Leopards on the prowl

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May 28, 2006 - Day 43 - Got up early to get everything together and woke up Jules and Jon to say good-bye. Sat with them a bit and then had a look at the truck I would be on for the next two weeks. Much different than the two Nomad trucks - it was much more open and enormous than the others had been. It also had plastic roll-down windows and no storage areas in the truck at all. All the luggage had to be stored underneath the truck with no access to it during the day. There was also room for about 30 people, and Matt told me it would basically be full the whole way. That is a lot of people. After seeing the truck it was time to go. Said good-bye to Richard and then to Jules and Jon. After 6 weeks with people I really liked, it was hard to say good-bye. I was a real trooper and tried really hard not to cry with Jules - I thought it might be a little uncool - and pretty much made it. I also got to say good-bye to Alejandro, which was nice. He had been great to talk to and gave me a lot of good advice about the Middle East. The other boys were sleeping, so Matt and i got on the truck and away we went. ATC also does things a little differently in that there is a separate driver, cook, and guide (unlike Nomad where the guide is the driver) and the guide sat in the back of the truck with us. I thought that this would be even better somehow, that we would get a ton of information in this fashion. As I was to discover, much to my disappointment, Matt had never done this part of the tour before either, and he spent his day reading novels on the truck, so he never had any information for us. As a person, he was nice. As a tour guide, he was terrible. So it goes. We got to the Boulevard hotel where we met the rest of the people who would be taking this tour. Some of them had been traveling with Matt and ATC since Cape Town, some were just starting this trip and doing the two weeks, and then there were several others doing some other combination of a trip. I found Barbel and before anzone else got on we chose our setas on the truck. The forward-facing seats with the most leg room, luckily. There were also ten seats in the front that faced each other, five and five, and those had tons of leg room as well, as the aisle is enormous.

I started meeting people, and the first new person I met was Stephen. He said something to me and all I could think to say was "Are you Scottish?" I knew he has spoken in English but couldn't identify one word. Once he said yes, he was, I asked him to repeat whatever he had said. In the right mind set, I could understand him fine, most of the time. He ended up becoming a good friend. There were so many people to meet that it took some days to get them all down, but this trip was full of native English speakers, unlike my previous trips. There were several Aussies - Adam and Anita, Adam, Steve, Emma, Louise, Dave, Troy; Vicki, Linda, Bella, Claire, Meg, and Jo from England; Mari, Sarah, Amy and Stephen from Scotland, Julianne, Dave and Nancy from the US; Natalie from Canada; Gareth from NZ; Sabine, Michael and Barbel from Germany, and for a short time we had Petra and Linda from Holland. I think that was everybody...

We drove out of Nairobi and across the Great Rift Valley, where we stopped for some photo opportunities. It was the first of many reading days to come. The truck had a mini library on board so I started with Chocolat, which I finished all in the same day. I must admit, I loved the movie but was unimpressed with the book. We had some lame sandwiches for lunch which made me nervous about the food to come, which turned out to be unjustified. We showed up at the camp near the Maasai Mara National Park and got a wonderful surprise - we would be staying in tented rooms with proper beds instead of setting up our own tents. And we would be there for two nights, such a treat. It was here that we met up with Vicki and Louise, who had done the three day Maasai Mara trip previously. Had a nice meal for dinner and got to sleep early.

May 29, 2006 - Day 44 - Today was our day in the Maasai Mara National Park, which is Kenya's version of the Sernegeti. It actually connects to the Serengeti and is where the migrating wildebeest come when they leave the Serengeti. It was also my day "on duty" - we had chores on this truck like with Nomad, though slightly different. There were three main chores - truck cleaning, truck security (somehow always a boy), and cooking helpers (somehow always the girls). Needless to say I was on cooking duty, so I had to help cut up veggies and clean up pots and all those good things. The worst thing about the chores was that Matt couldn't be bothered to make the list ahead of time and therefore kept using the same people over and over. Way to go Matt. On the game drive we spent a great portion of the day not seeing anything. It may have been because we were driving in the enormous truck instead of smaller vans, because the people who did the trip the day before saw plenty. We did see some male ostriches in breeding colors, meaning that their legs were bright pink. The highlight of the day were the elephants. Towards the end of the day we saw two enormous groups of elephants - maybe 40 in one group and 60 in another. It was the first time I've seen such numbers of elephants, though I hear that you can usually see them like that in Chobe N.P. in Botswana. It was really an amazing sight. We were completely dusty by the end of that day. The whole truck was filthy and I literally had to clean the dust out of everywhere - my skin, my clothes, my ears. Something to do.

