Week 30 Update:
Voi, Masinga Dam, Tiamu (Mt Kenya), Nairobi, Masai Mara… Again
Day 204:
A light rain fell trough the night and managed to quiet down the worst of the dust on the roads and the vast plains of Tsavo. It was not enough to give Maggie a clean and just enough to turn the dusty layer into a nice, sticky muddy layer. It was slightly cooler than the day before and using one of the rooms for a shower and bathroom we headed off down the bumpy road towards the town of Voi, turning right there and coming up against the challenge of the relentless trucks on the Mombasa/Nairobi high way.
We followed the new and smooth tar to the small settlement of Kangonde which took an hour or so. Once we drove through the village and off the main road, the tar stopped. This was slightly unexpected as the planned route had us on the B 7. Granted, not an A road, but hardly expected to be non tar. I looked up at the GPS which indicated some 190km of this kind of road and my mood changed dramatically. I was NOT looking forward to a mere travel day of 200km of dirt.
In our experience of such roads, you normally start off with a wide, corrugated and often pot holed section which then turns into a smaller and smaller road until it eventuall9y becomes a bush track. The bush track then continues to past the half way point where the reverse happens until you end up on the bad tar road close to the biggish settlement on the other side of your route. This was indeed no different. Within 10km of leaving the comfort and safety of the A 3 we were on a two track sandy road. This, to be honest, was far better than badly pot holed tar or corrugated dirt and our speed of travel did not change much from the bad sections. It was dramatically more comfortable, pleasant and softer on poor Maggie’s shock absorber bushes than the alliterative and once I had made peace with slow progress for at least four hours, it was a pleasure to be there.
The environment was not much different to the northern parts of South Africa in the dry season. The Acacia trees dotted the red dusty planes with Baobabs towering in between. Although we did see a few inhabitants of this harsh landscape, we were also, for the first time in many, many months, pretty isolated. We could stop next to the road and get out without being swamped by people and I could relax relatively behind the wheel as I did not need to look in five directions all the time. The temperature was warm and pleasant. The sun was shining and the air-conditioning was keeping us superbly comfortable. It was indeed a fantastic day in paradise despite the distance that we had to go.
I kept thinking of an article written by a friend who had recently completed his LEJOC (Lands end to John O’ Groats in the UK) by bicycle. One of his most profound statements were that it did not matter how slowly you were going, as long as you kept on spinning the gears, you kept on making progress. This was a day like that for me. We kept on spinning the gears, we kept on making progress and then, suddenly and as if my magic, we happened upon a new, smooth pot hole free tar road in the town of Mutanda. As if symbolic to ending our hard driving on dirt tracks, the heavens opened and the rain came down so hard and in such volume that it washed every bit of much, mud and new dust off Maggie. Even the chassis got a good spray down from the puddles we drove through.
Our destination was the Masinga Dam resort. Our only reason for that was that we needed a stop over place on our way to Mt. Kenya and that seemed the only place in a vast area! 11km off the main B7 we had chosen we arrived at the gates in the late afternoon. The first thing I spotted was a sign prohibiting guests to bring their own food onto9 the premises. I ignored this and paid for one night’s camping at a rate of $8 each which was expensive by Kenya standards! We were shown to their camp site across the road and outside the gate which prohibited food and parked Maggie in the middle of a tent city. There were 30 safari tents on concrete platforms facing a hedge and within earshot of the dam. We were the only guests.
Ignoring the food rule, we made our dinner early and went to bed, exhausted, but happy to have successfully completed a long day of hard travelling.
Day 205:
I woke up as excited as a little boy on Christmas Eve! I had always wanted to “circum navigate” something and this was the day we would start our circum navigation of the great Mt Kenya, the second highest peak in Africa. We were also reportedly entering the best Trout fishing area in East Africa and my poor fly rod had been neglected since Malawi’s Nyika Plateau which seemed like a lifetime before!
