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Emptied Wildebeest

Lyin’ Around

Tusker

Baloon Flights over the Mara

Paul packing away the roof tent

Lion’s pot of gold

Paul and our armed guide James

Bloated Nile Crocodile

Sign for the ranger’s camp in the Mara

Lines and lines

Nandi

Making lunch

Tanya making an illegal manouvre

Breakfast

Breakfast

Smile!

It’s thanksgiving in Canada shortly, and the end of Ramadan saw some serious feasting and sleeping here just about a month ago. Something similar is happening out on the Masaai Mara too. It is the holidays. The lions barely have to hunt: thousands upon thousands of wildebeest weakened or injured by the migration simply hobble up on to their plates and collapse, exhausted. The crocodiles are bloated with a drowned buffet of animals unable to fight their way across the strong current of the Mara river. Storks and vultures hop around on the ground, listless with overconsumption. And all the lion’s usual prey? Chillin’. There is no hunting going on. Just bloated predators sleeping in the sun and all the non-wildebeest herbivores mooching about. And the Wildebeest? They sleep in tight circles, everybody trying to push to the middle, the broken and elderly sacrificed on the fringe. We know what sleeping wildebeest look like because we got lost and stuck ovenight in another national park, again.

Wednesday 29th

Talk around the living room at Jungle Junction was all about a recent robbery that went wrong in the Masaai Mara and ended up with a robbery victim being shot dead. None of these occurences get reported in the media, lest they scare off the tourists, but the number of such incidences that we get to hear of along the grape vine is alarming. You get used to Africa and then someone tells you something that wakes you up: like this morning someone was talking about the presence of Typhoid in the water and I thought: I am showering in Typhoid. Two friends of our recently arrived in Uganda and have become infested with mango fly maggots. The flies lays eggs in damp clothing which hatch on warm skin. Lucie has over 40 maggots in her body. But the most amazing parasite in Africa must be this:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_worm

I wonder if it is some unconscious reluctance to leave the (relative) safety of Jungle Junction that causes this morning’s error. We had struck out for the Masaai Mara, only to find two hours later that we were back on the fringes of Nairobi. I will plead that it was a rainy day, and so impossible for us to tell by the sun that we had traced a circle. It was all very embarrassing and we spent the afternoon at the super-luxurious Westgate shopping mall consoling ourselves.

Thursday 30th September – Member’s club, Narok.

Another day, another failed attempt to reach the Mara. But we got closer this time. It is hard driving getting out of Nairobi, the pinnacles of selfish driving that people are able to achieve continually impress me. They pursue self interest so far that it crosses over and stops being self interested: they push in front of you so closely that you cannot avoid colliding with them, they block intersections, cause accidents, and hold everyone, including themselves, up.

We eventually arrive on the right road to the Mara, and have pulled up to try and puzzle out an intersection when a man comes running up to us to offer help. He is very kind and grandfatherly, and even draws us a map to help, all very nice until he demands a totally ridiculous fee for a service we hadn’t asked for. Normally we would both simply refuse and continue to negotiate until we arrive at an amount that is reasonable for all of us, but we are somehow vulnerable and frazzled by the driving, and end up giving in to his demands, instantly regretting it. And we spent the next two days regretting it because the map he drew us was total bunkum! Two hours later dark is approaching on a road that may contain wild animals and bandits. It is time to get back to the highway and find some accommodation with security. Surprisingly, we are able to find a place that offers camping. But it turns out to be a bar that lets us put the tent up in the car park, and use the bar toilets. Oh well. The one bright side is the incredible service from the kitchen staff. This place claims to be famous for it’s Nyama Choma (BBQ meat) but it seems that the kitchen staff have a passion for food and service in general. On hearing that we are vegetarian the cook suggests that he take our ingredients (beans and spinach) and prepare a meal for us. Two tusker lagers later,  in walks our white jacket clad chef, carrying silver trays and three gold plated (plastic) faux french tureens, containing spinach, baked beans and white rice. What a meal!

Friday 1st October – Crocodile Camp, Talek Gate, Masaai Mara.

We wait around in Narok for two hours for the ATMs to come back online. Frequently, ATM’s lose the connection with the outside world, and then you just have to wait. Any time a black African man sees me driving they express huge surprise. I am in the car reading when a souvenir seller comes to chat to me through the window. We are double parked, and when I slide over to the drivers seat to let the trapped parker out the man says “You can drive this car!” in an awed tone that would be appropriate if I had just reverse parked an amphibious hovercraft, rather than a plain old a 4WD.

At 2pm we arrive at Crocodile camp and get a spot right on the river Mara. The river is the boundary to the National park, so we set up our awning and chairs and sit and watch wildebeest and the afternoon storm gathering on the horizon. 

Saturday 2nd October

We have a relaxing by the river day in preparation for a pre-dawn start tomorrow. In bed at 9.30pm after an hour of meticulous packing up in the rain to ensure a swift getaway tomorrow morning.

