Maasai Mara

I can't even begin to express what an incredible few days it's been, but I shall try.

Tracey, Francis and myself were up and out by 7 a.m. to go and collect our friend Celia. She lives in a posh area of town called Westlands. Unlike Kigali, where everywhere is under 20 minutes away, crossing Nairobi is a major operation. It took over an hour. The traffic was crazy.

Ready, Set, Go!

The last time I'd seen Celia was almost three years ago, but she hasn't changed a bit. 

We spent the best part of the journey throwing insults at each other, and I don't remember laughing so much in a long time. I think laughter was the defining theme of the whole weekend. Both Tracey and Celia are Aussies, so they share the same cutting sense of humour as the Brits. Insults, puns and fart jokes were the order of the day. And as much as Celia protested she wasn't into fart jokes, she was definitely laughing.

We stopped off a couple of times on the seven hour drive to the park gates. Once at Narok for food, and before that at a lay-by with an incredible view of the Rift Valley. I definitely felt the shift in altitude.

The Maasai are very much cow people, and the closer you get to the park, the more cows you see. Oddly, the more rubbish you see also. The last village before the park gate was  absolutely strewn with plastic bottles and bags. Bit of a contradiction with the conservation effort. Though apparently the gate to the park has receded by several kilometers in the past few years - the Maasai Mara is shrinking. 

Another thing I didn't realise was that the Maasai Mara is the northern tip of the Serengeti, which is about eight times the size. On the Kenyan side it's the Mara, on the Tanzanian side it's the Serengeti. The mass wildebeest migrations you see David Attenborough talking about are when they migrate between the two sides. When we arrived, the main wildebeest herd were in Serengeti, due back in June or July, but there were still plenty of stragglers on the Mara side, and in places the ground was black with churned earth from their migration.

(panoramic, click to enlarge)

We had a flat on the approach to the park, but we were very lucky as Francis is a mechanic. I've never seen a wheel changed so fast!

Although we'd been on the road for a long time, we were all in the mood for a game drive once we arrived. I've been to Akagera, the game park in Rwanda, a couple of times, but nothing could have prepared me for the scale of Mara. It is utterly vast, and there's wildlife everywhere. I've seen hippo and buffalo before, but this was mind-blowing. One of the first things we encountered was a cheetah with her cub. In fact, we saw four cheetahs over the weekend which is apparently very good as they're rare. It totally made my trip as I always wanted to be a cheetah when I was a kid. I remember getting a commendation in primary school when we had to write 'a day in the life of an animal.' That's what I chose to be.

The next thing we found were lions - two male, two female. We got a front row view of one couple mating!

They may be wild cousins, but so much of their behaviour reminded me of my kittens. 

We also found elephants. Although we have these in Akagera, I'd never seen them in the wild before.

 

I was amazed how close we got to the animals and how completely unfazed they were. I guess by now they've all grown up with the safari trucks so it doesn't bother them. You're not allowed to go off the paths, so if they do want privacy, they can just walk off without being followed, but they seemed quite at ease to eat and mate in the presence of people. 

After a couple of hours of animal spotting, we eventually arrived at our lodge - Aruba Camp. It's right on the very border of the Mara, separated by a small stream.

 

The camp is utterly magical. It was my first ever time 'glamping' (glamorous camping - where the tents have proper beds). I definitely see the attraction. Celia and I were tucked away by the river in these beautiful little tents. I was in Bweha (Golden Jackal), and Celia was next door in Simbamangu (Caracal).

 

We were right next to the river and were warned that sometimes elephants and hippo cross the water into the park, so whenever we walked at night a Maasai guide would follow us with a spear for protection.

Beetle in the Shower

Hippo Skull by the Gift Shop

The restaurant was incredible. A large thatched building with beautiful decor.

Celia & Michelle

We met up with Michelle, Tracey's American friend who is in Kenya for a few months working, but originally lived in Ethiopia. She'd flown in the day before to the airstrip you can see in the video.

Celia and I decided to turn in early as it had been a really long drive. I'd just got back from the toilets and was undressing when I heard her outside. Throwing my clothes back on I joined her on the porch for a most unusual spectacle. There was a giant eland outside the tent. Apparently it's the largest of the antelopes, and it had been rubbing its horns against Celia's tent.