We had decided not to trek to the summit for two reasons: The first being that you can not actually get to the highest point of that mountain without some skilled, technical climbing. Usually people see Point Lenana (4985m) as their summit, but in fact, the peak of Batian is 5 199m high. That’s roughly the same difference between Gillman’s Point and Kisoro summit on Kilimanjaro. The second was the astronomical cost. We couldn’t really see the point of paying $600 each to get to the third highest point on a mountain…
The drive took us past the western side of Mt Kenya National Park and towards the town, which turned out to be a city, of Meru. The road was great and interesting as it snaked through valleys and highlands and plantations and farm lands. The forests gave way to some tea plantations and then coffee fields and as we climbed in altitude we could see the astonishing change in quality of fruit and vegetables for sale next to the road. The stalls became fuller and more colourful and the size of the produce increased with every meter of height gained. The soil was obviously so much more fertile than down in the dusty valleys of the Man Eating Lions. The unfortunate down side to this phenomenon was the big scale deforestation. The effect of that, as you may guess, was that all the streams and rivers running down the mountain had turned into muddy torrents, instead of the expected crystal clear trout streams I had had dreams about.
Past Meru we found the junction to Isiolo and Marsibit, the main road north towards Ethiopia. We had long before decided not to take that road north as it was reportedly almost as bad as the Serengeti road. In fact, our friends from Moglove.co.uk managed to completely write off three mighty Unimog tyres on that road alone. At the junction we turned south again, continuing on our travels around the big mountain. We spent about fifteen minutes in second gear before reaching the highest point of the road and then snaked down through large scale agriculture and massive flower farms under mountain sized green houses.
At the village of Timau we left the road and my heart started beating fast with excitement. My reading and research had revealed a place, aptly called Ken Trout as the place to camp and fish. It was four kilometres from the point Tracks for Africa had indicated it to be, but well sign posted and we arrived just about lunch time. The place looked idyllic! From the car park we walked along a bubbling stream towards the spectacularly set restaurant advertising trout lunches. It was almost deserted, but we found a man who seemed to be cleaning the kitchens. I asked him about camping and he confirmed that they did indeed offer it and at a reasonable rate. I had already seen the sign to the trout ponds and asked him about fishing…. He frowned, smiled and said: Sorry, no fishing allowed here…. I could not believe it! I did not believe him at first either. We walked back to the car park, me almost tripping over my bottom lip and immediately entered the other gate pointing to the dams and the cottages. This place was truly deserted! The ponds were empty, the cottages almost ruined and the gardens completely un-kept. It was crystal clear (Much clearer than any of the streams we had seen) that we were about five or six years too late.
Without having lunch we left the place in a cloud of dismal dust and headed to our second choice of accommodations at Timau River Lodge. We had already passed their sign post, so knew exactly where it was. As we drove in my jaw dropped! It was an incredibly refreshing and amazing place of big camp sites under shady trees and log cabins dotted around. There were Peacocks and Geese and Guinea Fowl competing for scraps of food and the dogs with their tiny puppy played with some children on the magnificent lawn. The friendly receptionist met us by the car, answered all our questions swiftly and made our decision easy.
I did ask, shyly if they offered any fly fishing in the area. To this she smiled again and said I was welcome to fish in the river that ran through the property. The charge for this was…. Well, it was free. So we set up camp, had our lunch and made friends with the local wildlife. In the afternoon I walked down to the stream, fly rod in hand and tried my luck just below a waterfall in a sizeable pool. The water was murky as hell, so I wasn’t very hopeful. About twenty minutes into my endeavour a friendly young man asked if I had had any luck. When I admitted that I had not even had a single interest in any of the flies I had tried, he offered to show me more pools up river where he had seen trout a month or so before. He did say that it was too late in the day for walking in the forest as it was not safe. A little confused at this I asked him why and the reply was that the forest is inhabited by not so friendly people at night that may want to take whatever I had of value. We agreed that he would show me the pools in the morning. I was a little surprised that a place in East Africa could be “not safe to visit”. I’m sure if you asked our Lamu guide, Ziwa, he would have said that it was because it was not a Muslim area.
Not having fresh trout for dinner wasn’t really part of the plan, but as was our way, we still managed to cook a fantastic meal for two, accompanied by some fine wine and the company of the friendliest dog we had encountered on our travels. It was refreshingly cold for a change, so we even unwrapped our Masai blankets for some warmth before crawling into bed and falling fast asleep.
