Africa
2010: Overseas Adventure Travel; Best of Kenya
and Tanzania
(Nairobi, Lake Naivasha, Lake
Nakuru NP, Amboseli NP,
Arusha, Lake Manyara NP, Ngorongoro
WCA, Serengeti NP, Nairobi)
Twenty one hours
(21) of plane flights gets you to Nairobi over about
24 hours from Los Angeles.
It was raining at both New York
and London Heathrow. The skies cleared over the French Alps giving a good
view and over some of Africa. Very
unusual cloud formations, in my experience. Often in the haze near sunset
the clouds appeared like groves of trees, but was really just odd irregularity
above the relatively smooth base layer of cloud. Our 777 pilot was flying
at 41,000 ft and above 600 mph, also unusual
parameters on a commercial flight.
Jan 19. 10 Tuesday
First day as a
tourist in Kenya.
We went first to the Giraffe Center where an attempt is being made to save one of
the three species of giraffe in Kenya,
the Rothschild, from threatened extinction. Among other details we
learned of the head-butt, where the giraffe will reach out with that long neck
and swing violently from side to side, and watch out anything in the path. (see a giraffe fight)
Or that the giraffe can kill a lion with a single kick of it’s powerful leg, hence lions only attack young
ones. Hmmmm……… wonder how they know they are
going to get killed by that first kick? Also that giraffes and wart hogs
have some symbiotic relationship. Then to The Karen Blixem
Museum that is the home on a small remaining part of the coffee plantation of
Karen Blixem, author and character of “Out of
Africa,” Who ditched the Baron and ran off with Robert Redford. After
this rather interesting hour I need to get this video and see it again
now. After lunch we were taken to a tourist bead factory. The
Kazuri beads are probably well known to those who
track beads in America.
Then to the Nairobi
National Park infant
elephant orphanage to see baby elephants being bottle fed by humans, even the
tourists with me. These babies have somehow been discovered without
mothers in the wild and can not otherwise
survive. Baby elephants are not fully weaned until 5 years old. Our
guide is paranoid about taking pictures in the city and about getting around –
insisting that we should not leave the hotel without his escort. This
afternoon we did walk a few blocks to the ATM at Barleys to get some cash.
There are a few very modern buildings of striking architecture around down
town, but our guide would not permit taking any pictures right on the public
downtown street. This is silly, the street is full of people, there
is no way picture taking could be controlled. This is much worse than China, or Russia,
or anywhere I have been, even Rio – if I
believe the guide. Our animal experience today was about as good as you
could get at a day in the San Diego
zoo, but it gets MUCH better soon.
Wednesday Jan 20, 10
Things are looking
up. This morning we drove northwest from Nairobi
for 3 hours crossing the great African
Riff Valley
to Lake Naivasha.
Many tribes seem to have different housing styles, all extremely primitive,
along the way. Right down in the middle of the Riff valley is a large
spacecraft tracking station. Someone here said Henry Kissinger came to
the dedication. I am guessing that it is part of the NASA world wide tracking network, I seem to recall for example
that a shuttle launch is first picked up from the Canary Islands, then from Africa, but I am surprised that this is so far from any
population center. In the afternoon we took a boat tour on Lake Naivasha and saw many
hippopotamus and a variety of birds including many big fish eagles.
Unknown to me, the hippos spend all the daylight hours under water, rising to
breathe every 5 minutes or so, then come ashore to graze like cattle all night
long.
Next day was spent
at Lake Nakuru National Park viewing very large numbers
of cape buffalo, impala, gazelle (Thompson & Grants) and we probably saw 20
rhinoceros and thousands of flamingos. These huge animals, rhinos, also
graze much like cattle.
Friday we departed
from Naivasha and drove back through Nairobi
to about 100 km south east of the city to Amboseli Park at the base of Kilimanjaro, however
the mountain top was shrouded in clouds. Naivasha
is at about 8000 ft, Nairobi 5000 ft,
and Amboseli at 4000 ft
altitude. As a result, all are cooler than I expected this close to the
equator, except at mid-day in the sun it is quite hot. All of Kenya
is very green mostly grazing land, though our guide says it was recently
brown. Very recent rains have broken a multi-year drought.