We didn't know at the time, but it had been hand reared and lived in the camp. 

It was so friendly that it came up and allowed us to pet it, but its horns were rather large and very sharp. It was enjoying being petted but Celia and I were rather nervous. The more it enjoyed being petted, the more it nodded its head and eventually I had to take its horns and push it away for fear of being impaled. 

The next day we were on the road by 6:30. The thing about safaris is that you need to go early in the morning and at dusk. During the day the sun is so hot that the animals seek shelter in the trees and it's harder to find them.

 

We saw wildebeest, buffalo, a  kori bustard (the largest, heaviest flying bird in Africa), crested cranes (the national bird of Uganda), ostriches, warthogs, zebra, giraffes, lions, cheetahs (including one with a kill), marabou storks, mongooses, hornbill, what I think was a malachite kingfisher, elephants, topi, both Thomson's and Grant's gazelles, hartebeests, vervet monkeys, vultures (complete with bare tree and carcase), baboons and eland. I'd never seen cats in the wild before so that was extremely special, but I think one of the most interesting animals for me was the hyenas. They always look really scary on nature programmes, and The Lion King did nothing to dispel that. I've never really thought of them as particularly nice animals, but I came away feeling completely differently about them. We found a small pack playing in a river. Just as the wild cats reminded me of my kittens, these reminded me of domestic dogs. One had a stick and the others were trying to take it from her, splashing about in the water.

 

 

During our morning drive we stopped off at the airstrip where there was a picnic table. Aruba Camp had provided packed breakfasts for our journey.

We headed back to camp for lunch by the river, then decided to try to make the big river which separates Mara from Serengeti. It is usually about an hour away but the rains had closed off the shortcut and after two hours we decided to turn back. As we were heading for home, a big storm rolled in. As much as I love the animals on the Mara, I also adore the landscape. The sky was incredible, and I left the back roof open so that I could watch it coming. I love thunder storms and it felt like a spiritual communication with nature - I was so energised. Eventually the freezing rain was overpowering and I ducked back into the van, my hair like a scarecrow. At one point Francis was driving in almost zero visibility, but we made it home safe.

(landscape panoramic - click to enlarge)

The rains turned the small stream near the tents into a raging torrent, and that night the sound of the bush babies and monkeys were  drowned out by the sound of water over rocks.

I was drenched from open-air storm sailing, so sloshed along the muddy puddle that was our path and went straight for the showers. Aruba have divine showers - piping hot water at all hours. I honestly think there is no finer delight than having been trekking through cold and mud only to step under a hot shower. There's a special kind of wonderful about that. I remember it from Scotland. You can withstand any type of weather so long as you know you can peel off your grubby clothes and drown yourself under the steam. And it's even more pleasurable when you can hear the cold rain all about you whilst you do it.

The next morning I was up at five. I need an hour to wake up before I hit the road, but I've been really surprised how well I've coped with the early starts. I'm usually a definite night owl and regularly get out of bed around nine-thirty or sometimes later, plus, coming from Kigali, I was an hour behind, so to me it was 4 a.m. Yet I slept soundly and woke bright and happy. I'm thinking maybe I should buy a tent for my garden when I get home and move into that.

The rain had been replaced by glorious sunshine which turned the plains if the Mara silver. It was really beautiful and we did another game drive on the way out of the park. 

As we were leaving, we saw around two hundred head of cattle being moved out of the park. Sometimes the Maasai move them in to graze, which isn't allowed, so the rangers impound them and herd them out. There was a pride of very interested lions watching.

Mass Exodus

The ride home was long, but a lot of fun. Celia had brought music with her and we spent the last part of the journey conducting back-seat karaoke to the Hey Baby remix (ooh, aah), Grease megamix and the J Geils Band Centrefold. The bus was rockin' as it entered Nairobi. I apologise wholeheartedly to Tracey and Francis, who suffered with dignity.