Day 206:
I woke early and excited about the prospect of fishing for the second day in a row. Julius, the young man who offered to show me the sport arrived shortly after and we set off into the forest. There was no real path to speak off and some thistles around which was best avoided and by the second thicket we had to duck and dive through I was very happy to have a fly rod that broke into four pieces. Julius packed a large shiny Machete. I asked him if it was for plats or protection at which he smiled and ensured me that we were safe… as always I was pleased to hear that.
The first pool we got to was no less murky than the rest and very small in comparison. I stood a while inspecting the shallow waters and was convinced that if there was any trout around, I would have been able to see it. Moving further upstream we walked through a big hole in a big fence and Julius explained that the government owned the 30m around the river and as long as we stuck to that, we could not get into trouble for trespassing. The secret place he showed me was beautiful! There was a four meter high waterfall tumbling down into a perfectly round pool with a thirty meter diameter. There were big shady trees around and the outlet into the river was only about two meters across. I was sure that I would have some success there. No casting was really possible, but from my stand point next to the falls I could simply drop the fly in and let the current take it to the outlet. I would let it soak for a while and then slowly retrieve it, repeating the process. The water was still fairly dirty, but if there was any trout in this river, I was certain that that would be the place.
While repeating my process of drifting and retrieving Julius told me stories about how there used to be more trout than anyone could eat in his lifetime in that river. He told me about how he used to catch them with a hand line and live insects on hook thorns as a child and roast them over an open fire next to the pool. Then he told me about how the big agriculture companies came to put up hectares of green houses to grow cut flowers for the European markets. He said that since they had arrived he had seen dead fish floating on top of the water often and had given up on trying to catch them himself. That was enough news for me to give up and take the walk back to the lodge, along the river. I did catch two crabs though, but even they were too small to interest Julius or myself.
Back at the lodge I found Catt sprawled our on a soft sofa doing some reading in front of the fireplace. It was a truly magnificent place, but with no prospect of trout, we thought it best to move on. The rain was still threatening and seemed quite heavy on Mt Kenya, which we had not seen since we had arrived in the area. I asked Julius about it, while explaining the finer workings of the GPS to him. He told me that you had to be really lucky to see the mountain and that he had not seen it in more than a month. He did tell me that he had walked to the summit when he was a teenager. It was a Boy Scout trip, he explained and also said that I would be guaranteed to find some trout in the streams higher up on the mountain. Although I had no doubt that that would be the case, I was not that interested in paying the $20 per person per day to enter the park without being able to see the mountain… while getting rained on.
After lunch we spent forty minutes greeting the friendly people and local wildlife and after a final good bye to our new adopted puppy we hit the road again, heading back to Nairobi. It was an estimated four hour drive and I had no doubt that it would take at least that. In fact, Julius had told me that the trip usually took for hours in a Matatu, and I knew how they drove, so I expected closer to five hours.
The road was good and the going interesting and easy. We wound down through the hills with great big open plains to our west and every once in a while caught a glimpse of sunshine on the horizon. We looked back towards the mountain as much as possible, but saw nothing more than a big black cloud with sheets of water falling from the bottom of it. I was very happy not to be hiking in that weather! The ground was obviously still very fertile as the fresh produce next to the road seemed awe inspiringly big and healthy. Our stores were however fairly full, so there was no need for us to re stock.
The closer we got to Nairobi, the busier the roads became and once we reached the outskirts to the city, we were back in the madness. To ad to the fun, that part of the city had massive roadworks and many detours and lanes converging every few kilometres. This, as can be imagined, was not great for the average speed of travelling. With a few forced wrong turns and a couple of interesting detours we arrived back at the comforts of Jungle Junction well before dark. It was obvious that they had also seen a massive amount of rain as the camp site had turned into a muddy mess since we last saw it.
Pitching camp and making dinner was quick and easy. Neither one of us was particularly fond of cities, but somehow Nairobi felt comfortable. So with mud cladded shoes left on the ground, we climbed into the tent eventually and fell asleep to the sounds of the city around us.
