Goodbye to Mario
We departed from Keekorok at 7:30 AM with a 4-5 hour drive ahead of us back to Nairobi. We retraced our steps through Narok and onward for the first 3 hours, and then took a right turn that took us up the escarpment and once again into very lush growth at the high elevations over 8000 feet ASL, stopping to take a picture of the Rift Valley far below. Once we reached Nairobi, we stopped at a shopping mall for several in our group to buy some safari shoes, and then went on a city tour, past old British colonial buildings, newer government buildings, including the offices of both the President and the Prime Minister, and finally past the burial site of Jomo Kenyatta, the first Kenyan President, across the street from our Intercontinental Hotel.
After numerous pictures with Mario, we paid him and said “Goodbye” and all thanked him for his excellent service. It is always a pleasure to watch someone perform who’s good at his job. He cared about all six of us, wanted to be sure that we had what we wanted and needed, and made the extra effort to see that his mission was successful, whether it was to find the Big Five for us or maneuver the van to get the best angle for a picture of the bird or animal as the case may be. If anyone wants to book a tour of Kenya or safaris in Kenya, they couldn’t do better than to contact him as he can book the tour directly. If so, let me know and I can get you his email address.
Miscellaneous observations, instructions and advice:
1. Bring a washcloth - although the hotels meet you upon arrival with wet washcloths to wipe your hands and faces of dust, you won’t get one in your room.
2. You see very few dogs. The Chinese who are building the roads are buying them up and eating them.
3. Right now, there are about 76 Kenyan shillings (Ksh) to a $1.
4. You may not take any pictures of police, military personnel, or motorcades, and as I learned today, not of anything on City Hall Way or the street where Kenyatta is buried (across from our Intercontinental Hotel).
5. When you see “Hotel” on a small building in the villages we pass through, it means “Restaurant.”
6. There are churches everywhere, at least in the Christian areas, with names such as “Jesus Winner Church.”
7. The road up the escarpment from the floor of the Rift Valley was built by Italian POW’s from Ethiopia in 1942.
8. The difference in elevation between the floor of the Rift Valley and the escarpment to the east is about 1000 meters (over 3000 feet), with the floor being about 5500 feet above sea level.
9. Hard to believe from what we passed through, Narok is one of the richest cities in Kenya - the ground is very fertile there.
10. When we stop and Kenyans selling their wares surround the van, if we won’t buy anything, they want us to give them pens - so bring plenty of pens.
11. Hakuna matata (sp?) - “no problem” and, just like any other language, a common phrase.
12. Charcoal is made from acacia trees, which are cut down, cut into pieces that are put on a fire, then covered with dirt for it to smolder, and then later cooled and sold in big sacks by the side of the road for about 1000 Ksh.
13. The Kikuyu are the largest ethnic group, hold most of the power, were the leaders of the Mau Mau rebellion resulting in the imprisonment of about 1.5 million Kikuyu by the British in the 1950’s.
14. The weather has been fantastic - cool nights in the 50’s and low 60’s, fair days without exception and temps in the 80’s and low 90’s, with only a sprinkle or two in the early evenings before clearing for the night.
15. We finally found the Southern Cross.
16. Masai Mara, if I haven’t told you, is 7200 feet above sea level, the same altitude as Santa Fe, where Dave and Jackie live.
17. The Masai people are allowed to cross back and forth into Tanzania without passport formalities, as the Masai Mara National Reserve is located in Tanzania as well as Kenya.
Sorry to hear about the weather back home, and also caught the news for the first time in a week. It’s amazing to be so out of touch, but nice too to be able to concentrate just on this new experience. What a joy. I love Africa (or at least South Africa and Kenya) and its people. It’s a very exciting place to be. I would really like to be able to fly here - I could fly into Keekorok. It has its own airport, with an open-air “terminal” (actually a 6’ by 12’ roof on 4 posts next to the dirt runway on hill nearby).
Off to bed in Nairobi with visions of new wonders in my head. What will Tanzania be like? The Ngorongoro Crater? Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti? Stay tuned.
Love, Nat, Dad, Matt and Tall Man (and sometimes Cheese Man)
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Ngorongoro Crater
Reminiscence, Awful Stench; Ngorongoro Crater; Goodbye to Africa
Awful Stench
We awoke to my wonderful alarm clock and the room smelled awful. Maybe the toilet didn’t flush or it had backed up, but whatever it was, it smelled. Bay didn’t mention it so I thought maybe it was me. I have had a bad stomach for 2 days and maybe it was a result of that. After leaving the room for breakfast (Bay didn’t want breakfast), the odor was even worse outside, just like old lobster shells from a lobster dinner the night before. I went to our table and then went to the buffet to get some bread and tea, returned and still no one mentioned it. Could it really be me? Is that why no one is sitting next to me? Finally Jackie said, “They said the smell is the smell of baboon pee.” Well, that was a relief to me and I could stop holding my breath and exhale.
On the way in the front seat with Max, I asked him about the spelling of Masai as I had also seen it spelled Maasai. He had another spelling, “Maasi.” Anyone else want to chip in?
And he taught us that “sopa” means “Hi” in the Maa language, and “serena” means “bye.” our hotels, the Sopa Tarangire and the Serena Manyaro, used these Maa words in their names.
The drive up the rim of the crater was hairraising as we climbed over 2000 feet straight up, through a forest, and with me sitting on the downhill side, looking straight down, it scared the bejesus out of me. Especially when the Land Cruiser tilted to the left toward the valley far below. But we made it to the top.
Reminiscence
After the dinner where Bay got so many compliments, we returned to the room. I got out the laptop and started typing and she went into the bathroom to change into her jammies. A few minutes later, she returned, went to the desk, sat down in front of the mirror, sat up straight, and asked, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” Isn’t she great?
And then today, Bay showed some pictures she had on her camera, including one of Dennis. Jane, a pretty psychologist from San Francisco, said he looked “distinguished and handsome.” We think she must have lost one of her contacts.
