The whole family, including our new son-in-law Chris Dailey, traveled to Kenya in late May/early June 2011 to go on safari. Chris had not been to Africa before, while the other five of us have been once, when we visted Kenya briefly before going on safari in Tanzania in 2004.
Our travel company for the last trip, 2Afrika, handled the upcoming trip. Headed by Kenneth Hieber, 2Afrika is a solid company that we have recommended to friends headed to Africa. The company which is handling our day-to-day safari and Kenyan experience is Liberty Africa Safaris and they have been absolutely great. Kevin and Joseph have taken great care of us!
May 29-30, 2011: We flew about 8,000 miles altogether as we went from Nashville to New York to Zurich to Nairobi. I was lucky to have been in business class for many of those flights, and leg room and comforts on SwissAir are great. They have seats that fold into flat beds.
The flight between Zurich and Nairobi was beautiful. It was a crystal clear day and we flew over the Alps between Zurich and Innsbruck, then over the heel of Italy’s boot, past many of the Greek islands and then over deserts lands of Egypt. I fell asleep from there until near Nairobi.Here's a pic I took of the Alps:
Once in Nairobi, we spent about 45 minutes in immigration lines before discovering my bag never made it to Nairobi. Everyone else’s did. They had a report that a bag matching the description of mine had been found at JFK airport. I borrowed a safari shirt from my son-in-law Chris and had enough other clothing odds and ends in my carry-on luggage to survive a couple of days as-is. But I am really hoping my luggage gets here soon.
Our first night here was spent in the Sarova Panafric Hotel, a fairly well-known place whose bar has been frequented by foreign correspondents, politicos and others over the years. We met our safari guide and driver, Joseph, and he seems like a very nice guy. A man named Kevin also met us at the airport and then gave us a briefing back at the hotel on our scheduled activities for the coming week.. We relaxed in a lobby area while others checked us in, brought us fruit drinks and welcoming us with hot face cloths. Not a bad way to travel!
The threat of a terrorist attack post-Bin Laden’s death is ever-present here, though things are not overly tense. People coming into the hotel are whisked with a metal detector before they may enter. There are nighttime security guards outside of bedrooms at night, although we have seen this precaution on an earlier trip to East Africa. In general, people have been friendly and very welcoming.
Mary Byrne, Chris and I decided to check out the bar-restaurant area while the other three stayed in their rooms and rested. The restaurant is half open-air, and we sat outside on a comfortable 70-degree evening and enjoyed steak and cheese sandwiches. Mary Byrne and Chris had some local Tusker Beer and said it was quite good.
I brought Sharon part of a sandwich back in the room. She watched Glee re-runs on her IPad for a while, and then we both fell asleep around 9:30 after two days of flying.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011: Nairobi-Mount Kenya: The hotel had a very nice buffet breakfast which was included in our package – omelet bar, lots of locally made pastries, bacon, sausage, plenty of varieties of breads, fresh fruit. Coffee was excellent, served the European way with hot milk if desired. Coffee is a Kenyan specialty. It was about 65 degrees and pleasant and the doors to the restaurant were open to the morning air.
Our guide Joseph greeted us and we jammed into our safari van for the first significant trip of our Kenyan adventure week. Nairobi was crowded, polluted, congested as we slowly crawled through the morning traffic on our way out of town.The poverty we saw rivaled what we witnessed in some parts of India a couple of years ago.
After about an hour, we were far enough northwest of Nairobi to start enjoying some cleaner mountain air and much less traffic. Still, though, there were villages where traffic ground to a crawl again.
It took about four hours, including a 15-minute stop at a tourist trap shopping area for restroom use, to get to our destination - the Serena Mountain Lodge near Mount Kenya. The place is both beautiful and interesting. It is built next to a wildlife watering hole and you never know what animals will appear next. At one point this afternoon, we had 22 cape buffalo on hand along with several antelope relatives.