Day 207:
It was Monday morning and we had chores to tend to before leaving Nairobi the next day. It was time to get our problem some exhaust sorted out once and for all! It was time to get our shock absorbers tested and replaced if necessary, or find decent quality bushes so that I did not need to replace them every second day. It was time to get our leaking windscreen, courtesy of the vendors in Lusaka, looked at and replaced if necessary. We needed to replenish some general grocery supplies. I wanted to upgrade our newly purchased ground tent for a slightly bigger one and I desperately needed a hair cut! And believe me. In a city where a successful day can be explained as a day where you managed more than one chore, this was going to be a fantastically full and busy day!
We started by getting advice and direction from Chris, the owner of JJ (As we had come to call it). He sent us to Marcio, the owner of a company called Ndlovu. (Elephant I think) They specialize in modifying, repairing and manufacturing body parts for safari vehicles. Chris said that he would be the man to have a look at our suspension issues. This did mean driving down the terrible hill, past the city centre and into the industrial area… again… but it seemed the best option, so off we went to find the wizard.
Marcio was a smallish, friendly and obviously very knowledgeable man in his fifties who took one look at Maggie, smiled, investigated and came up with a suggestion or two. His tests revealed that our shocks were fine and did not need replacing. That was nice… He also immediately noticed that we had the wrong exhaust for the vehicle, unlike the Toyota dealerships and various other mechanics that had seen the vehicle before him. He told us that we needed to book the car in for another day to enable him to do a decent job that would actually last. I liked him already! He phoned his windscreen guy and sent us there to solve that issue after giving us a set of heavy duty shock bushes that we could replace ourselves back at JJ’s. It is not often in your life that you meet someone who instils so much confidence. I was very impressed and booked Maggie in for the next week.
The windscreen guy was right around the corner. He listened to our problem, smiled and confirmed that it was not a unique issue at all. In fact, according to him, this was a fairly common problem in East Africa and he had perfected the solution over time. His skilled workman first cleaned off all the previous silicon efforts with shaking of heads and expressions of disbelief. Then the used a fancy tool to lift the rubber seal away from the body and the glass and filled that with a sealant before rubbing some strange white powder over it all to, apparently, extract the moisture from the sealant and make it set instantly. They took more than an hour to complete the job and although I could see that that was not the first time they had that, I was still highly sceptical. It was much cheaper than a new windscreen, so we thought we’d test it anyway.
That marked the two things that mere mortals were able achieve in one day in the fair city, but it was still before lunch! We were so amazed at our obvious efficiency and skilled success that we treated ourselves to a Hamburger Lunch at the Mega Nakumat. There was a barber shop across the alley from the burger joint, so while Catt went into the super store (Dangerous I know) I went for a hair cut. Man! What an experience that was!
The “salon” had a men’s side and a woman’s side. On the men’s side I sat in between two big gentlemen who were both there to get a shave… and to get their heads shaved. Te process for me started with someone washing my hair, then I got a neck and scalp massage before my head was covered in a hot eucalyptus covered towel. While this was going on I noticed that the big boys on either side of me were receiving much the same treatment. The difference was that they seemed completely used to the pampering and even pointed their chins in the right direction to take full advantage of the skilled massaging fingers. My own barber appeared with clippers in hand and I explained the simple cut to him: No 6 on the top and No 4 on the back and sides please… He smiled, confirmed that he understood and spent the next five minutes running his fingers through my locks, contemplating where to start. Not that that made me feel uncomfortable in the slightest!
