Endless Road...

safari

n.

1. An overland expedition,
   especially one for hunting or exploring in eastern Africa.
2. A journey or trip: a sightseeing safari.
   

[Arabic safariya, safari, journey, from safar, journey.]

~~~~~

After quite a long hiatus from travel (spring 2008), I finally took the time this fall to spend a few weeks in Africa. For lots of reasons, this wasn't and was the best time to go, but like many of my trips (especially Japan), it was a "now-or-never" situation. These are the kinds of adventures that are better to make than to miss, but nonetheless a little bittersweet.

BUT!

It's easy to forget all that when you see these:

Well, YEAH, the real point of this trip was to go on a real life African SAFARI! I spent plenty of time in Nairobi, but the highlight was a few hours south in the wildlife reserve at the Masai Mara (which you've probably never heard of, but that's what Kenya calls it) and the Serengeti (which you probably have heard of ... but that's what Tanzania calls it). But, hey, I've been there too! Sort of.

At the Kenya/Tanzania border (The Serengeti is right behind me)

A note about Nairobi: I didn't spend much time here. Strange, right, since I'm usually the king of staying downtown and walking those mysterious city square streets everywhere else I've been. Oddly enough, this is one capital city that no one seems to claim (the Kenyans I met explained that Kenyans claim Kenya moreso than Nairobi.)

Also strange: there wasn't much to do in downtown Nairobi (??) I spent more time in the suburbs, which is apparently more common, due to poverty and crime (read: carjackings) downtown. I'm not sure if this was a more recent phenomenon, but most of the Nairobi I experienced was malls and souvenir shops strewn along winding, hilly roads north and east of the city center. The wealth divide became pretty clear as some people live in mansions while others live in large, but simple. highrises intown, and still others live in makeshift shacks made of sheet metal, pieces of wood, and even mud. The further from town I went, including on the way to the wildlife preserve, people lived in even humbler homes.

Before I describe the journey from Nairobi to the Masai Mara, I have to mention the most disappointing part of the trip: Kenyan cuisine!

It... it doesn't exist!

There are only 3 dishes that are common there, and they are all more substance than style. First, is ugali. If you've ever had grits (ground white cornmeal mixed with hot water, just like oatmeal), you've basicaly had ugali, except this dish is more of a "grits loaf." It's meant to be filling, not flavorful.

On the side, you'll find sukuma wiki or chopped greens, as we know them in the States, but without the meat flavoring used here.

Finally, there is nyama choma, which is roasted meat generally, but goat everywhere I went. The problem is, most people can't afford meat, so the standard meal is just ugali and sukuma wiki! I'm sure the water buffaloes are cool with that.

Needless to say, this part of the experience was mindblowing, since nearly every other culture has SOMETHING culinary that stands out. Still, it was fun, in a way, to discover this anomaly...

On to the safari! In a nutshell, I arranged the trip through a travel agency in a nearby mall, and the driver picked me up in the van above at around 0600h. The first part of the drive went through a dense fog, since it was cool and Nairobi is relatively high altitude. The interesting thing about driving that early in the day is seeing everyone (everyone) walking everywhere: kids to school, workers to work, and people walking to who-knows-where from what seems like the middle-of-nowhere. Once we reached the Rift Valley, an area of dusty plains between two active volcanoes, I saw people walking into and out from the horizon, with no buildings in sight.

And once we passed small towns, those remote areas looked and felt like the Old West of the spaghetti Westerns.

We stopped at one of the many shops on the side of the mountain road, which the driver explained was built by Italian prisoners-of-war during World War I, and I bought a variety of handicrafts made of wood, stone, and animal hide. Every merchant I dealt with in Kenya was super persistent, but I talked many items down to as far as 1/5 the asking price. Lots of great trinkets to buy, especially since African souvenirs look so great around the house and I may not be traveling there again for a while (but you never know...)

After a few hours, the driver said we would now get on the "highway." Sure, we've already been on the highway this whole time, right?

Wrong! -_-''