Ngorongoro Crater
Take a dog water bowl with a flat bottom that has a diameter of 12 miles, a rim 2100 feet high. Throw into the bowl thousands of animals, like hundreds of zebras, and thousands of wildebeest, 93 lions (the largest concentration in the world), warthogs, Thompson gazelles, Grant’s gazelles, rhinos, hippos, spotted hyenas, bat-eared foxes, and assorted other creatures. Add 392 species of birds, common (like ducks) and exotic (like crowned cranes). Sprinkle in a couple lakes, a swamp and small forest. Place hundreds of elephants in the forest at the top of the rim. Then get in your Toyota Land Cruiser and drive down the side of the rim and around the bottom looking at the animals, birds and scenery - that is a trip to Ngorongoro Crater. Can you see it? If not, look it up in Wikipedia until you see the pictures. It is spectacular and we had a wonderful day in it, stopping by one of the lakes for lunch. I can’t wait to show you the pictures of: a one-day old wildebeest; 15 lions at separate times; two lions cuddling each other while snoozing; a warthog running toward us down the road; hundreds of zebras; and then a herd of 50 elephants at the rim as we neared our hotel, Sopa Ngorongoro Lodge.
The hotel is like a ski lodge with spacious lobby, bar with fireplaces and large stuffed chairs and ceiling to floor windows on the side facing west toward the crater, and a dining room of the same configuration. Our room is huge as is the bathroom and faces the crater as well, and is right on the edge of the rim. We had a wonderful sunset, a delicious dinner, and then a chilly walk back to the room. Chilly, because we are 7,800 feet above sea level. Of course, chilly is relative. It’s probably 60.
It’s our last night, and the luxuriousness of our surroundings is in stark contrast to the poverty we have seen in both Kenya and Tanzania. Certainly eating my meal tonight, I could not help but reflect back upon what we had experienced and encountered on our long trips in the vans. Although long and often dusty, and as attractive flying between the parks would seem, I wouldn’t trade our van rides for the world. That is where we learn of the people, how they live, how they press to sell a necklace or scarf in order to feed their family, and the consequences of the drought and of the absence of tourists. What would we have missed? Well, we would have missed gaily clad women with firewood on their backs struggling along the side of the road; men pushing their heavily laden bicycles up the hills; a woman and her child carrying water in containers on their heads; the omnipresent smell of smoke; the charcoal bags on sale along the side of the road, and the smoking mounds of dirt in which the charcoal is made from acacia trees; market day in small villages; uniformed children with book bags on their way to school; well dressed people on their way to church walking along the side of the road; the goats and cattle crossing the road in the hope of greener pastures on the other side; dust devils; women creating and planting gardens along the side of the road because they have no garden plot of their own; women bent over digging up the soil to prepare it for planting; women hand-spreading seeds after the first rain; teeming mankind in the villages and the congregation of men just talking on the side of the road; very young boys tending flocks of cattle and sheep, up to 30 or 40 animals; the ubiquitous road construction and the alternate routes through the desert beside the new road; the dust kicked up by other traffic limiting visibility to 5’ or less at times; learning new Swaheli words like “njema” meaning “cool” from the roadside signs; the contrast of the roads in Tanzania (mostly good paved roads, some as good or better than home) and Kenya (other than the main east-west highway, poor to very poor dirt roads, or if tarred, with potholes all throughout the tar forcing drivers to drive with one side in the dirt on the side of the road; unusual signs for all the churches (for example, “Church of Jesus the Winner”); a woman carrying a suitcase on her head; Towumba or “Mosquito River”, a prosperous community with ample farms including rice farms; the Masai carrying sticks walking along the side of the road in their distinctive red garb to ward off lions; fruits, potatoes and vegetables for sale along the side of the road; “red bananas” having a reddish skin but the same inside; numerous police check points with their strip of nails on each side of the road,all of which we barely slowed up for; the Kenyans’ Range Rover, i.e. the donkeys everywhere, either bearing budens on their backs or pulling a wagon or grazing; and best of all, the smiles of the young boys who see your van coming, turn and ardently wave in the hope you will wave back. And we did.
In the end, this is a story about people, those on the trip and those we will leave behind but will not forget. Our group consisted of Dave and Jackie, Jane and Riz, Bay and me. Dave is a semi-retired engineer consulting on geo-thermal projects and formerly an employee at Los Alamos. He is smart, very well-traveled and most personable, and his wife, Jackie, a Brit, is extremely gracious, but strong, and far and away our best at game observation. Jane is a psychologist from the San Francisco area, and Riz does a lot of gardening. All four are knowledgeable about birds, although I got the feeling that Riz was the expert of the group. We got along very well and enjoyed each other’s company. The other group consisted of Hector and Rosa, a Mexican couple who have lived and prospered in Chicago for years, their sister in law, Irma, a Mother Teresa figure who is very attractive in a latin way with her dark hair and eyes, and most kind to all, and their friend, Janis, who had a hard time due to stomach problems, and then we had our senior citizens, the indomitable Virginia, age 81, who never missed a thing and who could not stop talking unfortunately, and Betty, who despite limitations in getting around, also did very well. And for me, as for past trips, Bay was a joy to have along and indispensable to the enjoyment I got out of the trip. She has a great sense of humor, and everyone fell in love with her, whether in her role as Queen Elizabeth, nurse, scientist or Cybill Shepherd (when she was thin).
Love to you all. May these writings give you the desire to come to Africa as it is a wonderful place. You need to meet these people. They are your brothers and your sisters, and they need you.
Love, Nat, Matt, DB, Rochester and Tall Man
Awful Stench
We awoke to my wonderful alarm clock and the room smelled awful. Maybe the toilet didn’t flush or it had backed up, but whatever it was, it smelled. Bay didn’t mention it so I thought maybe it was me. I have had a bad stomach for 2 days and maybe it was a result of that. After leaving the room for breakfast (Bay didn’t want breakfast), the odor was even worse outside, just like old lobster shells from a lobster dinner the night before. I went to our table and then went to the buffet to get some bread and tea, returned and still no one mentioned it. Could it really be me? Is that why no one is sitting next to me? Finally Jackie said, “They said the smell is the smell of baboon pee.” Well, that was a relief to me and I could stop holding my breath and exhale.
On the way in the front seat with Max, I asked him about the spelling of Masai as I had also seen it spelled Maasai. He had another spelling, “Maasi.” Anyone else want to chip in?
And he taught us that “sopa” means “Hi” in the Maa language, and “serena” means “bye.” our hotels, the Sopa Tarangire and the Serena Manyaro, used these Maa words in their names.
The drive up the rim of the crater was hairraising as we climbed over 2000 feet straight up, through a forest, and with me sitting on the downhill side, looking straight down, it scared the bejesus out of me. Especially when the Land Cruiser tilted to the left toward the valley far below. But we made it to the top.
