Ngorongoro and the Serengeti

Once we left the outskirts of Arusha heading towards the national parks and we had left the coffee growing area behind the locals reverted to traditional Masai dress. Although fashion and tradition vary from area to area it was explained to us that the father of the house wore black and red check (think tartan) red blanket with long hair denoting warrior status, the black with an ostrich feather post circumcision but not yet a warrior. (whole feather someone who had been circumcised like a true Masai, cut feather one who had cried or otherwise behaved in an un warrior like way) The women were equally structured the mothers wearing a maroon cloak the other ranks differentiated by style and quantity of jewelry.
Ngorongoro crater was spectacular we camped overlooking it but didn’t venture into the crater itself preferring to keep the US$200 for the Serengeti at US$50 per day.

The public camp sites were fine and at this time of year fairly empty. Although Bruce who went off to fetch wood in the dark fell over a zebra. Incidentally the Masai word for Serengeti is Siringitu meaning literally the land that goes on for ever. It does.
We saw the most unbelievable range of animals, lion

and we watched them on a kill

elephant, a solitary bad tempered bull.

and lots of family groups, zebra in their thousands.

wildebeest again in their thousands, giraffe… one who was fascinated by our van and very nearly stuck its head in through the sun roof which we had removed for better game viewing, buffalo.

hippo in and out of the water,


their ears like little satellite dishes , crocodile cruising like prehistoric submarines, countless antelope of different types and birds in their millions. Not to mention the tsetse fly when we got close to zebra.
The dirt roads weren’t that challenging but we lost a rubber stop on our suspension and had a new one manufactured out of the tyre of an earth mover!

African ingenuity at its best.

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Around Arusha

We stayed with friends on the edge of the Arusha National park, thank you Richard and Jules for letting us use your wonderful house. We loved the pet snake under the cooker ( was it really the first poisonous snake in the house ever? )
Richard is one of Africa’s top independent safari guides and he took us on a fascinating walk in the bush.
Richard Knocker Professional Guide
Two of our intrepid friends Bruce and Madeleine joined us for a couple of weeks

they will be camping in a tent whilst we have our luxury van!
We visited the park which although small has the most wonderful variety of habitats we saw giraffe, warthog, buffalo,monkeys and antelope as well as a huge flock of Flamingo on the lake

and walked for miles in the foothills of Mount Meru. The fields were full of maize under planted with everything from beans to sunflowers.

We also back tracked a bit to see Lake Chala which is a beautiful caldera and walked down to the lake itself to have a swim whilst colobus monkeys crashed through the trees around us.



Oh and thanks to Robs Magic in Nairobi your shocks for Africa are crap. Less than 1000 miles and they are shot…. what use a years guarantee or 10,000 miles if they are designed to fall apart when you leave the country?

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Across to Tanzania at Taveta and on to Kilimanjaro

We drove back to Voi along the infamous Mombasa road….another interesting experience coming out of Mombasa which is like a complete bomb site, construction everywhere. We crossed the Tsavo West National Park keeping pace with a herd of elephants moving in the same direction

and reached Taveta in the early evening to find the Eco camp we were aiming for long closed and abandoned. We decided to push on to the border which was wonderfully efficient on both sides and we sailed across both borders in the pouring rain in a record time of just under 2 hours. Believe me that’s fast for Africa, but even with that efficiency we were still forced to drive in the dark for about an hour to reach the Merangu Hotel campsite in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. The next day we set off up into the foothills through the coffee plantations to find an extraordinary Catholic cathedral and seminary way up in the cloud line. Although the mountain has lost a reputed 80% of its ice cap since it was first measured in 1912 it still looked majestic poking through the clouds.

Kilimanjaro is in the background…if you look carefully.

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The coast Mida Creek,Watamu and Malindi

Lovely drive up the coast road from Kilifi to Malindi stopping off to check out Ocean Sports in Watamu for lunch. Malindi was a bit of a pit and having tried our luck again with the Kenya Wildlife Service who really don’t like independent travelers and wanted US$ 50 for us to park ….we ended up in the Red Cross car park for the night.
We noticed signs for an Eco camp on our way up the coast so we decided to retrace our steps to Mida Creek Eco Lodge which was wonderful. The only resident was an Herpetologist who had been there for a couple of months and had Malaria…well if you will go off into the bush looking for frogs in the rainy season what do you expect?

We were soon joined by a group of 7 Africa Asia Venture students who were enjoying a real “gap yeah” lovely crowd who we had seen at Ocean Sports earlier in the day.
From Mida Creek we went to visit the ancient Swahili ruins at Gede


and did a wonderful bush walk through the Cashew forest ( I didn’t know the cashew grew as a single nut on the end of a small soft fruit).
Hassan our local guide was incredibly knowledgeable, we saw a stunning variety of birds and butterflies as well as Baobab trees in full flower. ( I didn’t know Tartar came from the seed pods of the Baobab either!)

We returned to Ocean Sports for the weekend and Gail (pronounced Jail by the local staff) let us stay in the car park for one night before moving into our banda on Friday.

Lucy had stayed at Ocean Sports 30 years ago with her parents and had fond memory’s of a lovely holiday. Its still terrific and has a strong local following. The bar was buzzing most nights the local Hockey club played on Friday and they have curry lunch and live music on Sunday!