So sad to hug goodbye to Celia, but I am determined to go and see her in Tasmania once she's settled. She's so ready to leave and this was an excellent way to see her off. It's been an incredible experience with some of the nicest people I know. The stuff memories are made of. Tracey and I sat up until 1:30 putting the world to rights over pizza that night. She drove me to the airport on Monday morning and introduced me to Nairobi's stunningly good fresh lemonade - wish we had that in Kigali.

Francis, Celia and Me
You can also read Tracey's write up.

Nairobi Nights

Just returned from an incredible few days. My friend Celia is just about to leave Kenya after five years and we decided to do a girls' weekend away to the Maasai Mara to celebrate. I hadn't left Rwanda in a year so jumped at the chance. One of the massive perks of the new East Africa agreement is that I can travel around Kenya and Uganda as an East Africa resident, so I get local rates when I go to places like Maasai, and I don't have to pay for a visa, thanks to this little slip of card on the right. It's a really great incentive to travel more. Just wish internal flights were a bit cheaper. A one hour flight to Kenya costs almost as much as a flight back to the UK, but the alternative of 24-hours on a bus is a bit beyond me now.

Our friends Tracey and Francis run a tour company called Overland Travel Adventures, so we were in really good hands. They organised the entire thing.

Tracey picked me up at the airport and drove me home to Ongata Rongai via the back roads because the traffic was so heavy.

It was really strange for me. I'd only been to Nairobi once before. Back then I'd been out of Africa for five years and I was staying in a very posh part of town called Westlands, where all the expats stay. At the time I guess I didn't think much about it, because my memory of Rwanda had faded a little and I was just happy to be back on the continent. But this time, having lived in Rwanda for the past three years, the differences between Nairobi and Kigali really stood out.

Some of the major differences:

• Giant shopping malls with shops in them. We really don't have malls like that in Rwanda, they're much smaller and much more empty. In Kenya there's loads of Western brands like Clarks shoes and KFC. The sheer scale of Nairobi is quite a shock when you come from Kigali, which we refer to as 'the village'.
• Rubbish - there's a huge amount of it on the streets. Plastic bottles and bags clogging up the drains and caught in the trees. Rwanda banned plastic bags a long time ago and, as a business owner, I contribute a Kigali City Cleaning Fee which makes Kigali one of the cleanest cities you're ever likely to visit.
• The 'real' Africa. Which sounds a bit weird, as every country in Africa is Africa, but Rwanda really is so incredibly green and clean that you don't always feel like you're in the thick of things. We don't have any of the street shack markets you see at the end of that video, and we don't have any street food either. One thing I would very much like to export to Kigali are donkeys. There's loads of them in Nairobi. I like donkeys. I tried to persuade Tracey to let us put one in the van, but there wasn't enough room for that and Celia's baby zebra.
• Slums. Nairobi has a huge migrant slum called Kibera. It's really weird because, having been a British colony, many of the inner city houses are styled like British terrace houses. So you go past these two-up, two-downs that would look perfectly at home in Birmingham or Bristol, then the back of the houses just stop in a flat brick wall and you're staring at a shanty town of corrugated metal. From a distance I'd say the refugee camps in Rwanda look better built. It reminded me of Go Down in Uganda.
• Corruption. Rwanda is famous for its hard line on corruption. No country is perfect, but low-level corruption is rare in as much as it doesn't tend to affect your day-to-day. You don't get stopped in the street by police or skip the queue if you flash cash about. There's even a hotline to report issues if they arise, and if you report it, someone will take you seriously. Whereas we saw bus drivers on the highway slowing down to pass cash to police officers so as not to get stopped and stories of corruption are rife in Kenya.
• Dust. Kenya has just been through a bad drought and the air is thick with dust. You used to get something called the Kigali Cough for similar reasons in Rwanda, but then the government said 'plant things' and now Kigali is so green that the dust issue seems to have gone away.
• Hills - there aren't any. Everything is so incredibly flat. It's quite a shock, and hard to get your head around the idea that Nairobi is higher than Kigali in altitude. Just high enough that they get mosquitoes but not malaria. Because it's so flat and vast, there's a lot more agricultural produce on sale - lots of fresh fruit and veg.
•  Work visas and social distribution. I have friends who live and run businesses in Kenya, and it's fascinating to discuss the differences. In Kenya you have to put down a $1,000 bond for your work visa, which you're supposed to get back when you leave - if you can find the paperwork by then. In Rwanda a two-year working visa costs you around £100 ($124). In Kenya, there's a really strong expat community which some friends have likened to a clique, or several cliques. Many expats live in the same area, socialise in the same groups and some have told me they feel a bit of racial tension between foreigners and locals. I'm not saying there's no tension in Rwanda, but I honestly don't feel it on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps I'm just oblivious. But in Kigali there has never really been much of an expat scene. There are places you're more likely to see muzungus (foreigners), and you still hear that word sometimes (though rarely in the capital), but I think the major difference with Kigali is that there is no specific expat area. Except for a couple of very small areas (perhaps central Nyamirambo and the main bus station at Nyabugogo) the whole city is fairly safe, so foreigners living here are completely spread out amongst the Rwandan community. Perhaps this goes some way to lessening any resentment. President Kagame is also pretty egalitarian about welcoming foreigners and accepting that they bring money into the economy and have skills to share. It doesn't sound as though Nairobi is quite as relaxed in that sense.

