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The Journal
From Mombasa and Back—A Safari to Remember
March 7-9, 2000Well, those were great old movies. But this is real life! And the road to and from Mombasa that I traveled recently could only be found in a Bugs Bunny cartoon!
We docked at the port of Mombasa on March 7, eager to take off on the long- awaited Kenya Safari. Most often, when you think, “safari,” you immediately visualize animals. But from now on, when I think about the safari in Kenya, my first recollection will be of the ROAD.
We covered 1,200 miles in three days on our safari. I have vivid memories of each of those miles--not only for the magnificent animals we saw, but especially for Kenya’s unbelievable roads!
The potholes were big enough to store a bathtub in. The rocks on the road were gigantic enough to picnic on. And covering the ruts, gravel and and broken pavement was the dust—dust the color of red ochre sifting into the van through the popup top and windows. The red dust was thick enough to coat my face, hair, clothes, shoes and backpack Indian Red and fine enough almost to mix into pottery clay and mould into bowls for sale---cheap.
But don’t get me wrong! Despite a stiff neck, sore back, and black and blue bruises from bumping over the rough terrain, the safari in Kenya was an experience of a lifetime!
We were five passengers in Van 7. (You’ve got to remember the number or you’ll get stranded at the next curio “pit stop.”) Gilbert, our Kenyan guide, was perched on the right hand driver’s side of our van, communicating constantly with the other game drivers in other vans through an ubiquitous two-way radio that interrupted the silence of the savanna with undecipherable chatter in Swahili.
My friend Ruth, from Connecticut, and I had lucked out. We were asked to get into vans of six, but we chose #7 and ended up with three other companions to “die for” we were so compatible. Mary Ellen is a lovely lady from Albuquerque, an expert and author on Santa Clara pottery of which I have one fine piece. Bill is a retired regional executive of Gerber Baby Foods, and Tony, a retired airline navigator and communications equipment executive from Canada. Each, we quickly found, had a sense of humor that matched our own rather offbeat ones, an abounding curiosity and some knowledge about the many wilderness animals we hoped to see, and, perhaps most important, the supreme physical endurance that could tolerate “The Road” without permanent damage to body and mind.
Together, we spent the next three bone–numbing, teeth-jarring days seated in the game drive van, careening on and off Kenyan dirt roads in our search for the next viewing of a lion, cheetah or leopard. We bounced along the red dust roads, at times banging our heads on the ceiling, clinging to the metal hand bars to keep from ricocheting off the windows, or swaying precariously as we stood in the open pop up roof, snapping yet another photo when someone would shout “hippo to the left,” “elephant at three o’clock,” or “white-bellied bustard in the tree.”
We agreed that we spent 30 percent of our time air-borne and the rest of the time in a game drive van more aptly described as a cement mixer.
And did I mention the beer? We four, (Mary Ellen excepted), quickly became experts in testing the finer points of the Kenyan beer with the elephant on the label-- “Tusker Finest Quality Lager”-- which along with the bottled water, “Kilimanjaro Millennium 2000, The Refreshing Experience,” were necessary companions to every meal.
But this is a safari story. When do we get to the animals?
You want animals? In Kenya you got animals.
Everywhere. We went from East Taita National Park to West Taita National Park and Nzima Springs, and Amboseli National Park.
There were two World Cruise land excursions from which to choose. One went by bus. The other used airplanes to fly to Masai Mara. I chose the one by bus that went to Amboseli because I wanted to see Mt. Kilimanjaro, along with the wildlife.
I wasn’t wrong. But almost. The legendary mountain should have come into view the second morning of the safari. But as our guide Gilbert explained about Kilimanjaro, “She is sleeping behind the clouds.”
And she continued to sleep…all that day and into the late afternoon. And we kept insisting we weren’t going to leave until we could see Kilimanjaro. As if by magic, the mountain must have heard us. Finally, in the late afternoon of the second day we went on another late afternoon game drive, and there she was. The fog and mist that obscured the mountain vanished, and suddenly she appeared in all her snow-capped splendor-- flat on top, rising high into a brilliant blue sky. This was an unforgettable sight for the rest of the day.
We could leave satisfied. We had seen it all. Mountains, Masai Village. Roads, and animals.
Oh yes, animals. Lots of wild animals. Thousands of them. Of all kinds.
I could do a check-off list, but it wouldn’t do justice to the magnificent animals we saw, smelled, and heard over the next three days ...majestic elephants, herds of them, babies and fully grown, sometimes the famed red ones that had roll in the red mud to cool and turn their skin to red ochre. We saw elephants in the bush alone, plodding slowly along on the horizon, and together in a family, up close and personal just a few feet away from our faces, as they fanned water over their backs at the watering hole or grazed in the grass in the very garden of our hotel (so close I was worried they were heading for the dining room).
We saw zebras, brilliant black and white striped, in huge herds and singly, everywhere. We viewed many gentle giraffes, stretching their graceful necks high into the sky to strip leaves from the branches of the acacia tree, or loping along gently on the horizon. We caught sight of hippos in the water and cape buffalos near it; Grants gazelles, impala and hartebeest everywhere; cheetahs chasing the zebras and impalas at 40 miles per hour in quest of the next dinner.
And we were thrilled to come across lions with their cubs lazing near a water hole the final morning of the safari. Fully aware of their supreme place in the animal kingdom, the group of tawny beasts lounged comfortably in the shade, unconcerned that they were being watched from a bare 20 feet away.
