GEORSS

45.256 -71.92

A Canadian couple (Jay and Alexis) and myself decided to visit the Karen Blixon museum (She wrote ‘Out of Africa’ and a few other things). We finished pretty early and had a good six hours to kill before our planned dinner at the Carnivore restaurant, so what better way to kill time than sit in a pub, it was raining after all. Carnivore is a hard core eat as much as you can meat fest a vegetarians worse nightmare, ostrich, crocodile, camel its all on the menu. They keep bringing meat until you can’t stand anymore and have to knock over your flag. We put up a good fight and ate until the sheer protein made our eyes feel like they were going to pop out of our heads. For me the bowl of sorbet at the end was the straw that broke the camels back, and I promptly vomited it back up in the toilets, but the meat stayed down, and thats what counts!

Anyway thats it from me, I had a great time. Thanks very much for all you guys who have been following my antics, and thanks to all the people back home and en-route who have supported and helped me along the way. Apologies for any bad spelling.

‘Thats all Folks’

The next morning we cooked up a big fried breakfast to get us ready for a days work digging the car out. The guy from Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) came round and took us down to the site in his Land Cruiser. He had already dropped some manpower off beforehand, in total we had well over twenty people. With the amount of people it was obvious that we would get the cars out, but it was also an accident waiting to happen as organising the team proved to be pretty difficult.

First up we had to free the Land Rover facing down hill and well and truly stuck in the side gulley. The KWS guys had some sand ladders so we thought we should try them first, they can be pretty dangerous, when the wheels get traction they can get spat out the back at shin height at a great speed. We did our best to explain but everyone was too excited to listen. First go and the sand trap wedged itself in the embankment, everyone saw the force that they hit the dirt and became more aware. We decided it would be better to push and pull the car instead, so we attached a cable to the rear bumper with a team pulling it up and away from the embankment and the rest pushing from the front and sides. The driver over compensated for the side gulley and skidded a bit close to the side. When the car slipped the guys pulling up hill fell over the drop into the valley, but managed to keep hold of the cable and could climb back up. Close! but still no injuries. After a bit more pushing and pulling we got the car out, and then the same for Brendans Land Cruiser.

We said our thanks and spent the rest of the day relaxing and taking a nice long game drive. I never saw the elusive leopards despite the tracks which were tantalizingly close. For our last night in the lodge we sat out in front of the water hole with a few beers, watching a lonely elephant drinking and cleaning. Eventually the Elephant was joined by a large herd of Buffalo who were grazing on the grass only about 4m away. We watched in amazement at these huge beasts who were aware of our presence but quite contented grazing away.

On our final day we drove up to the moorlands at the top of the hills, the road passes some pretty impressive scenery which changed from semi-rainforest to dense bamboo forest and then up to the almost English looking moorlands. On the road we got fake charged by a buffalo and an elephant trumpted right in my window.

After some slightly dodgy map reading we found the first of the massive waterfalls and Brendan decided upon at bit of fly-fishing just up stream. Not being much of a fisherman myself I sat down and caught some rays instead. Much to his credit Brendan did catch some trout, but they were a wee bit small (sorry Brendan).

We opted to take a different route back to Ol Pejeta, which passed across the top of the moorlands. At the junction there was a ‘road closed’ sign knocked to the ground by an elephant, but we all agreed to try the route anyway. It may not of been the most sensible option but it was damn good fun. The road was very tough and we had a few moments in the mud, which was confounded further by the constant rain. Eventually we found the reason why the road was closed, a section which was being worked on and was in a real mixed state of disrepair. Brendan managed to get across without any real problem and we made it to the gate, unfortunately banging into the side verge on a particularly slippery section, we hit it with some force but the Land Cruiser is a tough beast.

The guy at the gate was pretty surprised to see us as I don’t think anyone had passed that way for months, infact during our entire stay we only ever saw a couple of other people. We arrived back on Ol Pejeta all feeling pretty knackered, and what do you know we end up getting stuck again, in some real boggy tractor tracks. So it was onto hands and knees to dig out the worse of it and then padding out the tracks with branches and dryer soil. After a bit of work we freed the car and got back to the house, where we all collapsed feeling shattered. It was a fun little trip, not a particularly relaxing holiday for Sandra and Brendan but awesome fun for me. (Thanks again guys!)

Brendan had been doing his best to try and get some time off work so that we could all go on a little road trip. Not wanting to travel too far we decided on the nearby Aberdares National Park, the park is a very hilly lush semi-rainforest with lots of steep valleys, leading up to relatively flat moorlands on which rise to just over 4000m. We had been watching the weather up for the last week and it had generally been very nice. Using some of Sandras parents contacts we had managed to secure a pretty luxury lodge for three nights at a 50% discounted rate - bonus!

