Kenya (Part 1)
Kenya (Part 1)July/August 2004
To be honest, I had always thought I’d leave the African continent until last. A few visits to Northern Africa (Morocco twice, Tunisia, Egypt four visits) had seemed enough to be going on with. Kenya, however had been on my Top 10 list for years. With 6 whole weeks off in the summer from my College teaching job, and enough funds (which you really need to do the highlights), I decided to tackle East Africa.
I flew to Nairobi, Kenya on Sunday July 11th with Kenyan Airways. Despite a packed plane (lots of Americans going on safari trips), the service was good. Especially the free alcohol. I sat next to a Kenyan, who, when the drinks trolley came past for the first time, asked for and received 2 cans of beer and 3 mini whiskeys. Throughout the flight, he would get up to help himself and always bring me more Tusker beer. A vast improvement on Malaysian Airways that would only give me 2 cans of beer on a 9 hour flight “in case I got drunk”.
4500 miles, 3 movies and around 9 hours later, we touched down at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, 9pm local time (2 hours ahead of UK time). Hot and humid. I stood in the line to get a Kenyan Visa ($50) and was processed faster than those arriving with visas! It took an hour for the luggage to be unloaded and an indication of which flight the luggage came off would have been nice!
No public transport was running at night and Nairobi is not the greatest city to arrive after dark. I had contacted a cheap hotel in advance which had a tour company and they were waiting to give me a free 15km ride to the hotel which was gratefully received (saving a $12 taxi ride). The Greton Hotel at $15 a night is one of the cheaper places in town, but it is situated near the worst part of town; River Road, which all guidebooks tell you to stay the hell away from. All hotels/businesses in this area have security guards or ‘Askari’.
Settled in, Robert, the friendly tour rep from www.mountsafaris.com visited me to discuss what I wanted to do and what it would cost. Climbing Mt Kenya was my first ambition. Unlike, say Nepal, where you can do everything yourself very cheaply, Africa has the monopoly sewn up, whereby you have to employ guides, porters, chefs and then there are the Park fees which have been inflated to milk any tourist of their US Dollars. I had expected to pay around $450 for the climb, so I was relieved to get it down to $350. I was also fortunate that a guide had just finished a trip and was in Nairobi so I could start immediately. I noticed that like the Indians, the Kenyans have the quaint habit of not bothering to knock before entering your room. Good job I wasn’t scratching my balls.
The noise of construction next door woke me at 6am. Which was nice. The grimy noisy streets were alive with gridlocked honking matatus (public minibuses which compete with the buses), bustling markets, hustlers and heaving populations of people. This was just outside the westernized city centre and a major African city ‘in your face’.
Nairobi, or ‘Nairobbery’ as the residents call it, is now regarded, after Johannesburg, as the most dangerous city in Africa. Statistics reported that up to 40% of the population had been mugged, robbed or carjacked over the last few years. I think security has been improved and I did see plenty of police on the streets, but it will take a long time to live down this reputation. No one uses a mobile phone in the open because they are prime targets (I met one tourist who had been robbed of his on his first day. Doh!).
With a population of 2.5 million it is the largest city between Cairo and Johannesburg. It is a completely modern creation built over the last 100 years, the original English capital in Kenya and nerve centre of the East African railway. The modern city centre is surrounded by shanty towns and homeless people whom I saw endlessly during my 5 visits in and out of the place. While there are lots of touristy things to do in the suburbs, I hated Nairobi and was always relieved to leave as soon as possible.
Photo of Nairobi
Another photo of Nairobi
Photo of a Nairobi market
Photo of Nairobi streetboys
Note: if you arrive and wander around the tour companies independently, you will be pestered incessantly on the streets by touts offering trips. As soon as you have signed on, you are left alone. The touts obviously all call each other and describe who has been ‘captured’. I was amazed that no one bothered me on the streets, so word had been passed on. “If you see that fat, sweaty English bloke – he’s mine”.
I had paid over the $350 in cash. No contract. ”Don’t worry”, Robert said “I’m not going to rip you off for only $350!” After a fried breakfast, my guide arrived. Robin (so now that made 3 of us called Robert) was a jovial 26 year old from the foothills of Mt Kenya. His wife and 2 children lived in Nairobi with his mother, but he looked after the family’s small holding near Mt Kenya when not trekking. I left half my luggage at the hotel.
Part of the deal to cut the cost, was that instead of hiring private transport, we would catch a ‘shared taxi’ out of Nairobi. It was one of those huge Citroen jobs which I had used in Tunisia, Egypt and throughout the Middle East. There were 8 of us in the car. Two passengers up front with the driver and two sets of 3 passengers behind and the luggage at the back. While we waited to leave, hawkers stuck their wares through the open windows: cheap watches, newspapers, mobile phone re-chargers, pens and assorted crap.
We pulled out of town through miles of desolation; past homeless people lying beside small fires around dusty roundabouts, cows wandering around the streets eating the rubbish and massive markets of rickety wooden stalls selling piles of clothing, shoes, vegetables. It reminded me of Jakarta and any large Indian city except that the population was completely black.
Photo of a typical Kenyan market
Inside the car, there was an animated conversation about Kenyan politics in English and Swahili. We passed dusty villages with women sitting on the ground behind small piles of vegetables and locals cycling on their ‘sit up and beg’ bikes and hoards of matatus racing each other to pick up passengers.
Swahili is the local language and it’s pretty easy to pick up. You are greeted by ‘Jambo’ (hello) by everyone. ‘Waburi?’ (how are you?). ‘Nzuri’ (good). ‘Asante sana’ (thank you very much’). ‘Hakuna Matata’ (no problem). I never did find out the word ‘Shithole’ in Swahili to describe Nairobi.
