A Masai warrior overlooking the great plains of the Masai Mara. Conveniently his nikes are not in picture and he obligingly took off his hockey jersey to add authenticity.
KENYAN SAFARI
No this isn´t in Africa. Dan Morrison and myself in front of the famous Eilan Doonan castle in Scotland.
After making my flight out of Berlin only by the hair of my chinny chin chin, I had a brief fly-by visit to Edinburgh and Fort William in Scotland, where I caught up with a few friends, some old, like Dan Morrison who took me to see Eilan Doonan castle, some good mates from work in Brisbane, Dave Latimer and Matt Tilly, and some very recent friends including Zimgirl Shirlie whom I had just met a few weeks ago in Goa.
We couldn´t get in the castle (closed for the WINTER!!) but I did meet a young guy whose family owns it and he has his own set of keys. During uni he used to bring his mates (and many young females undoubtedly) back for a few drinks in arguably the best piss-up location in history.
My Scottish tour was followed by a few days in London where I met up again with Pat and it was from here that he and I were to depart for Kenya. Had a great time catching up various people during my little British interlude, saw a museum or two, went to Madame Tussauds, went to a pub or three; basically did all that Britain has to offer in about 4 days. The real excitement however (apart from seeing the wax model of Amitabh Bachchan) was of course to be awaiting me down in Africa.
An unexpected treat. Pat and I were stoked when we saw our old mate Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan in Madame Tussauds. Supposedly he won an international poll as the most requested figure to be included in the gallery. No doubt some one billion Indians voted for him.
We arrived in Nairobi first thing in the morning and even at 6:00am, the place is typically African and buzzing with activity. We firstly had to tackle the gauntlet of safari touts and taxi drivers that descend like vultures on any incoming international arrival, it was then a drive through manic, logjammed traffic (not quite at Indian levels but getting there) with roadside giraffes and literal zebra crossings before arriving in some dive part of town opposite a landfill that turned out to be the site of our chosen backpackers.
Nice place as it turns out. Met some interesting folk including a young Aussie freelance journo called Rufus, who was investigating a conspiracy theory regarding the deceased Sudanese vice-president. Hmmm, yes, the Congo and Sudan I hear are lovely in the summer. The place was always pretty lively as well, a great place to have a few beers (Tuskers being the Kenyan favourite) but not the greatest place to try and do a runner from prostitutes as two charming dudes staying there with us found out. Pimps and their gangs eventually find a way past the big steel gate at the front and tend to make a helluva racket. Exciting times.
Get ready, this is the first of many lion shots...
Of course there is more to do in Nairobi than sit around at the backpackers and drink beer (although I believe Rufus managed to entertain himself this way for nearly a month - Rufus did you ever actually make it over the border?). Why, there's plenty to do in the city, for example you can spend hours dodging touts, milling about in shifty safari operators' offices, or you can generally just hang about trying not to get mugged. It wasn't really that bad however, generally felt pretty safe despite the "Nairobbery" reputation although it felt a little bit hairy when we had to get over $500 from an ATM at night to pay for our first safari, a 5-day trip around Lake Nakaru and Masai Mara.
A big fella with his harem in the background (the lion, not me. I can't get one female let alone a harem...)
A safari was of course one of the main priorities for our trip and Pat and I were both pretty pumped, particularly Pat having never been on one before. I however had been fortunate enough to enjoy a fabulous few weeks in Zimbabwe a few years previously, a wonderful opportunity that still ranks as one of the best experiences of my life. As a result of that trip, I had high super expectations of Kenya, being along with Tanzania, the safari capital of Africa. The thing is however, in Zimbabwe due either to its obvious economic turmoil or some understated Pichanick connections and generosity (i'm beginning to lean to the later - the Pichanicks were essentially my host family in Zim) I had been spoilt by enjoying the full five star safari experience in a private game park. Basically I can definitely recommend against going to Kenya with any such expectations when one is trying to stick to a budget.
Everyone's most hated dictator, Mr. Mugabe. Mind you his policies did allow me to enjoy a cheaper than average African holiday...
Essentially in Kenya it felt like I was paying three times as much for a third of the quality. That sounds a little harsh but for my $100 a day I had been holding out (completely unrealistically I soon came to realise) for some sort of lodge accommodation with transport in some plush landcruiser driven by a zooologist with 30 years hunting experience. Not too much to ask is it? Damn these economically stable (relatively) African countries...
Another one...
Suffice to say, such outlandish expectations were soon dashed when Pat and I were collected from our hostel in a 1987 model toyota hiace van (2WD of course) driven by guide Moses, a man of few words, and taken to our first lodgings at Lake Nakuru. Please not the term lodgings, not to be confused in any way whatsoever with a lodge. Easily confused with a concentration camp, or a cement igloo perhaps, but definitely not a lodge.
Rhinos. Just in case you were wondering...