The girls, Chris and Sharon opted to go on an afternoon nature walk, which they said was pretty mundane. No great animal sightings. Meanwhile, back at the lodge, elephant after elephant started showing up at the watering hole. By late in the day, there were 40 or more of them.I made the right choice staying back.
They returned from the walk and were able to spend plenty of time watching the elephants and other animals.
We had dinner around 8 p.m., and like the other meals we have had on the trip, this one was excellent. Lamb, chicken and red snapper were the main menu choices, and the salads, soup and desserts were all impressve, too.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011: Mount Kenya-Shaba: We had a good breakfast (mine was poached eggs) at the Mountain Lodge and boarded our van/safari vehicle for a long ride to Shaba.
The roads along the way varied in quality and speed, and so did the impressiveness of the landscape. We were headed northeast from our lodge to the east of Mount Kenya. We went through a couple of small cities, both of them with plenty of activity in street markets and small shops along the main streets.
Many children and some adults smiled and waved and shouted hello to us when we would slow down. The only unpleasant incident of the day was in Isiola, a town not far from our destination where thousands of Somalian refugees are staying. Our guide Joseph said the Somalis were not a big problem as a group, but that there had been some serious trouble in the town of late.
A few minutes later we had to stop at a roadblock at the north end of the town. Those tire-cutting barriers like they have at rental car places were laid across the street, and they weren’t lowered until you checked in at a makeshift police office to let them know where you are going. I am guessing that this is intended to keep the Somalis contained to the south of the barrier, but I don’t know this.
Joseph warned us again that there had been trouble in the area and asked us to roll up out windows and not open them for any reason while he checked in at the police office. The street vendors common to most of the world’s poorer countries moved in on our van in layers of people.
Most of the vendors were kids trying to sell trinkets. I was in the rear seat and became the target of a rather scary guy who wanted to sell bracelets at first, and then started threatening me when I politely told him no thanks. He said he and his friends would be waiting for me when I came back and they would show me who the big shots were. He did that pistol shooting thing with his fingers. His look and tone made me pretty apprehensive. Joseph returned to the van and got us out of there.
The Sarova Shaba Lodge is on the property where the McMasters, a couple made famous by the 60s movie Born Free, once lived. They saved and raised an orphaned lion cub and then trained it to survive in the wild again after it was mature enough to be on its own.
The property is at the end of about 15 miles of heavy terrain off the main drag. There is a road, but it is dusty and extremely bumpy. It goes past some Massai camps before finally reaching an absolutely beautiful lodge in a very interesting setting.
It is actually a very large campus of buildings, complete with conference facilities. There is a gigantic pool, a hot tub, massage centers, a huge lounge and a very nice covered outdoor dining area.
Our room here is nice and spartan at the same time. Very nicely furnished and decorated with fine African woods, it lacks air conditioning and adequate ventilation.
Ventilation wouldn’t be a problem if baboons and monkeys weren’t such pests here. The baboons will go right through a screen to get in your room if you open your windows. Monkeys will try your door to see if it is locked. They are branded as Kenya’s Number 1 Thieves. The hotel has several people assigned to little else than shooing monkeys using sticks and slingshots.
After unpacking and eating, we went on our first game drive (safari) with Joseph. It was a fun afternoon drive beginning at 4 p.m. We saw lots of giraffes, plenty of elephants and all kinds of other animals and birds. Joseph is a very experienced and well-trained naturalist and animal expert and was quite interesting.
By the time we went back over the half-hour bumpy road back into Shaba, we were ready for a quiet evening. I rested at the room while the others had a drink and watched the nightly crocodile feeding along the river, which runs right near the lodge. An electric fence keeps the crocodiles off the grounds, except for the time the power went out and a croc was found in the pool the next day.
Dinner was pretty good – I had Hungarian goulash and pork spare ribs. Plenty of salad items, good soup and desserts were also served, though I didn’t eat much. There was still no word about my lost luggage, and it was starting to get me concerned to the point where I wasn’t hungry.
