Advertisement
Published: February 23rd 2019
Edit Blog Post
After the first week driving around Kenya, the group returned to Nairobi. Some people left the tour, and more joined (for a total of 22 people), and we had the same crew of three - Antonio, our guide, David, our driver, and Godfrey, our cook.
Nairobi has a terrible problem with traffic. We sat in a traffic jam normally about a five minute drive from our hotel, but didn't move for over an hour. Our guide, Antonio, said that there are a lot of cars on the roads now because people can afford them, but the roads haven't kept up with the increase of motor traffic. Another issue Kenya is dealing with is plastic. Kenya passed a law in 2017 prohibiting plastic bags; the government estimated that before the ban, Kenyans used 24 million plastic bags a month. Among other issues with using plastic is that grazing cattle feed on the bags; one cow from a Nairobi slaughterhouse had had 20 bags pulled from its stomach (Lonely Planet Kenya, 2018, p. 381). If visitors arrive in Kenya with plastic bags, the bags can be confiscated. Violators can be sentenced up to four years in
prison or a US$38,000 fine.
Antonio passed out cloth bags at the beginning of each tour for us to use for any shopping we may do.
We had a few options for our free time in Nairobi. Isak Dinesen, aka Karen Blixen who wrote Out of Africa, lived in the outskirts of Nairobi, and her house is now a museum. We could also have gone to the Giraffe Sanctuary, which was established to protect the endangered Rothschild giraffe (giraffes with no spots below their knees). We chose to go to the Nairobi National Museum, which has displays of animal and human skeletons (pictures from our last blog show little kids around a snake skeleton, and scientists putting together a wildebeest skeleton). The museum also has a Cradle of Humankind room, containing the Hominid Skull Room - several human skulls, some dating back as much as 1.75 million years.
A few Lonely Planet descriptions on the Masai Mara National Reserve: "The ultimate Africa cliché … heaving with animals great and small … the epitome of the African dream, its golden, bleached savannah is covered with unparalleled densities of animals, great and small, and
the vast majority of it is untouched by the destructive hand of man. Visitors can't help but be bowled over by its natural riches." (LP, p. 112, 122).
There were some long drives on this trip, and some of them were on dirt roads. I spent my birthday in Tanzania; Pete wasn't able to make a card, so he printed out "Happy Birthday" on our dust-covered table in the truck. That night, we were at a campsite with other groups, eating in a large hall. All of a sudden, the lights went out in the hall and everyone, even from the other groups, sang Happy Birthday. Quite the birthday surprise!
Fun fact: someone on our tour had commented that although zebras have stripes, the stripes don't go continuously around the whole body - some start at the back end and go down, towards the center and the stomach, other stripes start at the neck area and go down and back, meeting the other stripes. This leaves the zebra's back with an open palette and each zebra's unique pattern. I was fascinated by it. Zebras also often stand in groups or pairs, with one's neck resting on the other's
back; this is for protection, so each can look out in opposite directions for predators.
The wildebeest (and some other animals) migrate at some point in July and August between the Serengeti (Tanzania) and the Masai Mara (Kenya) National Parks, searching for fresh grass. "It is, arguably, the most spectacular wildlife show on the planet and the one thing that no visitor to Kenya should consider missing (LP, p. 112). Like seeing any animal in Africa, there’s no guarantee of seeing any part of the migration, since it's all about being in the right place at the right time. We were lucky enough to see a portion of the migration. I’ve seen videos of it on Planet Earth-type shows; they usually show the wildebeest (up to a million strong can be migrating) crossing a body of water, with crocodiles heavy on the chase, ready to attack any animal that seems to be lacking in strength or speed. We just saw the wildebeest migrate over land, which is still amazing to see in person.
We saw lots of different birds; one cool bird was the African fish eagle. We were on a boat, and the captain of the boat
would throw fish out in the water and the eagle would swoop down from its perch and grab the fish. We also saw a lot of small birds riding on the backs or heads of the hippos and giraffes.
We camped on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater, where it could get quite chilly at night. Ngorongoro is "one of the true wonders of Africa, a lost-world of wildlife and singular beauty in the near-perfect crater of a long-extinct volcano … Its steep walls soar 400 to 600 m and provide the setting for an incredible natural drama, as prey and predators graze and stalk their way around the open grasslands, swamps and acacia woodland on the crater floor" (Lonely Planet
Tanzania, 2018, p. 181). We saw a beautiful sunrise as we drove down into the crater, and then we spent the day driving around, watching all those amazing animals on our last game drive.
Although our safari in Africa was not the easiest part of our adventures so far (long rides in the truck, having to use a "bush toilet"), it was definitely one of my favorites. Although I wanted to see lions, I didn't want
to be disappointed and so wasn’t counting on it, but we saw an amazing amount of them, and a few right after a feast. We saw three leopards, another bonus. And the balloon ride was a special treat. All in all, a wonderful adventure. I’m trying to decide where in Africa to go next .... So many choices!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.425s; Tpl: 0.027s; cc: 14; qc: 76; dbt: 0.175s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
janet dicillo
non-member comment
pictures
I checked out all the pictures .. liked the zebra details and well .. all of them .. thanks for sharing.