Killing time in Kenya

Lioness!

Since I haven’t taken much time off in the past few years, I’ve got a lot stockpiled and I’ve tried to schedule some. Last week, I had a plan to go to see gorillas sin Uganda and Rwanda, but there’s stuff going on in both those countries and security where I work suggested it wouldn’t be the smartest thing to hit either country, so I updated my plans and spent a week in Kenya instead.

Due to changing tickets and all, the travel part was brutal despite on-time flights (rare for the airline, I hear) but the trip was quite cool. I met up with a friend who works there and her rescue dog, who’s a gorgeous German Shepherd. Poor thing was kept in a small cage for years and only let out at night to play security.

But the bulk of the trip was a five-day safari, starting in Masa Mara, which is about four hours outside of Nairobi. I traveled with a tour that welcomed solo folks, and surprise surprise five of the travelers were solo travelers. We did have one very young Italian couple (who were late for everything, including 45 late for the original hotel pickup) but the other five were traveling alone. That’s a first for me, with the exception of one trip I did that was only for women traveling alone. Usually I’m the only person traveling by myself in any size group, so this was a treat.

Everyone was super nice and our driver/guide was amazing, too. Poor guy – he got more than he bargained for. His name was Joseph and he had the unfortunate luck to have not one but two flat tires. I have never been on a group tour and had a flat but we had them on consecutive days – one on the highway (beat up though it was) and one inside a park. Fortunately not at a place where there were predators.

Feeding fish

That one was rough. The highway one was easy, because the road was flat and there were big rocks around so we secured the Landcruiser from rolling. The one the next day (and fortunately, the safari Landcruisers carry two spares), we were in a grassy area of the Nakuru national park and there was not a rock to be found. As a result, just when Joseph had jacked up the vehicle enough to remove the flat, it shifted and collapsed. He then had to get this kind of super jack thing that looked like a giant plumber’s wrench. It stuck somehow on the back bumper and, had we had the vehicle secured, would have been easy. But no. Every pump he made, he’d have to hammer some little catch in so that it would stay up, and every time it got jacked up even one step, the mechanism slipped a bit.

In the end, Joseph had to call another tourist Landcruiser for help. Someone with two guides came with their jack, something that worked as blocks and some spare hands. All told, it took about an hour to change that one. And as a result of that, we had to call it with only four of the Big Five – we’d had gone hunting for the elusive leopard but ran out of time.

Lazy lions

But it was still awesome. Although I’ve done a safari or two before, this time, we saw a chess match that was a lion kill the first morning. It was fascinating to see play out, because the first thing we found was an alpha male just hanging out under a tree early in the morning. In these safaris, the guides all talk to another and there will be a congregation of Landcruisers (and they are all Landcruisers) wherever big critters were spotted.

That morning, we were with a group on one side of a small river, and there was a big, big herd of water buffalo on the other side. There was a small pack on our side, too, but initially our draw was the male lion, who was several football fields away from the river and the herd. But the initial draw lost our interest quickly, because we noticed about five lionesses on the other side of the river. They’d been stalking the herd and had split the small group on our side from the larger group on the other.

Rhino crossing

We got lucky, but one in the herd didn’t. The lionesses split, with one coming up from the side to stalk an individual calf. The ones in the back moved slowly up, and they basically encircled this one really young calf. Mama buffalo, and then Daddy buffalo, came to the defense but it went on and on. That calf survived the day, but another one stumbled and when it was down, the lionesses pounced – breakfast. We –and probably 20 other Landcruisers of tourists – watched the meal, first the young cubs, then the moms and, eventually, the alpha do-nothing male, who wandered up in time to run everyone else off and dine. It was really pretty gross; I couldn’t get good pictures of him eating the meat but I watched him through the binoculars and let’s just say ripping a raw steak off a corpse with teeth isn’t pleasant.

At another point, we were driving through the Naivasha park and one in our group shouted “Lioness!” Even though we’d been driving slowly, only she had seen this very large lioness approaching the road. We backed up and turned around to watch as she climbed on a low branch of a tree and called out. Not really roars, but kind of grunts. But that was very cool because if I’d had a yardstick I could have scratched her ears from my window. The animals get very close and, really, don’t seem to mind the vehicles.

Baby zebra!

Well, once they did – and scared me to death! I had never seen a hyena until the first evening – they come out at night – but the second day at lunch, as we looked for a shade tree to picnic under, we turned on a small path and a hyena absolutely leapt up out a small pool of water. It was right out my window. We hadn’t come close to hitting him or anything, but he was surprised to be woken up from his midday nap. 