Reminiscence
After the dinner where Bay got so many compliments, we returned to the room. I got out the laptop and started typing and she went into the bathroom to change into her jammies. A few minutes later, she returned, went to the desk, sat down in front of the mirror, sat up straight, and asked, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” Isn’t she great?
And then today, Bay showed some pictures she had on her camera, including one of Dennis. Jane, a pretty psychologist from San Francisco, said he looked “distinguished and handsome.” We think she must have lost one of her contacts.
Ngorongoro Crater
Take a dog water bowl with a flat bottom that has a diameter of 12 miles, a rim 2100 feet high. Throw into the bowl thousands of animals, like hundreds of zebras, and thousands of wildebeest, 93 lions (the largest concentration in the world), warthogs, Thompson gazelles, Grant’s gazelles, rhinos, hippos, spotted hyenas, bat-eared foxes, and assorted other creatures. Add 392 species of birds, common (like ducks) and exotic (like crowned cranes). Sprinkle in a couple lakes, a swamp and small forest. Place hundreds of elephants in the forest at the top of the rim. Then get in your Toyota Land Cruiser and drive down the side of the rim and around the bottom looking at the animals, birds and scenery - that is a trip to Ngorongoro Crater. Can you see it? If not, look it up in Wikipedia until you see the pictures. It is spectacular and we had a wonderful day in it, stopping by one of the lakes for lunch. I can’t wait to show you the pictures of: a one-day old wildebeest; 15 lions at separate times; two lions cuddling each other while snoozing; a warthog running toward us down the road; hundreds of zebras; and then a herd of 50 elephants at the rim as we neared our hotel, Sopa Ngorongoro Lodge.
The hotel is like a ski lodge with spacious lobby, bar with fireplaces and large stuffed chairs and ceiling to floor windows on the side facing west toward the crater, and a dining room of the same configuration. Our room is huge as is the bathroom and faces the crater as well, and is right on the edge of the rim. We had a wonderful sunset, a delicious dinner, and then a chilly walk back to the room. Chilly, because we are 7,800 feet above sea level. Of course, chilly is relative. It’s probably 60.
It’s our last night, and the luxuriousness of our surroundings is in stark contrast to the poverty we have seen in both Kenya and Tanzania. Certainly eating my meal tonight, I could not help but reflect back upon what we had experienced and encountered on our long trips in the vans. Although long and often dusty, and as attractive flying between the parks would seem, I wouldn’t trade our van rides for the world. That is where we learn of the people, how they live, how they press to sell a necklace or scarf in order to feed their family, and the consequences of the drought and of the absence of tourists. What would we have missed? Well, we would have missed gaily clad women with firewood on their backs struggling along the side of the road; men pushing their heavily laden bicycles up the hills; a woman and her child carrying water in containers on their heads; the omnipresent smell of smoke; the charcoal bags on sale along the side of the road, and the smoking mounds of dirt in which the charcoal is made from acacia trees; market day in small villages; uniformed children with book bags on their way to school; well dressed people on their way to church walking along the side of the road; the goats and cattle crossing the road in the hope of greener pastures on the other side; dust devils; women creating and planting gardens along the side of the road because they have no garden plot of their own; women bent over digging up the soil to prepare it for planting; women hand-spreading seeds after the first rain; teeming mankind in the villages and the congregation of men just talking on the side of the road; very young boys tending flocks of cattle and sheep, up to 30 or 40 animals; the ubiquitous road construction and the alternate routes through the desert beside the new road; the dust kicked up by other traffic limiting visibility to 5’ or less at times; learning new Swaheli words like “njema” meaning “cool” from the roadside signs; the contrast of the roads in Tanzania (mostly good paved roads, some as good or better than home) and Kenya (other than the main east-west highway, poor to very poor dirt roads, or if tarred, with potholes all throughout the tar forcing drivers to drive with one side in the dirt on the side of the road; unusual signs for all the churches (for example, “Church of Jesus the Winner”); a woman carrying a suitcase on her head; Towumba or “Mosquito River”, a prosperous community with ample farms including rice farms; the Masai carrying sticks walking along the side of the road in their distinctive red garb to ward off lions; fruits, potatoes and vegetables for sale along the side of the road; “red bananas” having a reddish skin but the same inside; numerous police check points with their strip of nails on each side of the road,all of which we barely slowed up for; the Kenyans’ Range Rover, i.e. the donkeys everywhere, either bearing budens on their backs or pulling a wagon or grazing; and best of all, the smiles of the young boys who see your van coming, turn and ardently wave in the hope you will wave back. And we did.
In the end, this is a story about people, those on the trip and those we will leave behind but will not forget. Our group consisted of Dave and Jackie, Jane and Riz, Bay and me. Dave is a semi-retired engineer consulting on geo-thermal projects and formerly an employee at Los Alamos. He is smart, very well-traveled and most personable, and his wife, Jackie, a Brit, is extremely gracious, but strong, and far and away our best at game observation. Jane is a psychologist from the San Francisco area, and Riz does a lot of gardening. All four are knowledgeable about birds, although I got the feeling that Riz was the expert of the group. We got along very well and enjoyed each other’s company. The other group consisted of Hector and Rosa, a Mexican couple who have lived and prospered in Chicago for years, their sister in law, Irma, a Mother Teresa figure who is very attractive in a latin way with her dark hair and eyes, and most kind to all, and their friend, Janis, who had a hard time due to stomach problems, and then we had our senior citizens, the indomitable Virginia, age 81, who never missed a thing and who could not stop talking unfortunately, and Betty, who despite limitations in getting around, also did very well. And for me, as for past trips, Bay was a joy to have along and indispensable to the enjoyment I got out of the trip. She has a great sense of humor, and everyone fell in love with her, whether in her role as Queen Elizabeth, nurse, scientist or Cybill Shepherd (when she was thin).
Love to you all. May these writings give you the desire to come to Africa as it is a wonderful place. You need to meet these people. They are your brothers and your sisters, and they need you.
