Nairobi to Mombasa

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Leaving Nairobi. Again

In the end I was another week in Nairobi, where I settled happily back into recovering from my illness with the tried and tested regime of cold beer and rare meat. In between torrential downpours, I managed to fit in an oil change for the bike, cleaned my air filter and caught up on a few other minor bits of maintenance. For the most part though it was all about the beer and meat, including a slightly disappointing trip to the much vaunted ‘Carnivores’ restaurant, and otherwise sitting about musing on how much water my tent could realistically be expected to repel before becoming waterlogged and uninhabitable - quite a lot it as it turned out: I was kept surprisingly warm and dry throughout.

A brief aside on ‘Carnivores’: Carnivores is a well known and much hyped all-you-can-eat meat-fest restaurant chain with a branch in Nairobi, Jo’burg and possibly one or 2 others elsewhere though I am not 100%!o(MISSING)n this. The idea is to go in, poke impatiently at a couple of cursory side dishes and then ready yourself for an onslaught of roasted and BBQ’d meat which waiters bring round on long skewers that keep coming until, heart pounding and eyes glazing over, you admit defeat and begin the process of pretending to yourself that you still have some space left for coffee and possibly a slice of cheese cake. Apart from the standard cuts of beef, chicken and pork, the highlight, at least as far as I was lead to believe, is the exotic selection of game meat that you wouldn’t normally expect to find on the menu at your average steak house. Perhaps I was misinformed and expecting too much, but I was thinking of eland, zebra, hippo, possibly snake or any number of other equally weird and wonderful delights and was therefore more than a little disappointed when the only animal on offer that could reasonably be called exotic amounted to the smallest and boniest bits of crocodile ever likely to have been held over a flame. From which part of this famously large and meaty looking creature these tiny chunks of boney gristle were cut was hard to tell, but it was a singularly anti-climactic culinary experience. I declined when the skewer came round the second time and pushed most of the boney bits of croc to the far side of my plate... Otherwise it was a very enjoyable evening with Marcel and I polishing off a couple bottles of very passable wine and tucking away copious slices of the decent beef and admittedly excellent roast pork. A good night out, and good fun in a meat-on-a-stick kind of way, but that’s more or less where the exotic ends and if you’re looking for quality over quantity then my advice is to go elsewhere. Hardly surprising I’m sure.

(Oh s**t!, I’ve done it again… managed to type up 3 hours worth of scintillating narrative only to switch locations and find that it hasn’t saved and I’ve lost it all. Bugger, bugger, bugger!! …deep painful sigh… Oh well. At least it’s still relatively fresh in my mind…)

After a second full week in Nairobi it was definitely time to move on. With the rain seeming to let up for a few days and with Marcel just about finished with that particular round of never-ending work on the truck, we decided to leave for the coast together on Saturday 6 March. I set off a little before them that morning and we arranged to meet at a camping spot called Hunters Lodge about 170km, East and slightly South of Nairobi: a short first day to settle back into things. Nothing much to report re Hunters Lodge, other than it seemed like it had seen grander days. Still, it was a nice enough place and we had a relaxed evening camped by the little lake and watching the herons and stalks flap their way from tree to tree over our heads. The next morning we set off at a leisurely pace towards Tsavo National Park, the biggest in Kenya, which is bisected by the main East/West highway into 'Tsavo East' and 'Tsavo West' - really should be Tsavo North and Tsavo South to my mind, but anyway...

Without any real idea of where to go, we headed towards a camp we'd heard about called 'Maneaters' located on the Tsavo River and so named because of the 2 lions who killed around 130 railway workers building the bridge over the river in the late 19th century. There was a Hollywood film made about it, "The Ghost and The Darkness," back in the 1990's. Anyway, Maneaters was a lovely spot. Unfortunately, with no option to camp and at $100 per person per night, rather too lovely for us budget conscious overlanders. After a brief look around and with a wistful glance back at the cool blue waters of the swimming pool overlooking the river, I set back off towards the main road to meet the truck, which was still some few kilometers behind me, and we continued on our way to Voi, the main town in the local area.

About 3km past Voi, and literally meters away from the main Voi gate into Tsavo East, we found the Red Elephant lodge where we seemed to be the only guests and where, happily, camping was allowed. We settled in and made ourselves at home in the small pool with a couple of drinks and plenty of contented splashing. Being so close to the park, and not having seen any 'real' game so far on the trip (i.e. things that might eat, trample or gore you) it was agreed that we'd leave my bike at the lodge the next day and take the truck into the park to see what we could find. That night was an early one and at dawn we piled in and, under intermittent downpours, made our way into the gloomy, brooding bush.

