African Safari Holidays- Being held at gunpoint in Kenya

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I have always loved Africa and everything about it- growing up glued to David Attenborough on the television has made me not just yearn for visiting Africa, but lust for it intensely. There is something about Africa, it has whatever the X factor is. It is a continent of having absolutely everything you could imagine, home to the cradle of mankind, the oldest of civilizations, the largest and most diverse collections of birds, mammals and plants, colossal sky scraping mountaing and deep gorges, intense heat and drought to snow covered mountains, rocky cliffs to white tropical beaches- it literally has everything anyone could ever want encompasses in one massive block of land sandwiched between the Atlantic and Indian ocean, and the Mediterranean sea. Africa is, without a doubt, my favourite place to visit, with ten individual visits to the African continent and having visited Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania (and Zanzibar), Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. This Christmas will mark my 11th trip to this stunning continent to see more of Kenya and to visit Uganda and Rwanda and see the mountain gorillas. I adore this place, it is where we got engaged to be married (in the Rock in Zanzibar), and where we recently had our honeymoon, and I crave this place day in day out. I am not exaggerating when I say I literally cannot get enough of Africa!

I am going to break these posts down according to country or region, or else it will be mahoosive! Kenya formed the first stop in our first Safari adventure where we travelled from Nairobi, through Tanzania (taking in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater), and ending in Zanzibar. Now to talk a bit about Africa- we usually make our own way around the place no matter where we go, and hire our own drivers or get public transport, but Africas public transport system (and not being massively safe) make this probably a poor choice- I would advise booking a safari tour or just a regular tour depending on where you go. If you are doing a safari, shop Around and see exactly what you want and what is and isn't included- safaris can get really expensive and even the cheapest ones can set you back (flights included) several thousand- both of ours have set us back in the region of about 8-10K each, but it depends what you want to do and see and what add ons you like- for us- we want it all and include pre and post safari accommodation and activities. We choose an overlanding camping safari and upgrade each place along the way as we are too lazy, but a lot opt for tents. Transport on the trips we have been on have generally been converted army trucks then breaking down into open top safari vehicles for when on safari. A lot of time is spent on the road and it can be tedious, but so worth it! I am going to discuss a little our our experience in Kenya and then detail Tanzania in another post. We are returning to Kenya in December, so I will then build on our Kenyan experience then.

So, we arrived into a scorching how Nairobi and again had pre booked a taxi and the driver met us at arrivals- which didnt really exist on account of them upgrading the airport, and off we went. We were staying in Nairobi for a few nights prior to starting the overland safari, so I had booked us into a lovely little colonial house for the duration. I handed the driver the address and off we went...to find the hotel wasnt where the hotel said it was. Lots of frantic googling finally determined that our hotel had moved location- yes indeed, they had the same name, new photos and new location! Gaaah! We eventually found it after driving in rush hour Nairobi traffic (that sort of is like Delhi traffic but on wider roads!). We checked into our tiny buy beautiful hotel and went to go off out to explore...but no..we weren't allowed! Taxis had to be sought to go anywhere in Nairobi. That evening we went to Carnivores restaurant- a very famous Nairobi 'bush' restaurant, an all you can eat affair serving up the usual meats as well as crocodile, ox testicle, impala, rabbit and buffalo (not to mention the fabulous local drink- Dawa!). Really would recommend this place as the food is fabulous and I cant wait to return!

The next day we visited the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, which is home to a number of elephants that have been orphaned, mainly due to poaching but often die to disease or accidents. This place is a must visit- seeing baby elephants being fed and play in the mud- what isn't there to love! The elephants adopted parents are volunteers who dedicate their lives to raising these babies and are truly remarkable people- and they told us each elephants story- I can safely say tissues were needed! There is also the opportunity to adopt and elephant and then return in the evening to put them to bed- I know what I will be doing in December! We then went on to see the Giraffe Sanctuary where you get to view the rare Rothschild giraffes from a viewing platform and feed them (sometime popping a treat between your lips to get a giraffe kiss- I did it and it was interesting!!). Again, this place is so worth a visit and like the elephant orphanage, all the proceeds from entry fees goes into conservation. There is also the option to visit Nairobi national park, which we didnt have time for, and of course to visit the Masai Mara- we didn't get to do this, but as I keep saying, we will in December!

We ventured the next day into the nearby village of Karen and then got a 'matatu' bus into Nairobi centre- that was an experience in itself-these tiny taxi/mini busses are jammed full of people and animals and pump loud music- anything seems to go...and for us the trip into Nairobi seemed to take forever. When we arrived it was positively underwhelming. There wasn't much to see at all, and the city was noisy, bustling, intimidating and unfriendly. We had an unfortunate experience of seeing a large stork on top of a building and taking a photo of it. The next thing we knew we were surrounded by armed police pointing guns at us shouting! We were terrified and I explained what we were doing. They were shouting that it is illegal to photograph a government building but we were trying to reason that there were no signs. They also claimed there were no photography signs, which there weren't. They finally allowed me to show the the very zoomed in photo of the bird and were satisfied that we weren't terrorists and put their guns away. After that we sort of lost interest in Nairobi and went back to the hotel. Not the most pleasant of cities I must say!

The following day we visited the Karen Blixon museum- interesting enough but wasn't exactly fascinating but the coffee house and gardens were beautiful and a haven for birds and butterfies and Ngong forest sanctuary, which which also was very lovely and a very pleasant way to kill an afternoon- there wasn't a massive amount to wildlife aside from a few monkeys, but still was very pretty. That evening we returned to Nairobi city centre to meet our tour group, and the first nights accommodation was in the Kenya comfort hotel- nothing comfortable about this place- rubber mattresses and a reek of burned fat that permeated the place! We had our pre tour meeting with the group and gave our local payment (this is quite common that you book your fights and tour for x amount, then have a local payment- this can be anything from 500 USD to 1400 USD). An early night was required for our early start the next day.

Getting up to leave the following day, we departed at 7am and hit the road in our huge truck! We stopped at a shopping centre for supplies along the way- the tour was equipped with a guide, driver and cook, and so we needed to get all of what was needed, as well as snacks for the long trip ahead. The plan was to drive to the Tanzania border and then cross over and set up camp there in the snake park!! We stopped en route for lunch which was made in an on the road kitchen, and then set off again. The boarder crossing was interesting and if anyone does this, be prepared for a lit of queuing and lack of manners, it shook my Britishness to the core! And that brought an end to our very short stay in Nairobi. As I said, I will be posting in future about the Masai Mara, Lake Naivasha, Lake Nakuru, and the Rift Valley- and I cannot wait!!

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