By Christina Cooper, President of Willamette International Travel and escort of this small group. September/October Trip, 2006

Transcription

1 Kenya By Christina Cooper, President of Willamette International Travel and escort of this small group. September/October Trip, 2006 This trip was in-depth Kenya. We covered 5 parks as well as Nairobi. We pre booked the Norfolk Hotel night prior to our arrival, as our flight arrived at 6.00am and we were at the hotel by 7.00am Is it worth the extra night, absolutely!. On arrival our rooms were ready we were able to go shower, unpack, and then partake of the Norfolk s splendid buffet breakfast all by 9.00am. Then the group was able to get some R and R at the Norfolk prior to heading out in the afternoon to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. This Trust is located in the Nairobi National Park, and is run by the Sheldrick family. They were featured on 60 minutes. They take in baby orphan elephants, raising them with 24/7 keeper care, until they are ready to be re introduced into the wild, usually in Tsavo East. I paid for a private visit for the group, cost of $300, and Steve provided the vehicle. The Trust is open to the general public from NOON till 1.00p but I do not think this would give the same experience. To learn more about the Lesanju, baby elephant at Kenyan elephant orphanage elephant rescue, visit online. We had Angela Sheldrick as our guide. We spent close to two hours at the Trust and were able to pet, feed and play with the young elephants in the care of the Trust. We were all incredibly dirty after this visit, but all felt it was a great start to our safari. Angela Sheldrick is an excellent host, she answered all our questions honestly and with passion. She obviously has inherited her parents love of elephants. We all adopted an elephant at a cost of $80.00 for the year. To foster a rescued elephant, visit online. TSAVO WEST We flew from Nairobi to Tsavo West, a park I have never visited. We spent 2 nights at Finch Hatton s Camp. This camp is incredible. There are 30 tents, and 10 are choice location, each of our tents were located in the best location. The camp is so well located in a very scenic area, our tent was set overlooking the pool where large pods of hippos lived, along with crocodiles and incredible birds. It was a long walk from the lodge, over bridges, but it was truly worth it. The location was magical, even if the hippos kept us awake at night. There was a baby male hippo, so when the hippos came out in the evening to graze the mother would put this baby hippo under the stairs up to our tent. You have to be escorted from the dining room in the evening back to your tent. The guard had fun as we approached out stairs, sharing the light to show us the baby hippo. Must admit I was a little tentative stepping onto the stairs, just hoped the baby hippo could not put his head through and nip my ankles!! But think he was equally hesitant about us. However he stayed there throughout the night. The reason the mother hides the male babies this way, is Willamette International Travel Trip Report 1

