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Published: September 22nd 2007
So Sadha and I are off on our traveling stint and loving it! We started off on a 4 days Masai Mara safari, doing game drives in the morning and afternoon in our huge truck, aka The Tank, and camping just outside the park at night. We had a large group including 5 other Aussies (sooo weird to hear an aussie accent), an awesome cook (best food we've had in a long time), and a guide - who didn't say much so one of the other aussies ended up telling us about the animals and finding them for us. At the end of the four days we had seen almost everything - thousands of wildebeests who had come up from the Serengeti for the migration, zebras everywhere, secretary birds, huge vultures and other scavenger birds pecking at a dead carcass, hippos, elephants, crocodiles, giraffes, lions mating, a pack of lions including cubs, females and males eating a dead zebra, a beautiful sunrise over the mara, a cheetah and her cub and lots more. The nights were awesome too, lying in our tent listening to the hyenas in the distance.
When we arrive back in Nairobi we had one night at our hostel then we were off again on an 8 day camping trip up northern Kenya to Lake Turkana. This time there were only 3 other wazungus - Robert and Mitch (more aussies, father and son) and Zoe (a lady from Sweden) - Alfred (our cook), Steve (our driver) and our massive beast of a vehicle, aka The Beast. We headed off on a long drive through Thika, Nanyuki and Isiolo, reaching our campsite in Samburu National Reserve in the afternoon. The campsite was beautiful, under huge gum trees on the edge of a river. We had a small tour around the site and everywhere we went we were told to watch out for some dangerous man-eating animals - "make sure you close the tents or the scorpions, safari ants and spiders will get in, don't go past the toilets and showers because there are elephants and buffaloes that will kill you, don't go near the edge of the river or a croc will snatch you, oh and watch out for the monkeys and baboons who will steal your food". As our cook served us our dinner he seemed paranoid about the vervet monkeys that had just started to surround us (we would later learn that at every campsite there was something new to be paranoid about). We had only just sat down when suddenly he shouted "the monkeys are coming! the monkeys are coming!" and we sprang out of our seats just in time as vervet monkeys had come up behind us, reaching out for our plates.
We spent 2 nights at the reserve, each night leaving all the windows in our tent open and hearing lions roaring in the distance. We spent the next day game driving through the park and the reserve seeing herds of buffaloes, Grevy's zebras, reticulated giraffes and viewing the beautiful desert scenery, then spending the rest of the day relaxing in the campsite.
On our third day we packed up and headed to our next destination - Marsabit National Reserve - stopping on the way to view enormous craters and 'Paradise Lake', seeing the Rendille and Gabbra tribes walking along the dusty road next to us in their traditional dress. At this campsite it was the baboons we had to watch out for, who used sneaky tactics, including climbing up a tree and pooing on people, to get the tourists to drop their food. Alfred and Steve were turning out to be great characters, especially Alfred who entertained us every night just talking and talking about anything.
We left the next morning for Kalacha, on the edge of the Chalbi desert, and it was hot. I mean really hot. I was starting to go a little insane in the desert heat, but luckily we had a 'swimming pool' (a water tank off the ground, filled with weird water bugs and covered in slime, but it did the trick). We went through the small town of mud houses, thatched huts and camels. We went into a 'hotel' and had some chai made with camel's milk, then went over to talk to some of the children who were very shy at first but when they came closer they spoke a little in a swahili until one boy shouted "toka hapa!" at us (or 'get out!) and went to through rocks at us! That night we went a short way to the Chalbi desert to watch the beautiful red sun set over the cracked earth, and took alot of goofy photos.
After another long drive the next day we finally reached Lake Turkana or The Jade Sea. It was a really eerie setting, a huge green lake in the middle of the desert, with nothing growing around us, just endless plains of rocks and black sand, it truely felt like we were on the moon or another planet. This time, no tents, but instead we slept in traditional thatched Turkana huts on the edge of the lake. After dinner (this time being wary of the flies and the resident cats) we watched the sun set over the lake. The next day we had a trip to see the El Molo tribe, the smallest tirbe in Kenya (out of 42 tribes). The El Molo tribe had just had some conflict with the Gabbra tribe who wanted their cattle and had attacked them so the El Molo people had fled to a small island in the lake. We arrived by boat on the desolate island with nothing on it except pebbles and rocks and met some of the people. Their tribe consisted of only a few huts and families, and their only commodity was dried fish. We were told by some Belgian people filming a documentary, that the tribe had been drinking the Lake water and were starting to get really sick due to the global warming effects on the lake. The kids were gorgeous (unlike the rock-throwing hostile kids at kalacha), and although shy, they worked up the courage to hold our hands and lead us through the town.
After lunch, we drove to the near-by town of Loiyangalani, home to the Rendille, Gabbra and Turkana tribes, set in a large oasis of palm trees and natural springs. After days and days of trying 'cold soda' in different towns along our trip only to find out it was just soda in water that was 'not hot', we were ecstatic to find cold soda that was actually cold! The people in the town were amazing - girls dressed in their traditional tall beaded necklaces, and the men dressed as warriors painted with red ochre.
That night Zoe, Sadha and I decided to watch a traditional Turkana dance at sunset. The dance was awesome, unlike other tribal dances it wasn't simply a show put on for the tourists, instead it was a sort of game and all the dancers interacted with each other. The men would set the rhythm and the young girls would go into the middle of the circle to pick a man to dance/jump with. Occasionally a man would jump out and 'scare' the girls, doing a weird sort of pelvic thrust, while some of the women twisted their hips so they would hit the men with their animal-skinned tails. We were invited to join in and spent the rest of the night dancing with them until our legs ached. At the end of the night one of the young girls pointed to us and said "Mzungu Turkana!" (white turkana people). the night was awesome and to top it off, we brought our beds outside and slept under the stars, watching the moon set and the shooting stars above us - definitely a night we won't forget!
The last night of our trip was spent in the cooler temperatures of Maralal, and we arrived back in Nairobi yesterday. Northern Turkana was definitely a side of Kenya totally different to what I have seen so far and it was strange to be back in 'civilisation'. Kenya has definitely grown on me and i think I'm going to find it very hard to leave.
Right now we're staying with the Monari's (my old host family), spending the next few days visiting the orphanage and the school in Saikeri, then we're off to Tanzania!
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Christine
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Cheeky Monkeys!
Hi Hannah - Been in Europe for the last two months so today I've been catching up on your blogs that I've missed. I love reading about those monkeys creeping up behind you. It's such a good idea that you're writing all this down, because it will still make great reading in years to come. This last blog has got everything - wildlife up close, warring tribes, desert heat and tribal dancing - it's a fascinating read. What a wealth of experience and information you already have about Africa. Keep writing, and learning about the real Africa. Good luck!