Half way though the cut he told me that he had no number 6 comb for his clippers and would cut the top of my hair with scissors instead. I assured him that that would be a waste of time, confirming that a No4 all over would be fine. That however was simply not part of his plan at all, so after a lengthy debate we eventually agreed that he would make the sides shorted and kept the top at a No 4 comb… I felt exhausted and he had not even done half his work by then. Just as I though the job was done, and I was about to thank him and get up, he took the combs off the clippers and started scalping the edge of my hair line, millimetre by fricken millimetre until not a single hair was out of place and after that endeavour, would probably not ever dare to be. The final pampering involved another eucalyptus rub down and another little massage followed by some light powdering to stop the itching until I managed to get to a shower. The process took just more than an hour and cost about $5…
Tent in hand I walked up to the information counter to ask if I could perhaps exchange it for a bigger one. Catt was still somewhere inside the massive store and I was quite keen to find her before she managed to fill a trolley. The man at the information counter clearly had a different agenda in mind for me though. He started by calling the manager who agreed that it would be possible for me to exchange the tent, provided that I had the receipt… which I obviously did not have. This, he said, was a problem, but with a little patience from me, he would see what he could do. The next person to rise to the occasion was the person who obviously worked in the tent department. He confirmed that it would be no problem to exchange the tent… provided that I had the receipt… Which I did not. This, he said, was a problem, but with a little patience from me, he would see what he could do. I was offered a seat. I explained that my wife was inside the shop, probably maxing my credit card by then. I said that I would find her, finish the shopping and return to find the proposed solution to the “no receipt” problem. I found Catt, with a fully loaded trolley of things I did not even want to ask about. She had completed the list of things to buy and was just waiting for me to arrive… I had the wallet. We inspected all the tents they had on offer in anticipation of a favoured outcome of the “no receipt” debacle, but to our own surprise could not find anything more suitable than what we already had. That was, for us and for the staff the easiest possible outcome. So after paying for the trolley of stuff, we thanked them for their efforts and left, with our old tent in hand.
The very last thing on our list to do was a visit to the butchers. The Mega Store had plenty of meat, as you may think, but at twice the price of local butcheries. The recommended provider was close to JJ’s and we managed to fill the freezer with Chicken breasts (A rarity in East Africa, contrary to what you may think) and Beef Fillet. All beef from mince to stewing cubes to rump to fillet was the same price per KG which was about $7, so it was a no brainer as to which cut we would choose.
Back at the Junction we were just in time for afternoon coffee, smiling and happy and proud of the achievements of the day. While discussing our plan to re visit the Masai Mara from the next day Catt said that the MRS stove did not want to pressurize and boiling the coffee water took forever! I wasn’t worries at all. We had a maintenance kit and all the tools to fix all the foreseeable problems, so I got right to it. While dinner was getting organized, I took the thing apart and found that the pump part was badly worn out. That was, to be fair, hardly surprising as we had used it least once a day for the total time that we had been on the road. I replaced the part without problems, put it all back together without leaving parts out and tested it. It was like new!
Catt had ordered some study material that were supposed to have arrived a few days before, so the only thing left before we could go in search of the great herds again was a quick phone call and a trip to the post office. With that knowledge we ended our day excited about the achievement of staying at Jungle Junction only two nights.
Day 208:
We woke early and started work on the lost package. We had to wait for the South African office to open and because of the time differences that meant 9am local time. At that time Catt started phoning around but did not manage to get a single answer from a single person. The only thing left to do was to drive to the post office in town… down the terrible hill and through the traffic… to find out where it was. As we hit the first jam I said that if we were still in the city by 11am there was no point in trying to make the Mara that afternoon and with the instant realization that we would never have been able to get to the post office and back before that time we agreed to sort out postal things on our return.
A u-turn later got us to a Bureau de Change for some much needed US$ for entrance into the park and as we got back to the car the phone rang… I just knew that call would screw with my plans! It was from the courier company that had Catt’s passport telling her that it was at the depot in town and that she could collect it straight away. We had sent our passports to our respective counties to obtain Ethiopian Visas as they no longer got issued in Nairobi. It made sense not to let a passport lie around at a courier depot, so we headed in that direction immediately… past the post office off course. With a bit of struggling and a massive stroke of luck we actually managed to find the depot and the passport. It was on the complete opposite side of the city and there was simply no way in the world that we would have been able to reach the Mara before dark. Not wanting to break Rule no 1 again I admitted defeat and headed to the main Kenya Posta… in the middle of the city.
With surprising efficiency they managed to track the parcel to the post office closest to JJ’s, so we headed there, picked it up and reached the camp site again just after 14:00. I had to giggle a little bit at the fact that we were not able to leave… again… and Duncan, the manager laughingly said: “You can check out any time, but you don’t ever leave this place you know…” I knew, but at the same time I was 100% confident that we would leave the next day. I had to phone Marcio to move our appointment for exhaust fixing, but as he knew Chris and Jungle Junction he understood and did not mind at all.
