Recollections from my Africa safari...

[MrFantsyPants]

The following is the story of a safari my wife and I went on in the early days of September, 2001. We travelled to Africa on a spur-of-the-moment kind-of trip after we inherited some money from a dead uncle I never met. I’ve been meaning to get it down “on paper” for the longest time, and apparently now is the time. Please feel free to share your own favourite travel experiences.

Our story starts innocently enough, with my wife and I looking for things to do on our first day in Nairobi. We hail a cab outside our ten-dollar-a-night hotel, and ask the driver to take us somewhere interesting for the afternoon. We end up doing the touristy thing in and around Nairobi - the Giraffe sanctuary, Karen Blixen’s house (that chick in Out of Africa) and a crash course in navigating the downtown area.

In the course of being shuttled around, we mention to our driver that we were thinking of heading out on a safari the next day, possibly head down to the Maasai Mara to see the wildebeast migration. Well, it turns out that the driver’s mother’s next door neighbour used to do laundry for some guy who went to school with the woman who works at a local safari company (or something like that). He drops us at the entrance to the building, takes our six dollars, and bids us farewell.

The safari company was on the top floor of an eight story building in downtown Nairobi. We take the tiny unlit definitely-not-for-claustrophobics elevator to the fifth floor (what used to be the top floor, when the building was first built), and climb the remaining flights of stairs to the top. We pay our money, and book in for a six day trip leaving nice and early the next morning.

Now, before we begin talking about the actual trip, a word about our vehicle. On the plains of the Maasai Mara, you are likely to see two types of safari vehicles: the reliable but boring Toyota minibuses, and the far more idiosyncratic Toyota Landcruisers. We discover, with some satisfaction, that we would be travelling in the latter, and we happily set off on our trip.

Traveling in the truck with us are three british university students, an australian woman, and a dutch guy, all of us mid-twenties or so. The driver is a Kenyan named Jack. Jack seems unhurried as we set off, taking the time to make sure everyone has enough water, film, and other safari essentials, then we hit the road. And when I say “hit”, it was more of a hesitant little-girl slap than anything else. Our vehicle, it seems, was missing a couple of gears, and probably wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Going up hills was an absolute chore for this truck, and over time we would discover it was missing a few other “essentials” as well (gas gauge, speedometer, turn signals, parking brake, and one of the spare tires had a huge hole in it). It was the state of this vehicle that would be the source of many of our little dramas over the next few days.

Now, the itinerary for the safari suggested that we would arrive at the game park mid-afternoon, visit a maasai village, and see some animals before making camp. We’re somewhat slowed down by our landcruiser’s hill-climbing abilities, and Jack has to stop every hour or so to top up the radiator. He’d pull into a small store and purchase four 1 gallon jugs of water. Two would go right into the rad, The other two would be placed on the winch mount for use later (a destiny they never met, since they never got tied down, and would be in the ditch within minutes of driving again).

We reachthe maasai village as the light is beginning to dim, politely watched their ceremonial dances, get offered some snuff of some sort that the village elder kept in a film canister pushed through his earlobe, and then we’re off again. It was after we had entered the park that we begin to sense that Jack is a little nervous about getting to camp. He’s driving a bit erratically, taking turns too fast, not slowing down for the many potholes. Then he quietly mutters the words that no-one wants to hear from their safari driver: “Shit, no brakes!”.

Fortunately, it’s only about a five minute pitch-black jog from the acacia tree we hit to the bush-enclosed camp. “Don’t worry” Jack tells us, “The lions aren’t the biggest problem here. There’s a matriarchal elephant who’s been acting a bit aggressive with wondering tourists, but you can hear her coming”. We reach the camp and settle into our tents.

As we sleep peacefully that night, secure in the knowledge that the three foot tall brush hedge would surely stop any blood thirsty lions, or rampaging elephants. Jack spends the night working on the landcruiser with the park mechanic.

The next morning starts out gloriously. After our breakfast, we hit the trail, and within 5 hours, we see lions, cheetahs, elephants, hippos, wildebeast, zebras, water buffalo, impalas, oryxs, hartebeasts, baboons, hyenas, jackals, giraffes, and warthogs, oh my! In fact, the lions are so numerous that by lunch time, no one is paying much attention to the three males resting 10 feet off to our right. That is, no one is paying much attention to them until the passenger side door falls off the landcruiser.

Now, like our fearless guide Jack, you’d probably think that getting the hell out of there would be the first order of business, and he does. His plan, and I must say, this is a stroke of genius, was to deposit us somewhere to chill out and relax, while he retrieves the door, drives back to the mechanic’s to get it welded back on, then retrieve his well rested tourists and resume the day. Good thinking, Jack!