At Karatina we stopped to allow the driver to pour more water into the engine and we were immediately surrounded by a dozen women holding huge bunches of bananas; the “attack of the banana women”. They looked like they were holding massive baseball gloves made of bananas. These were thrust through every window into our faces with lots of yelling. Robin bought a load for our trek and passed some around the car. The car also suffered from bad suspension, due to the endless potholed roads, and at the back, as we rattled and lurched over them, my sore arse probably had a roadmap of potholes imprinted on it. This was due to El Nino which had ripped up the road some years back.
We were headed into the Central Highlands. Densely populated and intensively cultivated, this is Kenya’s heartland and forms the eastern wall of the Great Rift Valley. The region with its red/black soil is very fertile. It looked as if you could drop a stick and it would grow. Small holdings and some tea plantations. Glorious countryside – verdant green on top of the red soil. Cows, goats, sheep pottering around. Schoolyards full of small children (One primary school sign read “Discipline and Hard Work for Success”). Bicycles everywhere. Populated by the Kikuyu people who eventually forced the British out in the early 1960’s and reclaimed their land.
Brief Kenyan background: a large country straddling the Equator of about 600,000 sq km including 14,000km of part of inland Lake Victoria. The Great Rift Valley dominates the country. Originally an English colony in the late 19th Century, they gained independence in 1963. Agriculture employs 80% of the 31 million people (which includes over 70 tribal groups). Tourism is also a major money spinner but after the US Embassy bombings in 1998, tourism died a death. This year, tourism had finally returned to the good old days. On the day I arrived, I read that the United Nations had declared Kenya, the 30th poorest country in the world. Less than half of the people have access to clean drinking water. I did meet many English/Irish University (especially medical) students who were doing voluntary work over the summer. Corruption still seems widespread.
We emerged from the folded landscapes of Kikuyu cultivation onto a high, windswept plain. Yellow and grey downs, scattered with stands of tall gum trees and roamed by cattle. At the modest scruffy town of Naro Moru, we disembarked and headed for the ‘Nice and Spicy’ restaurant for excellent beef stew, salad and a plate of chips on top (the East Africans sure do like chips. It became my staple diet) and chapattis to mop up the gravy, followed by sweet milky tea for less than £1. On the TV above us was a surreal sight: German news in English, except that it was old news. Euro 2004 and Wimbledon were due to start next week. They had both finished before I even arrived in Kenya.
Grabbing a matatu, we were dropped 8km north at the entrance of the Mountain View Bantu Lodge. It was a kilometre in along a dusty road past a sign that proclaimed “If you are not doing anything – don’t do it here”. The lodge was a comfortable affair catering for tourists. I checked into a lovely spacious double ensuite room with the weirdest contraption I had ever seen on a shower. It looked like a large hairdryer but at least it provided hot water later.
Usually, the Mt Kenya trekkers are dumped here for the afternoon/evening while the guide goes to sort out food, porters, chef etc. I told Robin that I would prefer to join him rather than explore the obligatory but rather dull ‘Mau Mau’ caves. I wanted to see how normal rural Kenyans lived. He was surprised “No tourist has ever asked this” but pleased at my enthusiasm. Since he came from the area, he seemed to know everyone and we hitched a ride down the road to the hamlet of Muriru.
Robin led me down a dusty trail through dusty holdings until we reached a small clutter of wooden buildings. This was his home. His father had died in 2000 and his mother was ill in Nairobi so he was in charge of the 7 acres. He proudly toured me around his crop of ‘snow beans’ which were harvested and exported. There was also maize and potatoes, but due to the lack of water this year, the potatoes were “useless”. He was also concerned that his small herd of cattle were not getting enough water. But both they and the goats seemed ok. His 18 year old brother seemed to be looking after the place.
We sat in the ‘formal’ room, well as formal as you can get in a 2 roomed wooden shack with a corrugated iron roof. Just a few chairs, low table and wooden cabinet on a tiled floor, but very clean. He tried to get his brother’s mobile phone working. His brother wore a Manchester United football shirt. We talked about music but the 18 year old had heard of noone except Michael Jackson. He did not understand the term ‘kiddy fiddler’. We drank warm milky tea from a flask.
Walking back to the main road, thunder echoed in the distance but no rain. No sign of Mt Kenya either, shrouded in mist. The local schools were being emptied and as the ‘token white boy’ (Mzungu), we soon gathered an entourage of 20 kids who followed behind. Small children passed by in thick coats and woolly hats (It was 35’C and I was sweating in just shorts/T-shirt). “Why are they wearing these in this heat?” I asked. “Because the mornings are very cold and they have to wrap up for school”. My first impressions of Kenyans were of friendly, open people. They walked up to Robin and me with a ‘Jambo’ and a handshake.
Robin had told me about the British Army based up the road at Nanyuki. “They help to build schools and hospitals, and donate computers to schools. They do a great job and are very popular. Some of them marry locals and buy land around here”.
We waved down a matatu to Nanyuki, another heaving market town, and slap bang on the Equator. Every shop or business was called “Equator” this or that and an official “You are now on the Equator at 6389 ft” sign.
Photo of the Nanyuki Equator sign
Late in the afternoon, we holed up at the Joskaki Hotel with a bar upstairs. A sign on the wall said “To our esteemed customers, the management wishes to announce that we will not entertain the chewing of Miraa (local beetle juice) in the hotel as from the date of this notice” (no date). My ‘porter’ (Joseph, 30) and ‘chef’ (Justice, 18) joined us. Time to buy the ‘team’ a Tusker beer! (£0.44 a pint!). Robin suffering from acidic stomach and clutching his Milk of Magnesium, stuck to tea. Lightweight! A pot of tea came with two doorstop slices of white bread, butter and jam for £0.30.