I washed out the set of clothes I was wearing when I got back to the room and hung them up to dry. It looked like I was headed into my fifth straight day of wearing one of two sets of clothes I had until my luggage is found. If it ever is.
Thursday, June 2, 2011: Shaba: I had e-mailed Sharon’s longtime assistant Mounu to ask her aid in tracking the luggage. I gave her the baggage label number pinned to it by American Airlines and the tracking number assigned by our carrier from New York, SwissAir. I awakened today to great news: She had found someone who knew where it was. The answer: Tanzania.
The flight we were on from Zurich on Monday had gone on to Dar Es Salam, Tanzania, and apparently my luggage did, too. No telling why it took three days and Mounu’s pressing to find and fix the problem. By this morning, it was back in Nairobi. I am supposed to get it tomorrow in Nakuru. Thanks, Mounu!
Our morning game drive started right after breakfast, at 7:30. We had a rather entertaining morning, but mostly saw the same types of animals we saw the evening before. There is a constantly lingering hope on safaris that something dramatic, such as a sighting of a lion, cheetah or leopard, would occur. That was not to be the case today. The drive lasted about fours hours and we had our fill of dust and bumpy roads by the time we returned.
The girls and Sharon each got one-hour massages ($25 each) and I rested. They said the massages were great, conducted in a very clean massage tent overlooking the river and distant mountains. But the monkeys and baboons pounced back and forth across the roof as the massage therapist played gospel music rather than the usual soothing waterfall sounds or mood music that accompanies a massage. This scene evoked plenty of laughter from family members.
I decided not to do the short game drive at 4:30 but to instead stay back to write and rest. I also reviewed safari photos.
The report after the evening game drive wasn’t very spectacular – lots of elephants, giraffes and other animals that we had seen earlier, but still no big cats. (See how quickly you get jaded on safaris? You start looking at some beautiful and unusual animals as common and get hungry for new stuff.)
Family members had no sooner lamented the slow afternoon when a honeymooning couple using the same safari company that we use arrived and reported that they had seen three lions and were within a few feet of a leopard. It’s like fishing: some days one boat has a lot more luck than the next.
We had a very pleasant dinner, with fried perch, pork stir-fry, tandoori chicken and a steak item offered on the buffet. Quite good. The evening was very nice weather-wise, too.
We headed to bed early because there is a long drive with an early start awaiting us tomorrow.
Friday, June 3, 2011: Shaba-Lake Nakuru: The staff at the Shaba Lodge has been very, very friendly, and they came through once again at breakfast. We mentioned to them the night before that we needed to depart the lodge at 6:45 – just 15 minutes after the restaurant normally opens. So they had the staff report to work early this morning for us, and Chris was able to get coffee a little after 5. The rest of us arrived around six and they had a buffet breakfast waiting for us. (We tipped them well.)
We had a very long and often very bumpy ride to Nakura – Kenya’s third largest city. The ride, including rest stops and another stop to pick up my missing luggage from a security firm, took seven hours and 15 minutes.
The park where we are staying is almost like a city park for Nakura. It is basically a suburb of the city, but under the Kenyan national park system. We started feeling hopeful about our game drive set for later in the day when we saw two hippos and a black rhino while we were still on the driveway headed into the lodge. Both types of animal are notoriously shy and many people come here without seeing either of them.
The place we are staying, the Sarova Lion Hill Lodge, is one of the finest places in which we have stayed during two trips to Africa. Situated on a hill overlooking the giant Lake Nakura, the place is very well-kept, has a small bird sanctuary, a great main lodge with bar and restaurant, and it offers rooms that almost all overlook the lake.
Like all of the safari lodges, you are greeted upon arrival by someone who hands you a hot scented wet towel and by another person who offers you a glass of fruit juice. Try getting that at the Holiday Inn Express or even at a Hilton!
The late buffet lunch we had today was great. It included coconut-encrusted fish, steak, stuffed pork loin, lamb chops, lots of salads and vegetable and an array of desserts.
