Kenya, Africa

---

Across the Kenyan border we stopped once again at Eldoret and had a fantastic Indian meal. It tasted all the better for being the first proper Indian meal we’d had in months.

Next up was Naivasha which is next to Hell’s Gate National Park. The area around Naivasha is famous for its flower growing. It has the perfect conditions, with volcanic soil, high altitude (around 2,300m) and an abundance of fresh water from Lake Naivasha. 75% of all flowers sold in Europe come from this area and it’s one of Kenya’s biggest exports.

Also, bizarrely, Lake Naivasha was a stop for the flying boats from Southampton. The Imperial Airways service took 12 stops and 3 days to make the trip. It ran for a few years wither side of WWII and was mainly a recreational destination for wealthy adventurous Brits.

Hell’s Gate National Park contains the Big Five (Buffalo, Leopard, Lion, Elephant and Rhino), but for some reason they allow tourists to cycle through the park without as much as a cycle helmet for protection. On our trip the only dangerous animals we saw were buffalo. They have poor eyesight so use smell to sense danger. One charged in the direction our smell was coming from. Luckily the wind was in our favour so gave us enough time to cycle away.

The park itself is stunning. It is volcanically active with steam vents and hot springs. It also has beautiful red cliffs and a 17km long canyon which is where the park got its name. We cycled about 30km in total, passing zebra, giraffe, impala, buffalo, gazelle and heartbeast. It was a nice change from the normal game driveas we were cycling right amongst the animals.

Our walk down into the canyon took over an hour. It was apparently the setting for the film Tomb Raider. In the canyon are hot thermal springs and pool. Being down there amongst all the heat and the steam you can tell why they call it Hell’s Gate.

Our campsite in Naivasha was right on the lake and so we had hippos in the campsite each night. Whilst they were separated from us by an electric fence it’s still hard to sleep at night when your tent is 20 metres away from a an animal that weighs 4 tons, has bullet-proof skin and doesn’t really like people.

From Naivasha we travelled to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. It’s important to note that this place is a reserve, not a national park. The difference being people - in this case the Maasai - are allowed to live in the reserve. The Maasai Mara and the Serengeti are actually the same place except that the Serengeti part is in Tanzania. The Serengeti is also a park so nobody live there.

Just a few days before we came here we read a report in a national paper that the Maasai had killed 75 lions by lacing meat with insecticide. Maasai don’t hunt, but keep cows and goats that the lions kill. The Maasai have traditionally killed lions, but normally this is done using a spear - meaning they don’t kill that many. This time they killed a quarter of all lions in the reserve. The Maasai are very undereducated people and don’t understand the massive financial impact this could have to Kenya’s biggest tourist attraction. From the Maasai’s point of view, though, they are neglected by a corrupt Kenyan government and don’t see much of the tourist money anyway.

Unfortunately for us the rainy season started for us four days before we visited the reserve. Whilst it didn’t rain when we were there, the four days of rain transformed the barren open plains into fields of knee-high grass. This made it really difficult to spot any of the cats.

We did see two lions, but the highlight was seeing a huge elephant being eaten by hyenas. The elephant had probably been dead for a couple of days and a lot of the meat had already been taken from the carcass. Given its size it probably dies from old age. Previously it was though that elephants all went to the same place to die for sentimental reasons. Many of the African parks have these “elephant graveyards”. The actual reason is that when elephants lose their sixth and final set of teeth they move to an area with lush grass because it’s easier to chew. Because they can no longer consume the necessary amount of food they eventually weaken and get killed by a predator such as a hyena.

Two hyenas were feasting on a leg whilst some vultures and jackals looked on enviously, waiting for their turn. Behind the bush was the family that this elephant had belonged to. Elephants are known to mourn their dead and the family got as close as they could without putting their vulnerable young at risk from the hyenas.

From the Maasai Mara we took our final drive back to Nairobi, passing again through the Great Rift Valley. Our final activity was to visit the elephant sanctuary in Nairobi. All the elephants are orphans and the project’s aim is to return them to the wild. They have already released about 75 into Tsavo National Park. They also take in rhinos. We saw about 15 elephants ranging from 3 months to 2 years old. They were all very playful, but even the youngest ones are stronger than most people. They also had a 3 month old baby rhino who acted just like a naughty, playful puppy. At the time they were also looking after two fully grown rhinos - one black and one white. One of them was blind and so will never be released. It was friendly enough that it could be stroked. It felt like a brick wall.

After 8 months we’ve finally come to the end of our trip. Here is my “best of” Africa:

- Best Campsite: Ngepi Camp, Namibia
- Best restaurant: Neopolitanas, Swakopmund, Namibia
- Best Beer: Primus from Rwanda, closely followed by Windhoek from Namibia
- Biggest Adrenaline Rush: Skydiving in Namibia
- Best Beach: North Bank in Zanzibar followed by Kande Beach in Malawi
- Best View: On top of Lion’s Head mountain in Cape Town, South Africa closely followed by the drive to Musanze in Rwanda
- Friendliest kids: A tie between Rwanda and Malawi
9 countries
10 border crossing
12,400km
4 equator crossings
15 different beers

---