel Agency ( Canada ).      Our overall impression of our adventures was GREAT. Nobody was sorry that he or she went, everybody had plenty of fun, came back excited, impressed, safe and sound.

Our Group and Local Guides Alphonce Mallya, our Group Leader is on the right in green T-shirt

We were a group of twelve tourists from USA, UK, Canada and Italy. Two families of four persons each : one family from Canada ( husband, wife and two daughters ) and another family from Italy ( husband, wife and two sons ), and four single persons : three guys ( from USA, Canada and UK ) and a lady ( from USA ). Besides us, there were the Tour Leader and local guides from Tanzania, and a guy from New Zeland who was helping the local guides doing some work for «GAP Adventures».

I know, this site is a long overdue. I wanted to put the detailed description of each day spent in Africa illustrating the story with hundreds of images I took there, but unfortunately I didn't have a chance... And now I am not sure I will ever complete it... This year of 2007 was ( and still is ) a tough one for me : I was very busy with my work, I went through the divorce, now I am going through the eye problems. In October I went through two unsuccessful eye surgeries, and now more eye surgeries are to come...      While this site is incomplete ( and for the reasons I mentioned above it may never be completed... ), here is the link to a draft collection of uncommented images of this trip. It contains from 10 to more than 200 images per safari day.