Lake Nakuru national park was very impressive however, it is home to the largest rhino population in Kenya and also several million of probably its most famous residents, flamingoes, who give the entire shoreline a distinctive pink stain. We did see a fair amount of other game within the park but I´ll let the photos describe the the obvious rather than going into mind-numbing detail of every animal.
Flamingoes in Lake Nakuru. I don't think I've ever seen this many living creatures congregated in the one place. Except maybe in Delhi...
From Lake Nakuru we then headed to the famous Masai Mara, Kenya´s most famous national park. Along the way we picked up an extra member of the tour group, an American by the name of Kirt, who proved a most welcome addition primarily as it divided Moses´ wrath three ways rather than two. You see, Moses, although being a man of few words when it came to relating safari information, had plenty to say any time when either we were 5 minutes late for departure (or even 10 minutes early come to think of it), when one of us stood on the van seats to look out from the roof, or when one of us farted (I believe his exact words were "someone has spoilt the air"). He proved to be quite the hard taskmaster but a good guy overall without question.
Multiple lions!! Kill in the background and particularly cute cub next to mum on the right.
The ride to Masai Mara was hellish. One would think that, being Kenya´s primary attraction and all, the government might have spent a few dollars, shillings even, on providing a somewhat trafficable road to the park. Obviously Moi´s boys (the recently ousted and incredibly corrupt President) had better things to spend his millions on as the road could reasonably be described as a moggill run for cars. In fact (I wish I had a picture of this) the impossibly poor state of the road led to the amusing sight of several kilometres of completely deserted pockmarked tarmac stetching out ahead framed by continuous lines of vehicles trying to make their thoroughfare along the marginally smoother gravel shoulders to the sides.
Obligatory elephant shots.
We at last arrived at our lodgings in the park and I believe we were most priviliged to be the inaugural guests of this most splendid example of fine hospitality. I´m fairly sure of this as they were still building most of the camp when we got there, and by the looks of the quality and craftsmenship involved I gathered they had probably only started that morning. But as they say, Rome wasn´t built in a day...
Our own private bungalow...Well technically a duplex.
Things got even better when we managed to see not a single member of the ¨big five¨, or any significant game whatsoever on our first drive in the drought-stricken park (despite everyone telling us that there was no game because of the droubt, it rained every afternoon we were there without fail, forcing us into our room/shanty house early everyday). Now before I sound any more like a whingeing Pom, I will say that the whole situation was actually quite comical and enjoyable, the three of us were regularly amused at just how budget our trip could get and it actually made for a much more memorable trip.
Our mate Kirt overlooking the Mara. And below, a lion. A big one.
The game also got a lot better into the trip, we saw so many lions with their kills that by the end we would drive straight past completely indifferent as to whether we saw another or not. That´s the problem with safaris, once you´ve seen one or two of any particular animal, you might as well have seen a hundred, which is probably why I'm not waxing lyrical in gushing tones about all the great game we saw. That Noah guy had it figured out, gimme two of every animal out there and I would have been entirely satisfied.
Anatomy of a kill. They certainly get in there, 'twas cool to hear the snapping of bones and tearing of flesh.
Below is our old mate who scared the crap out of us. Can you see me Ray?
Look, a giraffe.
There would often be some 5-10 vans like this one crowding around a group of cheetahs like the ones below. And they were never shrinking violets. i.e. "Look Marge, it's a CHEETAH!!" at the top of their voice when only about 4m away from the poor thing.
We did also get to taste the highlife oh-so-briefly on a few occasions in some legitimate lodges and I definitely now know how I will spend a lazy US$300 a night that I might have lying about spare next time I'm in Africa. Alas we could enjoy the facilities for short time only by downing the odd beer and continuing Pat´s and my tradition of taking a dump in any nice hotel we can. We even got to use one lodge´s pool before being unceremoniously evicted despite our protests that Moses (who we naturally assumed must be a giant within the safari van-driving community) said it was OK. We didn´t have to pay at least...
Above: We saw plenty of old kills being finished off by the vultures and easily the ugliest bird on the planet, the Maribou stork. You would not believe how bad those things smell...
This river near the boundary of Kenya and Tanzania is infested with hippos and crocs. Thankfully we had a several rangers with AK-47's on hand to protect us.
Sadly, like all mildly enjoyable things, our safari adventure had to come to an end and typically Moses was there, hot on our heels to make sure we got away on time. We said goodbye to our very, very humble abode (they were still only just completing the dining wing off the grand ballroom - I think it was a subsiduary company of Multiplex) and then enjoyed another entirely unpleasant trip back to Nairobi despite the spectacular surroundings of the Great Rift Valley. They really need to do something about those roads...
More bloody lions. I told you you'd get sick of them didn't I? And this isn't the half of it. Pat took about 30 shots of every one he saw. Rookie...
Final preparations for the black tie dinner that evening. I think they're just making allowances for the dining hall chandelier to be put in place...
A few beers with Kirt at his much nicer hotel that evening and then it was off to the airport to collect Pat´s good mate Andrew who was flying to East Africa to join us for essentially one reason...KILIMANJARO!!
Til next time...
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