African Safari - The Big Four not Five!

Hi there,
I'm back in Nairobi after almost two weeks of rest and recovery of the said right arm which is still prisoner of the ever present semi white cast!! It is now embellished with a new collection of signatures ranging from Felix the concierge of the hotel who loves me, to concerned medicals who are visiting from Europe and have stopped to ask how and where,to a variety of street vendors who tried to coerce me into their shops by saying they wanted to sign my cast but would I please go with them as they had forgotten their pens. Wouldn't you know it..'the pen' always lived in a little curio stall laden down and bursting at the seams with African masks, wooden giraffes again, beautiful fabric from Somalia, Tanzania, Kenya, you name it they had it even out in the Mara. Everything that I did not need. Can you imagine Chris's face if I turned up with a huge African Maasai wall hanging, a door mat and a giant mask. He would surely hit the roof!! It would be a laugh though. The funniest new signature was obtained from 'Lawrence of Kenya' who saw my cast through the window of his Range Rover while passing our minibus while on Safari in a particularly 'hairy and rocky' part of the track in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve Park. The drivers all know each other and there was a cousin sitting in the back of Lawrence's 4x4, Lawrence was driving at break neck speed to go and check one of his camps he owns in the Mara and so you couldn't miss his rally driver entry and we have no idea how our driver knew that the cousin was in the back. Anyway, our driver Leonard did the customary stop which was more of a lurch to a halt, on a precarious and rather jaunty angle with all of us passengers in the van sitting with a left lean. This put me on the high side of the van and while Leonard enquired as to the health of various family members, Lawrence in the drivers seat spied the cast and saw it as a good opportunity to sign. Of course he couldn't find a pen and there was a minor traffic hold up while he searched for one but hey it's Kenyan time and the other vans had to wait. Plus the Range Rover was bigger and so ruled the road. So all in all.....the cast is intact and... I'm also loved by Lawrence of Kenya!!

As for my African Safari experience....it was a blast. Unfortunately as the title of this posts reads..it was the Big Four- Elephants, Buffalo, Rhino (black and white)and Lions. Spotting (no pun intended) a leopard escaped us! There were enough trees at Lake Nakuru Game park the same colour as a leopard that we knew without a doubt that a leopard was surely camouflaged and sitting there looking at the tourists from high above.

I did a five day Safari, 3 days in the Maasai Mara Reserve and 2 days in Lake Nakuru. The Mara is unbelievably huge and expanse and everything that you thought a game park would be. We were lucky that on our first game drive early in the morning we came across a female cheetah. That was really special and we spent a long time just watching her observe the Thompson Gazelles in the distance...her breakfast. She was so beautiful, elegant and more graceful than I thought possible. I took some really good photos as well as a video of her cleaning andn preening herself in the early morning African sunrise. Very cool. We didn't get to see her catch a gazelle but I heard from some other people that arrived after us that they were there in time to see her..well not see her..just see the flash of movement and blurr of yellow, black, white and golden yellow..in mere seconds.. of her dart and veer to the side and in a blink of an eye she had pounced and caught the gazelle.

We also had a family of Elephants and Giraffes surround our van and were not at all aggressive..we didn't bother them..we all remained quiet and just watched and made sure that none of the cameras flashed light. Herds of buffalo were still in the Mara but apparently not in their usual thousands as most had migrated to Tanzania. By the end of my time in the Mara the poor Buffalo and Thompson Gazelle had been relegated to 'yeah seen them, let's look for a lion' category. Terrible really but they are plentiful compared to the lions who are the same colour as the golden grass and with the numbers of buffalo lower the grass doesn't get eaten and stays long at least to my waist height and so the lions can stay camouflaged. On Day two we did see a family of 10 lions - male and female and cubs - take down a gazelle and demolish everything bar the horns. Females caught it, males sat and watched and then ate first..what's with that?, females ate next, male cubs ate next and baby cubs got the scraps. They were funny to watch fighting over the bones. We also saw two lots of male lions sleeping under a tree virtually on the side of the road in the blazing sun and also were lucky to see two lioness's walking on the road in front of us with three baby cubs. They were really tiny and even Leonard said that that was an unusual sight. It is low season in the Mara and so not many tour vans and the animals know this and so are more inclined to wander out onto the roads.

I decided to do a camping safari rather than a lodge as I wanted to be closer to the action, meaning deeper inside the Mara. I was thinking tent and sleeping in my sleeping bag, the kind of camping style that we have been doing since our start of the ride with Tour d'Afrique. Camping safari in Kenya, meant I slept in a bed with sheets, inside a tent erected inside a banda, which is a thatched roof little hut with solid walls. I had electricity and hot showers and so now the question is...how on earth am I going to be able to go back to the Tour d'Afrique style of camping? I can see tears on the horizon!