2 because the grown males in the pod will kill the young males when they are out of the water and away from their mother. FINCH HATTON Tents have incredibly large teak decks with day lounges, so were able to sit out between game drives, read, rest and listen to the hippos. Monkeys are a real problem at the camp, and you have to make sure your tent is secure and put some of the deck furniture in front of the zippers so the monkeys cannot get inside yes they do know how to unzip a zippered tent! The food was excellent, table service outside for breakfast & lunch. Very formal inside dining room for dinner and the Europeans there do dress up for dinner. TSAVO WEST Perhaps we saw the least amount of animals on our game drives, however, we also had one incredible experience. We had seen very little on our first afternoon s game drive, when suddenly we spotted a very small mother cheetah with 4 cubs no more than 10 months old. Albanus & Patrick figured this was her first pregnancy. She stopped under a tree to rest with her cubs. Suddenly we heard a lot of noise and were told that baboons were congregating and getting ready to attack the Cheetah family. Cheetahs are very vulnerable to baboon, lion, most animals. Only 25% of cheetah cubs reach maturity. We sat quietly for about 30 minutes, and then everything broke loose. Several baboons suddenly rushed from the bush, the mother & cubs raced off in all different directions, the mother then turned and chased a really large baboon. There were 4 vehicles in the area, and it was as though all 4 drivers thought the same thing, and did something I have never experienced, they placed their vehicles between the cheetah cubs and the baboons, and the drivers even got out of their vehicles and threw stones at the baboons. They feel the same way I do save the cheetahs they are endangered - the baboons are not!!! We stayed until we saw the mother cheetah reunited with all 4 cubs, but later on that same afternoon we saw her going back into the area where she had encountered the baboons, all felt it was just a matter of time before she lost some of her young. AMBOSELI After our 2 nights at Tsavo, we drove in a convoy to Amboseli. We met up with other companies making this same trip. This area has been the scene of some hold ups by robbers. It was quite a rough road. I have not been to Amboseli for almost 20 years, spent one night on my very first trip to Kenya. My recollection was a total dust bowl. What a change! Yes it is still a dust bowl, and you have dust clouds that start building mid morning, and on our first full day there we had an incredible dust storm in the afternoon between game drives. But the game viewing was incredible. Like Tsavo West the park is totally dominated by Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Meru and during our 5 days in both parks, these mountains were very visible, which is unusual. They make for spectacular sun rise and sunsets, and added to the beauty of Amboseli. We stayed at Tortilis Camp, a small 10-tented camp. The lodge/check in; dining room are set up high on a mound, whereas all the tents are down below. There is just one tent by the check in/dining area, so you have to be able to climb up/down a fairly steep incline. This camp had the true feel of a small intimate tented camp most people stay minimum of 2 nights and many stay up to 4 nights. Breakfast was partially buffet with eggs, etc cooked to your own style. Lunch was buffet with wonderful selection of cold and hot dishes. Dinner was table service. Food was excellent. Willamette International Travel Trip Report 2

3 We had some many wonderful game viewing experiences in Amboseli it is hard to pinpoint the best. But I think the incredible vista at the swamp where you could see for miles, and just see hundreds (maybe thousands) of elephants in the swamp, around the swamp, heading to the swamp. The birding was incredible, and we were fortunate to get up close on a couple of different occasions to lion, including a small pride with cubs; a cheetah off in the distance with 5 almost fully grown cubs, plus a lone cheetah much closer heading into the swamp. Plain game viewing at its best. SAMBURU NATIONAL PARK/LARSENS CAMP We flew directly from Amboseli to Samburu. We were scheduled to fly via Nairobi s Wilson Field, but the plane held 12, there were 12 of us so the pilot went direct. He radioed ahead to Larsens Camp so their drivers were at the air strip to meet us. I had stayed at Larsens back in the early 90 s when it first opened. I think they have added tents to Larsens, my recollection was that the tents were much more private. Obviously the grounds are much more mature than 20 years ago. Food again was excellent. All table service,no buffet. Breakfast & dinner served inside the dining tent, whereas lunch is outside under the trees, which presents problems monkeys are very brazen.the dining room staff were excellent, friendly and well trained. However, Larsens lacked the warmth I remembered, and the warmth of Tortilis. GAME VIEWING in Samburu was excellent, but oh so crowded. One day we were the 4 th vehicle at a leopard up in a tree, by the time we left there were 25 vehicles around this one leopard. The particular guides we use are all so aware of the comfort of the animals, and when it gets totally overwhelming they will say time to leave. We got to see a pair of lions mating. We saw a huge male lion, with a collar, and found out later he had wandered over from Lewa Downs some 100 miles Elephants in Samburu away. The park was VERY dry, not having had good rains for over 12 months. October/November are meant to the rainy months, so they are hoping the rains will be good for I still think Samburu is the most scenic of all the parks. Amboseli is beautiful because of Mt. Kili, the Mara is definitely not the most scenic of the parks, but has the animals. Samburu is just beautiful, the evening light is special, you feel you can almost touch it. The night skies are so vivid. We did see plenty of Gerenuk, giraffe, but not the great herds of elephants we saw in Samburu in October Willamette International Travel Trip Report 3