We had a very lucky day. So did most of the other tourists it seems - many of them snapping a rare sighting of the greater red fire truck to amaze and impress their friends and family back home. Within half and hour we’d been chased by an angry red elephant and, with directions from a friendly safari tour driver, found our way to 3 lionesses and their cubs playing nonchalantly between the horde of vehicles lined up to stare at them. They were beautiful to see and seemed careless of our presence, but the experience was somewhat diluted by the sheer number of people and cars and camera flashes as each vehicle jostled for position to see their little piece of the African wild. Once we’d extracted ourselves from the melee of the 13 separate safari vehicles, including one full size intercity bus, we had a quick coffee break in one of the camps and then took a quiet looking track North, happy to have seen the lions, and without much expectation to see anything to top them.

The scenery was fantastic: long red-earth tracks, winding through the savannah, with patches of deep blue breaking through the dark, rain laden clouds above. I was sitting up front with Marcel and he casually mentioned that on all his previous trips he had never seen a leopard and what did he think the chances were of seeing one here today. “None whatsoever”, I replied immediately, and began to list of the many reasons staked against us including the type of bush we were in (low, thick, dense, flat) the weather, the general rarity of sightings etc etc. One would pretty much have to jump onto the truck for us to have any chance of seeing one that morning… 5 minutes later we noticed some strange marks on the road, possibly a tail dragging in the damp earth… and were those large cat tracks too? Possibly, but hard to tell. In any case the road was long and straight and there was clearly nothing ahead moving on it. We strained ahead hoping to make out something loping up the road in the distance. And then a leopard ran out in front of us.

For the next 45 minutes we inched our way slowly up the track, then back again, as she (let's say it was a she) padded slowly down the side of the road, first lost to sight in the thick bush, then coming back into view and following the road back the way we'd come. We clambered up onto the truck roof and snapped away on our cameras in more than a little awe as she stopped about 50m from us, re-crossed the road and was lost to view moments later. It was a really beautiful sight and with only us to see it, it felt that much more natural and special. Marcel had a big beaming smile on and and so did I (although mine perhaps a little more sheepish after my earlier proclamations on a leopardless day) as we clambered back into the truck and continued on our way. Te rest of the day was beautiful and relaxing, although we didn't have any other big sightings. A couple of crocs, hippo and some more elephants and buffalo from afar, but that was about it. The scenery continued to be spectacular though and we soaked it all in and arrived back at the Red Elephant that evening tired but very content with our days drive.

That evening was a good laugh as Marcel, Joanna and I tucked into the gin and beers around the pool. At some point, with our stock of gin depleted, Joanna in bed and the bar now closed for more orders, Marcel and I had an amusing moment trying to decant some of the display bottles behind the bar... only to find that the proprietor was wise to this game and had already filled them all with water leaving us laughing, but unhappily alcohol-less, as we traipsed off in defeat to our beds.

The next day found us within an easy half day drive of Mombasa and we arrived mid-afternoon at a lovely little family run guest-house come camp-site about 20km north of the city. Run by a German couple living in the country for the last 17 years or so - if I remember correctly - it was a beautiful and spot, with a few well fitted cottages and a grassy camping area under the shade of large, healthy looking baobab and flame trees. Monkeys clambered around the trees in the morning and we spent a very chilled few days there, swimming, braaing and drinking plenty of gin and beer. In fact it was almost a bit too chilled for me to be honest. Completely cut off from the rest of the world by the high walls and circling trees, it was easy to forget we were in Africa at all - which I guess was part of the point - but after 4 days and despite a long drive up the coast and a few pints in town, I was getting some serious cabin fever and missing the wide views and local flavour. It was time for the beach!

Tiwi beach is an absolutely fantastic spot. About 30km South of Mombasa, the camp site is right on the sand and the sum total of life's hassles amount to haggling over a few euros for huge fresh fish and making the 100m stroll to pick up another cold beer from the bar. It's a really tough life on Tiwi and I loved it. Hopefully the pictures will tell their own story 'cause now I have to dash and get myself ready for a long drive back inland towards the Usambara mountains. The weather seems a bit clearer in Dar today so time for me to make a move back inland for a week or so before hitting the coast again over Easter. More updates on the road South from Tiwi to Dar es Salaam to follow as soon as I have some more time in front of the computer. Possibly that will be from Arusha in a few days. Until then...

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Comments

[Godwin]

Jambo
Thank you for staying at our lodge, i hope your stay was satisfactory and you had a nice adventure in Kenya.

[chrisdy]

re: Jambo
It was a pleasure and I would definitely recommend your lodge to friends! :)

[Irene]

Excellent writing, enjoyable read beginning to end. you've stayed true to your style. thanks for sharing! Still bumped that I managed to scare away the only leopard I ever saw by scrambling for the camera..