Sunday 3rd October – Wild Camping, Masaai Mara

We get up at 6am with the first light, I wash my face while Paul packs up the tent and we are off.  In the first half an hour of being in the Masaai Mara we spot three lions, all dopey with food. We find a spot for ourselves in amongst a thick crowd of wildebeest to park and drink tea and eat our usual breakfast of  muesli. The rules in the park are meant to be “no getting out of the car, for any reason” but I don’t see how they can possibly expect that given that there are no picnic areas or toilets anywhere.

We cruise around the park all morning, and I start to warm to the idea of getting a nice lunch at one of the high end resorts. We follow the signs to Kekerook lodge, a very nice place, that unfortunately is serving a sumptuous four course banquet on the lawn. I was sort of more thinking of coffee+sandwich+view but that is not on offer here. We wander around the cool and luxurious interior of the hotel for a while before driving on to find a spot to picnic.

At 4pm we reach the Mara river, the site of the famous crossing, and the border of the privately run Mara triangle game reserve. There is suddenly a wall of smell. You feel like you could push it with your hands, but not be able to push it out of the way. Just below where we parked the car there is a bend in the river that has collected over two hundred corpses. The first thing I thought is “this is what the river in Rwanda must have looked like” when the Hutus were dropping Tutsi bodies in their river. One of the rangers offers to take us for a walk along the river, and he has a gun so we are happy to go with him. We walk upstream along the banks spotting hippos, crocodiles and wildebeest along the way. An Indian family have been let out to sightsee. Their guide has just gestured them towards the water and then hopped on his mobile phone. Our ranger tells them “Your guide is not supposed to let you come close to the water alone.” I notice that I feel completely unafraid in the presence of the guide, but would be utterly terrified if, say, we had broken down and I needed to collect water from the river, and I check myself to stay relaxed but vigilant.

At 5pm we get directions from James about how to leave the park. It would be straightforward except that the whole area is an absolute nest of tracks, the rangers and hotel staff alike totally ignoring speed limits and prohibitions about off roading. Hotel owned cars just drive straight off the road and right up to any animals they see, meaning that there is only one or two roads that are obviously “main roads” in amongst thousands and thousands of aimless tracks.

 At 6.30 pm it is the beginning of dark, and we are, again, totally lost. I think that we should just stop and put the tent up before it gets completely dark and the lions become active. Paul does not want to contemplate spending the night in the Mara. He says ”I really do not want to spend the night here. Every few metres there is a new wildebeest corpse. We have to leave.” And I say ”Ok. Even once it is dark we will keep driving. We will be able to see people’s headlights and see which way they are heading and it will be easier.” And about thirty seconds later our headlights conked out. So much for that. We pulled off the road in total darkness, and sat for a minute, debating our options. I did not want Paul to put the roof tent up in the dark, rather just sleep uncomfortably in the car. Paul was adamant that it would be too uncomfortable. In the end, Paul put the roof tent up while I stood behind him with a machete to stop any would be attacker from thinking it could sneak up on him. It was an odd combination of faintly ridiculous and heart pounding terror. 

Once in the roof tent we ate bananas, drank juice and began to dissect how we ended up in this situation again. I was both happy and a little disappointed not to hear the lions roaring in this part of the Mara.

Monday 4th October – Fisherman’s camp, Lake Naivasha.

At five am two trucks rolled past and I suddenly had a horrible thought: that the real threat to our safety probably wasn’t the lions, but rather the illegal poachers who come into the park at night to hunt game. 30% of the meat eaten in Nairobi is not “beef” as they claim, but a mix of zebra and antelope taken illegally from parks and preserves. They passed us a second time at 5.30 am and still didn’t stop. It turned out to be the park’s rangers, strangely incurious about what a tourists’ car was doing out in the middle of the Mara.

At first light we got up and put the roof tent down, and then started trying again to find our way out. It took us two and a half hours to find a main road to the gate. At 5.30pm we arrive at fisherman’s camp on Lake Naivasha, a strong contender to the best campsites in Africa. An electric fence borders the campsites so that hippos can come out and graze where you can see them, but not enter the campsite. While we eat a delicious dinner in the restaurant (bean burgers with lemon and coriander, chips and a big salad) the hippos can be heard huffing and grunting in the lake.

Tuesday 5th October – day things of turning around.

We’re having a relaxing day sitting on the lush lakeside lawn when we get to talking about the future. Looking around on the internet at possible jobs in England and at the dismal pound is causing us to have a serious rethink of where we want to be a year from now.

And then, trying to cook dinner, the stove breaks. For me,  No tea = No travel. I will put up with many hardships but tea is critical. So the plan to head to Uganda and Hell’s gate national park is shelved for now. We are going to have to head back to Nairobi.

Which is where we are, again, waiting for repairs to the electrics and shopping for a new stove. Uganda, next time!

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