4 SAMBURU SCHOOL, we took an incredible amount of school supplies for 2 schools. The school in Samburu was very primitive. One roughly built school room, with dirt floor, no desks, no blackboard. The group did club together and donate enough funds to have a concrete floor installed. Our guides are going to monitor the situation and make sure the Chief of the village uses the funds for this purpose only. Many of the group were visibly moved by the school, and how enthusiastic the kids (with so little) are to learn. These kids go to school in rags, sit in the dirt, and yet can recite their tables, can quote in Swahili, English and their Samburan tongue! Samburan girls LEWA DOWNS We drove from Samburu to Lewa Downs, which took about 5 hours. Quite rough roads, but wonderful scenery. I was last in Lewa in January The Lewa Safari Lodge is very much the same, a small camp where the tents are widely spread so very private. However they too have added drapes to the inside of the tents. Because it is set up higher it gets much cooler in the evening, so they add hot water bottles to your beds. At Lewa you are not walked to/from your tents in the evening, they do light the paths but it is still for the uninitiated a little daunting to walk a path knowing the night prior you have seen elephant, zebra around your tent, and not knowing what you may encounter. Game viewing at Lewa was excellent. We saw rhino both black & white, Lewa is renowned for its Rhino program. On our morning game drive we picked up a Lion Tracker and all his equipment, he told our guide he knew where a pride of lions with cubs was located. We went off road, very rough off road, over big boulders, was incredible watching this tracker just point to our guide and he took us right to the pride. After our morning game drive, we went to meet up with 2 baby rhinos. Both born to the same blind mother, who keeps getting pregnant but because of her blindness cannot care for her young. So the warden takes them from her and they have individual wardens caring for them 24/7. Human contact is very restricted, we were fortunate to get permission to make the visit, but was allowed only 45 minutes with the 2. Like our visit with the orphaned elephants it was excellent and definitely added to the experience getting up so close to these huge animals In the afternoon we had an appointment to meet with the women s cooperative that weave wonderful carpets, of all sizes, located at Wilderness Trails the other camp on Lewa property. The manager of Lewa Safari Camp suggested we should stop en route at the home of Sonia & David Parkinson. David Parkinson is the Chief Warden for Lewa. His wife Sonia, has started a cooperative for young artists that have disability. She has the cooperative in her home. She goes into Nairobi and buys up all the Egyptian cotton sheets, the linens that are sent in aid packages, but which are never bought or used by the charities. She has 4 young people working with her, two are artists, and they paint scenes onto these fabrics, Sonia then makes them into pillows etc. Another young women works with beads and adds beading to these. This young women had been bedridden since birth. At the age of 16 someone took into Kenya a wheelchair for her, and since Willamette International Travel Trip Report 4

5 then she has blossomed. Her work is incredible. She is the only bread winner in a family of 14. She is now just over 20. They make greeting cards out of zebra dung using original paintings by the 2 artists. BBC filming crew for Man & the Wild was at Lewa. The film they are making will appear on Discovery Channel on November 9 or 10. We flew from the private Lewa Air strip directly to the Mara. This air strip was so luxurious in contrast to the air strip in Samburu. MARA EXPLORER I had hoped I was saving the best place and the best safari experience to last, but it is always a gamble. Fortunately my gamble paid off. The 4 days we were in the Mara, just got better & better by the day. Mara Explorer is still my favorite all-time camp in Kenya. Only 10 tents, all very private, all very well equipped, all situated overlooking the Mara River, which was very low because of the lack of rains. Many of the staff from October 2004 still at the camp, it is very well run. Food still incredible. All table service, no buffets. Whilst we were at Lewa Downs, one of the trackers with the BBC crew, told us about a mother cheetah in the Mara, who had six cubs of 10 weeks. She had just brought them out into the open to introduce them to the wild. Lion had attacked her and the cubs, our last night in Lewa so when we arrived no one knew if she had survived or her cubs had survived. Fortunately all had. Two of the cubs had been picked up by game wardens and returned to her the day we arrived. Cheetah cubs Our first game drive we managed to see her and her cubs. We also got to see her again on our last day, this time she had made a kill, and was teaching the cubs to eat the kill, it was fun to watch, and we stayed for a long time, but then when the mini vans arrived, our guides said it was time to leave, as she would be getting agitated by all the attention. Our first full day we took picnic breakfast boxes and headed to one of two places where the migration crossing takes place. The first place there were thousands of wildebeest drinking and milling around, but not one making a move to cross the river. After about an hour waiting we headed off to the second crossing. Yes we got to see huge herds cross the river, we got to watch one wildebeest get trampled and stay in the water confused. We saw the huge crocodile gliding silently to wards this loner, positioning right in front of the wildebeest, knowing that he would eventually move forward and into his mouth. Yes it happened. A few members of the group were rather distraught but this is what they came for. Then a group that had crossed the river decided to return, we saw another croc. slide into position knowing that he would take the last one in the row, which he did. There were many carcasses in this stretch of the river. Willamette International Travel Trip Report 5