They got the waitress to turn the TV over to the Kenyan version of MTV, hosted by the unfortunately named DJ called ‘Poxy’. I tried to explain that this word meant ‘shit’ in England. And boy was he shit. As was the music. They sat memorised by all the New York (c)rap rappers with slinky, scantily clad women oozing around the videos. “Not like Kenya” was the verdict. God, how I missed rock and roll in East Africa. I was doomed to a soundtrack of lame Caribbean reggae and pretentious (c)rap music throughout my trip and it was terrible! Top tip. Bring a portable CD player and your own CDs. You know it makes sense.
We later visited the local ‘supermarket’ to buy the ‘trekking food’ while I hunted around for the necessities (peanuts, biscuits, alcohol). As dusk approached, we left Robin in town and my two porters escorted me back to the lodge. “We must protect you from the elephants” they said as we pottered up the dusty trail (still no sign of people doing nothing). From out of nowhere came the sound of a cat being strangled. It turned out to be a baboon.
Everything was organised at the lodge. My dinner had been ordered in advance. Roast chicken, veg and, er, chips which was delicious. I had a roaring wooden fire behind me. Assorted tourists appeared including a French trekking team who I would meet later. As I was finishing, an elderly Kenyan man arrived to play German folk songs on his accordion. My cue to leave. Outside the room, half a dozen Maasai tribesmen stood ready for their cabaret bit. Sorry folks, I didn’t hang around. I had a hairdryer/shower to destroy.
For my first day in Kenya (and I can’t believe how much I have written about my first impressions), I’d been very impressed. Friendly people, good food, cheap beer. I felt as if I’d escaped the tourist route and seen how local people live. I thought that the countryside was stunning. Robin had said “Kenyans don’t discriminate between black and white. Everyone should be your friend”. It was a novelty for me to have a “guide” so I made the most of it. I also think that Robin appreciated the fact that I was not a “normal tourist”. He had someone who wanted to see the real Kenya, not just a glossy brochure Kenya.
A very warm and comfortable bed only to be awakened by a donkey. After another fried breakfast, I explored the grounds and came across a large troop of baboons; males, females, youngsters and babies hanging on to the undercarriage of the mothers which roamed around the picnic grounds. In the fig trees behind, black and white Colobus monkeys with their long white tails, leaped above me between the branches.
Note: You get used to ‘African time’. Nothing starts on time. The 9.30am start turned out to be 10.30am. Joseph, my porter turned up to keep me company. The ‘team’ arrived and we returned to Nanyuki for lots of hanging around. With a short walk on the first day, they preferred to hang around civilisation (on an independent run I would have started yesterday). The local newspaper “Daily Nation” reported “2 men buried alive while digging a pit latrine. 10m below surface, the walls collapsed”. Also “farmer trampled to death by elephant”. At the post office, it took 15 minutes to buy stamps (just like England!). Wandering around Nanyuki, I discovered “Arsenal” signs everywhere (English football club; current champions) and an ‘HIV warning’ billboard with a picture of a coffin.
Mid afternoon, we jumped in a taxi for the 14km ride outside town and onto the dusty red to the start of the ‘Sirimon’ trail. It was dusty until fat rain started to splat the car. Within minutes there were foot wide streams running either side of the car. Huge claps of thunder and lightening. Then the hail stones started. Wrath of God stuff. Which was nice. Heading up a hill, the taxi lost its traction and slid back. I was happy enough to sit tight until the worst was over, but Robin decided that he and the team should don waterproofs and try and push the car. The first attempts just resulted in them being splattered in red mud. I wanted to get out and help but they insisted that my “weight” was necessary to give the car traction. But the water was coming down so hard that they abandoned all efforts and climbed back in to the car.
Suddenly the rain stopped but the track was pure mud. We were only a mile from the Park entrance and Robin, Justice and me walked on, leaving Joseph to help the taxi driver get back down the trail. At Park HQ, Justice made ham and banana sandwiches and brewed up the tea on a portable stove. The park rangers laughed at me in just shorts and walking boots. “Brave man” they yelled.
The skies were overcast but we set off for Old Moses camp up a 4 wheel drive track for the 9km trek. We walked through forests, where large water buck deer flashed across the path before us. A huge African Fish Eagle floated above. It was a gradual climb. In Joseph’s absence, Robin was carrying my pack as well as his. I was not used to not carrying my pack while trekking, and offered to take mine. Robin refused. “It is good for my training”. Africans seem to have no idea that outside Africa, we do everything ourselves, but I suppose they see it as all part of the service that we are paying top dollar for. Justice carried all the food and his toothbrush. The path was undulating but easy.
As dusk appeared, it was a bit of a surprise to come across Old Moses Camp at 3300m. The French group (from the lodge) were already settled into the wooden accommodation. Having sweated profusely in the thick humidity, I stripped down naked and washed myself down by the outside water supply with a bowl. The Kenyan porters looked on amazed. How can he suffer the cold water? They would usually just wash their faces and brush their teeth.
The ‘camp’ was three wooden buildings. The main one contained a few bunk rooms (of which I had one to myself), plus a ‘mess area’ for eating and a gas lamp for lighting. I was surprised to find western flush toilets. Adjoining it was a ‘kitchen’ area where the chefs produced dinner by candlelight on gas stoves (all hauled up with them). A separate building had primitive sleeping quarters for the guides and porters. I have no idea how he did it, but within an hour of arriving, Justice produced a wonderful steak dinner with roast potatoes.
I climbed into my new 4 season sleeping bag in my bunk bed with my clothes on. I had never experienced such a warm sleeping bag. I awoke during the night in pitch dark, tucked into my sleeping bag, suffering from claustrophobic overheating. Struggling out, I stripped. My sleeping bag was warm enough to sleep naked in. At altitude, you have some surreal dreams. You dream about people in your life that you have long forgotten about and they are right there, talking to you, as if it was yesterday.
