Blogs from Rift Valley Province, Kenya, Africa - page 5

Yes, one more bucket list item completed! Thanks to our friend Joe Carli, for pushing us off the fence to do it! To see the animals and the Mara expanse from the air was truly magical.... read more

Today we have an 0430 start for our wake up call. Wake up calls here are a Maasai warrior calling out at our door of the tent. Unfortunately they mixed up tents and woke our neighbours who weren’t going on the flight. Then they came to us and did their bit. Never mind. We are in the Balloon companies 4wd and off in the dark with rather slippery roads after last nights downpour. Nearly slip off the road early, but the driver saves it and we keep going. Pass the spot where the car got bogged last night. There as a school bus stopped there last night and that is still there. The driver says it is full of kids who slept there. Interesting. On we go, looking good, then bang and lean. Oh oh, in ... read more

The day started early as we had a flight to catch at 0900. We had about an hour from our lodge to the airport so we should have plenty of time. Unfortunately, it had rained all night, including a drip from the roof in our room. The rain meant slippery roads, and guess what. The lead truck - not ours slipped off the crown of the road and into a ditch. Stuck, bogged in our terminology. Forward, backward, no go. Our 4wd experts in or truck were giving their opinion, all offering the best advice but in the end, the truck was stuck. Masha and Moses got out to push and shove, but no way was it coming out easily. Got out of the ditch but not straight, then into the next ditch. This time it ... read more

Rites of passage. I remember mine, what a fabulous day. 16 years old, clutching my exam results. We left school and went to a shabby pub in Heywood. I wore a cream cheese cloth shirt and brown corduroy Oxford bags, we played pool and stood at the bar having a pint. That was the moment I stopped being a lad and became one of ‘the lads’. I passed the test. Daniel and Jackson told me their coming of age story. Aged 13 a handful of them left their village and went into the bush for three months. They each had some food, a spear, a club and a knife. If they survived, they returned home as men. ‘Did the lions attack you?’ I asked. ‘No.’ ‘Really? Why not?’ I asked, Daniel shrugged his shoulders, ‘We are ... read more

Suddenly I woke up from my sleep in the tent. Just like the last night, I felt a heavy breathing on my neck. It was coming from outside the tent. I carefully listened to the breathing. The animal slowly moved away to the other side of the tent, I heard its cautious footstep; they were not paws because paws have padding underneath; it was as if something was flapping on the wet ground. The animal came back again and started scratching the vinyl wall of the tent. It sure was trying to find out a way to get inside the tent. I thought about the make-believe character ‘Bunip’ in the Bengali fiction,- ‘Mountain of the moon’ where the deadly animal was cautiously surveying the tent where Alvarez and Shankar were sleeping in Africa somewhere. I laughed. ... read more