Love, Nat, Matt, DB, Rochester and Tall Man
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Tarangire
Tarangire’s for the birds; Sopa Lodge and Happy Tall Man; A Swim in the Horizon Pool; and African Rhythm
Five loud raps at the door and a “Jambo” are our wake-up call at 5:30, Struggling through the netting around our beds, we shuffle toward the bathroom to get ready for our early morning safari. It’s still completely dark out. We gather our cameras, binoculars, rain coats, and Bay her back pack, and walk to the lobby to meet Max and the rest of our crew. We start off before sunrise but as the light shines in the east. The mist covers the ground, and we only see the top half of Mount Tarangire for the bottom half is hidden by the morning fog. Riz and Dave are barking out “Bird to the right” and “Bird to the left up at the top of the tree” and Max stops so that pictures can be taken and the bird can be identified. We continue on like that for an hour or so when Jackie picks up on a jackal, and what a catch. The jackal has a large leopard turtle in his mouth and is eating its innards. He was about 15 feet away so we had quite a view of him tearing at the turtle and then picking it up and dragging it further away from us. We also saw some giraffes, warthogs (a cute family with 4 little ones), elephants, squirrel and some other small creature that stared at us from a baobab tree (later learned it was a hyrax), some live leopard turtles, dick-dicks, before we returned for breakfast.
The Sopa Lodge is very nice, with large open-air lobby, bar area, restaurant, gift shop, and separate lodges for the guest rooms. The rooms include an anteroom with a refrigerator, a large bedroom and a bathroom. But the most noticeable atribute is that the women at the front desk and in the restaurant are ridiculously beautiful although I’m told that it was not a requirement of employment there that you be beautiful. The only other explanation I could think of is that they were there as contestants for Miss Tanzania. Wrong again. I did ask Bay to take a picture of me with Happy so you’ll be able to see for yourself. Happy gave me an evaluation card to fill out and of course I said she was the best waitress I have ever had - of course, the others at our table didn’t concur saying that Happy only paid attention to me. Sour grapes if you ask me. And I noticed that Dave wanted his picture taken with her too.
We departed at 10 for Lake Manyara, about a two hour drive, first down the dirt road leading out of Tarangire NP to the main highway. Once we turned off for Lake Manyara, the paved road was lined with a center line, shoulders, and passing dotted lines. What a switch. Other than the four lane highway we were on in Kenya, this is the first highway we have been on that looked like a road in the US. We climbed the escarpment to the west of the Rift Valley, up a steep, winding, paved road for 2000 feet, past people pushing their bicycle up the hill, past sheep herds coming down the hill, and others just walking either up or down the steep hill. We turned right and followed a red dirt road to Manyara Serena Lodge on the very edge of the escarpment facing east across the Rift Valley toward Kilimanjaro. We checked in, had a quick lunch and immediately headed for the pool - the temp was about 90, even at an elevation of 4028 feet. We stayed at the pool (an horizon pool) for an hour or so. The pool sits on the edge of the escarpment looking out across the Rift Valley. We then returned to the room to prepare for our afternoon safari to begin at 3:30. We drove back down the hill, entered the National Park, and drove in the thick forest which comes out to an open grassland next to the lake and the hippos in the hippo pool, and scores of zebras (including a dead one killed by lions several days ago). Of course, there were numerous birds, a flamingo, pelicans, storks and the usual array, none of which I know but everyone in our van assures me we’ve seen before. For Bay and me, we’d rather see more lions and cheetahs, and fewer guinea fowls and horned beaks, but that’s just us.
Returning to the Serena Hotel, I watched the evening entertainment around the pool, consisting of 8 or 9 singers, a drummer, and a fiddle player, although it’s not a fiddle at all. But it sounds like one. It has one string attached to a cylindrical object about 8” long and 16” in diameter, a bow with a string and sounds very much like a fiddle. They were fantastic and they left before I could find out more or buy a CD. After a Kilimanjaro beer at the bar and chatting with the bartender and the waiters about their circumstances and ours in Maine, and them thanking us for coming to Tanzania where we are “most welcome,” we went to dinner. They had a trio playing African music so I bought their CD - can’t you just feel the rhythm, as Toby would say?
So I’m going to try to post the last two blogs now and check my email and then go to bed. We leave tomorrow at 8 for Ngorongoro Crater, supposedly Tanzania’s best attraction so we’ll let you know when I can.
Thanks for keeping up with all this. Good night.
Love, Nat, Dad, Matt, DB, Tall Man, etc.
Five loud raps at the door and a “Jambo” are our wake-up call at 5:30, Struggling through the netting around our beds, we shuffle toward the bathroom to get ready for our early morning safari. It’s still completely dark out. We gather our cameras, binoculars, rain coats, and Bay her back pack, and walk to the lobby to meet Max and the rest of our crew. We start off before sunrise but as the light shines in the east. The mist covers the ground, and we only see the top half of Mount Tarangire for the bottom half is hidden by the morning fog. Riz and Dave are barking out “Bird to the right” and “Bird to the left up at the top of the tree” and Max stops so that pictures can be taken and the bird can be identified. We continue on like that for an hour or so when Jackie picks up on a jackal, and what a catch. The jackal has a large leopard turtle in his mouth and is eating its innards. He was about 15 feet away so we had quite a view of him tearing at the turtle and then picking it up and dragging it further away from us. We also saw some giraffes, warthogs (a cute family with 4 little ones), elephants, squirrel and some other small creature that stared at us from a baobab tree (later learned it was a hyrax), some live leopard turtles, dick-dicks, before we returned for breakfast.
The Sopa Lodge is very nice, with large open-air lobby, bar area, restaurant, gift shop, and separate lodges for the guest rooms. The rooms include an anteroom with a refrigerator, a large bedroom and a bathroom. But the most noticeable atribute is that the women at the front desk and in the restaurant are ridiculously beautiful although I’m told that it was not a requirement of employment there that you be beautiful. The only other explanation I could think of is that they were there as contestants for Miss Tanzania. Wrong again. I did ask Bay to take a picture of me with Happy so you’ll be able to see for yourself. Happy gave me an evaluation card to fill out and of course I said she was the best waitress I have ever had - of course, the others at our table didn’t concur saying that Happy only paid attention to me. Sour grapes if you ask me. And I noticed that Dave wanted his picture taken with her too.