Awaking, naturally in the cold dawn, I saw a mouse scuttling across the floor. Justice had a fried breakfast waiting. There were spectacular views up to the hills to the peaks of Mt Kenya which dominated the horizon. We climbed up an endless hill and at the top dropped into the Liki Valley which taxed my knees. Then another endless climb up to a ridge and a wonderful view along the MacKinder Valley. The Africans have an expression “Pole, Pole (pronounced Polay) meaning ‘slowly, slowly’ but in charge of my own team, I was able to dictate the pace and Robin soon realised that I didn’t walk slowly regardless of altitude.
It was a beautiful valley with an undulating trail easy on the legs. Giant Rosella plants stuck up like mini palm trees, but there were no flowers on them. The small Ontulili River rushed past below us with towering rocks cliffs to our left and a wide expanse of low lying shrubs on the hills across the river. It was a hot day. Rather than stop for lunch, I pushed on with Robin. If there was another afternoon downpour, I wanted to be under cover. One last push up to Shipton Lodge at 4200m arriving around 2pm. The 15km had taken around 5 hours. The Lodge was a similar affair and had flush toilets. Mt Kenya loomed above us. I climbed another 200m and sunbathed and dropped back down following the best rule of altitude climbing: climb high, but sleep low (at a lower altitude than you have climbed).
Two young attractive Swedish medical students were based at the lodge doing an investigation on altitude sickness. They interviewed everyone (including the porters). Blood pressure was taken and we were weighed. I was shocked to weigh in at 108 kilos, my heaviest ever (nothing to do with the beer or fried breakfasts). Their investigations proved no pattern. 80% of the porters smoked and had no problems. We had passed the French group who had left much earlier. They had remarked at me in just shorts and called me ‘Mr Tough Guy’. I always lose my appetite at altitude and could only finish half the lunch/dinner that was cooked.
Robin had said that we would leave around 3am for the summit. I attempted to get an early night. I was sharing a bunk room with the French, who unconscious and full of vegetables, farted endlessly. I learnt the French for “For Christ’s sake, someone light a match!”
My alarm went at 2.30am and I had everything at hand to dress in the dark while the French snored and farted. They were having a day off. Justice was up making tea but complaining of a headache. I wasn’t sure if he had altitude sickness and gave him a couple of aspirins and told him to descend if he didn’t improve. During the trip, I was an “honoured tourist”, allowed to sit in the ‘kitchen’ with the chefs and porters and away from the ‘normal tourists’. This was probably because they had never seen anyone walk in just shorts.
We finally dragged Robin up at his slumbers around 3.30am. Eerily quiet, and pitch black apart from the carpet of stars overhead in the clear cloudless night. I had packed cold gear, but stuck to my shorts, T-shirt and gloves. Robin had a decent torch.
It was a steep, slow plod of 7km in complete darkness. I’m not the greatest fan of night trekking. No orientation. You can’t see how far you have walked or where you are. I also trip over rocks a lot. Breathing heavily, but pacing myself, we climbed up the main ascent. We only passed one other tourist and his guide. It can get very cold at the summit and the secret is to arrive just in time for the sunrise, and not have to hang around in the freezing winds. We finally made it to a ‘flat area’ (missing the tarn in the dark) with just the final summit to go.
We discovered a large group of English University students wrapped in winter gear and holed up in a secluded spot, chattering away like a penguin colony. Pushing on past them (“Hey! That dude is just wearing shorts. Unbelievable!”), we clambered up the steep rocky trail: a killer on the breathlessness and made the summit at 6.15 am. I felt obliged to yell “I AM A GOLDEN GOD!” (see “Almost Famous” movie) at the top as the penguins struggled up behind us. Photo sessions. Over in the east, a giant orange ball ascended, punctuating the yellow/red layer of mist. Sunrise on Mt Kenya at Point Lenana at 4985m. The second highest mountain in Africa. There are a couple of higher peaks rising to 5199m but only attainable with rock climbing gear. They looked awesome. We had walked as high as we could. The sunlight revealed a small glacier below us. Due to the clouds/mist, Mt Kilimanjaro was not visible.
Lonely Planet says “An extinct volcano, some three and a half million years old, with jagged peaks rising to 5200m, Mount Kenya is Africa’s second highest mountain. Its heart is actually the remains of a gigantic volcanic plug – the mountain stood at over 7200m above sea level about a million years ago – from which most of the outpourings of lava and ash have been eroded by glacial action to create the distinctive silhouette”.
Photo of Mount Kenya
And Another Photo of Mount Kenya
After 30 minutes at the summit, I was freezing and we retraced back down a short cut with an array of awful scree slopes. So steep, I was falling down all the time, ripping my shorts and battering the hell out of my toes. My 44 year old knees were not up to this punishment. It was a terrible, painful descent of 90 minutes. At least I could admire the views when I wasn’t falling over. Shipton Lodge was visible early on, but seemed to take an age to reach. We arrived back at 8.30am where breakfast was waiting. Justice was ok.
After that ordeal, it would have been nice to hole up and rest, but it would have added an extra $70 for my crew to sit around. I had said that I wanted to keep going. So with tired legs, Robin and I set off back down the valley for another 15km. Dark clouds and mist descended behind us. We retraced the climb back to the ridge and up and down the steep valleys and a final long descending trek back to Old Moses.
Two large groups of tourists and attending porters passed us going up. They looked miserable in the overcast weather. My toes felt painful and it felt like blood was filling my boots. I knew I felt like shit but when I asked Robin how he was he would always reply “No problem”. But I knew he wasn’t. When he stopped for a pee and said “I’ll catch up”, he never did. I ended up waiting 10 minutes.