We talk a lot about how safe Rwanda is. As a lone woman I can travel anywhere I like, even walk the streets at night, and - although never 100% guaranteed in any city - I'm not going to face hassle or violence. People say Nairobi isn't very safe (its other name is Nairobbery). Last time I stayed in the posh area. I woke up to gunfire one morning, a guard down the road was murdered and it was during an unsettled period where a market was bombed and tourists were advised to leave. This time, staying in a much poorer area of town, I really didn't feel unsafe at all. Tracey and I went walking in the dark to find street food and I didn't feel worried at any point. Just a  little wary of falling down a ditch as there wasn't much street lightning and no footpaths. Another reason I knew I was in the 'real' Africa - falling down an open drain is an initiation rite. We've all done it.

Hanging Out at Tracey's Place

With Scooby the Dog

View of the Burbs

Compound

I really liked Tracey's apartment, but it was very strange going up steps. I felt the same in DRC where many houses are multi-story. In Rwanda, most apartments are very expensive and houses tend to be single story bungalows. The other thing I noticed is that people in Kenya seem to be much kinder to animals. There are a lot more stray dogs on the street, and many people have a dog in their compound, but I didn't see anyone throwing stones at them, I just saw people feeding them. I've witnessed a lot of unkindness to animals in Kigali. My kitten got outside the compound the other day and when I went to find it - two minutes later - someone was throwing something at it. Animals just seem to be part of life in Kenya.

Talking of which, Tracey has just adopted the most adorable kitten - Poppy. She is absolutely gorgeous.

And that's not the only new family member. Tracey and Francis will be welcoming a baby in June. I truly can't express my admiration enough - that Tracey is out running safaris at this stage. She is totally amazing, and it was so nice to be able to spend some time with her at this special point in her life. She's healthily irreverent about the whole process, and I'm looking forward to meeting the bump when it finally arrives. It's certainly going to have a very adventurous life.

Though it does throw into stark contrast the issues of expat/immigrant life. Our friend Celia is leaving in a couple of months, which is why we're going on safari. Another friend joining us on the trip is also leaving. Their friend Kirstin has left, and  another friend she used to go to tea with a lot. Just at the time when a little female support would be helpful. I think of my own life and what I'd do if Jo and Maia suddenly got up and left, and I think my life here would be missing a huge amount of support and love. But that's the difficult thing living in an adopted land, people come and go frequently. It's hard to make new friends the longer you're here because you get tired of repeating your story to people who are likely to leave soon. The friendships you have are so important, because you see each other at your very best and your very worst. You can hang out and have a drink and a laugh, but you're also on call when the unexpected happens. You're a tight family bonded by shared experience.

I'm glad Nairobi is only a short plane ride away, but like I say, I just wish the flight was cheaper. I feel similarly about Nairobi as I do about London. There's so much going on there, it's such a big city, you could never get bored. If I had more time I'd love to go on a clothes spree. You can get anything in Nairobi. But at the same time it's a bit overwhelming. I've never been a big city gal. It's nice to visit, but I suspect it would be quite draining to live there.