Note, the Kenya drought is
not the Africa drought of Sudan Darfor and such places that have gotten world
wide publicity. In any case, we are quite fortunate to have
arrived just after the rains while it is so lush with vegetation.
Saturday: The Maasai is a large tribe in Kenya that has
been more successful, unfortunately, in holding to old tribal
customs. They are somewhat nomadic, but increasing restriction of
surrounding “civilization” is limiting this. No one is well off, but for
the Maasai it is worse. This morning, at 6 am,
we went to visit a Maasai village. It is
surrounded by a fence of bush, cactus, etc. with a “gate” that is just a pile
of branches Inner fences confine groups of cows and goats from the
area occupied by the people and the stick and mud huts. These huts, dark
and smoky with no windows are far more primitive than the ger
huts of the nomads in Mongolia
that I visited several years ago. We were shown around and informed by
the new young Chief-in-waiting, Joseph. The males live solely on meat,
milk, and blood from the cattle and goats. We were told the females are
permitted some vegetables in their diet. They showed us how to bleed the
cow and make fire, boy-scout fashion. They believe they own all cattle in
the world and don’t hesitate to steal them from another village, tribe, or
anywhere else they find them. Children live with parents until
puberty. Then boys and girls are separated into groups and both
circumcised. Then they live in separate groups until the first
marriage. The first wife is unfortunate as she must sleep with anyone who
comes to visit and has the desire. Second and higher wives may be
exclusive company of the husband. Marriages are mostly arranged by other
elders. Oh, and before a young male may take the first wife he must kill
a lion and own a log of cattle. Cattle are important, the greeting of a
neighbor in the morning will be “how is your cattle, how is your wife.”
How do you kill a lion? You get a sharp spear and a short stick about 4 –
6 inches long and sharpen both ends of the stick. As the lion approaches
with wide open mouth to bite off your head, grasping the stick in your fist,
you insert it in his mouth and twist it vertical, so as the lion bites down the
stick is impaled in the floor and roof of his mouth. Then the spear is
thrust into his heart. Quite simple and cunning, but since killing lions
is now illegal, you have to set it up to be self
defense. There’s a lot of other rules and customs I haven’t space
to mention. After the Maasai visit we returned
to our tent camp for late breakfast, then went on safari, Today we saw
one hyena, a couple hundred baboons, maybe 100 elephants and varying numbers of
most of the other animals seen previously and mentioned above. Elephants
were the high-light of Amboseli as these are the
first we have found. Kenya Album
(Photos: A link near the end of a section will take
you to the photo album related to the section, while interspersed links take
you to photos related to the narrative context. - use Cntl
or Shift click to show in new tab or window respectively)
Sunday morning we departed for Arusha, Tanzania, passing the first
couple hours through Amboseli and spotting a single
family of perhaps 100 elephants. Perhaps the first 50 miles was on
a washboard dirt road, like you find in Baja
California, at high speed. After arriving Arusha mid afternoon I walked around down town seeing sights and
looking for an ATM At about the 4th ATM I finally got some
money. Our guides, John Bosco and Babenga took
us to a definitely local restaurant where we had a very simple dinner of BBQ
chicken and lamb (inedible shoe leather), corn meal cake and salad. All
was eaten with fingers only in what I knew before as Moroccan style, but this
was no upscale Newport Beach Moroccan restaurant.
Every African you
meet on the street asks if you know who Obama is. Our guides seem to be
cleverly getting into a bead, or carving, or painting or other junk shop far
too often, sometimes integrated with some sort of local tour, many of which are
interesting, or a meal, or just a trip to a shop! A 6000 mile highway
spans Africa from Cairo to Cape Town, with its center point marked by a
traffic circle and a monument in downtown Arusha. When we drove on this
and some other highways in Kenya
and northeastern Tanzania
there were lots of trucks and commercial traffic. However, the excellent
highway west from Arusha seems to almost exclusively carry land rovers destined
for the Serengeti.