As with Shipton Lodge, it is awful when you can see your destination and know that it is still 90 minutes away. Robin lagged behind again. We finally arrived at 2.30pm after the 5 hour trek, absolutely shattered. 29km today climbing from 4200m to nearly 5000m and then back down to 3300m. It was the equivalent of walking up and down Britain’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis, three times in the same day. Getting on for 11 hours of walking. Removing my boots, I found 3 toenails were completely black. After swallowing some lunch (Joseph and Justice were ahead of us), we crawled into sleeping bags and slept. I later dragged myself out for dinner. Robin didn’t even bother to get up so I knew it had been a tough day. Newly arrived trekkers looked at me and thought “What’s his problem?”
No rest for the wicked. Up at 6.30am for breakfast and we descended the easy 9km back to Park HQ in glorious sunshine. A park ranger yelled “Hey! Mr No Shirt. How ya doing?” Our taxi driver arrived and drove us back to Nanyuki. Farewell beers with the team and generous tipping for the excellent service and taxing experience. Robin and I clambered into a shared taxi back to Nairobi, along bumpy roads and numerous police checks. The Kenyan Government has tightened up on overcrowded Matatus and shared taxis and is rigorously enforcing it with road blocks. Long planks of wood with large spikes poking out are laid out which you cannot pass through until you get the ok.
Nairobi’s outskirts were a disaster area. Black exhaust fumes from all the trucks. Gridlocked getting into town. Swarms of people. Back at the Greton Hotel I said goodbye to Robin and enjoyed my first hot shower in days and got my room for free. I’m sure after reading this account that you will never want to climb Mt Kenya, but I promised Robin that I would stick his email address on my homepage so that if you do, you can contact him direct and do the trip cheaper by cutting out the company overheads. You can reach him at robingathu@hotmail.com He’s a nice guy and thoroughly recommended. A couple of weeks later he was leading 25 tourists to the summit and organising the entire trip himself.
That night I met Robert to confirm that there was a 4 day safari to the Maasai Mara National Reserve and Lake Nakuru National Park. Bugger me, Nairobi is noisy. At 5.30am the next day, I was awakened by a truck driver taking what seemed an hour to park adjacent to the hotel, where next door a building had been gutted to build yet another hotel. Lots of revving and yelling. Then the African music started – quite pleasant in a way if you like your rhythm at full blast at 6.30am.
Robert joined me for breakfast to fill in the details. As far as safaris go, it’s what every tourist does in Kenya and you get what you pay for. If, like me, you want to try and do it as cheaply as possible, it’s a big risk. Most companies scramble together a couple of clients and then push them onto another company to fill a van/land cruiser. I was paying the standard $80 a day for a ‘camping safari’ and waited to see what happened.
After leaving most of my luggage, a driver was waiting outside who drove me two whole blocks through the gridlock, where I was ushered onto a waiting Land cruiser with Planet Safaris. 5 other tourists sat inside. I had been told there would be 4 more tourists, they had been told there would be 4 tourists and we still ended up with 6. That’s Africa for you.
I got a front window seat for the long journey so I wasn’t complaining. As it turned out, my adjoining companions were a great Dutch couple called Sunni and Miki who were on a 6 month trip and had just flown in from Cairo. We immediately hit it off, comparing travel stories. Personally, I think the Dutch are some of the best travellers I meet in my travels. They understand English humour. Behind us sat, Mari, a Brazilian lady who was doing a month of endless safaris and a quiet dull young Irish couple who were doing voluntary work in Kenya. Our friendly driver, Gabriel was a grizzled, 50s something Kenyan with a low bass voice. Best of all was the fact that we had a robust Toyota Land cruiser with a removable roof that could go anywhere. Many tourists get stuck in minibuses with a pop up roof and no 4 wheel drive. Ironically, before I left, I had discovered a list of blacklisted safari companies on the internet and Planet Safaris was one of them. “A hit or miss company. Sometimes great, often not, with lots of vehicle breakdowns”.
We pottered through the packed, smog ridden, busy Nairobi streets to buy mineral water for the trip. Since I always drink the local water, I bought 4 ice cold bottles of beer for the journey. Parked on the street, we were a magnet for every beggar in the vicinity who knew this was a routine stop. Mothers with babies and outstretched hands.
Part of the reason for the Mara’s fantastic spell is its isolation and due to the terrible roads, it is usually a long 7 hour drive from Nairobi to reach it. Thanks to El Nino, most Kenyan roads seem riddled with potholes. A couple of hours out of the city, we started the long drive across the Great Rift Valley, sweeping across dry, stupendous vistas of range lands – the heart of the Maasai tribe. Cattle are the economic mainstay, but extensive wheat fields are being planted. We stopped for a brief lookout over the massive drop in the earth’s crust that stretches over half the length of Africa (6,000km) and the other edge of mountains shrouded in mist.
Photo of the Great Rift Valley
Once down on the bottom level, we passed Maasai boys and men herding large flocks of goats or cattle. Their distinctive, knee length red woollen garments stood out in the distance. Barefooted, they clutched spears or long sticks. They also wore lots of tribal jewellery, especially in their ears which had had the lower earlobes pierced with inch wide holes. Part of the manhood baptism ceremonies. Passing by dusty hamlets, full of ‘curio’ shops (i.e. crap tourist souvenirs), the Maasai women were dressed in colourful multi-layers of garments and homemade bead jewellery which the men also wore.