We departed at 10 for Lake Manyara, about a two hour drive, first down the dirt road leading out of Tarangire NP to the main highway. Once we turned off for Lake Manyara, the paved road was lined with a center line, shoulders, and passing dotted lines. What a switch. Other than the four lane highway we were on in Kenya, this is the first highway we have been on that looked like a road in the US. We climbed the escarpment to the west of the Rift Valley, up a steep, winding, paved road for 2000 feet, past people pushing their bicycle up the hill, past sheep herds coming down the hill, and others just walking either up or down the steep hill. We turned right and followed a red dirt road to Manyara Serena Lodge on the very edge of the escarpment facing east across the Rift Valley toward Kilimanjaro. We checked in, had a quick lunch and immediately headed for the pool - the temp was about 90, even at an elevation of 4028 feet. We stayed at the pool (an horizon pool) for an hour or so. The pool sits on the edge of the escarpment looking out across the Rift Valley. We then returned to the room to prepare for our afternoon safari to begin at 3:30. We drove back down the hill, entered the National Park, and drove in the thick forest which comes out to an open grassland next to the lake and the hippos in the hippo pool, and scores of zebras (including a dead one killed by lions several days ago). Of course, there were numerous birds, a flamingo, pelicans, storks and the usual array, none of which I know but everyone in our van assures me we’ve seen before. For Bay and me, we’d rather see more lions and cheetahs, and fewer guinea fowls and horned beaks, but that’s just us.
Returning to the Serena Hotel, I watched the evening entertainment around the pool, consisting of 8 or 9 singers, a drummer, and a fiddle player, although it’s not a fiddle at all. But it sounds like one. It has one string attached to a cylindrical object about 8” long and 16” in diameter, a bow with a string and sounds very much like a fiddle. They were fantastic and they left before I could find out more or buy a CD. After a Kilimanjaro beer at the bar and chatting with the bartender and the waiters about their circumstances and ours in Maine, and them thanking us for coming to Tanzania where we are “most welcome,” we went to dinner. They had a trio playing African music so I bought their CD - can’t you just feel the rhythm, as Toby would say?
So I’m going to try to post the last two blogs now and check my email and then go to bed. We leave tomorrow at 8 for Ngorongoro Crater, supposedly Tanzania’s best attraction so we’ll let you know when I can.
Thanks for keeping up with all this. Good night.
Love, Nat, Dad, Matt, DB, Tall Man, etc.
"Rochester and Elizabeth"
The Long March; the Blessing; “Rochester and Elizabeth”; Tarangire and a girl named “Happy”
Up at 6:30, and for me down to breakfast for a roll and two slices of watermelon due to stomach problems, and chatting with Dave and Jackie. Then we gathered our bags, said goodbye to James until Saturday, and boarded a larger bus to take the entire crew to the Kenya-Tanzania border. Believe me, the bus was much worse than the vans, and the roads were just horrendous, at least for the first 30 miles or so of the approximately 80 mile trip to the border. The road was a dirt road next to the new road being constructed and due to the dryness, extremely dusty. We would close the windows as each car we encountered passed us, or if another car from behind passed us, or if we got behind a truck or too close to another vehicle. There was absolutely no leg room for me so I sat with my legs in the aisle as bags packed in the rear fell on me when the driver jammed on the brakes. I finally tried to get some sleep, and at least shutting my eyes helped - the scenery was unremarkable, just dry, dead looking landscape with leafless bushes and dust covered trees and bushes beside the road. It was really the first time that I was uncomfortable in a vehicle.
Things improved once we reached the border. Simon ushered us through the process, first exiting Kenya by stopping on the Kenya side, having our passport stamped, then by filling out a form we picked up at a curio shop for Tanzania, passing through No Man’s Land (where there were 20-30 large trucks parked) and through the gate into Tanzania where we took our form and passport to the Immigration windows and had our passports stamped. Luckily, all of us had our visas already. We transferred our bags to a Toyota Land Cruiser with Francis, an older man, being our driver. We scraped through the huge trucks blocking our exit, and were off on a nice paved road headed for Arusha. We crossed a desert land on the north side of Mount Meru, the second highest mountain in Tanzania (to Kilimanjaro) of 4500 meters, and being very shy enshrouded in its curtain of dark clouds. Once we passed through the desert land, we encountered sprinkles, and then a steady rain, and the world came to life, the smells of wet earth and bushes and trees invading our stuffy Land Cruiser - what a treat. Francis turned to me and said that the people think that the rain is a blessing, and that we have brought his people this blessing. What a nice thing to say, and I thought that if we could have bestowed this blessing on his people, we certainly would have. And he had been thrilled with the Obama sticker I gave him - he is also a member of the Luo tribe from western Kenya, the same as President Obama’s father.
We stopped for lunch at the Arusha Coffee Lodge, a beautiful lodge next to coffee fields supposedly owned by a Swiss company (Nescafe? Scherteinleib Coffee Company?). After lunch, we received our briefing for our itinerary in Tanzania, and the lady in charge handed out the packets, the last one being for “Rochester and Elizabeth.” So I have even more names in Africa than I do in the US, and it was later spelled as “Mathaniel Rochester” - so that must be where Matt came from. And to make matters worse re Bay, as Francis turned over the Land Cruiser to Max to take us for the rest of our stay here, he told Bay that she must be 23 as she reminded him of his daughter who is 20 and in her second year of college. Did I tell you that our party thinks she looks like Cybill Shepherd in “Moonlighting”, looks good in pink, has white teeth, is either a scientist or a nurse and is now 23? Oh, and has a very sexy voice. Did I?
The road to Tarangire was mostly pavement and passed smoothly. Max is a 26 year old unmarried Tanzanian from Arusha and had gone to school to study English and wildlife so that he could be a guide. Once we got to Tarangire gate, I moved from the front seat to the back seat so that I could stand up to take pictures as we would do a game drive into our lodge, Tarangire Sopa Lodge. We were immediately confronted with 15 elephants, something that this park is known to have in abundance. By the time we arrived at the Lodge, it was almost dark, and 7 PM, 11 hours after our departure. And tomorrow we get up at 5:30 for a 6:15 game drive!
But what a treat we (or probably I should say “I”) had a dinner. Our waitress is named Happy and she is beautiful, 27 years old, very petite and speaks so softly that only I can hear her. After saying hi and asking how she was in Swaheli, she asked me if I knew any other words. I said yes, and then said in Swaheli, “I want to eat something now.” Her smile disappeared and she rushed off to get her pad and came running back to get my order, even before the 4 ladies at the table. Whoops! I tried to explain that I was just showing her I could say other things, but she didn’t understand so I ordered my meal. From then on, when she came to the table, she came to me first and wanted to know if we would be here for breakfast and how may days we were staying, etc. I think she’s great! I could get used to this, I’m sure. Just kidding, honey.
So it’s 11 PM now and I need some sleep, so good night to you all.
Love, Nat, Dad, Matt, DB, Rochester, Tall Man, etc.