The Maasai tribe apparently gave the land that the Reserve is on to the Kenyan government in exchange for 19% of the gate take which turns out to be about $8-9 dollars per person who enters.I'm not too sure how the money is used but they certainly have a thriving industry inside the park. They don't like you to take photos of them working with their animals when you see them on the side of the road and Leonard said that if the young boys see cameras they will throw rocks at the holder of the camera and the van. He said that they were highly skilled and always got their target and so it was best not to risk it. OK, so here is a potentially politically incorrect moment and I apologise in advance to any I may offend with my thoughts but you do have to wonder at the sincerity of it all. The reason why we couldn't take photos was because when you got into the park it was expected of us to do a traditional tour of the Maasai village and pay them for the photo opts. Minimums were set at 100 Kenyan shilling per photo of one person and the price could go higher depending of the number in the group. I found it particularly funny that as one group was being shown the wonders of traditional cooking on a charcoal grill, inside a little banda with mud floor, with the perfect photo opt of older woman, young mother and one child sitting on the floor, that the Maasai tour guide resplendently dressed in full red Maasai cloth and beautiful bling on his head, arms and around his neck, that his conversation was interrupted by his cell phone ringing with his personal popular tune. Apparently he reached under his red cloth, took the call and without a hitch closed the cell phone and continued his tour guiding as if nothing had just happened. I don't think he saw the irony of the moment. I'm glad that they have access to modern technology and I'm sure some still live like they are showing but there are also alot who now live in Norak which is the closest village to the Game Reserve gates. I also wondered and asked the question which was not answered directly..how come at 4-5pm every evening as the tour vans are travelling back to their respective camps that the Maasai boys are fully decked out in their red cloths AND bling to take the cows home yet the rest of the day they are bling-less? I got some half cocked answer but I figured it out myself..it ain't hard..it boils down to the tourist dollar and everybody including the Maasai can, will and do exploit it. I just hope that they don't sell out and that they are able to co-exist and maintain their cultural identity and that tourists see the Maasai as proud African warriors.The departing vision of tribal women at the gates of the Mara Reserve Park pushing and peddling their beautiful beads and crafts, which really are unique and exquisite but shoving them in the windows of the vans, into your face and lap is not at all endearing.Someone needs to show them the soft sell!

Anyway, my next stop was Lake Nakuru. It is an absolutely breath taking park and I found the Game reserve spectacular and well worth it. They call it small compared to the Mara but it is still big. We did a 6 hour game drive and although we saw all the animals you could see inclding the endangered white and black rhino we still could have spent more time as we didn't get around the entire park. The Lake itself is a soda lake and it has thousands of flamingos and so from the moment you enter the park all you can see is a band of hot pink edging around an emerald oasis. Truely breath taking. Add in some elephants, lions, giraffes, baboons, zebra, rhinos, buffalos, gazelles, dik diks - the smallest member of the antelope family, monkeys and a whole variety of birds..it make for a special place. The park differs from the Mara in the fact that the trees at Lake Nakuru are taller and more lush. The Lake is lined with Arcacia trees and the typical flat African tree which I can't remember the name of and so the bird life is plentiful. It is also surrounded by high rocky outcrops and at the highest point is Baboon Rock. It is an amazing viewpoint of the Lake and park which is awesome. Not only can you see the entire emerald green lake glistening in the sun, with the circle of hot pink flamingos but you can also see the whitish soda plain with the black buffalo, black and white striped zebra and the black and barely the white rhino just wandering around minding their own business against the background of the green trees and grassy edge of the lake all topped with a cloudless blue sky. It is certainly an amazing picture which is firmly etched in my head. I tired to take photos and video to capture it but although my camera is good..nothing can capture it as a photo just doesn't do it justice. I'll have to wait until National Geographic or Discovery Chanel do a documentary. You'll all just have to come and see for yourself!!!

While I've been on Safari, it appears that Chris has had his own little adventure in Northern Kenya. Read the blog on the www.tourdafrique.com website and you'll read that they have had hot - Sudan temperatures again of 46 degrees celsius, long - 4-5 hours for the racers mean 8-10 hours in the saddle for the expedition riders, dusty -sand and grit and dust mixed with sweat makes for a nice mud cake similar to the ones that some of us made as kids..only difference being that we had water to wash our hands at the end. If it's that hot where they are then water will be rationed and it will be bush showers. That means Johnson baby wipes inside the tent or by now just standing by the tent and if you're lucky left over water from your camel pack. It sounds like the racers may have even stopped for a coke stop which is unheard of but a sign of how hot the heat must of been. I see Chris tomorrow and so I'll make sure to quizz him on Northern Kenya and get back to you. I also heard from other travellers that pot holes in Northern Kenya sometimes were 6 feet wide and 6 inches deep. Hmmmmm makes the sand of Sudan quite appealing.

Even though I've had a blast on Safari..I'd have given anything to be there racing side by side with Chris. Let's not think about that..hope you are all well..time togo and walk fast around Nairobi.
Later alligator..didn't see one of them but I did se a crocodile!!
Love ya