Friday, September 18, 2009

Masai Mara and Lake Naivasha in Kenya

Arrived in Nairobi from Dubai about 10 days ago. As we were a bit nervous about Nairobi's reputation we booked a guesthouse out of town and were picked up straight from the airport. The taxi driver took us a 'short cut' route to avoid the terrible traffic, on a track with massive potholes (not very comfortable). It took us right past Nairobi National Park where we saw giraffe and zebra grazing - not a bad view on a trip from the airport!

Nairobi is actually not as hectic as we expected, Delhi and Kathmandu are much worse for touts and hassles. We have found the people very genuinely friendly and have gone out of their way to be helpful (which is a very different story to what the Lonely Planet describes).

We returned to Nairobi yesterday after 3 days on an organised Masai Mara tour and then 3 days hanging out at Lake Naivasha about 90kms north of Nairobi. The Masai Mara tour was awesome! We travelled in a white minivan converted with a flip up lid so we could stand up in the van and look out on the savannah. Our travelling companions, Sanna and Cliff (a Swedish couple) kept the mood jovial the whole time and our driver John always had an answer to our strange questions about the wildlife. We saw heaps of antelopes (impala, Thomsons' gazelle, waterbuck, eland, dik dik), pumba (warthogs in Swahili), zebra (Alex's favourites!), giraffe (Amms' favourites), buffalo (the scariest animals on the plains), elephants, a crocodile, hippos, 2 lions, and the most amazing of all a leopard (only about 10m away, she sat there calling her cubs for a few minutes - amazing!). We also saw a lot of kills being finished off by hordes of vultures - nature in action. In fact, I think the only one of the big 5 that we missed out on were rhinos.




We stayed in a cute tented camp just outside the park near a semi-traditional Masai Mara village which we visited one day. The people were so incredibly friendly, they showed us how they made fire by rubbing sticks together in a couple of minutes, Alex practised jumping with them (the one who jumps the highest is the strongest warrior), and of course they wanted us to buy their beautiful beaded jewellery and handcrafts.

Our phone with special international sim card we bought in the UK didn't last long - I left it at the masai mara camp (by mistake of course)... its gone forever. Phones are pretty reasonable here as the majority of calls are made on mobiles and everyone has one (even the Masai people!), so we have bought a cheap replacement.

The last 3 days we stayed at a beautiful campsite on Lake Naivasha (with pink flamingoes) and basically did our own thing. We hired bicycles one day and cycled through Hells Gate National Park, one of the few parks where you can cycle amongst the wildlife. It was pretty amazing to have nothing between yourself and a giraffe, or more scarily a buffalo! Cycling through the small villages was cool too with all the school kids shouting 'how are youuuuuu, how are youuuuu!' to us along the way. We also went down a gorge (a canyon) similar to some of the ones we've done in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, although this one had hot water springs in it. Our guide for the canyon (everyone must have a guide so I guess it gives someone a job) was nice although I'm not sure he understood everything Alex was asking him. One conversation went like this:
Alex: Do you rockclimb? Guide: Yes.
Alex: Do you rockclimb on the Fischers tower? Guide: Yes.
What grade is Fishers tower? Guide: Yes.
Full credit though I guess he does have to contend with a lot of different English accents each day!



We have been catching Matatu buses for short trips. Matatus are shared minivan taxis which always have the music blaring and are often plastered in stickers advertising some American celebrity (eg. Beyonce, Martin Luther King, God is Great and such like). Carrying our backpacks on the matatu isn't that easy as they are often packed with people, but we managed!

Today Alex visited the dentist as his tooth started hurting the day we left the UK - great timing. After full x-rays, everything looks all fine and the tooth doesn't hurt now anyway!

Tanzania tomorrow.

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