PS Quiz for the day. How did the Secretary Bird get its name? Good luck. We already have three answers from two guides. And there’s always “Because God made it that way.” Any others?
Up at 6:30, and for me down to breakfast for a roll and two slices of watermelon due to stomach problems, and chatting with Dave and Jackie. Then we gathered our bags, said goodbye to James until Saturday, and boarded a larger bus to take the entire crew to the Kenya-Tanzania border. Believe me, the bus was much worse than the vans, and the roads were just horrendous, at least for the first 30 miles or so of the approximately 80 mile trip to the border. The road was a dirt road next to the new road being constructed and due to the dryness, extremely dusty. We would close the windows as each car we encountered passed us, or if another car from behind passed us, or if we got behind a truck or too close to another vehicle. There was absolutely no leg room for me so I sat with my legs in the aisle as bags packed in the rear fell on me when the driver jammed on the brakes. I finally tried to get some sleep, and at least shutting my eyes helped - the scenery was unremarkable, just dry, dead looking landscape with leafless bushes and dust covered trees and bushes beside the road. It was really the first time that I was uncomfortable in a vehicle.
Things improved once we reached the border. Simon ushered us through the process, first exiting Kenya by stopping on the Kenya side, having our passport stamped, then by filling out a form we picked up at a curio shop for Tanzania, passing through No Man’s Land (where there were 20-30 large trucks parked) and through the gate into Tanzania where we took our form and passport to the Immigration windows and had our passports stamped. Luckily, all of us had our visas already. We transferred our bags to a Toyota Land Cruiser with Francis, an older man, being our driver. We scraped through the huge trucks blocking our exit, and were off on a nice paved road headed for Arusha. We crossed a desert land on the north side of Mount Meru, the second highest mountain in Tanzania (to Kilimanjaro) of 4500 meters, and being very shy enshrouded in its curtain of dark clouds. Once we passed through the desert land, we encountered sprinkles, and then a steady rain, and the world came to life, the smells of wet earth and bushes and trees invading our stuffy Land Cruiser - what a treat. Francis turned to me and said that the people think that the rain is a blessing, and that we have brought his people this blessing. What a nice thing to say, and I thought that if we could have bestowed this blessing on his people, we certainly would have. And he had been thrilled with the Obama sticker I gave him - he is also a member of the Luo tribe from western Kenya, the same as President Obama’s father.
We stopped for lunch at the Arusha Coffee Lodge, a beautiful lodge next to coffee fields supposedly owned by a Swiss company (Nescafe? Scherteinleib Coffee Company?). After lunch, we received our briefing for our itinerary in Tanzania, and the lady in charge handed out the packets, the last one being for “Rochester and Elizabeth.” So I have even more names in Africa than I do in the US, and it was later spelled as “Mathaniel Rochester” - so that must be where Matt came from. And to make matters worse re Bay, as Francis turned over the Land Cruiser to Max to take us for the rest of our stay here, he told Bay that she must be 23 as she reminded him of his daughter who is 20 and in her second year of college. Did I tell you that our party thinks she looks like Cybill Shepherd in “Moonlighting”, looks good in pink, has white teeth, is either a scientist or a nurse and is now 23? Oh, and has a very sexy voice. Did I?
The road to Tarangire was mostly pavement and passed smoothly. Max is a 26 year old unmarried Tanzanian from Arusha and had gone to school to study English and wildlife so that he could be a guide. Once we got to Tarangire gate, I moved from the front seat to the back seat so that I could stand up to take pictures as we would do a game drive into our lodge, Tarangire Sopa Lodge. We were immediately confronted with 15 elephants, something that this park is known to have in abundance. By the time we arrived at the Lodge, it was almost dark, and 7 PM, 11 hours after our departure. And tomorrow we get up at 5:30 for a 6:15 game drive!
But what a treat we (or probably I should say “I”) had a dinner. Our waitress is named Happy and she is beautiful, 27 years old, very petite and speaks so softly that only I can hear her. After saying hi and asking how she was in Swaheli, she asked me if I knew any other words. I said yes, and then said in Swaheli, “I want to eat something now.” Her smile disappeared and she rushed off to get her pad and came running back to get my order, even before the 4 ladies at the table. Whoops! I tried to explain that I was just showing her I could say other things, but she didn’t understand so I ordered my meal. From then on, when she came to the table, she came to me first and wanted to know if we would be here for breakfast and how may days we were staying, etc. I think she’s great! I could get used to this, I’m sure. Just kidding, honey.
So it’s 11 PM now and I need some sleep, so good night to you all.
Love, Nat, Dad, Matt, DB, Rochester, Tall Man, etc.
PS Quiz for the day. How did the Secretary Bird get its name? Good luck. We already have three answers from two guides. And there’s always “Because God made it that way.” Any others?
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Bring a washcloth
Lion King
Off at 6:30, getting up in the dark and wearing a sweatshirt due to the windchill in the van, we struck out for new parts of Masai Mara. James accompanied us again with his video camera, and what a show he would get. It was slow going at first, with few animals to see, but we got a call that there were some lions and off we flew to see them. Again, they were at large dirt hills, this one about 20’ high and near a stream so there were bushes under which they could sleep (at least until we showed up). There were four lions, two males and two females. One male was lying at the base of the hill and the females were walking back and forth behind him. The other male was about 15 feet to the right of our van but hidden by the bushes. We all got some great pictures. And as one van backed up next to us to leave, he almost came upon the lion in the bushes. Being rudely woken, he got up, glared at the van, and with great disdain started walking directly at our van from the rear (where Bay and I were sitting) - Bay immediately sat back down in her seat behind the safety of the closed doors and windows while I’m hanging out of the open roof trying to take the picture of a lifetime. The lion passed not 2 feet from me - right next to the van. I could have patted him as he went by.
As we prepared to leave, Mario exited the van to look at the ground to see if it was safe to drive over, and unbeknownst to him, his wallet dropped out of his pocket as he leaned over. Fortunately, he got a call later than someone had found his wallet and they had it at another lodge. How lucky is that! He is a good man, even though I call him “Cheese Man.” The rest of the morning safari was spent traveling over hill and dale, seeing a secretary bird, giraffes, a wildebeest, crowned cranes, warthogs, etc. A male crowned crane has extra tail feathers hanging down just in case you see one and want to know how to tell the difference.
And have I told you that some in our group think that Bay looks like Cybill Shepherd (sp?) in “Moonlighting” and that she is a scientist? And 29? With very white teeth? And she looks great in pink?
