We are up at 8, and enjoy a self made breakfast with bread and eggs. We do our packing and leave the banda by 10:30. We arrange for our payment, leave the gear at the recpetion desk, and leave for the "town"-center. Clouds are filling the sky, but it is warm none the less. We return from our walk, and decide to wait for the new group in the pool next door. We swim, read, write and relax till we are really bored. The clock shows 15:30 and still no sign of the new safari group ! We wander around at the campsite and spot a varaan. It spots us too and runs like a cheetah !
By 17:15 the new group finally arrives. An english couple, an Irish guy and one Australian bloke. They are sitting in a quite large truck. Quickly the tents are set and we go on a boat tour. No fish eagle this time, but more fun (not !) with the hippos. We do not hit land again till its almost dark. After the boat tour we eat spinach, rice and chicken.
Niels is in bed by 21:99, Inge by 22:00
Roberts Camp, Campi ya Samaki, Lake baringo
Inclusief
Sunday 16 oktober 2005
We have had the worst night. Next "door" to us on the campsite was a group of locals and they had a party till the early morning hours. And when they finally went to sleep, the hippos swarmed the campground. I can assure you a hippo at 50 cm (2 feet) makes a lot of noise ... So we were up by 5:30, packed our gear and went for breakfast. We left the site by 8.
| Along the way we see a lot of ostrich and we arrive at Lake Bogoria at around 9. We enter this parc, and continue our way till we get to the hotwater springs. Water rushes, bubbles and squirts from the ground at at least 20 places. We stay for half an hour and return the same way to the entrance of the parc. We see more ostrich, a lost turle, impala, warthog, gazelle, another fisheagle and ofcourse babboons. We are out of the parc by 10:45 |
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We are at the next campsite by 13:00. We relax the afternoon, till 15:00 when we leave for a gamedrive in Lake Nakuru national parc. We stop in the town of Nakuru for some small shopping and are at the gate by 16:00. At the gate we stumble upon a herd of vervet monkeys. Once inside the parc, we made a stop next to the lake where we were allowed to leave the truck. In the midle of 4 to 5 MILLION flamingos, pelicans and woodstork. A deafening experience. Next to the birds there are buffalo, waterboks and gazelle eating the green grass. When we continue our drive we saw a group (!) of white rhino's that are walking with some buffalo. We went up the hill to a fantastic viewpoint from where we had the best view over the lake. On the parking are at least 100 baboons and we also noted a bunch of marmots. On our way down we saw dik-dik and warthog. A tony-eagle and yet another fish-eagle were also noted. On the valley floor we see a group of eland (some sort of antilope). HUGE animals !
We leave the parc at dusk. Dinner waits for us at the campsite. After a few drops of rain, Niels is in the tent by 21:00, while Inge lasts a bit longer, till 22:00. |
Kembu camp, bij nakuru
Inclusief
Monday 17 oktober 2005
We leave site at 7:45. Half an hour later we pick up a new member to our group. She was in a hotel in Nakuru. We pass by a toll booth. We have to pay $3,- but we sure ask ourselves why. the road has been smashed to bits and pieces. We jump from one pothole to the next.
Suddenly there is a whole pile up of trucks. We drive by the traffic jam that is at least a couple of miles long. It turns out that in the next village the locals are angry at the government. They say one tribe steals their cattle, and that the government does not do anything against it. So to draw some attention they have blocked the road with trees and stones. And they say they will shoot anybody trying to pass. Every now and then the police walks up the road, kicks some of the rocks to the side, and the whole traffic jam moves a couple of hundred meters. Most of the people we speak to (actually: Niels speak to) are sad that they have to resort to this. There seems to be no violence in the air. We finally arrive in the village of Narok. People are less friendly and more agresive here. Fortunately they seem to understand there is very litle we can do to help them, so their anger is aimed not at us. We drive to the outskirts of town where lunch is prepared. We can hear screaming, yelling and speaching in the town's center. Suddenly there is gunfire. People run by us from and to all sides, but our guide assures us we are safe, and we continue our meal. Quickly. The tourist police arrive and watch over us.
We take on another 5 passengers: another Aussie, a Norwegian, a Swiss, another Irish and a South-african. Talk about an international group...
We are happy to be moving on. The road gets northern-Kenya like (bump - hole - bump - hole), but by 17:30 we enter the Masai Mara. We drive through the parc to our camp site for the coming 3 nights and see wildebeast, giraffe, buffalo, elephants, hartebeast (some deer) and topi. We leave the parc by 18:00 through another gate and 15 minutes later we are at the campsite. We are able to get into a cabin, and not a tent, so we will have lights at our beds ! Finally !
We are asleep by 21:30
Permanent camp, gametrackers
Maasai Mara, cheetah cabin
Inclusief
Tuesday 18 oktober 2005
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We leave camp at roughly 8 o'clock for half a day of gamedriving. It takes 15 minutes to actually arrive inside the parc, but wow ! What a place to be... We have seen almost all day-animals in the Maraand as a bonus a night creatures too: A bat eared fox. Unfortunately we can not locate any leopards. We stop quite some time when we see a cheetah. It crawls flat on its tummy towards a small herd of gazelles. The gazelle seem to notice nothing. Tension raises when the cheetah moves less than 200 meter from the group. Suddenly the cheetah looses interest, lies down and seems to fall asleep. No matter how long we wait, it will not move anymore.