On the morning of departure the weather had taken a real turn for the worse. It rained for most of our journey to the park gate, and at the office we struck another problem. Someone on the phone had given us duff information about the price of entry. They told us it was a one off payment of $30 USD for non-residents, but it turned out that it was $30 a day! - which is quite allot for someone on my collapsed budget.

We spent a good hour arguing our case, with some useful name dropping from Sandra, and negotiating from us both. I decided to claim being a student which only costs $10 a day (im a cheap skate I know!). Eventually the boss man came onto our side thinking a few phone calls were made, and we were allowed in.

The drive up to the lodge was on some pretty sketchy road which was very slippery in the fresh rain, but we made it without any real problems. The lodge was an impressive place with good although cloud obscured views of Mt Kenya, it had its own private watering hole, which had two elephants playing around in the water as we arrived. It was by far the most luxurious place I have stayed on this trip and I even had a massive double bed all to myself. We spent the first day relaxing and took a short game drive, it was interesting to see all the animals in such a different environment.

On day two we decided to check out a road which led up to the moorlands, we had to descend a steep grassy road which led to a river crossing. The flow was way too strong and so after messing around for a bit we decided to head back up the hill. The slightest drizzle had made the road very slippery and before long we were stuck in a mud bath near the bottom of the steep slope, which had a big drop into the river on one side and a solid embankment on the other. We tried a couple of times to roll down the hill and then speed back up it, each time we got stuck and it was apparent a quick fix wasn’t possible. So we set to collecting sticks and chipping away ‘murram’ (a kind of soft rock used in the local roads) from a nearby mound.

After well over an hours work of manual labour we had pratically rebuilt five metres of road. We stopped for a tea and then Brendan had another attempt with Sandra and myself watching on. He got to the top of our stoney section with no problem but then got well and truly stuck in the terrible mud. Rather than roll back to the start we chocked the car and tried to start it again in situ, It wasn’t going anywhere quickly. We agreed that it was time to search for outside help. Brendan went off in search of mobile phone reception, or failing that the Parks Sub HQ back near the lodge. It was a bit of a dangerous walk which involved climbing quite a few trees to dodge angry buffalo.

Meanwhile Sandra and I carried on road building, without the rolling start it was difficult to get going and it took us about two hours to travel three metres. Brendan returned having called for help and shortly after a WWF Land Rover appeared coming down the road. We had advised them not to come down the bad road but the gunho attitude prevailed. Straight away the Land Rover was stuck facing down the road which was only wide enough for one car. To compund matters even more, the driver tried to reverse out and ended up getting well and truly stuck in the side ditch wedged up against the embankent. There were now two cars stuck on the hill, a few half hearted efforts to push the cars out didn’t really work, and the lack of communication meant someone nearly lost their legs, but fortunately came away unharmed.

The man in charge sent his men out for more help and some extra equipment. We sat around and watched as the sun slowly set and our hopes of getting the car out before nightfall were dashed. It was decided that we should walk back to the lodge and the KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) would provide some guards to protect the cars from locals who were watching from behind a fence high on the other side of the valley.

We started off on the 5km uphill walk back to the lodge, already quite tired from the manual labour, and the persistent rain just made it worse. Everyone was a little bit jumpy as it would be quite easy for a lonely Buffalo or Elephant to take a dislike to us, and in the dark it would be on top of us before we knew it, apparently the parks resident lions could also be a bit nasty. Halfway up we were joined by some armed guards who were branding their rusty AK’s in a jovial manner and not really filling anyone with confidence, but they escorted us the rest of the way.

The walk went without event until the final few hundred meters up to the lodge. Having its own salty waterhole the lodge is a haven for animals, which is great except for when you have to walk by the side of it. We saw one elephant walking up the road ahead of us, the guards made a few noises and got ready to fire a warning shot if neccesary but fortunately it walked off into the trees. We saw another massive Bull Elephant silhoutted at the top of the hill, but it let us pass underneath and very tired and relieved yet quite excited we got back inside.

The next day would be an interesting one as we would somehow have to get both cars out of the predicament, and the rain in the night wasn’t going to help. We were just happy to be able to take a hot shower and get a good nights sleep.

I had quite a few fun little adventures during my stay at Ol Pejeta, and dont want to bore everyone with them all, but here is a more interesting one.