We had about 45 minutes before our game drive, and I enjoyed getting some fresh clothes out of my newly found suitcase, showering and changing. It felt great.
The game drive around Lake Nakuru was as good as we could have hoped. We saw two lions – always a thrill. We saw several white rhinos, a hyena, a jackel, hundreds of cape buffalo, and as the final thrill of the day – a leopard.
Mary Byrne saw the leopard’s tail sticking out of some bushes. (Notice I didn’t say she spotted a leopard.) Then we waited patiently for the animal to emerge.
Safari vehicles are like fishing boats – they seem to appear out of nowhere and surround you as soon as you find success. Such was the case with us.
Mary Byrne’s leopard ended up drawing about 10 vehicles before it was over. Our van, however, had been situated by Joseph so that we could follow the leopard once he started moving. Most lf the other vans were pointed the wrong way.
We tracked the leopard for about a half hour before it got darker and he became more elusive. We returned to the hotel to hear live African music and have dinner. There is supposed to be a Kenyan country music singer who performs tableside during dinner. This is not to be missed! He knew country songs, but had never heard of Nashville.
Saturday, June 4, 2011: Lake Nakura-Masai Mara: This was a very trying and in the end rewarding day. We left our lodge at Lake Nakura at 7:30 for the long and brutal drive to Masai Mara, arguably the world’s most famous big game park.
We drove for a couple of hours on what were sometimes decent and at other times obnoxiously rough highways. We stopped at a place called Lake Naivasau for a cruise on the lake and for a nature walk. Both were very worthwhile experiences. From the lake, we saw hippos, eagles, pelicans and all sorts of other interesting sights. The weather was perfect – about 70 and sunny.
Once on the other side of the lake, our water guide turned us over to a land guide who led us on a 45-minute walking tour of land once shown in the movie Out of Africa. We walked right up to giraffes, wildebeest, zebras and other animals that are only viewed from safari vehicles in most places.
What we will all remember about this walk, besides the interesting animal encounters, was the fact that we literally could not take a step without ending up in a variety of different animals’ dung. The girls were particularly concerned because they had worn sandals.
Taken back by boat to where our safari vehicle and Joseph were waiting, we boarded and immediately began passing around disinfectant wipes and Purel as the foot cleaning began. Then everyone settled in for a long journey to Masai Mara, located at the border of Kenya and Tanzania. The same animal preserve is known as The Serengeti on the Tanzanian side, and together they form a massive place for animals to thrive.
The drive was easily the most unpleasant of my life. The paved roads had so many potholes that It was like driving over a giant washboard – hour after hour. At times the road turned to dirt, but those roads were so covered with rocks that it shook the van incessantly. I was at the very rear in front of the luggage and that was the worst place to be vibration-wise. Everyone else took a beating, too.
We did get to see Kenyan life in small towns and villages today. There is plenty of poverty and a load of infrastructure problems aside from the road issues. The trash in many towns was horrible.
We have tried to expose the girls through many of our travels to places where people are less fortunate than we Americans. I think those trips have had a very good impact and that they feel for and appreciate the plight of people in some areas of the world who are barely able to survive. `
I was proud to read Ellen's medical school application-related essay in which she said an earlier trip to Tanzania left her with a determination to either practice medicine or to volunteer as a doctor in such a place someday. The girls brought some toys and school supplies on this trip and were passing them out to kids who would aproach our vehicle.
Back to the road problems: There were two occasions when we hit huge bumps and my head slammed into the ceiling of the van – even though I was wearing a seatbelt.
When the trip was all done following seven hours on those roads, we all felt like we had been put in a paint shaker at Home Depot for a day while someone threw dust in our faces.
Enough complaining. We arrived at the Sarova Mara Lodge, which features tents instead of regular rooms. We have stayed in these sorts of places in Tanzania, India and the Amazon basin before, and they are a fun way to live for a day or two.