Part of settling in for the afternoon meant the ritual of making the good coffee in the late afternoon. This was when we found out that the pressure pump for the MSR multi fuel stove had in fact given up on us. When putting it back together the previous evening I obviously cross threaded a small part which by then had completely destroyed the thread, meaning that we could not close the control valve any longer. This was a little bit of an issue as we had no alternative water boiling devices. Our contingency was a small hiking gas stove, but we had not been able to get gas for it since leaving home and I very much doubted if we would be able to source that gas in Nairobi… Furthermore, I could not see any way of getting a replacement pump for the multi fuel stove in Nairobi. There was nothing for it, I had to get online and find one to be couriered to us. That would have been the forth thing we were couriering to Nairobi in as many days: Catt’s passport from the visa agency, my passport from my mom, replacement credit cards from Catt’s mom… and a integral part of a stove.
I phoned up the factory in the USA who referred me to the factory in Ireland. It was too late to get hold of them, so I had to leave to the next day. I sent a panicky and urgent email, hoping that they would phone me back the next morning when they opened their doors. While all this was going on the charcoal that had gotten wet decided to stop making heat and stop cooking our Pork Chops. Catt went into the kitchen to pan fry them further and I poured another glass of wine and started counting to one million… In Kiswahili… The day had not gone the way I envisaged it at all!
Day 209:
It was a brand new day with brand new challenges and a planned trip to the Masai Mara. We woke early and got the show on the road immediately. Water was boiled in the kitchen and as the clock struck 8:30 we arrived at the Yaya shopping centre. This posh mall in an affluent area boasted a fancy and specialized camping shop and two hardware stores. Our plan was to pray that the fancy shop stocked MSR fuel pumps and if not, gas for our other stove. The worst case scenario was to buy a new hiking gas stove to use while we waited for our replacement part, which was not ordered yet.
The camping shop was an amazing place to find! The specialized gear they had on offer was enough to make any self respecting outdoorsman drool. They had multi fuel stoves as well, but only the Optimus brand, which incidentally we had before replacing it with the MSR and sending the malfunctioning one to the UK with Catt’s parents… from Malawi… They did not have any gas products either, but the friendly man pointed us in the direction of the hardware store. The first store had a stove and gas for it for about the same price as the courier cost for our part. The second store and the same thing, but at 25% less money. I was about to pull the wallet out when I asked him about gas for the stove that we had. He smiled and said: That’s what you have in your hand sir… So, for less than $10 we were up and running again with an efficient way to make coffee. I immediately knew this was going to be a better day.
Back at the Junction we planned to only have a shower, make another cup of coffee and hit the road to the Masai Mara. It all seemed so simple until the DHL van pulled in right behind us and delivered my passport, Ethiopian visa inside. That was fantastic news and a great relief, but it also meant that I had to visit the Kenya immigration office that day as my Kenya visa had run out while my passport was away. And to make matters even better, the immigration office was in town, down the horrible hill and right next to the post office Catt and I had visited the day before. It was abundantly clear that we would have to spend another night at JJ’s and not get to the Mara… again!
The up side was that shortly after my shower I had a phone call from Ireland. The friendly lady explained that if I could give her an address, she would send the stove part immediately. And, as it happened, we were joined at JJ’s by a couple from Ireland whose parents were about to fly to Nairobi… so not only did MSR replace the part, no questions asked and under guarantee, but we had a personal courier organised within an hour. The day was still going really well and I could not help but think that the only reason we were struggling to leave town was that we were being punished for moving faster than Africa pace two days earlier.