The place that Jack decides to deposit us is the Maasai Mara airport. Now, the word airport here is being stretched to the furthest limit of its definition. What we have is a short gravel runway, a tin shack with a meagre collection of “supplies”, and a little thatched roof banda with some benches in it. As Jack hurries away, his parting words to us are something along the lines of “Stay here, eat lunch, don’t wander. A man got eaten by lions just over there last year.” as he motions to a spot the other side of the runway, about 30 feet away.

Now, as a group we naturally gravitate towards the banda, and as we grimly shuffle in we are confronted by the airport attendant, and his good friend, Mr. AK47. “You waitin for plane?” he asks. “No” we reply, “We’re waiting for our safari driver to get the truck repaired”. “You can’t wait here then” he says, tightening his grip on the machine gun. Oooookay. So back out we go, claiming the tin storage shack as our domain, unpacking the picnic lunch, unwrapping the chicken sandwiches, laying out the bottles of warm Exide Chemicals brand orange-flavored drink, and dolloping soggy salad onto centuries old tupperware plates.Two of the british guys drag some drums out of the shack to sit on, and light up. We have our obligitory moments of domestic bliss before someone notices the words “aviation fuel” painted on the chairs in the smoking lounge.

[MrFantsyPants]

So, now we’re abandoned in the middle of nowhere, stuck in a tin shack on the top of a big hill, no where to sit, and a surly kenyan with a big gun openly scowling at us. This is about the time that the thunderstorm begins. A lightning strike on the next hill over, a couple of kilometers away, convinces us that it is time, maybe, to bribe the guy with the machine gun to let us sit with him in the only non-metallic building around.

After the rain has been coming down in earnest for about ten minutes, Jack returns with a freshly welded door and we gratefully scramble back on board. We quickly out-run the storm and resume our regularly scheduled migration watching. we visit the Mara river, and watch the hippos and crocodiles frolicking in the water, and make a quick and surely illegal jaunt acroos the borber into Tanzania. As the sun heads down and we make our way back to the camp, Jack promises the next day will be better. We will be heading out early, driving up the Great Rift Valley to Lake Nakuru, one of the best places in Kenya to see the elusive leopard. We spend the evening sitting around the fire, smoking pot with the maasai cooks, and recounting our day to the other camp residents.

The next day starts well enough. We lose two of our Brits to another car heading for Mount Kilimanjaro, and gain a very uptight couple from Isreal who would not have gotten through the events of the previous day without developing matching his and hers aneurisms. We quickly learn that our new travel companions were not made for the rigors of travelling in Africa. They start to noticeably twitch as it becomes clear that our sad little landcruiser can’t move fast enough to keep us on schedule, and once it becomes clear that we won’t make it to Lake Nakuru before the park is closed, we have to shift to one side to make room for the angry bulging veins.

We spend the night in a quiet little hotel, and hit the road nice and early. If we move through Nakuru park quickly, push hard with no unnecessary stops, we should be able to make our next destination, Samburu Park, well before dark.

Lake Nakuru is known for a few attractions. The lake itself is enormous, but very shallow, making it excellent for shrimp, in turn making it an absolute haven for flamingos. Flamingos as far as the eye can see. The noise of that many flamingos is something to behold as they all fold and refold their wings. Imagine standing in the middle of a stadium full of people. all stapling, and you get the idea. Lake Nakuru is also known for its white rhinos and its leopards. It was shortly after we came across a fresh leopard kill hanging in a tree that the left rear tire blew out.

Now, if you remember, I mentioned that one of the two spare tires was flat, but the other one was in good shape, although perhaps a little bald. So why, you ask, was Jack looking so dejected? Well, apparently, spare tires are only worth a damn if you actually have a jack to lift the truck up so you can change it. We’re told that someone borrowed ours a couple of days before and never quite returned it. “Don’t worry” says Jack, “someone will drive past soon we’ll borrow theirs.” and so we wait, sitting in a stinking hot truck, leopards imagined or real, lurking just out of sight, and two twitchy Israelis glowering in the back seat. After about an hour, Jack reluctantly lets us out to try and innovate our way out of the problem. After 45 minutes of trying different things, we are close to a solution involving a 12 foot tree trunk, a large boulder, and every book and magazine in the truck, when a small nissan pulls up behind us. Ten minutes later, we are back in motion.