May 30, 2006 - Day 45 - Today showed me that this trip would also be a long driving day kind of trip. We got up at 4:45am and were on our way by 6am. It started getting light by 7am, and that's when I started reading Dragon, by Clive Cussler. I've read it before but am blessed with a terrible memory, so I can reread books all I want. Today the truck broke a spring, and we were stopped for about two hours waiting for the new part to arrive. Turned out it was the wrong piece so we just went on without it. It wasn't crucial but they were just hoping it wouldn't get worse I think. It was a crazy day that was alternately rainy, cold, and even hot. Once we got to camp we discovered that the tenst were not nearly as good as those with Nomad. Same design, but smaller. And ATC doesn't provide sleeping mats, and mine is just not as big as the ones that Nomad had to offer. All around not as nice.

June 7, 2006 - Day 53 - Today was another early day, and an all truck day. We crossed back into Kenya and it was a nightmare crossing. We mostly wanted transit visas and we all had to fill out special forms in a most time consuming manner with a most unpleasant woman. Really unfortunate. We even were allowed to proceed into the country. It was another rainy day and at one point we passed a wood furniture store and above it was an enormous sign that said "Coffins" and all this had a rainbow above it. It was great. Wish I had a photo but it all went by so quickly. Plus the plastic windows made pictures almost impossible along all these days. Ended up at a camp in Nakuru for the night.

June 8, 2006 - Day 54 - Today we had a couple of hours in the town of Nakuru and then we headed to Nakuru National Park where we had lunch before our game drive. We had a good view of the flamingos from here, and there were monkeys hanging around the lunch site. Today we got our fill of rhinos - and more rhinos. I believe we saw 11 of them! Amazing. If you ever wanted to see rhinos, this is the place. You trip over them. This was our last park and my last opportunity for leopard viewing, so I kept my eyes in the trees a great deal of the time. I felt lucky as Stephen had been to this park before and had seen two leopards there. But the day ended and no leopard. It will have to be tomorrow. Camped inside the park where there were actually some zebra and buffalo that we could see from the tents we set up. We made a nice fire to sit around (it was freezing again) and some of us stayed up pretty late. Overall it was a really nice night.

June 9, 2006 - Day 55 - Today we had a morning game drive in the national park, our very last opportunity for leopards. And our wish was granted! At about 8:30am there it was - not even in a tree but running on the road! It was running towards us, right next to us on my side of the truck. As it got to me, it veered off into the woods and we lost it. But it was great. I didn't get a photo but Stephen did and has promised to send it. But it was just so cool to see it at all - they are known for being hard to spot. Like jaguars in South America. The jouurney back was cold and windy and long. Africa is cold, I stand by that. Got to Lake Naivasha and had to take all our stuff off the truck so they could give it a good clean. Repacked a bit and then had the rest o fthe afternoon and evening to spend with everyone. Sat in the bar and watched the world cup for a bit, just chatting with everyone. Left a bit early and had a good chat with Stephen before packing it in for the night. This was a good day.

June 10, 2006 - Day 56 - We arrived in Nairobi quite early as there were some people flying out the same day. Got everything off the truck and after I helped Barbel bring her things (and some of mine) into her room at the Boulevard, I walked over to the Comfort Inn Hotel. My original plan was to stay in the same camp where I had left my last trip two weeks earlier, outside of town, but I was the only one. So I had an offer to stay in Stephen's room with him for the night and then in Barbel's room with her the next night. This would cost about the same as being alone in the camp for two days, so I snapped it up. Got our things set up in the Comfort Inn and then headed over to Air Madagascar to try to buy my tickets for Monday's flight (instead of buying at the airport that morning), but they had already closed for the day. So ended up walking around Nairobi a bit, which wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. We got some take out burgers and ate in the hotel room before joining the others in the bar for another World Cup game and last good-bye. Afterwards said good-bye to everyone which was sad, as I really liked this group overall. It was only the second three weeks of this trip where I found the group to be a bad match and not so much fun. Went back up to the room and fell asleep talking to Stephen - before 9pm! I really know how to party it up. Didn't even have dinner. Guess the last 56 days wore me out. Can't believe my tour has already come to an end. Overall I'm glad I did it. There were some times when all I wanted was off of that truck, and I feel like I did miss out on a lot of cultural experiences not taking public transport in Africa, but on the whole I am very pleased with the things I saw and did, and with the people I met.

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Photos

Salt Plain
Check out the sotrm and the flamingos in the background.

Rhinos!!
(They were everywhere)

My first (and only) leopard
This is Steve's photo (as are the rest). Wicked that he caught it on camera.

Comments

[Dana Pikkert]

Hooray for Leopards!
Wow!! You got to see the leopards! That's awesome. Glad to hear that everything is still going well. Looking forward to more entires to read about. Stay safe!