In to Africa

Just twelve months ago, I was getting organised for 2017’s first trip of a lifetime.
Tonight, In a window seat on a Kenyan Airways flight to Nairobi. The only light outside is from the wingtip light.pitch black. Below us the Nile. If We’re lucky on the way back we’ll see it clearly.
But tonight (as I write it’s nearly midnight London time and a little before 3am in Nairobi where we expect to land at 6am). Although the trip has been booked for months I really didn’t believe it was happening until we were on the plane. What a way to move a lovely Christmas with good friends on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and then being spoiled today by others not only providing a delicious Boxing Day lunch, but also personalised taxi, into the New Year: to explore the Maasai Mara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Amboseli hoping to see Africa’s Big Five – and more, no doubt!

Even before it starts this has been quite the adventure: researching, comparing, deciding to book with a company we hadn’t heard of but whose website was good. Paying 50% and a few weeks later reading reports that the company had gone bust! Not good! But all was well, we were told- two countries, two companies with the same name working closely together. One company HAD ceased trading – but it wasn’t the one we had booked with……..even now I hope that will be confirmed when we arrive at Jomo Kenyatta International airport…and we’ll be met by a representative of the newly branded Spirit of Kenya.

By the way, if the Dreamliner is your dream plane: think again. The seats are OK for size but don’t recline far and yet, if the person in front of you reclines, you’re squashed. Even writing this I couldn’t have the iPad on the table comfortably, let alone take a straight photograph of the individual TV screen.

5.00a.m. December 28th Ziwa Bush Lodge, Nakuru.

What an amazing first twenty-four hours in Kenya!

Despite chronic queues, insufficient staff and some very pushy people, we got through immigration eventually, found our luggage easily and quickly and made our way to towards the usual throng of drivers awaiting their tourists. In fact, the person waiting for us was from the ‘Spirit of Kenya’ office and he took us to meet Charles, our driver/guide for the next few days. He will see us through into Tanzania and will then pick us up again for the last three days in Kenya, getting us to Amboseli and back to Nairobi for our flight home.

Charles is a fluent English speaker and always on the lookout for something unusual for us. He’s not a clock-watcher : we should have been out of the park by 6pm yesterday but it was at least 6.15 when we arrived at the main gate because we had found so many interesting places to stop.

Lake Nakuru and the community of Nakuru are about a three hour drive from Nairobi along a road in the Central Rift Valley which was built by prisoners of war. There were spectacular views of the valley, some very bumpy sections through road works, police checks – licences, illegal trading- and some very heavy, slow-moving traffic.

Our chalet cum tent is in a ‘resort’ (well, that’s what we’d have called it in Thailand!) a few kilometres beyond the town of Nakuru, in a lodge which also supports the orphanage which shares its land. The roads are country lanes, seemingly suffering the after effects of the rainy season, heavily ridged so that Charles is constantly weaving from one side to the other to avoid the biggest of the dips. 4×4 definitely advised, though local transport is more likely to be a motorbike or bicycle!

Having registered, found our room and had lunch, we were out again by 1.15 to visit the Lake Nakuru National Park, which, for me, meant flamingos. At the entrance, while Charles dealt with formalities, we watched a whole tribe of baboons wreck havoc – playful havoc, like excited children, around the waiting cars. We were to see them at regular intervals along the roads as we explored the park.

Our first stop was near the original park entry point, where the trees at the edge of the lake have died as the water levels have risen. Charles explained that this has happened in all seven of the Rift Valley’s lakes and it is assumed that there has been tectonic plate movement.

To my amazement as we were driving through a heavily forested area, over a small stream which flows into the lake, I spotted a zebra taking advantage of the shade and flowing water to snatch a drink. Then we realised there was a whole group of them. Gradually they emerged from the woodland and crossed the road in front of us, forming a long line as they walked along the roadside. And I had only expected to see flamingos!

They were next on the list! We made our way to the point of the lake where the ‘classic’ image of thousands of flamingos is to be seen. There were buffalo resting in the sun at the water’s edge so we weren’t able to get out of the van. With the roof up this was no problem and we got some fun shots of the buffalo resting with flamingos as a backdrop. This was flat land and Charles was very much on the lookout. I asked why- to be told he thought there might be rhino among the herds of buffalo and was trying to find the for us.

Next stop was the Baboon Cliff viewpoint, providing almost an aerial view of the lake edge with its skeletal trees and buffalo at rest: unusual!

As we drove past gazelle and impalas, becoming commonplace to us now, Charles said, ‘There’s a giraffe’. Eyes right. There were two giraffe! They were at quite a distance but provided another unexpected treat in this place where I expected only flamingos!

And finally there were rhinos and more flamingos before heading out of the park for dinner and a good night’s rest back at the hotel.

Since then I’ve enjoyed a really good sleep! So much needed that I didn’t even transfer photos last night. Asleep before 9pm ? Unheard of! But reality.

Early the next morning we set off to drive to the Maasai Mara, leaving by 7 (actually 7.20 but not our fault!) and aiming to arrive ‘by lunchtime’. The road was pretty good but busy for the first three hours or so and then we began to think it couldn’t be much further. But we were wrong. It was after 3 when we reached Ilkeliana where lunch was waiting for us: ruts, rills and the remnants of the effects of heavy rains on the many unmade up roads made the journey bumpy and slow despite Charles’s best efforts.

This is glamping!

The next morning saw us up before dawn for the long awaited balloon ride. Up at 5am, out by 5.30 and off to the launch site which was a mere five minutes’ drive from the camp. Yellow and green Cameron balloons- three of them- took us up and over the journeys of giraffe, herds of impala and the occasional warthog. Not as much wildlife as we’d hoped but a fantastic experience nonetheless, so much so that we are debating another flight over the Serengeti. Then it was a champagne breakfast sitting in the Mara.