We see the rhinos, we see the flamingos, and a whole host of other beasties. The leopards stayed away, but that was just fine, and after touring the park, we hit the road, on our way to Samburu park.

We haul ass as much as our sad little truck will let us, but it is still not enough to beat the sun. Twilight finds us in the frontier town of Isiolo. North of us is a huge expanse of open shrub-desert. Isiolo is what you’d expect of a frontier town. Rampant crime, very little law, atrocities committed after sundown that you’d expect from Sudan. To make matters worse, much of the local law enforcement has rumoured to have been hired away by the crew of Survivor: Africa, shooting somewhere northwest of us, leaving the innocent of Isiolo even more exposed.

As we pass though Isiolo, all eyes are on us. At the north end of town, we are stopped by a police roadblock. Jack stops the car, and jogs over to the 6 heavily armed policemen. There is much frantic hand waving and head shaking, but the gist of the conversation comes not from Jack and the policemen, but from the thirty or so beggars and roadside traders. Through the windows we hear snippets of sentences through the din: “… shouldn’t be here”, “Can you spare a shilling, or …”, “… bandits on the road tonight, you can’t go though there”, “Pineapples, Mangos, bananas!”, “You’re gonna die if you go …”, “… can’t stay here …”.

Jack pushes his way back though the crowd, announces “okay, let’s go”, and we drive around the road block and into the night. “everything ok?” we ask Jack. “Yeah, yeah, all good.” he replies, but the sweat pouring off his forehead, and the manic way he is clutching the steering wheel tell a different story. And so it goes, pushing the truck as fast as it would go along some of the worst roads I’ve ever been on. In fact, the road itself is completely undriveable. Makeshift roads have been cut into the desert along the side of the road, and where those have become deeply pitted, a third tier of dirt path has been cleared. Hurtling along these winding paths in the complete dark of a moonless african night, the dire predictions of the Isiolo merchants still ringing in our heads, you can imagine the mood in the truck is far removed from sunshine and lollipops.

I’m sitting shotgun, so I get to see the exact reaction on Jack’s face when we are suddenly illuminated from behind. Utter terror is my best guess for what is going through his head, and it amply demonstrated for me just how dire a situation he felt we were in. This moment is probably the most scared I’ve been in my life. The light, however, is actually coming from Mikhail’s mag light (the dutch guy) as he checks his guidebook to try and figure out where in the fuck we are, and not ,as we assumed, from the headlights of a truck load of gun toting bandits who snuck up behind us. Mikhail realizes the effect his curiostiy has had on us, and apologizes sheepishly.

Another hour or so of driving, and the terrain has become a little less arid, and a little more hilly. As we swing around a corner, the headlights illuminate five men blocking the road, carbines in hand, motioning for us to stop. Jack seems visibly relieved, as he explains to us that these are the Samburu Park wardens. We have arrived. Kind-of. It’s still a 45 minute drive to to the camp, and one of the wardens has decided to ride along wth us. I shift into the back seat, and the warden climbs into the passenger seat. The road in the park is even bumpier than before, but now we an armed escort, his rifle resting in the crook of his arm, the business end blindly picking new targets in the back seat each time we hit a bump, but that’s okay, we’re pretty sure he’s got the safety on, right?

We finally reach camp, devour some cold corn, cooked for us hours ago, and collapse into our respective tents. The only remaining excitement is a wondering lion that night, who lets out a lonely roar a mere fifteen feet from our tent. The last two days go off without a hitch, mainly because our landcruiser has been swapped out for a more reliable one, and the source of all our drama is sent back to home base. We make it back to Nairobi a day or two later to discover that in our absence, the world has been changed by a few fanatics and a couple of airplanes. We still have three weeks on the ground, which we use to explore muc of Kenya and Uganda, but that, as they say, is another story.

[MrFantsyPants]

heh, I forgot to mention the sound of all those african crickets chirping.

[Chefguy]

I’ve been on two major safaris and several smaller ones in Africa. One of them was on the Tanzania side of things in the Serengeti. We drove in by way of Lake Manyara (where we stayed in this hotel, Ngorongoro Crater (where we stayed in the lodge pictured), Oldupai Gorge and then to Lake Ndutu on the Plain itself. Spent New Year’s Eve of 1997 out there, which was a blast. We stopped at a Masai village on the way back, which was interesting, then broke an axle in one of the cavernous ruts on the road back to civilization. Had to hitch a ride with another safari Land Cruiser to make our plane.

The other big safari was in Botswana, without the plush accommodations, but still a first-class operation. I recommend either of these options to anyone looking for the vacation of a lifetime.