Here, "highway" meant a rocky dusty road far off the beaten (paved) path. If you've ever seen the second Ace Ventura movie, you may remember the scene where Ace is driving a Jeep in Africa and bouncing around like crazy. Here, though, it was for real! And sometimes the van was literally tilting at 45 degrees into a craggy ditch. I learned, often heard, and often used the Swahili word pole pole ("slowly, slowly" or "sorry, sorry"), especially on this part of the trip. It's like the Kenyan version of the qunitessential Japanese apology, sumimasen ^_^.

I definitely got the off-road experience, and there were wild animals all along this 3-hour road into the mountains.

The Masai Mara was apparently named for/by the Masai people, the indigenous people of Kenya. Many people we passed on the "highway", as well as our hosts at the bush camp, wore the traditional dress of the Masai.

Fast forward to the accommodations: I stayed at a bush camp called Mara Siria, which offered breakfast and dinner (instead of Kenyan food, there was beef stroganoff and "pancakes;" note: this was before I knew anything about Kenyan food, for better or worse) and a great view of the Masai Mara and Mara River below from right outside the bush tent.

The tent had a bed, bathroom (with very limited water), and a "safari" hot shower. LOL, this was one of many misstatements (lies?) by the travel agency about the bush camp. Instead of the "hot shower" I was sold on, a "safari hot shower" means you tell the camp staff that you want a hot shower in a few minutes, and they lift a bucket of newly heated water above your shower stall. Then, you have a shower, powered by the strongest force in the universe: gravity, until the 5 gallons runs out. Seriously, the accommodations were reasonable for the price, but not telling people about this is kind of silly.

Second, the travel agency said there would be an electric fence around the camp to keep animals out: the camp is right on/above the wildlife preserve, and there were zebras, giraffes, baboons, and God-knows what else right outside. This was a straight up lie, LOL. But whatever, this is Africa, so roll with it. Pole pole.

The first day of the actual safari, I saw zebras (but they're everywhere), a lion in tall grass, and a cheetah supposedly hidden in a tree. There were a few giraffes and one (1) elephant, and tons of gazelles and antelopes. It's really hit or miss to actually see animals, and the driver warned us of this, but luckily the different drivers, who are leading safaris from different camps, scout throughout the reserve and report where the animals are by walkie-talkie (in Swahili). So once someone found a rhinoceros, we all knew what was up and rushed there, bouncing like Ace Ventura in our vans ;) The best example of this was a wildebeest river crossing that I got to see just in time because our driver floored it and totally cut off a few other vans!

Even though the animals were sparse, this first day was super exciting because the animals we did see were pretty close to the van and very, VERY real. Plus, the shear size of the wildlife reserve and the idea hitting you that you're on a safari in Africa made driving through the bush thrilling on its own. Luckily, though, there was tons more animals the next day, since we started much earlier and stayed out the entire day.

The minute I passed through the gate, I ran across a HUGE herd of water buffaloes crossing the road, and there were elephants practically everywhere after having seen just once on the first day!

It was surprising to see ostriches here too, since you never hear about them being in Africa.

Also, I stopped by a pool with lots of hippos swimming(?) dangerously close (you'd think) to some crocodiles. Ah, I should take this time to explain animal migration...

People normally take safaris not only to see animals, but to see HUGE herds of animals crossing the plains to find water. Because of weather conditions and changes in river depth, the animals crossed earlier and at different parts of the river this year. Normally, crocodiles are waiting in the water to snipe the slower animals and eat enough for months, but they missed out because the other animals (especially wildebeests and zebras) crossed earlier and elsewhere. The guides mentioned that, in some cases, animals crossed at the usual places but at later times, so they could walk right past crocodiles that had already eaten their fill ^_^

LOL, well that's practically all. The rest of the story is told by the pictures themselves, so enjoy, at your own risk ;)

Seeing the animals live is worth the trouble, so go on a safari someday and hopefully you'll see a leopard, instead of guessing whether it's really in that tree, like everyone else says ;)

Yours,

Khamsin
[*new* Overdrive mode: Wayfarer]
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