6 Seeing the migration stretching as far as one could see one big long dark line was an incredible sight and a sight that unless you had incredible camera could captured. We were extremely lucky to experience this event million wildebeest cross between the Mara & the Serengeti, only around 15,000 to 20,000 are taken by crocs. During our game drives, we saw several large prides of lions, one had 14. We saw a leopard up a very small tree hiding in a bird s nest. A short distance away was a lion with a kill. Theory was this was the leopard s kill, that had dropped from the tree the lion picking it up. The leopard could not come down from the tree until the lion left as lion are threat to leopard. We also saw a jackal try to hunt & kill a baby Thompson Gazelle, where the mother turned and chased off the jackal. The baby survived as they have no smell so the jackal was unable to find it. We saw a large male cheetah chased off by a band of baboons. We tracked the same cheetah for a long time, watching it try to catch an Africa hare, which is much faster than a cheetah. Eventually this male cheetah did kill a Gazelle, but we were not in on the kill, caught up with the cheetah as it was ripping into the kill. We watch lions trying to hunt down wildebeest, rather half heartedly, they looked well fed and figured they were just playing with the emotions of the wildebeest. We did get in on a lion kill just after it happened, and watched the pride come in from all different directions. There were so much evidence of kills in the Mara we nicknamed it The Killing Fields Everyday we saw something unique. HOT AIR BALLOON Six of the group got up at 4.30am to make this trip. The rest of us left camp at 7.00am for our morning game drive, only to get a message that because of winds the balloon ride had been cancelled, and could we go and pick up the group. Only about 6 trips a year are cancelled, during our time in the Mara 2 were cancelled! It was incredible windy. MASAI SCHOOL After picking up the rest of the group we went to the Masai school that Origins is supporting. Very different from the school in Samburu. Sturdier buildings, 4 good size classrooms all with concrete floors, desks, books, blackboards. Still not to our western standards, but so different. In the head class there were around 16 kids. John asked them what they wanted to be when they left school very shy at first to answer but then hands went up so fast. A pilot, a nurse, a doctor, game driver, a Madam the headmaster quickly explained this was female school teacher! A sir (male school teacher). Pretty good ambitions for school kids that do not have computers! Enroute back to the Mara Explorer for lunch, we saw a hippo & a huge croc lying side by side with their heads touching, a very unusual sight, usually these two keep their distance from each other. GIRAFFE MANOR NAIROBI Giraffe Manor was a fitting end to the safari. It is not luxurious accommodations. It is a big old manor, shabbily elegant. It is like staying in a private home. A couple of the rooms had shared bathrooms. But it is a wonderful experience. The giraffes really do come up to the house, poke their heads into the breakfast room and expect to be fed. The Giraffe Center is a short walk from the manor, and is in a special trust fund, and is free to school kids from around Kenya. It is a great place to meet the local kids. Willamette International Travel Trip Report 6

7 Food at Giraffe Manor was perhaps the best on the trip, and we had some incredible meals. I know that all loved the history, and the ambiance of Giraffe Manor.It is located in Karen, which has some of the best shopping in and around Nairobi. Kazuri beads, all made by hands. Bronze works, and a wonderful complex organized by the Kenyan Wildlife Society. It has over 20 stores all selling Kenyan handicrafts. OCTOBER 23, 2006 Giraffe Manor Willamette International Travel Trip Report 7