I think I am getting
some of this phobia about photographs figured out some: a) some tribal adult
Africans are superstitious that something is being taken from them when they
are photographed, b) terrorist simultaneous bombing of the US Embassies in
Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Aug. 7, 98 has prompted
restrictions on photographing government building in that city, and c) and more
complicated, in Kenya corruption is so prevalent that there is high risk that
if you point your camera and shoot, and a policeman sees you he may think you
are photographing him taking a bribe, so he will invent some reason to
confiscate your camera or worse. On our way several days ago to Naivasha west from Nairobi,
both our land rovers were stopped for trivial issues, and both guides had to
bribe their way out of this. But we learned later that when the police
pull you to the side, they also delay a passing large truck to act as a shield
so others passing do not see officers taking bribe money.
Monday was spent
driving Arusha to the Ngorongoro Highlands, passing
through and having a couple short walking tours in Mto
Wa Mbu (WAM-bu; Mosquito Creek). Notably, we have encountered
very few mosquitoes thus far on the trip. One walking tour was through
rice fields, paddys, another through the village
homes, and banana orchard with lunch at a tiny place deep in the orchard – and
of course through the carving and bead “shops.” For two nights we stay at
the Tloma Lodge. Turned on my cell phone and as
expected everything works but rates are very high for international roaming so
will not use unless an emergency arises. Though we seem to be in remote
areas, our guides cell phones seem to always work. Tuesday was spent
exploring the Manyara
National Park, seeing
many more of most of the animals mentioned above but nothing remarkably
new. A couple different species of monkeys, blues, and velvets. Between
times we explore the tribal lifestyle, customs, and homes of the natives.
Incidentally, our guides have no hesitation in telling of the “tribe” they were
raised in and how they lived in the extremely primitive conditions that we are
visiting in the native villages. On Wednesday we drove to about 7500 ft elevation to the rim of the Ngorongoro
Crater (which is really a caldera, whatever that is) Here we stay two
nights at the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge. The
crater itself is quite spectacular in that you can, from one vantage point, see
the whole crater expanded 2000 ft below and perhaps
20 miles across. Our Lodge is an exquisite 5 star? hotel right on the rim
of the crater, so you can take in this view from the lobby or from the
room. This place is spectacular- I have heard 8th wonder of
the world mentioned loosely, and this at the end of a bumpy dusty one and one
half lane dirt road into the jungle.
Today, Thursday, on
our safari in the crater we saw 2 jackals, 25 lions, 5 cubs and 20 adults, 5000
wildebeest and countless of other animals previously mentioned.
The food! Most
days we are having 3 buffet meals, which makes for eating a lot – this is as I
imagine a luxury ship cruise. And we are not getting much exercise either
as much of every day we ride in the land rover, either moving between locations
or spotting game. When in the game areas our guide seldom permits anyone
out of the rover. In one park a sign says getting out of the vehicle when
any wild game is within 10 m (60 m ??) is forbidden. The food is
generally very good (except meat) with lots of fresh vegetables, salad, and
often with a definite Indian bent, i.e., rice, dal, currys,
beans and mildly spicy, sometimes nan. Meat is beef, goat, lamb (mutton),
fish, and chicken. In general, with the exception of one rare BBQ beef
roast in Nairobi,
only the chicken is edible to Americans – and occasionally fish. Most of
the goat, mutton, beef is surely tough as shoe leather and totally flavorless
or down right distasteful. Nevertheless, there’s always lots of good food
to choose and on days we have skipped a meal due to early departure, it’s
really a relief – but don’t tell OAT to make this policy.
Saturday, Jan. 30
We are on the border
between southeast Serengeti and Ngorongoro.
Yesterday, approaching Serengeti we saw elans, and
more wildebeests than one can count as well as lots of the usual. On this
morning’s game drive we saw more. Last night, and tonight, are spent in a
tent camp – in tents fit for Grace Kelley. On the early morning game
drive we saw so many wildebeests migrating north that it will be difficult to
express in words, or in our amateur photos. At times there was a wall of
180º or more span of wildebeests from the foreground to the horizon, and
scanning with binoculars around 360º finds masses of wildebeests everywhere.
Binoculars are probably more essential than a camera on this trip. In our
dilemma to try to count, our guide solved the problem by suggesting that we
just count legs and divide by 4 – or we could just go with the estimate of more
than two million. It is calving time, but as a defensive mechanism we are
told the wildebeests can withhold labor until many are ready simultaneously,
then suddenly one morning there are 8000 newborn in one location. Too
many for the lions, hyenas, cheetahs and leopards to eat. This repeats
for a week or two. The newborn are on their feet in minutes and running
at full speed in hours. We also saw hartebeests, and lions and hyenas
eating wildebeest kill, though we didn’t see the stalking or the battle.