One night we decided to have a Barbeque, everyone from the ranch was invited and we cooked pretty much a whole cow on the grill. As the night progressed beer flowed until people started heading off to sleep. As is normal in this situation a few slightlier thirstier people stayed up later than the rest, on this occasion it was Brendan, Rachel (a friend from Lamu) and myself. Eventually we cleaned the house of alcohol and not wanting to waste our drunkeness discussed what to do.

We decided to jump in the car and go searching for elephants. Every night a herd of elephants break through the fences around the workers compound, eating all the food and generally trashing the place. The ‘Askaris’ (security guards) are supposed to scare them off, but are pretty useless and probably sleeping most of the time. It wasn’t long before we found the Elephants tromping in between the villagers huts, so we scared them off and then returned home, satisfied with using our drunkeness to some purpose.

Back at the house we heard an animal in the garden fence, we turned the car headlights on to the noise. A baby zebra was stuck in the fence with its mother seemingly trying to push it all the way through. It became apparent that the baby was well and truly stuck, we decided to see if we could help to free it. As we approached the mother ran off leaving the baby stranded, its neck and feet well trapped in the fence. We managed to free the baby which must of been very young and was still wet so possibly even new born. Once freed we expected it to run back to its mother, but instead it ran straight back into the fence, this happened a few times until eventually it ran down the fence line and out of view. We presumed its mother who was calling from not far away would find it during the night, so we went off to bed expecting this to be the end of the story.

The next day Brendan phoned up on the way to work, the Zebra had been found in a fenced off area all by iteself. The rest of us went off to investigate, it was obviously very weak and in desperate need of its mother. Being such a young baby it was happy to presume anybody or anything was its mother, at one stage it even tried suckling from a jumper sitting on a fence post. Everyone had become quite attached to the little critter and were trying to persuade Sandra to keep it as a pet, then promptly all left leaving us with a slight situation.

We chatted with a few people in the know, they all told us that Zebras dont make good pets, they grow up to be aggressive and generally rude animals. We were advised to ‘let nature take its cause’, which in this case would mean leaving the Zebra in the fenced area where eventually it would starve until it was so weak that the vultures and hyenas would feed on its near dead body. All of this in front of the staff housing area.

We hatched a plan and bundled the baby in the back of the Land Rover, by now the Zebra thought Sandra was its mother, so she sat in the back while I drove. Off we went in search of its true mother and the rest of its herd, in an attempt to re-establish it with its family. It took a bit of looking but eventually we found a herd that graze fairly nearby. It was quite tricky as the Zebra would only follow Sandra and not the other Zebra who were by now running away from us. Sandra walked the baby quite a distance while I sat in the car, on the signal I drove up Sandra jumped in the car and we sped off. The Zebra ran after us for quite away but eventually gave up.

Sandra checked later in the day and it was still sat by itself with the other herd grazing nearby, so signs werent good. Later in the evening however the other herd were spotted in the same area. So although we don’t know the true fate of our little friend, each person could presume their own ending.

I spent one day in Mombasa, wandered around for a bit saw the big tusks that create an arch over the road, saw a big castle and decided it was all fairly pants so caught the night bus up to a place called Nyeri. The journey was something like 14 hours, and I was pretty knackered by the end of it. I unfortunately got the front seat so could see the driver in all his drug induced glory. To keep awake they chew Miraa Leaves which give them bright red eyes and a slightly edgy look, he did however make it without killing anyone which is always a bonus.

Nyeri is north of Nairobi in the Kenyan Highlands, I got breakfast in Nyeri and then caught a shorter bus journey to the town of Nanyuki, which is at the base of Mt Kenya, and a starting point for many trekkers up the mountain. This in turn means theres plenty of touts and guides looking to take you up the mountain, not a good mixture when I’ve had no sleep. I was pretty rude to a few people, but what can you do. I’ve got no intention of climbing Mt Kenya this time round, its the rainy season and the technical routes are a bit dodgy.

I was in Nyeri to meet Brendon and Sandra some old uni friends (white Kenyans) who I have been searching out since arriving in Kenya. It turns out they live and work on a private game reserve - you’ve guessed it free Safari, in fact nearly two weeks of free Safari! Which is just as well because my Google campaign only got me enough money to by one days entry to a National Park and no transport. The ranch is called Ol Pejeta and is about 90,000 acres. Only 30,000 acres are currently open to the public (Sweetwaters Game Reserve) but there are some big changes going on due to some foreign investment and soon the whole park is going to open to the public. Its an exciting place to be and the future is looking pretty promising, Brendon is in charge of all the building and design work going on in the park and has his work well and truly cut out.