Later we seek out a special cheetah. One that enjoys jumping on top of cars. When we find her, she does indeed do what was promised, and jumps straight on a safari truck. Quite a fun thing to watch. We are just happy she does not jump onto our truck... We have lunch at half past one, en at four we go for another tour in the parc. A big succes again ! We see almost everything, and as long as we like. As a special bonus we see a common hare. |
Wednesday 19 oktober 2005
At half past five a grazing hippo next to our cabin wakes us. We seem to have had more visitors this night. there is talk of a leopard and of an elephant. We have a quick breakfast (tea and biscuits), because we leave early. We drive until 10 o'clock looking for a leopard, but we can not find one. All leopards must be on vacation. We see a lot of other wildlife to make up though.
After a late breakfast a small part of the group heads off to a local tourist Maasai camp. We have to pay 500 Ksh (5 euro) per person. For that amount we are allowed to visit their village, take as many pictures as we like, and enjoy a show. We are greeted by a group of young man. One of them is their "big hero". During their first hunt he was the firts one to actually hit the lion, so he is the most important man for the time being. He may wear the hat made of lion fur. The man sing and dance for us and a few members of our party may try the lions-hat on. After we have been welcomed enough, we are led into the village. The woman are waiting for us already and are singing at us. Everybody says hello to everybody else, and the man show us how to make fire with 2 pieces of wood and elephant poo. We also get to see the inside of a Masaai house. To our surprise there are actually multiple rooms in a Maasai hut ! One chamber is reserved for young cattle, another for the sheep. There is a kitchen and 2 seperate bedrooms. One for the women and one for the man. We glance at the souvenir market that is adjescent to the village (expensive !) and leave these people after a two hour visit. One our way out we glance at another group that has just arrived at the village. Another Maasai warrior is the "big here" this time...
| We leave at 16:00 for our last official gamedrive this vacation. We spot impala, gazelle, warthog, topi, elephants and hyenas. We stop for a while in the middle of a gigantic group of zebra and wildebeast. This is the tail of the annual move of animals from the Maasai to the Serengetti. A litle further down the road we see 3 sleeping lions, a group of 5 lions in the bushes and a huge group with at least 16 young lions. More then anough lions so to speak. To the frustration off some of our fellow travelers we still can not find any leopard. When we drive off from yet another group of lions the truck comes to a hard stop. the guide has spotted something else in the grass. We are looking at a couple of Serval cats. Absolutely unique animals. Our guide has been touring for 15 years now, and this is only the second time he sees these animals. Unfortunately it gets too dark to see rather quicker then we wanted. We are back at camp by 19:00, and by 22:00 we are sound asleep. |
Permanent camp, gametrackers
Maasai Mara, cheetah cabin
Inclusief
Thursday 20 oktober 2005
Last night a babbon was killed by a crocodile in the river just next to the cabins. The dead animal lies in the water. Every now and then we see it move when the crocodile takes a bite out of the babboon part in the water. Today we return to Nairobi. A long drive, especially when you take into account our truck's maximum speed is 60 kilometer per hour.
We drive through the Masaai Mara once more, before we reach the gate. Along the way we see a lot of wildlife again, including yet another cheetah. We have lunch in Narok, where on our way in there was all chaos. All seems quiet now. Niels gets talking to a souvenir salesman and negotiates about a kind of batik cloth. The man wants 2000 Ksh, and Niels can not get to an agreement with him. After lunch the salesman comes back to us and we reach a conclusion. The cloth is ours for 500 Ksh and 5 pens...
We finally arrive in Nairobi by three thirty. What a horrible ride. Because the truck has no windows in it, we decided to drive with the sides up for ventilation. Unfortunately at 60 kilometrs and an outside temperature of 15 degrees Celsius that was not real smart. We are cold to the bones. So we say a quick goodbye and run to our hotel that is just around the corner. Shower ! After we have warmed up a bit, we walk a bit through town. Niels spots a street saleman that sells leather belts. Before we start our negotiations we decide we will not pay more than 300 Ksh. We ask what he wants for the belt, and to our surprise he asks 150... So Niels buys a leather belt for 100 Ksh.
We have dinner again in the pizzeria next to the hotel and are asleep at nine fifteen.
Kenia Comfort Hotel, Nairobi
4000 Ksh
Friday 21 oktober
We have breakfast and decide to hold on to the room for the rest of the day. Our airplane leaves late tonight and by keeping the room we can hit town, and return to a shower before we head to the airport.
We are on the move by eleven. We get in a matatu (local transport for 14 people per time) and head for an area called Westlands. There is supposed to be a permanent huge tourist market there. We did not want to buy any souvenirs actually, but it is pretty hard to resist here... We buy two black wooden gazelles for 220 Ksh. The seller wanted 800 to start with. We buy some more stuff and leave the market after an hour or so.
In the local supermarket we get bread, something to put on the bread, and drinks. We take another matatu to the city parc. Accor4ding to the conductor it is just a small walk from where we leave to the parc. A small walk turns out to be half an hour... Ahwell, small walks in Holland are difficult to compare to small walks in Kenia I guess. The parc is infested with litle monkeys that really want to join in the food action. So we have a quick lunch :lol: We walk through the parc for some time, and at the entrance stumble upon a real local food-market where people are shocked to see tourists...
At around 15:30 we get into the matatu to the center and to the hotel. Nairobi is a lot mor fun than we thought ! By just doing what you are not supposed to do... We are actually sorry we have to leave tonight ! We have a final dinner in the pizzeria and are picked up from there by the taxi that brings us to the airport. We are at the airport at 21:00. three hours early.