Finally, we found a solitary cheetah resting in the shade near the end of this
morning’s drive.
Not all is roses
though. So far on the trip we have covered about 3000 km in this land
rover (they’re really Toyota Land Cruisers – land rovers left Africa with the
British in the 60’s and are now just yuppie cars in the US), less than half
maybe on “paved roads,” and lots of it off-road just riding through the
bush. Otherwise much of it on rough washboard roads as in Baja California.
We are bouncing around in hot sun and often heavy dust that limits visibility
until you stop the vehicle and let it settle – and of course it penetrates the
vehicle and coats the people thoroughly. Most mornings we have to get up
early to begin the move to a new destination or to begin the early day’s game
drive. In some areas the tsetse flies threaten to eat you but we have not
been severely bothered – being eaten by a lion would be more glamorous.
Sunday, we moved
today from the tent camp near Lake
Ndutu
north to the central Serengeti near Seronera.
The dikdik, a tiny antelope about the size of a
medium sized dog was the only new discovery today. Last night we heard
lions roar frequently, tonight, as I write this, elephants are trumpeting up
the hill behind our new tent camp.
Monday, Feb. 1, while
the other 7 of the group went on a hot air balloon ride, I was fortunate to see
the first spotted leopard of our safari, resting in the branches of an acacia
tree. This is perhaps the most rare and difficult of all the common
predators to find. We did find a second later when the entire group was
reassembled. Tuesday we flew a Twin Otter from Serengeti to Arusha, then
by car to Nairobi.
On our last night they took us to a churrascaria, but
a churrascaria, Brasilian
BBQ, is all about meat, and Kenya
seems to have no good meat, so it was a poor imitation. My cell phone works
everywhere, in the bush, in the cities, as I found in Australia, the US lags in
cell phone implementation, perhaps because they started with the superior land
line infrastructure. Tanzania Album
Thursday ………. Flew
to Joburg,
South Africa.
This seems to be a very modern and prosperous city like Kuala
Lumpur or LA, in strong contrast to East
Africa.
Victoria
Falls, Zimbabwe
A couple hour plane ride from Johannesburg gets us to
Victoria Falls town. First thing was a two hour walk along the falls in
Victoria Falls
NP, getting us thoroughly wet and often couldn’t see the falls for the spray.
The walk gives a down stream view form an elevation
equal to the top of the falls, as they spill into a deep canyon, and we were
atop the opposite wall of this canyon – this as opposed to viewing from the
river level below as one might at Niagara. They are as spectacular as
advertised, twice as high and one and half times as wide as Niagara
– which I haven’t seen yet! Probably comparable in beauty to Foz do Iguacu which I
visited in 1994. Next day I got even more awesome views during a ~15 min
helicopter circling over-flight. Much of the remaining time at Vic Falls (4
days) was spent hiking around the vicinity of the falls to see the views, the
“big tree” bungee jumps, gorge swings, zip lines and the equally spectacular Zambezi River and canyon below the falls.
It looks like a great kayak run, and at the present relatively high water flow,
not too challenging or dangerous. However, I could not find a way within
walking distance of our Ilala Hotel to get into the
canyon to really do scouting. From the canyon rim it is impossible to
judge whether waves are 3 ft high (straight forward)
or 6 ft high (good setup for some swimming).
The rapids do appear to be clear of obstructions, which is great for safety,
but the terrain looks very hard to scout rapids from river level. I did
find an outfit willing to rent a kayak and equipment along with a guide and
raft support, but not about to do this as a lone paddler – especially having
not done any serious paddling for 10 years. Also went on a elephant ride game safari – rather an anticlimactic
exercise but you gotta say you did it. On the 3rd
day our guide made us go to one more tribal village, the Monde where we had to
listen to a long political speech form the “chief” and visit one last basket
and carving shop. Zimbabwe Album
Angel Falls, Venezuela 3212 ft total (2647 ft longest drop)
Foz do Iguacu, Brasil/Argentina
Longest drop 270 ft
Victoria Falls