We had an early lunch, providing some sustenance for the task that lay ahead of us. The drive to town was surprisingly easy and finding parking and the right building was equally simple. However, nothing is ever just easy, so we arrived ten minutes into the one hour lunch break. We went in search of a café to hang out in and returned forty minutes later with the theory of being first in the cue when the doors opened again. That was a fine and sound idea, only we always seem to forget that cues do not exist in Africa. Our cue became a bunch that swelled over the last fifteen minutes before opening time and by the time the doors were flung open, the only way forward was to push and shove and jostle for my rightful position. I almost made it…
The visa process was simple and easy. I did meet the grumpiest man in Africa, who happened to be the person who decided if you are allowed a visa extension or not. When finally I had the last stamp and signature safely in my passport I looked him in the eye, thanked him and told him to try and be a little happier in life… All in the broken Swahili I had managed to pick up along the way. That, I have to say, took the wind completely out of his sails and I was almost sure that I noticed the faint start of a smile before I left.
We struggled our way out of the city and back up the horrible hill and arrived to a smiling camp site manager shaking his head at our inability to leave his safe haven. The Irish were around though and that meant a lot of fun and big party starting just as the sun started to set. This lasted well into the night which made falling asleep when we finally surrendered to the comforts of the tent very easy!
Day 210:
This was the day we were going to leave and nothing was going to stand in my way! We teamed up with a couple from Holland/Germany (They also don’t really know) and after replenishing our wine stores which suffered greatly from the previous evening’s antics, we set off down the road towards the Mara… Finally!
About 20km out of Nairobi we reached the top of the Great Rift Valley and stopped at a suitable photographic place. This happened to be right next to a curio shop selling raw sheep skin hats and full skins… amongst other things. The friendly shop owners engaged us in conversation and even offered to take a photo of us. We looked at their wares with some interest but when it was clear that we were not going to buy anything, they stopped asking or offering. This was in contradiction to what we had been told about Kenya and its people and yet again I was pleasantly surprised about the country which did not deserve the reputation we had been told about.
The road down into the valley floor was new and good and fast going and the new tar road to the town of Narok could have been mistaken for a national hi way in any first world country. The traffic was light and the weather fantastic and we made very good time! We left that road just west of Narok, turned south towards Sekenani Gate and were abruptly forced to slow down. The potholes started as we knew it would and I was not looking forward to the badly corrugated dirt we also knew about. Fortunately it was lunch time just before the start of that last 30km of dirt. We pulled off the road, joined by Mark and Dena. That was the first time I managed to have a look at their vehicle and I have to admit that I was very impressed and slightly jealous…
They had a 70 series Land Cruiser Pick up which had been converted to a mean, lean 4x4 camper machine. It had a pop top to make space for a bed and you could move from the seats to the back and in bad weather or congested places you could actually make and eat food and even go to bed without ever leaving the car. Nice….
The last 30km was not as bad as I had remembered it from three weeks earlier. We reached the gate by 14:00 and walked into the office, wallet in hand, ready to part with our $125 for a day’s visit to the Mara. The man behind the counter asked if we were heading to $%&^%*… I just said yes, and he opened the gate and told us that another man at the Sand River Bridge would take our money. I’m sure I’ve explained this before, but let me recap: The Masai Mara is split into two parts, managed by two different groups. The part east of the Mara River is the Reserve and the part on the western side of the Mara River is called the Conservancy. They charge an equal amount of money per person per day, but often do not accept the receipts from each other as payment for entry. A few people we had met told us that they were asked to pay at their point of entry and then again when they wanted to cross from the one side to the other. We were reliably told that that is not the case and your entry permit should be valid for either side of the river. We were also told that you sometimes needed to “insist” on this before the gate man will let you pass. This man obviously thought we were heading to the Conservancy, which is why he waived us through.
Our plan inside the park was actually to head to the Tanzania border and along the Sand River where there were said to be big herds of Wildebeest still crossing into the Serengeti National Park. As we drove we saw the usual few ungulates, but nothing spectacular. We reached the closed border post by mid afternoon after seeing a large amount of carcasses strewn over the planes, but not a single wildebeest in sight. The public camp site was as deserted as the plains but we were met by the border guard. I asked him about the migration and our timing and he confirmed our worst fears. He said that the previous day saw the last of the herds crossing and he was certain that we missed the whole thing. With that news we made the decision to head towards Talek and camp outside of the park for a fraction of the cost.