One of the parks – I think Nakuru – had tons of really amazing birds. I was enthralled with them and the 25-year-old American on the tour asked if I was “going to become a bird lady after this.” I said I just might! We went out on a small boat to see hippos and the guide threw a fish out in the water so an eagle could swoop in and grab it. It’s a pretty amazing sight to see. They had kingfishers, ibis, herons, pelicans (one swooped over my head so close its feet almost hit me), eagles, flamingos, and a bunch more. It’s pretty easy to figure out why people like to watch birds.

Back in Nairobi, I went to the national museum and they had a full-on display of birds in Kenya and surrounding countries. I had no idea there were so many kinds and there’s no way I’d be able to tell the difference between X and Y of some species. Brown bird, another brown bird.

All in all, I had a great time and think I picked a good tour company. (There are so many, and the itineraries are all the same.) But I do still want to see the gorillas, so I hope that can happen next year.

Two out of three in Four

 My second road trip is in the books! More lemurs, hiking, chameleons and vegetation. This place, Andasibe, is maybe five hours away, but that doesn’t mean it’s far; it just means the roads are that bad. I went with a small group of five people, which is a good size. It cost a little more than I’d planned but there are only three places that are feasible as road trips, so I figure I’m front-loading my travel. In four months, I’ve knocked out two of the three possibilities.

Of course, there is plenty of in-country travel, but the roads limit what’s possible by car. I can think offhand of three weekend trips I want to do, but the involve flights. Those will come later, like maybe one in September. There’s one person here who wanted travel buddies so I signed up.

Andasibe was pretty cool – we did a night hike and saw the smallest lemur, which is about squirrel size. We also saw the largest, which is the size of a small human. There’s just an incredible range. The brown ones are very social and hang out in groups. The big black-and-white ones lounge in trees and communicate very loudly with what seem to be screams. The guides have recordings on their phones, so you’d hear the electronic version, which would send off a loud cacophony of ear-splitting howls that lasted for minutes. I’ve no idea what they were saying to each other, but they were decisive in saying it.

Besides the lemurs, we went to a crocodile farm of some sort. It was on the property of the hotel I’d preferred, but one of the travelers in our group was insistent of staying in the higher-priced one (which didn’t include breakfast, I might add). When we arrived to the crocodile place, he took a look at the lodge and said that it was super nice. I was like yeah, that’s why some of us voted to stay there!

I’d never seen so many crocodiles, and really had no idea they were more or less pack animals. There were several groups of the most giant dinosaurs I’ve seen still living. I cannot imagine how much they weighed or what might happen at feeding day. We weren’t to witness that; we just saw a bunch of them loafing around and sunning themselves. I was a bit jealous.

The place also had baby crocs. I don’t know of they bred them or what, but man, there were a lot of them. The little ones were cute like a baby dinosaur would be. At one point, we walked – one by one – over an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom rope bridge, only not so high. But just like the one Short Round crossed, this one had crocs underneath it. Fortunately, no one had to “hold on” and “go for ride” -- we all made it across.

This group also visited the chameleon place again, the same place I’d gone to with Steph last month. It was just as cool – I really am fascinated with those things. The geckos were possibly the most amazing with their disguises, though. The guide would reach into a cage, pull out a log and start talking about a kind of gecko. We’d listen intently, completely blind to the fact there was a living, breathing gecko on the log; it just totally blended in and we didn’t see it until he’d point it out.

The night hike was similar – a guide would run ahead and then call us, pointing to something that there is no way on God’s earth any of us would have ever spotted by ourselves. He’d just walk by and say oh, here’s a tree frog and there’d be this 2-inch frog six feet away. At one point, he found a tiny, tiny chameleon, like smaller than my little finger. He was just walking and then stopped short. Every time he did that, we’d all look around and try to find whatever it was, but we never did. He’d patiently point it out and then it’d be like, wow, how on earth?

Now I am settled in until mid-February, when I am taking actual leave instead of a long weekend. I signed on for a gorilla tour and asked several people I knew, but no one could go. I’d written it off as having to go on another group tour alone and then the travel person here asked about the Andasibe trip. I said sure, I’d go, and by the way, do you want to see gorillas? In no way did I think she’d come but to my delight she said yes, so we’re head out.

It's hard to believe that trip is now in less than a month; January has flown by. After that, I don’t expect to take any more vacation until my R&R – predicted to be in July or so – but the same (or at least a similar) group expects to do the third road trip over Memorial Day Weekend.