The tents each have a nice double bed, a small seating area and a bathroom with tiled walls, shower and sink. As is the case with all safari rooms, the bed is surrounded by mosquito netting. Chris was new to this tented lodge experience and seemed to really like it. Being an avid outdoorsman, he also seems to be enjoying every second of the safaris.
(I should mention that these tents and most of the other places where we stayed had WiFi. At this place it was about $12 for six hours. Some places were free, while others charged as much as $9 for 15 minutes. I waited for the better deals and filed these blog posts when I could. Safaricom is the main 3G mobile communications company and it works great no matter where you are in national parks.)
We had an okay lunch around 2:30 and then rested for a while before going on our first Masai Mara game drive. We struck it rich almost immediately as we ran into a whole family of lions resting in a field. There were eight lions that could be classified as adults, though the male was a young adult, according to Joseph.
There also were two lion cubs snuggled up against some of the other lions. A dozen or so safari vehicles poured into the area when word of the lions spread, yet the lions just slept away just feet away from our vehicles.
Some of the safari visitors grew tired of waiting for the lions to get up, and they drove off. I was glad to see them go because many were very boisterous – a big safari no-no.
We waited about an hour and caught several of the lions getting on their feet, stretching and then lying back down again. We knew they were all resting before heading out for an evening kill, but darkness rolled in before they made their move. At one point, they heard cowbells from a Massai farm and looked poised to attack, but then they laid down again. It was still a thrill to see them,
Other safari sights worth mentioning from today are a long parade of elephants of all ages, a hyena, several warthogs and a gorgeous sunset.
We returned to the lodge, where I was looking forward to a quick and quiet dinner at the end of a long day. But we learned when we arrived for dinner that tonight was Massai feast night, or some such thing. I rolled my eyes and followed Massai tribe guides who led us to an outdoor feast at the edge of the resort lodge property.
I must admit that he dinner was very cool. They had live music, several pots of local food brewing over open flames, beautifully decorated seating areas and torch lighting. I had roasted lamb and chicken, along with some cucumber and rice. The lamb was pretty tough, but the flavors of the meats were good.
Now I am blogging and am moments from some sleep. Goodnight!
Sunday, June 5, 2011: Masai Mara: It is our last day on safari. Tomorrow we head to Nairobi and will be on a flight that boards close to midnight.
We postponed breakfast and headed out with Joseph at 6:30 a.m. We were just a few feet outside the gates to our lodge when we saw the reason Sharon had heard lions roaring during the night: A pride of them had killed a full-grown cape buffalo at our doorstep.
There were about eight lions working on the carcass, including some hungry cubs. Joseph got our van within a few feet of the feeding frenzy and we watched and shot photos. The male of this pride stayed back from the rest, guarding against hyenas or other possible invaders as the rest of the family ate. Joseph said it is commonplace for the lions to eat in shifts, with the male eating when the others go for a water break somewhere.
After watching this for about a half hour, we toured the park and found some other lions wandering around, including a pride of about 10 that just strolled down the middle of a road. Joseph says there are more than 500 lions in Masai Mara park, and that numbering is increasing yearly.
Another thrill early this morning was finding three cheetahs resting in a tree and then following them as they walked up the road, searching for targets. All three of them walked within two feet of our van after coming down from the tree.
We saw many of the other common safari animals such as zebras, elephants and giraffes before heading back for breakfast at 9.
Most of the day was spent at leisure. I worked on this blog, posted photos to Facebook and then put some on the Picasa slideshow you see above. Then I watched a movie on my IPad and took a nap. Sharon and the others spent a lot of time at the nice pool next to the lodge.
Our afternoon game drive started at 4, and we went to check on what was happening with the buffalo carcass near the hotel. A lone male lion guarded the dead buffalo while the others were apparently on a water or rest mission. Vultures filled the trees nearby, and jackals and hyenas were in the area. They would get the lions’ leftovers at some point in the next couple of days
We saw some of those lions from this pride asleep under a tree a little while later.