Photo of Maasai men
Photo of Maasai women
Photo of Maasaii men with jewellery
The land cruiser battled the dust and potholes. Stuck inside, it was like watching a movie past by us. We were in a bubble, flying past the most stereotypical images of Kenya and tribesmen. No contact, just waving at them. It was a far cry from my usual tactic of using public transport and feeling part of the culture. Sunni and I drank beer and discussed travelling in India while outside, wonderful Kenyan culture was immune to us.
The town of Narok is the funnel through which almost all road transport enters the Maasai Mara Reserve. Here we pulled in for a westernised “tourist” buffet lunch along with all other groups. Beef stew, veg and chips again! The hour stopover allowed me to climb up to the poorer area of town – a dusty, litter strewn street of broken down houses, tiny shops – pretty depressing stuff. Maasai herdsmen pushed their flocks along the main road, as smoking trucks rumbled by.
We stopped in the centre to pick up meat for the trip. I jumped out to replenish the beer supply (as you do). An old Maasai warrior stood outside with his earlobes sporting gaping holes. I tried to converse in Swahili, naively unaware that they have their own language. A couple of locals helped me learn some basic phrases (immediately forgotten).
Outside Narok, it was more drive by movie. The road had been destroyed by El Nino in 97/98 and was a nightmare of rubble and potholes. We were buffeted around inside. A road crew of Maasai men were filling in a few holes. “That will really help” deadpanned Sunni.
We entered barren yellowish savannah lands which were parched dry. Still outside the park, a large herd of giraffes stood near the roadside amongst the taller vegetation. Herds of zebras and gazelles started to appear. Eventually we reached the Sekenani Gate at the eastern section of the park. As we waited while tickets were processed, hoards of Maasai women thrust carved wooden giraffes and masks through the windows yelling prices.
Photo of Giraffes
Closeup Photo of Giraffes
It was around 5pm and the tour itinerary was a 90 minute long safari to get us warmed up. The canvas roof was rolled back allowing us to stand up. (Safari means ‘journey’ in Swahili). Keeping the account short (see the photo links), we saw an array of wildlife: a few giraffes, impala, Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelles, hartebeest, topi, eland, ostriches, a couple of vultures, a couple of lazy lions – surrounded by a dozen safari vans and near the end, a herd of African elephants by the track munching on course prickly bushes. I was memorised and this was only the first 90 minutes! Small white minivans hurtled around trying to make sure that whatever someone else found or thought they had found, they did too. I counted over 30 vehicles on the landscape. It was a bit like a Disney ride. I was glad that I had bought my binoculars. Without them, you miss all the detail.
Lonely Planet says “For a long list of reasons, Maasai Mara is the best animal reserve in Kenya. The panorama sometimes resembles one of those wild animal charts where groups of unlikely looking animal companions are forced into the artists frame”. For once, they were right.
Photo of the Maasai Mara Landscape
Excellent Photos of the Wildlife
We pulled into our camp at dusk; two lines of permanent tents. I was allocated my own clean double tent with two mattresses; a couple of flush toilets in wooden shacks and two wood fuelled showers which I made the most of, even if you needed a torch to use them. The camp was packed with about 50 tourists. When the dinner bell rang, everyone lined up in the eating area like you did for school lunches. Beef stew, veg and rice (for a change). I joked with Sunni that it was a bit like a Prisoner of War camp and we discussed setting up an escape committee.
A few Maasai locals were on hand to offer “traditional dances” by the central fire, which I passed on. Walking back to my tent in the dark, I felt my feet and legs being manically bitten. A flying swarm of fire ants had arrived. Female tourists screamed and ran around. I took a towel to my bare legs and beat around like a crazed drunk. Inside the tent, I picked off the remnants by torchlight including a queen who had taken a nice bite out of my leg. Welcome to a camping safari in Kenya.
Anticipating a rush on the showers, I was up at 5.30am with my head torch and was surprised to find the water piping hot. After a fried breakfast, we loaded onto the land cruiser and were away by 7.15am. For the next 10 and half hours, I stood up, looking out above the roof feeling like Rommell leading the World War Two German African ‘Desert Rats’. “Schnell, Schell, find me ze English Tommy pig dogs”.
It was a stunning day and everything that I hoped would happen. For the first two hours, we didn’t see another safari van, and it felt as if we had the park to ourselves. The reserve is a great wedge of undulating grassland nearly 2000m above sea level, watered by one of Kenya’s bigger rivers, the Mara. The endless yellow savannah grasslands were around a metre high blowing like waves in the wind, occasionally punctuated by beautiful wide spreading Acadia trees and ‘sausage’ trees. One foot long white sausage shaped pods hung down like huge condoms. Full of water, they are used by giraffes and elephants during dry seasons.
The first zebras came into view with gazelles keeping them company. Zebras are beautiful creatures; their black and white stripes a definite improvement on ordinary horses. “I wonder why Africans never learnt to ride Zebras” I asked Sunni. “Too bloody lazy” he replied. A few elephants stood on a hill. Majestic slick purple flanked topi, some standing on small hummocks keeping guard. A couple of lacklustre wildebeest wandering around. “That must be the Wildebeest migration” I said to Sunni. “Yeah, pretty impressive eh?” he replied.
Photo of Zebras
Photo of Gazelle
How wrong we were. As the day rolled on, we came across hundreds of thousands of wildebeest bunched in herds or stretched out over kilometres in single file lines walking across the landscape. At one point we could see wildebeest in every direction on every hill and plain. It looked like the “Buffalo scene” in the ‘Dances with Wolves’ movie expanded 10 times. As the land cruiser reached herds by the dusty trail, they would take off at top speed, the bulls staying last to ensure the rest of the herd was safe. Lots of baby wildebeest and baby zebras, their markings still a burnt brown colour. (Zebras and wildebeest are best buddies in Africa).