Masai Village
Against my better judgment and the piece in the Lonely Planet book, I agreed to go to the Masai village. The cost was the same as the Samburu village ($20) to “help with the education of their children.” Our Masai guide spoke good English and we started off with two dances by the men, followed by the dance by the women. The rest was predictable from our previous experience and the only thing saving me this time from the onslaught of the ladies selling their wares is the promise that I had a gift from the people of America to give to the chief and the Masai people. So they escorted me around the market but there was minimal pressure to buy bracelets, necklaces, knives, figures of animals or Masai warriors, all set up in twig huts in a circle, being their market. The chief’s son and the “Secretary General” followed me and held the things I chose to buy, not telling me how they were until I completed the circle. Then they informed me that the cost would be $40. I said “$20” and they counterofferred $30. I said $20 again, and they replied $25. I again said I would only pay $20. They said OK and shook my hand. I gave them the money. They wanted me to be sure that when I gave them the gift, I handed it into both their hands. So I pulled out an Obama-Biden campaign bumper sticker, and told them that this was a gift to the Masai people from the people of America and they thanked me and the people of America. I put it into both their hands and the Secretary-General took it and opened it up.
The new part of this visit was the letting of the blood of a cow. The Masai’s diet consists of milk, blood and meat. And they get the blood from a cow and demonstrated how they do it. They put a belt around the cow’s neck, letting the pressure build up in the veins like us giving blood. They keep feeling the cow’s neck to be sure they have the right vein and that it is expanding with blood. Then an elder comes with a bow and arrow and shoots the arrow into the vein - the blood spurts out and they catch it in a pitcher getting about a pint before the flow slows to a trickle. Then they put pressure with the belt on the wound, like the nurse putting pressure with the gauze on the pin prick in your arm, and the blood coagulates. They won’t use this cow again for bloodletting for 3 weeks. One of the Masai men then picked up the pitcher and took a big drink of the blood.
Not too surprisingly, the Masai who addressed me also called me “Tall Man.” They are also a tall group, with one or two approaching my height.
Big Five
This would be our last safari in Kenya and we had seen all the big five but the elusive leopard. After lunch and a swim at the pool, it was 4 and time to leave. This time we travelled west in the reserve and it was very quiet. But the scenery was spectacular and we had a lot of laughs with false viewings of this and that, me with stumps, and Dave with red-headed whatever. After an hour and forty-five minutes, we turned back toward the lodge.
As the limbs of the green-leafed bushes were dancing in the evening winds, bobbing up and down, the storm clouds gathered in the north. And you could smell the electricity (ozone?) in the air as Jackie noted. We heard a melodic sound. Another songbird? No, that’s Mario’s cell phone. After 30 seconds of conversation, we rocketed up to a speed of Mach 1 from 15 km. per hour, and we all lunged for the closest available handrails. The spotted hyenas, warthogs, wildebeests, elephants and God knows what were just a blur as we approached Mach 2. We careened from ditch to ditch as Mario yelled, “We’re going to try a little experiment.” Like a Toyota van lifting off? On we sped past the Lodge until we slid to a dusty halt beside two other vans, and they cried out, “The leopard has just left.’ Not to be denied, Mario, and Mario only, drove over rock outcroppings scraping the bottom off our van, and circled behind the ledge. Behold, there is the leopard, 5 feet in front of us and it was a race to see who could get to the cover of the stream first. The leopard won, but not before we got a few pictures. God bless Mario! He did it - the Big Five. Not in one hour, like Prince Charles decades ago as the picture in the bar says, but in time for our departure tomorrow. When he has a mission, get the hell out of the way!
Back to Nairobi tomorrow with a 7:30 AM departure. I will be very sorry to say “Goodbye” to this spectacular country and most especially to our friend, Mario. He has taken good care of us and wanted us to see his beautiful country and learn as much as we could while we were here. We will miss him, but I plan to keep in touch.
Good night to you all.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt and Tall Man
Off at 6:30, getting up in the dark and wearing a sweatshirt due to the windchill in the van, we struck out for new parts of Masai Mara. James accompanied us again with his video camera, and what a show he would get. It was slow going at first, with few animals to see, but we got a call that there were some lions and off we flew to see them. Again, they were at large dirt hills, this one about 20’ high and near a stream so there were bushes under which they could sleep (at least until we showed up). There were four lions, two males and two females. One male was lying at the base of the hill and the females were walking back and forth behind him. The other male was about 15 feet to the right of our van but hidden by the bushes. We all got some great pictures. And as one van backed up next to us to leave, he almost came upon the lion in the bushes. Being rudely woken, he got up, glared at the van, and with great disdain started walking directly at our van from the rear (where Bay and I were sitting) - Bay immediately sat back down in her seat behind the safety of the closed doors and windows while I’m hanging out of the open roof trying to take the picture of a lifetime. The lion passed not 2 feet from me - right next to the van. I could have patted him as he went by.
As we prepared to leave, Mario exited the van to look at the ground to see if it was safe to drive over, and unbeknownst to him, his wallet dropped out of his pocket as he leaned over. Fortunately, he got a call later than someone had found his wallet and they had it at another lodge. How lucky is that! He is a good man, even though I call him “Cheese Man.” The rest of the morning safari was spent traveling over hill and dale, seeing a secretary bird, giraffes, a wildebeest, crowned cranes, warthogs, etc. A male crowned crane has extra tail feathers hanging down just in case you see one and want to know how to tell the difference.
And have I told you that some in our group think that Bay looks like Cybill Shepherd (sp?) in “Moonlighting” and that she is a scientist? And 29? With very white teeth? And she looks great in pink?
Masai Village
Against my better judgment and the piece in the Lonely Planet book, I agreed to go to the Masai village. The cost was the same as the Samburu village ($20) to “help with the education of their children.” Our Masai guide spoke good English and we started off with two dances by the men, followed by the dance by the women. The rest was predictable from our previous experience and the only thing saving me this time from the onslaught of the ladies selling their wares is the promise that I had a gift from the people of America to give to the chief and the Masai people. So they escorted me around the market but there was minimal pressure to buy bracelets, necklaces, knives, figures of animals or Masai warriors, all set up in twig huts in a circle, being their market. The chief’s son and the “Secretary General” followed me and held the things I chose to buy, not telling me how they were until I completed the circle. Then they informed me that the cost would be $40. I said “$20” and they counterofferred $30. I said $20 again, and they replied $25. I again said I would only pay $20. They said OK and shook my hand. I gave them the money. They wanted me to be sure that when I gave them the gift, I handed it into both their hands. So I pulled out an Obama-Biden campaign bumper sticker, and told them that this was a gift to the Masai people from the people of America and they thanked me and the people of America. I put it into both their hands and the Secretary-General took it and opened it up.