We followed a huge elephant for a few minutes, and then the sky opened and we had our first rain of the visit. We made our way back to the lodge, seeing a couple of more lions en route. Our Africa safari 2011 was over, called early because of rain.
Monday June 6, 2011: Masai Mara-Nairobi: It seemed like it would be a simple and mundane sort of day: Drive five hours to Nairobi over bumpy roads and sit around the airport until almost midnight. But it actually turned out to be a pretty cool final day in Kenya.
We arranged with our guide Joseph to have him pick us up at noon instead of mid-morning so that we could enjoy a leisurely breakfast, some time around the pool and some careful packing. He was kind enough to work with us on the schedule, even though he probably was anxious to see his wife and kids in Nairobi for as long as possible before leaving on safari again on Wednesday.
We checked out of our tent at 11 and waited by the pool until Joseph got there. Leaving the lodge at 12, we stopped by the site of the buffalo kill the day before. The buffalo was completely gone, and only a vulture stood where the carcass had been.
Then Chris noticed that the buffalo’s hide sat by a bush about 15 yards from the original kill. The lions had finished their work, let the hyenas move in and then the vultures had finished the clean up job. Hyenas can even eat bone, so there was little left but the hide
Having satisfied our morbid curiosity about the buffalo, we drove a short while and stopped at a two-room school next to a Masai village. There, Ellen delvered the school supplies that had been gathered for donation. The two teachers who worked at the school seemed appreciative. The rooms were packed with kids, but it was hard to see them because there was no electricty at the school.
THE VILLAGE SCHOOL WHERE WE DELIVERED CLASSROOM SUPPLIES
Then we did the two and a half hours of torturous driving over the road we endured a couple of days ago. Horrible! How does Joseph do this week after week?
There was another three and a half hours in heavy traffic after that, and we arrived in Nairobi right at rush hour.
We stopped at the swanky Stanley Hotel in Nairobi to get our greeter and tour overseer Kevin. Getting away from that hotel in the center of Nairobi was next to impossible. There were a couple of 15-minute stints when traffic didn’t move at all. We enjoyed talking with Kevin and Joseph as we waited, though, and we learned a lot about Kenyan society.
We finally arrived at our destination near the airport – the Pampas Restaurant, which is housed in a hotel building that also has an indoor ice skating rink. So there we were having a Brazilian dinner in Kenya at a building with ice skating.
The Pampas serves meat of all kinds – as much as you want until you stop them from serving. And they serve weird stuff in addition to beef, chicken, pork and turkey. For instance, we sampled crocodile and camel! (There is another place in Nairobi called The Carnivore that also does this.)
Eight of us were around the table – our family, Joseph and Kevin. Here is how the restaurant works: They have a salad bar with several attractive items and you help yourself there first. Then they bring skewered meat on a tray to the table, one meat at a time, with it arriving about every five minutes.
Crocodile...pork....ribs...chicken, etc. Each diner has what looks like a drink coaster in front of them - one side red and one green. If you have it turned to green, they will serve you from the meat that is brought over. Red signals that you want to skip that serving.
Chris, who is an admittedly finicky eater, even tried the camel, which I liked. It tasted similar to beef. I can take or leave the croc, though I finished my helping. They had several types of beef, and most of them were good. I finally had so much to eat that I turned my coaster to red. Sharon and Connolly were in for a couple more rounds after that.
The dessert was served in the same fashion as the meat. They brought a pineapple covered in cinnamon and sugar and they sliced around the core. You use a small pair of tongs to catch and serve yourself the portion. That, too, was very good.
Overall, the Pampas was a fun way to end our trip.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011:Nairobi-Zurich, New York, Nashville: A lot of flying and a lot of sitting around airports - more than 40 hours from when we awoke at Masai Mara to when we could get in a real bed again in Nashville. But the weather was good throughout the flights, and all of them arrived on time or early.
It's great to be home again.