Photo of Wildebeest and Zebras
The guidebook said “With a lemming like instinct, finally gelled into mass movement, the herds gather in their hundreds of thousands on the withering plain of Serengeti to begin the long, streaming journey northwards following the scent of moisture and green grass of the Mara. Never the most graceful of animals, they play up to their appearance with frolicsome, unpredictable behaviour bucking like wild horses, springing or suddenly sprinting off for no apparent reason. ”
I was reminded of catching the free ride into Nairobi with another Dutch couple on the first night. They had pre-booked a safari of the Serengeti in Tanzania which is joined to the Maasai Mara on the border, to see the wildebeest migration. Robin had said “Big problem. All the wildebeest are now all in Kenya”. Their hearts sunk. I later met tourists who toured the Serengeti and saw no wildebeest. Doh! I saw them all and it was one of those sights I will never forget. Sorry! Everyone should see this once in their lifetime and not on TV with David Attenborough waffling on in the background.
Somewhere during the morning, we came across a pride of lions; one male, two females and four cubs that all lay in the shade. From out of nowhere, a dozen safari vans appeared and surrounded them, circulating, ignoring Park rules regarding distance to animals, ever closer for that ‘Kodak moment’. When the male and a female got agitated and walked off, the vans followed them on either side. Rather disgusted, we told Gabrielle to get out of there and left the gawping tourists with their zoom lenses.
We came across a dead hyena on the trail (first road kill, a gazelle later). A small turtle also crossed the trail to reach a stream. Turtles? It was pretty much a repeat of yesterday but vast numbers of every species, stretched out over a long day. There were a lot of ostriches, usually one male with three females. He must have been deaf!
Around noon, down near the Tanzanian border and the start of the Serengeti, we stopped at the Mara River for nearly an hour to view the hippos; two dozen stayed submerged, surfacing to blow out air and then duck down again. Baby hippos stayed close to their mothers. A crocodile swam between them and then jumped onto the shore to swallow a large fish. To view the hippos, each group was allocated an armed warden who welded a rifle. “Why?” we asked. “Lions” they replied. This seemed a little overdramatic when we pulled in for lunch about 5 minutes away to sit and eat a picnic. No armed guards here, we mused.
Ironically, after lunch, our first discovery was a male and female lion. We had them to ourselves. The male mounted the female for about 30 seconds before the female roared and the male climbed off. “Great” I said to Sunni, “I came all the way to Kenya to see a couple of fucking lions – still, he lasted longer then me”. “Did the land cruiser move for you too darling?” Sunni added. I later discovered that the average lion takes 2000 attempts to get the wife pregnant, which seems a vast improvement on how to spend your leisure time than us humans. No wonder they just lie around most of the time. Shagged out!
The afternoon was more endless wildebeest herds. We came across a herd of buffalo that reminded me of all the buffalo I had seen in South East Asia (mostly pulling ploughs and carts). A bunch of vultures squabbled over a wildebeest carcass, until a hyena cleared them off for first pickings. The most difficult sightings are cheetahs and leopards. In the long grass, they were impossible to spot. The closest we came was finding a decomposing body of an animal hanging from a tree, dragged up there by a leopard. Lots of interesting large birds: secretariat bird (no PC, I noted), marabou stork, hornbills, eagles. All huge specimens.
The weather was sunny and warm. Without a shirt on, I was covered in dust. It was a long, but very rewarding day. The landscapes were outstanding – the Africa you always see on TV. The wildlife was like the icing on the cake and the wildebeest migration was the cherry. I couldn’t have asked for more.
Back in camp before dusk, pesky Vervet “blue balled” monkeys swung around the tents and attempted to find their way in. I later met tourists who had been raided by warthogs (we saw a lot of them). Spaghetti Bolognese dinner to round off a superb day with lots of memories.
More Photo of Vervet Monkey
Photo of a Warthog
Alas, I had to leave Sunni and the excellent company. They were doing a week long safari and had another day here, including a visit to a Maasai village. I was in two minds about such a visit. I’m sure it is very educational, but ultimately, you spend most of your time being pestered to buy souvenirs. I was onto another van, full of gabbling Scottish and Irish girls (headed for Nairobi) and dropped at a lodge, where I climbed aboard another Land cruiser containing an English couple: Vernon, his wife Lynn and two young daughters. Unknown to them, I was getting a ride with them to Lake Nakuru. Our driver was James, an arrogant 33 year old Maasai, dressed in the full costume. He spent half the journey bellowing into his mobile phone and hardly spoke to us. He was even more pissed off when we turned down his offer to visit a ‘curio’ shop.
We did a final 2 hour tour of the park and amazingly, most of the animals had disappeared. The landscape was deserted. It’s all a matter of luck with safaris. Wildlife: Here today, gone tomorrow. I was even more grateful for yesterday. The day was a hellish 10 hour drive, backtracking almost to Nairobi and then heading north. I dropped off at one point until a large pothole had me biting my tongue, waking me up.
Vernon and wife, based in Bahrain, were doing a week of safaris, but the long days were taking their toll, especially on the kids, and they had already had enough after 3 days. The stereotypical English couple who sit and complain about everything. What did they expect in a country like Kenya? We waited for 2 hours at Narok while James went to get the land cruiser fixed. We gritted our teeth and got a lot of grit in them along the terrible roads, eventually heading up the surfaced Pan African Highway to Nakuru for an evening stop at a comfortable westernized hotel. They were still moaning over dinner.