Ocean Sports

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Nairobi to the coast

Having heard so much about the trucks on the Mombasa road we decided to brave it early on Sunday. Great idea the road was fairly quiet and we only saw 4 or 5 crashed trucks, although one accident which we couldn’t see had completely blocked the road, and we had a tortuous diversion on tracks through the bush which didn’t seem to slow the trucks down at all!
We stopped at Sagala Lodge close to the railway station made famous by the Man Eaters of Tsavo, a pair of lions who chomped their way through upwards of 135 construction workers in the 1880’s when the coast railway was being made.
After a night camping in the grounds of the lodge Anna who owns the lodge arranged for us to visit a Masai village and school close by. Two of the tribesmen had recently been ill and she had looked after them, so they were happy for friends of hers to visit the village.


I had a go too…surprisingly easy.


Extraordinary Masai pogo dancing

How many Masai can you fit in a van!

From there we cut off the main road and headed to Kalifi an interesting short cut which was blocked by rubble and earth works within about 500m but that didn’t stop us…

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On the road again!

We decided to have a couple of weeks off (after nearly 7 months on the road!) so nipped back to England for an Easter break, Pippa’s 21st Birthday and a wedding invitation we couldn’t refuse ….thank you IM’s… the weather was beautiful and it coincided with a very wet patch in Kenya.

The van was serviced whilst we were away and is now looking and sounding perfect. Thank you Chris at Jungle Junction, who is quite simply superb and I cant recommend the camp too highly either. Next stop the coast near Malindi

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Lake Naivasha

Wow! stayed at a gorgeous campsite, Carnelleys, right on the shore of the lake a beautiful site with wonderful facilities…unfortunately we ran out of steam and gave up on dinner after waiting nearly 2 hours for a Crayfish salad!
Carnelleys
met up with Ven and Anita who are traveling the same route and who we met in Addis Ababa earlier in our trip.

Ven and Anita
Took a boat trip in the late afternoon in the hope of getting face to face with some Hippo…..


beautiful scenery and a night filled with the grunting noises as family of Hippo grumbled in the reeds on the edge of the lake. Glad to be in the van and not in a tent!

On our way South we came across an interesting bus.. I must presume they know and were waiting for a well known Scottish family from Alyth.

The Ogg Wed bus

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Fishing and Tea

Wonderful couple of days with Robert and Melanie at the Kenya Fly Fishers Northern Camp which is near the Aberdare National Park. Beautiful sunny days walking in the tea plantations which line the trout streams and then roaring log fires in the evening we had trout for dinner twice and even had a bridge lesson!


From there on to Kericho which is the center of the tea growing area, we popped into the famous Tea Hotel which has more stuffed animals on its walls than you can imagine but is like so many of these colonial era landmarks “way past its prime” We stayed at Antoinette and Hugos lovely fishing banda at the Finlay Tea plantation which was beautifully tranquil during the day


but the noise of the frogs at night made it impossible to sit outside !

Finlays is part of the Swire group and a beacon of sustainability being self sufficient in timber (heating the furnaces to dry the tea) and power.

Lucy having a look around
Finlays

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North to Naivasha and Nakuru

After a few days in Nairobi whilst we had the van sorted out we went north again to Lake Naivasha and crater lake where we had our first real experience of the Kenyan bush.


We saw wildlife in its natural habitat for the first time Giraffe, Buffalo, Zebra, Monkeys, Baboons and numerous types of deer. We walked to the crater and looked over an amazing natural amphitheater and listened to animals moving and calling. We had lunch in the van in the middle of the bush and watched as a herd of Zebra came to investigate.

From there we headed further north to Nakuru and Rongai where we stayed with friends in the most beautiful colonial home.

Tristan and Cindy run an amazing safari business and Stan is one of Africa’s top safari guides.
Offbeatsafaris.com

it was wonderful to go with him to Nakuru National Park and hear anecdotes about the animals and birds

We were luck enough to see both Black and White Rhino as well as masses of other game…..did you know that both types of Rhino are basically the same colour and white is a bastardisation of the Afrikaans word weit, which means wide and refers to the size of the mouth… anyway its the second largest land animal on the planet and about the size of a jeep!

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Nanyuki and across the equator to Nairobi

We had a wonderful couple of days at Kangoni camp in Nanyuki at the foot of Mount Kenya

and tried without success to get our van sorted. So set off with soggy shocks ( we really should have had bigger ones fitted before leaving England) to Jungle Junction a well known overlanders camp site in Nairobi.

We crossed the equator just south of Nanyuki
The road was great until about 10k’s out when it turned to hell….they are digging up all the approaches from the north so traffic is horrendous and road conditions unbelievable.

The recent rain made matters worse. Jungle Junction was brilliant and the team at Ndovo said they could sort out the van, we made plans to get new “Robs Magic shocks for Africa” fitted, it was only afterwards that we heard all the jokes, tragic magic and of being robbed by Rob ( lets hope its just a pun on the name). We also had a new leaf spring made so hopefully all set for the next leg!
Lovely phone call on our first day from an old army friend, Stan, who invited us to the Muthega club for supper. I wore a tie for the first time in 6 months we drank and ate too much and had a great evening!
We did the tourist trail of the Elephant orphanage,


David Sheldrick Elephant orphanage
the giraffe sanctuary.


and then Melanie gave us a couple of “must do’s” Matts bronze and Kazuri beads we bought some wonderful things including a huge bronze tobacco leaf.
On Friday night we moved from “the junction” to stay with Melanie and Robert on Redhill for the weekend, they invited us racing at Ngong for the Kenya Derby and to have lunch in the Muthega Club tent

we had a wonderful weekend and were overwhelmed by how friendly everyone was. Mary, who had lunch with us, had several horses running and had two winners, which made the day even more special. Lucy who looked the part was invited into the enclosure with the owners before one of the races and the horse “Woodlands” won quite comfortably.


Melanie and Rory

A very tall Lucy with Mary in the paddock

Yes we did have a flutter!

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