We came across many families of baboons cavorting in trees, swinging along on the ground, or joining us on the hotel veranda. We spotted warthogs and hyenas loping across the savanna hunting for their next meal, and we even stopped to watch a leopard doze in an ancient tree, his legs carelessly dangling from a huge branch. And among all of this wildlife, babies abounded. We saw babies of almost every species, newborn or a few days old, wobbling to their feet, nursing from their mothers, nuzzling each other in play.
We had good fortune to see all five of the BIG ONES—lion, cheetah, elephant, leopard, and hippo. The only animal we wanted to see and didn’t sight was the rhino—our other group of ship passengers, very competitively it turned out, was more fortunate and let us know it when we got back and compared notes.
And the birds in the beobob, acacia and long spined thorn trees, on the ground and in the watering holes were amazing. We learned there are over 250 species of birds in Kenya, and I don’t doubt it a bit. We sighted more than a few—from our friend-- the white-bellied bustard -- to secretary bird, ostriches, oxpickers, crowned cranes, stork and sacred ibis, horn bills, plovers, weaver birds with their strange nests, eagles, and vultures. If you keep a lifetime list, Kenya is the place to clean up!
Kenya is only 15 percent arable, with 85 percent consisting of grazing land, and this fact became increasingly apparent as we observed the parched land and Masai people herding their cows to find food on the dry savanna. We visited a Masai village, escorted by its chief, a 34-year old impressive Masai named Simon and his sidekick, the medicine man (I couldn’t catch his name.) This too was quite an experience.
After being greeted by the chief, we stood in thick grey dust at the center of the village; flies in droves surrounded us. The chief invited us to enter the dwelling of the medicine man to learn how a typical Masai family lives. I looked at and smelled the dung-covered house and almost retreated with claustrophobia, but resolved to go in. We ducked into a low ceilinged entrance hall to enter into the darkness of a single room. Only two tiny round holes allowed sunlight to cast a narrow shaft of light into the gloom of the dung-walled room. I stood on a bare dirt floor, and as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I observed a central wooden pole holding up the roof. There was a tiny alcove; in it a bed covered with cow leather filled the entire dirt floor. Burnt sticks on the floor at the base of the hole signified where a fire had burned recently. There was nothing else in the room.
The medicine man told us a little of his life—Masai women built the dung-houses, which were somewhat fragile and had to be constructed anew every three years. The medicine man, just 24, had only one wife, but the chief waiting outside for us to return presently had three wives and seven children. He had inherited his title of chief from his father, and obviously very bright, presided over 14 nearby Masai villages.
The Masai villagers entertained us enthusiastically. They assembled the men of the tribe for traditional jumping dances (Our companion, Tony at 6’3’’, joined the group of men wearing brilliant red robes, headdresses and carrying spears. He shocked us by managing to jump almost as high in the air as they did, in time to their chants). Beautiful Masai women sang their songs and showed us their babies, their ears reaching almost down to their shoulders under the weight of heavy ear pieces, just as the men had, and their necks were adorned with many colorful glass, copper, silver and wood bead necklaces to signify their desirability or beauty or place in life.
Then, with economic planning obviously part of their strategy, the chief smoothly appeared again and separated us individually. Two men had been detailed to accompany each of us to long tables stocked with Masai curios. The usual jewelry, animal sculptures, woven baskets, trinkets of all sorts, and elephant, giraffe, rhino statues, and more were set out on tables in a great semi circle The chief had planned carefully so no one of us had another to lend support to keep our dollars in our pockets. We cajoled and bargained and tried to get away – but only after giving in and purchasing something. I bought two necklaces for $20 after bargaining, and decided I had gotten off easy. The Masai villagers were clever; they knew that the ancient technique of divide and conquer was a good selling strategy. It worked for them.
Cattle lay at the heart of the Masai culture, and the women drove the cattle through the center of the village while we were there. All through our safari visit, we saw men, women and children involved in the care and herding of cattle. These animals are at the core of their beliefs and culture, and you see tall Masai men and young boys, garbed in their brilliant traditional red clothing, prodding sticks in hand, herding cattle across dried barren earth near the villages and along the roads. These people are famous for the red ochre on their hair and bodies, for their dances, and for their fearless warriors. The chief told us that the Masai traditional rite of passage for young men had always been to hunt and kill a lion only with a spear. However, today they permit a whole group of young boys to do this together so that they can preserve their cultural heritage while protecting the lion.
We spent three days on the safari –the Swahili word safari means voyage—so appropriate in recognition of our truly global voyage. On the third day we headed back to Mombasa, bumping along yet another rocky, dirt road—but now we were relieved when we encountered patches where new highways were under construction, if only for a few yards at a time. Evidence of extreme poverty was everywhere—the GDP per capita of Kenya was $1,400 (in 1996).
Trash littered the roadside and outside the homes constructed with corrugated tin, cloth of old blankets, or plastic walls. Some huts had no walls, but just a tin roof, with sticks supporting the sides of the shelter. Many small stalls or huts had signs, and I tried to jot down titles as we rumbled by in the intense heat of the humid summer afternoon: Summer Guest House, Standard Investment Hotel and Bath House; Cha Cha Hotel; Self-Contained Hotel; Soviet View Hotel; Walk In Hotel; Love at First Bite Business. I find it of great interest on this entire journey to try to understand the culture of the people a little better from the signs. It isn’t always easy.
Not a moment too soon, we made it back “home” to the ship. Tired, bedraggled, sweaty, with red dust penetrating our hair and clothes, we were not a pleasant sight. But later, reconstructing our safari together at dinner as the ship sailed from the port of Mombasa, we agreed—this had been another remarkable adventure, and we wouldn’t have missed it for the world.