Despite this we all found time to take plenty of game drives, often accompanied by Pops (a small Terrier of some sort?) and Kutu (a three quarter ridgeback and one quarter great dame!). Having already been in Africa for seven or so months I hadn’t actually seen much in the way of wildlife. Most of the animals in West and Central Africa have been eaten, and other than a few monkeys and baboons the only animals I saw were hanging on sticks and for sale at the roadside. Being at Ol Pejeta more than made up for it, I spent quite allot of time driving from building site to building site with Brendon and each time it was pretty astonishing for me what we would come across. Over the two weeks I saw pretty much every animal going (Lions, Hippos, Elephants, White Rhino, Black Rhino, Zebra, Hartebeest, Gazelles, Giraffe etc, etc) and only the elusive Leopards and Cheetas stayed hidden. Being in an official vehicle we also had a free reign to stray from the roads should we see something of concern/interest.

The guys are currently living in the Ol Pejeta guest house, while Brendon works on designing and building a new house for himself and Sandra. Fortunately the guest house had a spare room for me which was paradise compared to the normal flea pits I have to sleep in. Kosci the cook was on hand to prepare a tasty meal every night, which normally involved prime beef from the Ol Pejeta livestock. So all in all it was pretty good.

The reserve is pretty far from the nearest town, hence me being quiet for the last two weeks. There aren’t many pubs around but Sandra brought in a good supply of Tuskers, and we also took a trip out to the Ranch House. Some time before it was a game reserve the land was owned by an Arabic arms dealer. He built this massive ranch house, complete with two swimming pools, an absolutely huge bed, and a big bird cage which was suspended over the dinner table. During dinner parties the bird cage would appear from a trapdoor above the table containing naked girls who would then dance and play with food above the eating crowd. It was all fun and games for the arab until eventually he got locked away for his dodgy dealings and the ranch got purchased by a luxury safari company.

Nowadays allot of the funding comes from a rich American who likes chimps, because of this they have a large sanctuary full of rescued chimps. Although not strictly indigenous to Kenya the chimps are good fun to go and visit, due to their often traumatic past its a bit of a chimp nut house and their are some real characters. Including a few moody fellas that throw stones at onlookers, on one occasion they even manged to knock out one of the wardens with a well aimed shot.

The reserve is based in some pretty striking scenery with views of Mt Kenya to one side and the Agerdares Hills National Park to the other. Being the rainy season the weather wasn’t too good but we were often treated to a morning view of the mountain and never passed up the opportunity for ‘Sundowners’ on some on the smaller hills dotted around the grounds.

The next stop along the coast was Lamu, an ancient Swahelian town which is still inhabited. Lamu is on an Island, so it was a bumpy bus ride up the coast and then a short boat journey over to the town itself. Its a touristy place and so hotel touts are waiting for you when get off the boat, I managed to dispatch them with ease and got to the hotel as planned. You can instantly see why its a touristy place because its pretty special. Beautiful architecture and narrow cool streets, lots of juice bars and cheap restaurants with tasty food. Its a very Muslim place and in answer to all the Western tourists many of the women opt for the full robe and covered face, just the eyes on show, despite this the people generally remain freindly and relaxed to each other and the tourists.

I thought about visiting some of the outlying islands, or taking a boat trip, but in the end thought sod it im just going to laze around for a few days. Which I did, generally keeping myself to myself and staying out of trouble, a few trips to the beach to swim in the warm sea, and lots of strolling around the quiet picturesque streets, and eating way to much food. With no beer on offer I resorted to binge drinking Tea and visiting the Cinema. I had some great days doing absolutely nothing, pretty much ignoring everyone else and only chatting to a few locals, antisocial but great.

Next up Mombasa, and the bus journey was a shocker. The road isn’t particularly good so its a bit bouncy at the best of times. All of the buses leave at roughly the same time and race it down the road to pick up new passengers. When one bus stops the others overtake, and so they kind of leap frog down the route.

While overtaking one bus something went wrong and we are suddenly skidding out of control. There is about a fifteen foot gradiented drop on one side of us. It looked like we are going to go down it and maybe roll a couple of times, I remember being more angry than scared, and was quietly confident about getting out of this one unscathed - I had a good seat. The bus hit the crash barrier which manged to absorb the impact (of the 60 or more seater bus) and we came to a halt. I blasphemed out loud (m f’er!).