Mark and Dena met up with us again just after turning around. We shared the sad news and they agreed to follow us out the park. We settled into our seats comfortably and treated the journey as a normal afternoon game drive, not expecting the spectacular, but hoping for the interesting. We saw some Buffalo grazing on a football pitch at a ranger station, some Giraffe and some other ungulates. Over a rise I spotted many many black dots on the horizon and lifting the binoculars the excitement returned. It was a massive mega herd of Wildebeest and Zebra. They were not travelling or marching anywhere, but they were still there, which was a great sign!
We spent the most part of an hour driving through the herd and taking some pictures and laughing at the noise they were making. There was no river in sight and no real possibility of seeing a crossing that day, so we headed on towards the gate. At some point we saw the big herd of Safari Vehicles approaching from the front as asking one of the drivers I learnt that someone had spotted a Black Rhino and the gang were on their way there. Knowing where the sighting was I realized that we did not have enough time to reach that, and make the exit gate before dark, so reluctantly we left in the opposite direction. Close to the Talek gate we were rewarded for our efforts with a Hyena sighting right next to the road. We knew the individual from our time with the Hyena researchers a week or so before and spent a little while watching her. We had enough time to drive a loop before leaving and while doing so we saw a small herd of Elephant. The light was great and the big fluffy clouds in the background were lit up perfectly. I found it a little strange to see the gentle giants on the wide open plains, but they were heading towards the river, so I guessed that they would stay around there munching on the juicy trees lining the banks.
Literally around the next corner I spotted a Lioness lying in the open. We edged closer and stopped meters away from her. She was doing what Lions do best, which was absolutely nothing at all, but as always, it was fantastic to see her anyway. There was a real fear around the Mara that if the Masai kept on killing Lions at the rate that they had been, there would be no Lions left by 2012… A scary thought… This Lioness had two adolescent cubs which came out of the nearby bushes to greet us. We spent a few minutes more, but the time to leave was imminent. We drove over the next hill and spotted a group of safari vehicles. I guessed by the density of the group that something exciting was happening and once we got there we saw that they two were looking at a few Lions. We didn’t really have time to linger, so headed off pretty much straight away.
After passing through the town of Talek we arrived at our proposed camping place just as the sun hit the horizon. It was perfect timing and although a very long day indeed, we were happy with the results of it. Mark and Dena were beside themselves with joy about their first day of wild life spotting in the Mara!
The Mara Aruba camp on the banks of the Talek River seemed a beautiful, exclusive and fantastic place to hang out. We had o9ne cold beer in the bar before being showed the modest, but functioning camp site. I would have enjoyed another beer or two, but at the lodge prices, there was just no point in indulging. So we pitched our tent in the near dark, got the fire going and were perfectly content eating our medium rare fillet steak and drinking our Californian red wine. We sat around a fire chatting for a while and just as we were about to go to bed, we were joined by the night askari, Edward the Lion… We asked Edward about the area and wildlife movements and he assured us that he could guide us to a place where the Wildebeest were still crossing the Mara River and he knew of a Cheetah with six cubs in the area. Neither us nor Mark and Dena had a spare seat in our vehicles, so we had to decline his kind offer, explaining the logistical problems. He smiled at this and said that he would explain to us where to go the next day, regardless and free of charge…
With happy hearts and exciting prospects we crawled into our comfortable tent, knowing that we were well looked after for the night.
If I had to do it again:
In Retrospect, regardless of the frustrations at the time, I was really glad that we stayed in Nairobi for two extra days. The weather had been really bad with raining most of every day before we got to the Mara and by the time we arrived, the weather was perfect! I was sad to have missed the big crossing… again… but I also remembered the story of the film makers we met in Queen Elisabeth National park some months before. They told us that they had spent a week trying to film a crossing and never saw it, so concluded that it was only luck to see one. We had a small budget, allowing us two days in the park, so there was no way we could have expected to see one so easily.
Our time in Nairobi and at Jungle Junction was always fun and the group of people that we kept bumping into when we got there were much fun and very interesting.
All and all it was a great and fantastic week with lots of adventure and enjoyment. The one thing that would have made it better was the ability to catch an elusive trout in a stream on Mt Kenya… That concept would now have to wait for Ethiopia’s Simien mountains.
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