Hatching a Plan, 31 Jan - 02 Feb 2010

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It's our last day in Nairobi - for now at least. It's somewhat embarrassing that we spent four days in Nairobi without once venturing into the city centre, except as a transit point on our final day, in order to catch a matatu south towards the Masai Mara. Our justification? We had a trip to plan! Hanging around the camp to attempt this exciting activity, we pretty quickly discovered that negotiating an itinerary is no easy task when faced with four months to spare and an infinite number of places to spend them! Africa is so vast, and the options so limitless, that settling on a decision as to what should be our first step was hard enough, let alone deciding on the general pathway for the whole trip, or the equipment we may or may not need! Also, Africa really does seem quite expensive, and we are definitely not flush with cash, so it is an additional challenge to work out how to get around and see things on a pretty tight budget, but I suppose that's just part of the game of independent travelling, and we've been playing it for a while, so I am sure we will get there in the end.

Over the days we derived thinking power from delicious lunch and browsing visits to a couple of the local markets. In contrast to what we'd read about veg food in East Africa (generally "bland, boring and limited"), our intro to Kenyan cuisine was a welcome surprise. The guidebooks are obviously written by meat eaters! Apart from the great variety of fresh fruit and veg available for purchase (which we made use of for dinners, along with the groceries that we picked up at the insanely huge and well-stocked 24 hour supermarket nearby), we were also impressed by the awesome lunches we were able to feast on each day. We all became instant fans of sukuma, cooked greens similar to spinach, as well as the fried cabbage, veg/potato stew and chapatis that all so far seem to be ubiquitous throughout the country. We've even tried the staple "ugali," (maize/corn flour cooked into a polenta-like consistency) which was first shared with us by a local diner (we were always the only "muzungus" - whites - there). Unfortunately, the guy turned out to be pretty sleazy. The ugali was all right though 😊

The camp was a nice environment to plan in, as we were staying in comfy mattress-filled tents provided by the gorgeous and relaxing campsite, which was lovely and green with a variety of plants and trees. The trees were filled with beautiful birds at all times of the day, and there were occasional eagles flying over head... the number of which hugely increased on an afternoon when the owner made a show of feeding them. There was also a resident dog at the campsite, that was super cute and more like a cat than a dog in its stubborn refusal to be interested in playing with Hero - unfortunately for whom the dog was more interested in chasing shadows than playing with her! Finally, there were also two resident tortoises, which were very amusing to watch - though the boy one was constantly chasing the girl one for some you-know-what and for all that the poor thing tried to escape, he kept managing to shuffle that little bit faster than her...

In between food and tortoise-watching breaks, we were also busy traipsing around, and calling various places, in search of a tent and other camping supplies. We'd assumed it would be pretty easy to pick up these supplies in Nairobi as it's such a big city and also a popular starting and finishing point for travellers, but alas and alack we were greatly mistaken. In the end,the best option for ALL the gear was from the supermarket, of all places - eek! In the absence of alternatives, we apprehensively but resignedly settled on a tent that has "weekender" cheerily stamped onto its side, hoping that its espousal of 'waterproofness' is true. Fingers - and toes! - tightly crossed.

Four days after arrival we were ready(ish!) and itching to leave. Laden with packs made ridiculously heavy with the addition of tent; sleeping mat; gas cooker and butane canister; pots/pans/mugs; and food, and armed with an agreed first destination, we set off for stop number one: the Masai Mara.

P.S. The Rough Plan

Now that we have a rough idea of what we are doing, here is the general plan: we are heading down to the Masai Mara for the 'quintessential' African safari experience, before heading north west from there through Hell's Gate National Park and a couple of other places, then into Uganda and Rwanda, with some more wildlife, walking, etc along the way, as well as Mountain Gorilla tracking. From there we hope to skirt across the top of Tanzania to check out the Ngorongoro Crater and do some walking in and around Lushoto before zipping back up into Kenya to explore some of the coastal towns - Watamu, Malindi, Diani and Lamu. Then it's downwards pretty quickly - perhaps by train - into either Zambia or Malawi, as a way to get across to Namibia. But then all this could change at any time!

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