The guy behind me thought we hit a cyclist, everyone piled out of the bus, and so did people from the bus we were overtaking. Sure enough there was a tangled up bike and a guy lying on the floor covered in blood and flour (he was delivering flour). To everyones relief the guy came-to after a while, he had obviously broken his leg which was twisted in a bad way and the bone sticking out of his thigh. Im not particularly good with this kind of thing, so left some of the locals who seemed more adept at first aid than myself. Despite us telling him not to, the guy sat up and was visibly quite shocked but fairly stable. Thinking it was just a matter of waiting for the ambulance I went and escaped the heat by sitting in the bus. After a while the mandatory ten babies that have to be on every bus started a crying match, so I went back outside.

I was pretty shocked to see the casualty lying down covered head to toe with a blanket. We were now looking at a fatality, he died nearly an hour after the crash, from suspected head trauma. The Police turned up another hour later (thats two hours), one of them drove us on to Malindi, while the other transported the bus driver and the corpse. It was quite a solemn journey, and we had to swap coaches at Malindi while they impounded the other one. The replacement coach was a bit of an old bird and got two flat tyres on the journey to Mombasa, it was a long bouncy ride but we made it in the end.

Of course the moral in this story is, take trips like this and seize the day, because you never know you might get hit buy a bus cycling to work tomorrow. I Thankyou.

After a few days in Nairobi I took the night bus down to Malindi ( about a ten hour journey), where I was hoping to try and find an old University friend (Brendan). Sleeping on the coach wasn’t really possible and eventually we arrived in what someone said was Malindi, I stumbled off the bus half asleep and got in a minibus for the town centre. It ended up taking me to the wrong town so I had to backtrack on another bus to Malindi, by this time the sun had come up. I found a cheap hotel and crashed out until midday.

The coast is very much a Muslim area and centre of the Swahelian culture, which is similar to the Arabic way of life. Most of the towns were founded by Arabian traders who headed South in search of Ivory and other treasures. They brought with them some pretty tasty food, and everyone drinks Tea (not Lipton). I visited a hotel that I new Brendan used to hang around, the guy at reception gave me his parents number, which I phoned. Apparently he lives up near Mt Kenya now, so I will have to head up that way soon.

While in Malindi I visited the ancient Gede ruins, my first official tourist stop in Kenya. Like many countries they have a Resident and Non-Resident rate. Only in Kenya they have recently hiked up the prices so high that the Non-Resident rate is pretty much out of reach of the budget travellers like myself. I chatted with the guy in the ticket office and noticed an advert for a free concert. I asked if I could go inside and wait for it to start, he happily agreed, both of us knowing I really meant can I sneak in for nothing. It was worth the visit too, a very atmospheric place with the ruins of a whole ancient city, hidden within a lush forest.

Arriving in Kenya was almost an anticlimax after the chaos of Kinshasa. I was granted a visa at the airport with no bribes or strange questions. There was even an official taxi rank to get a lift to the hostel. Before I had one foot outside the terminal building I had my first ‘would you like a safari?’. Give me a minute I just stepped off the plane!.

The taxi drove me into the city, which although congested was clean, with big wide streets and fancy skyscrapers. To start with it felt like i’d left Africa and flown into Europe already. We arrived at the Youth Hostel on the outskirts of the centre, and sure enough there was a man in a cheap suit waiting for me ‘would you like a safari?’ he asked, breathing chewing gum flavoured breath in my face, he had to be the most annoying man ever and followed me around for the first day, kept coming up with lines like ‘have you seen the Lion King? Hakuna Matata, we say that, it means no problem’.

Eventually I managed to loose the guy and wandered the streets of Nairobi for a while, it doesn’t have the honesty and innocence that most of West Africa had. People still talk to you in the street but mainly because they want to rob you or sell you something. It does however have all the modern trappings of europe at an OK price, I sat down to my first bacon, sausage and eggs for nearly seven months. I was like a kid in a candy store when I visted the supermarket, wow, milk, cheese, cereal. I nearly ate a whole bowl of coco pops for breakfast the next morning.

Similar to Ghana it is a politically stable, english speaking and despite a theft problem its quite safe, because of that its a good place to send the public school girls off for a couple of months working in orphanages, schools, digging wells etc. Which for me is pretty awesome, I spent a few days in Nairobi mainly chatting to girls as I havent seen any in a while (except for those searching for visas). Night-time is definitely a different story, in all of the previous countries the streets were just as lively at night as they were at day time, if not more so. All you had to do is walk out alone find a friendly looking place, then sit down and chat away. In Nairobi the only bars are in the city centre or the fancy suburbs which are all a taxi ride away, outside of these areas the streets are very quiet and walking a no no apparently.