And still bleating over breakfast… It was a relief to leave them. It turned out that James liked me. I didn’t complain. “These western tourists” he said, “This is Kenya. Things go wrong. You have to work as a team, not against each other”. He drove me to another hotel and introduced me to my new driver, Tony. “This is Robert”, James said, “He’s a good man. Always smiling. Never complaining”. Tony worked for “Primetime Safaris” and I was being slotted into one of their vans for the final day. He drove me around the corner to another hotel to pick up his usual clients who turned out to be three English and three American female medical students: all girls around 23 years old. The Americans were like Valley girls “oh my god, gag me with a spoon” and the English were pseudo Slone Rangers “Ok. Ya. Drive on Tone”. They wittered on to each other about all those important things such as “We were up until 3am drinking. I don’t think I can face another safari” and “Oh my god, a market. Stop the van. I must buy an African drum”. Bless. I kept my head down. I had seen them 2 days previously at the Maasai Mara.
We picked up one other client at a 5 star hotel; Bryan from California, with money to burn. He had flown to Kenya on a whim, stayed at 5 star hotels, lodges, the $300 early morning balloon flight, private game drives. His bag was full of high tech gadgets that he couldn’t use. “My mobile phone doesn’t work here. My digital camera has a flat battery”. He also had a pair of binoculars that doubled as a digital camera which I had never seen– they didn’t work either. However, surrounded by twittering women, we got on well, with him pumping me for info on Indonesia and Borneo. He was clueless. “So Bali is near Borneo. Right?”
Nakuru is Kenya’s fourth largest town, situated in the centre of a rich farming area, about half way between Nairobi and the Ugandan border. Lonely Planet called it “a pleasant, relatively modern town with a population of 80,000”. But all I saw were dusty streets, small scrappy stores: the usual Kenyan town of strewn litter and people lying under trees with nothing to do.
Created in 1961, Lake Nakuru National Park covers 180 sq km and is one of the most visited reserves in Kenya after the Maasai Mara. Like most of the other Rift Valley lakes, it is a shallow soda lake only 4m deep. The lake obviously dominates the park and it has a beautiful tranquil setting, vastly different from the dry savannah grasses of the Maasai Mara. There are also areas of grassland, bush, euphorbia and acacia forests and rocky cliffs which support hundreds of species of bird and animals. Warthogs are common all over the park and scampered across our trail.
Following the lakeside, we came across waterbucks and old buffalo with huge horns like gigantic matted hair. Thomson’s gazelles, zebras and reedbucks were also present on the lush water grasslands. A troop of baboons bounded by the van.
Driving down to the water’s edge, hundreds of thousands of flamingos stood in shallow water. It was like a ring of pink around the lake. When we got out, they edged away from the water’s edge and flew around in clutters until they felt safe. There were also thousands of comical pelicans (I love pelicans) hanging around the lake or on top of the trees. There was a wonderful visa of birdlife such as Kori Bustards with their huge beaks and crested crane storks with their golden Mohican haircuts.
Photo of Flamingoes
Photo of Pelicans
Photo of Rhinos
The park is surrounded by a high electric fence which keeps a small number of both black and white rhinos (there is a difference but don’t ask me what) that were introduced a few years ago. Our first sightings were rhinos 100m away. Later on, we stumbled across a rhino that was munching his way along the trail. We parked up for 20 minutes and marvelled at the spectacle of this massive animal as it inched it way right past the van. The rhinos did not have the armour plating like those I saw in Nepal. We drove away from the lakeside up to a cliff-top lookout with its majestic view of the whole lake ringed by pink. Swifts ducked and dived around the cliffs. We spent four hours in the park, in glorious sunshine. It had been worth the 10 hour drive and with its lush forests and verdant grasslands, a real contrast to the Maasai. Very recommended.
We returned to Nakuru for a late lunch and dropped off the American students who were headed back to a town to continue their voluntary work. Ten minutes of hugs and “I can’t believe you’re leaving” by the English girls. (One American girl, hung-over, slept through the whole safari. But she did learn to drink Guinness, so I suppose she got her priorities right).
Motoring down a decent tarmaced road by the edge of the Rift Valley, towards Nairobi, the van overheated and the driver used bottles of mineral water to fill the radiator “Tone. Please use them. We are leaving tomorrow”. Up to now, I had avoided the ‘curio shops’, but one of the English girls was adamant about buying her African drum. We pulled into a collection of shacks overlooking the Rift Valley. I moseyed around, while aggressive storeowners grabbed my arm and said “Free look.” It’s a lot easier following women around these places saying “They are buying. Not me.” Bryan’s approach was to avoid haggling by saying “Here’s 1000 shillings (for a necklace worth 50 shillings), now leave me alone”. I waited outside a shack while one English girl (ironically from Norwich where I work, but with a plumy accent) spouted off “Now look darling, I only have x amount of money, so I’ll have (pointing) this and that”. Then I went in and said I had even less and got a couple of lovely soapstone statues for further reduced prices. The other girl got her drum and was well happy.
Arriving back in Nairobi, around 6.30pm, the English girls were demob happy “I’m sooo glad to be leaving tomorrow”. It seemed strange that I still had 5 weeks to go. As per normal, Nairobi was gridlocked. We drove through the westernized city centre which I had not seen and I was dropped off at the Greton Hotel. I’ll always remember the last words from the girls “What a cool place. You are actually staying in a real Nairobi shithole area. All this street life!”. “OK. Ya” I replied.
I didn’t stay for long. Dumping my backpack at the hotel, I walked 2 blocks to the Akamba Bus Terminal. There was a 7.30pm overnight bus to Kampala, Uganda and there were spare seats. Back at the hotel, I repacked my entire luggage and walked back to the bus.
One week into the trip, it was time to head to Uganda…
Travel - £469.38 (including £462 return flight)
Accommodation - £8.33
Food - £4.40
Other - £440.82 (including £194.44 Mt Kenya trip, £177.77 Safari, $50 visa)
Total - £922.93
Grand Total - £3401.25
