Not the destination. Cheers to Virgin Atlantic for making the long haul oh so civilized – even at 30,000 feet.
it’s about the journey
culture shock: nairobi
Hello, culture shock! After a smog-filled ride through a maze of lawless traffic – and an unsettling check of the car’s undercarriage for explosives – I’m ensconced in the five-star Sankara tower high above the poverty and pedestrian mayhem below. It’s a bewildering juxtaposition, as though someone has tweaked the Photoshop settings to super high-contrast: prosperity and poverty are vividly cheek by jowl. To wit, Sankara’s architecturally impressive rooftop pool-by-day and lounge-by-night. Cantilevered out over the city center, it has a groovy glass bottom for the perfect fish-eyed view of the chaos heaving below.
out of the bush
At the airstrip I am reluctantly coming to grips with the fact that the time to head home draws near. I’ve got a night in Nairobi and a weekend of housekeeping in Ireland before I head back to New York, yet still; the sudden chill in the air means summer’s grand adventure is rapidly approaching its denouement.
ode to a giraffe
Giraffe, how do you still exist in the world? Like some prehistoric throwback, it doesn’t seem possible that you’ve survived the millennia without falling prey to extinction. I take it as some kind of omen that on my last day in the bush I’m greeted by a parade of you, poking through the Acacia with that curious, quizzical look on your faces before galloping across the field en masse. I’m told you’ve got quite the kick, yet ever since Toys “R” Us marketed Geoffrey Giraffe as its cuddly, docile mascot, I’ve had to suppress the urge to squeeze you like a favored stuffed animal.
loo with a view
In truth, Naboisho Camp is still ironing out a few freshman issues that all hotels experience. Yet there’s no denying that this campsite has been spectacularly designed. Even the common loo has a fantastic view.
scat fact of the day
Hyena poop is white. The only scavenger in Africa that goes so far as to eat the bones of other animals, hyena build up an excess of calcium in their system which finds a way out through the back door, as it were. It is a most curious sight. Then again, the sound of the wolf-like hyena chomping on bone is something else you won’t soon forget.
the great spider hunt
This afternoon I was excited and eager to finally get out into the bush for a proper walk. In the Mara you are technically not allowed to leave the vehicle, so naturally bush walking is frowned upon. Outside of the Mara all bets are off. As long as you have a Kenyan Wildlife Service Ranger with you – i.e. a man with a shotgun – you are free to roam as far as your good sense will take you. I went out with a ranger, a Masai warrior with a spear, a tracker, and another couple who were staying at the lodge. Rather early on we chanced upon some small holes in the ground that appeared perfectly drilled and lined with silk. This I discovered was the lair of the baboon spider, an African sub-family of the tarantula. It quite quickly became – let me add – a minor obsession. We went from hole to hole to hole attempting to lure Harpactirinae out of her secret spot in vain. It was impossible to walk more than a few feet without seeing another hole here, another hole there: all tempting, all abandoned. After close to a dozen false starts our tracker discovered an arachnid eager to indulge this odd quarry of reluctant spider hunters. A few blades of grass and a dollop of saliva were all it took to get her out. Apparently the nocturnal baboon spider lies in wait all day, guarding its sac of eggs which lie at the bottom. The promise of food, however – even in daylight – is too good for the hungry spider to pass up.
new views: naboisho
It was somewhat disheartening to leave the perfection of Sala’s Camp for a new untested lodge but my original plan for this trip had always included seeing two different parts of southern Kenya. At Sala’s I was on the great Serengeti plain, practically along the Tanzania border. Here at Naboisho Camp in the private Naboisho Conservancy I’ve left the Masai Mara for a few days and moved eastwards, up to a higher elevation in the hills. The landscape is full of thorny Acacia trees and lots of scattered rock. There’s less of the grand open space found in the Mara but at the same time there are a lot more places for animals to hide and I’m hoping this new site brings with it new experiences in the wild. One thing’s for certain, it’s aesthetically a lot more Wallpaper than Sala’s Camp.
at home with the masai
A large proportion of the Masai live, for the most part, traditionally. Which means despite the middling efforts of the Kenyan government to integrate the Masai, they choose to eschew the trappings of modern culture and its relative proximity. Life revolves around two things: cattle and village life. Cattle are everything to the Masai: a source of meat, milk, and blood; a system of currency and hierarchy. A man without cattle is a man without position in society – and one who lacks the ability to feed his family. When the Masai come into money, they buy more cattle; when the drought wipes out their herd, they’ll steal another village’s cattle. Culturally, it’s a crippling cycle because it leaves no room for error – there can be no long-range planning when life is lived entirely in the here and now. To an outsider, like myself, this might be read as poverty but the Masai do not think of themselves as poor, as lacking – it is simply how it has always been and shall be. The community is small and tightly knit – no more than a dozen families inhabit this particular village, which is ringed by a circular twig fence and gated in the traditional style. Simple abodes line the perimeter, reserving the majority of the area in the center for cattle. (I cannot tell if the ground is soil or dung or a mixture of both.) Francis, above, is the son of the village chief and he invites me into his home, which is a simple two-room hut like all the others: one room for the baby animals and another for the family. In the family’s sleeping area there is a small cooking area, too, with an open hole to the roof, providing some daylight as well as ventilation. It is dark and claustrophobic and it smells to high heaven because the Masai use a mix of twigs and cow dung as their primary building material. There are no sanitary facilities. There is no running water. By Western standards there is no sign of anything resembling progress – and nobody here seems to mind.
experiments in panorama
Without a professional camera it’s well nigh impossible to capture the breadth and scope of Africa’s imposing terrain. So instead I attempted a few experiments in panoramic photography utilizing the Photosynth software for iPhone – free from Microsoft, by the way. Be sure to click each image individually, then click it again for a vastly greater, if somewhat skewed, detail – and enjoy the view.
on the prowl
Lions are fascinating creatures. One minute they’re lazing in the grass and the next they’re off on the prowl – before deciding a nap is time better spent. We followed this pair of females for almost an hour today. It seemed at the time that they might be hot on the trail of something edible. (I won’t lie: I was hoping for a high-speed pursuit followed by a view to a kill.) Turns out “the hunt” was just a search for a better patch of shade: after a burst of acutely measured activity these two lady lions cooled their paws in the grass and settled in for a snooze.
eggs to order
Even with expectations of a Spartan culinary spread, the bush breakfast promised during this morning’s game drive sounded too cool to pass up – and well worth the extra-early rise. A thermos of coffee arrived at my tent with the sunrise and next thing you know we were off in search of wildebeest. “In search” might be a bit of a misnomer, however. Across the river from Sala’s Camp a mega-herd had come to graze, which made the whole enterprise less White Hunter, Black Heart and more Jeeves and Wooster as we, in effect, toured the great herd. Nevertheless, driving in a hundred thousand-strong herd of animals brings is its own thrills and sense of adventure. Alighting on a large rock in the middle of the herd, the driver and tracker set up a proper table, chairs, a wash basin and I breakfasted on fresh fruit salad, yogurt, muffins and good, strong coffee amidst the most unbelievable surroundings. When the driver asked me how I liked my eggs I thought he was joking – until I noticed the sweet smell of bacon and sausage coming from the direction of the Land Rover, where they had hooked up a small gas stove. Who was I to argue? I went for two: sunny-side up, please.