The new part of this visit was the letting of the blood of a cow. The Masai’s diet consists of milk, blood and meat. And they get the blood from a cow and demonstrated how they do it. They put a belt around the cow’s neck, letting the pressure build up in the veins like us giving blood. They keep feeling the cow’s neck to be sure they have the right vein and that it is expanding with blood. Then an elder comes with a bow and arrow and shoots the arrow into the vein - the blood spurts out and they catch it in a pitcher getting about a pint before the flow slows to a trickle. Then they put pressure with the belt on the wound, like the nurse putting pressure with the gauze on the pin prick in your arm, and the blood coagulates. They won’t use this cow again for bloodletting for 3 weeks. One of the Masai men then picked up the pitcher and took a big drink of the blood.
Not too surprisingly, the Masai who addressed me also called me “Tall Man.” They are also a tall group, with one or two approaching my height.
Big Five
This would be our last safari in Kenya and we had seen all the big five but the elusive leopard. After lunch and a swim at the pool, it was 4 and time to leave. This time we travelled west in the reserve and it was very quiet. But the scenery was spectacular and we had a lot of laughs with false viewings of this and that, me with stumps, and Dave with red-headed whatever. After an hour and forty-five minutes, we turned back toward the lodge.
As the limbs of the green-leafed bushes were dancing in the evening winds, bobbing up and down, the storm clouds gathered in the north. And you could smell the electricity (ozone?) in the air as Jackie noted. We heard a melodic sound. Another songbird? No, that’s Mario’s cell phone. After 30 seconds of conversation, we rocketed up to a speed of Mach 1 from 15 km. per hour, and we all lunged for the closest available handrails. The spotted hyenas, warthogs, wildebeests, elephants and God knows what were just a blur as we approached Mach 2. We careened from ditch to ditch as Mario yelled, “We’re going to try a little experiment.” Like a Toyota van lifting off? On we sped past the Lodge until we slid to a dusty halt beside two other vans, and they cried out, “The leopard has just left.’ Not to be denied, Mario, and Mario only, drove over rock outcroppings scraping the bottom off our van, and circled behind the ledge. Behold, there is the leopard, 5 feet in front of us and it was a race to see who could get to the cover of the stream first. The leopard won, but not before we got a few pictures. God bless Mario! He did it - the Big Five. Not in one hour, like Prince Charles decades ago as the picture in the bar says, but in time for our departure tomorrow. When he has a mission, get the hell out of the way!
Back to Nairobi tomorrow with a 7:30 AM departure. I will be very sorry to say “Goodbye” to this spectacular country and most especially to our friend, Mario. He has taken good care of us and wanted us to see his beautiful country and learn as much as we could while we were here. We will miss him, but I plan to keep in touch.
Good night to you all.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt and Tall Man
Lion King
Off at 6:30, getting up in the dark and wearing a sweatshirt due to the windchill in the van, we struck out for new parts of Masai Mara. James accompanied us again with his video camera, and what a show he would get. It was slow going at first, with few animals to see, but we got a call that there were some lions and off we flew to see them. Again, they were at large dirt hills, this one about 20’ high and near a stream so there were bushes under which they could sleep (at least until we showed up). There were four lions, two males and two females. One male was lying at the base of the hill and the females were walking back and forth behind him. The other male was about 15 feet to the right of our van but hidden by the bushes. We all got some great pictures. And as one van backed up next to us to leave, he almost came upon the lion in the bushes. Being rudely woken, he got up, glared at the van, and with great disdain started walking directly at our van from the rear (where Bay and I were sitting) - Bay immediately sat back down in her seat behind the safety of the closed doors and windows while I’m hanging out of the open roof trying to take the picture of a lifetime. The lion passed not 2 feet from me - right next to the van. I could have patted him as he went by.
As we prepared to leave, Mario exited the van to look at the ground to see if it was safe to drive over, and unbeknownst to him, his wallet dropped out of his pocket as he leaned over. Fortunately, he got a call later than someone had found his wallet and they had it at another lodge. How lucky is that! He is a good man, even though I call him “Cheese Man.” The rest of the morning safari was spent traveling over hill and dale, seeing a secretary bird, giraffes, a wildebeest, crowned cranes, warthogs, etc. A male crowned crane has extra tail feathers hanging down just in case you see one and want to know how to tell the difference.
And have I told you that some in our group think that Bay looks like Cybill Shepherd (sp?) in “Moonlighting” and that she is a scientist? And 29? With very white teeth? And she looks great in pink?
Masai Village
Against my better judgment and the piece in the Lonely Planet book, I agreed to go to the Masai village. The cost was the same as the Samburu village ($20) to “help with the education of their children.” Our Masai guide spoke good English and we started off with two dances by the men, followed by the dance by the women. The rest was predictable from our previous experience and the only thing saving me this time from the onslaught of the ladies selling their wares is the promise that I had a gift from the people of America to give to the chief and the Masai people. So they escorted me around the market but there was minimal pressure to buy bracelets, necklaces, knives, figures of animals or Masai warriors, all set up in twig huts in a circle, being their market. The chief’s son and the “Secretary General” followed me and held the things I chose to buy, not telling me how they were until I completed the circle. Then they informed me that the cost would be $40. I said “$20” and they counterofferred $30. I said $20 again, and they replied $25. I again said I would only pay $20. They said OK and shook my hand. I gave them the money. They wanted me to be sure that when I gave them the gift, I handed it into both their hands. So I pulled out an Obama-Biden campaign bumper sticker, and told them that this was a gift to the Masai people from the people of America and they thanked me and the people of America. I put it into both their hands and the Secretary-General took it and opened it up.
The new part of this visit was the letting of the blood of a cow. The Masai’s diet consists of milk, blood and meat. And they get the blood from a cow and demonstrated how they do it. They put a belt around the cow’s neck, letting the pressure build up in the veins like us giving blood. They keep feeling the cow’s neck to be sure they have the right vein and that it is expanding with blood. Then an elder comes with a bow and arrow and shoots the arrow into the vein - the blood spurts out and they catch it in a pitcher getting about a pint before the flow slows to a trickle. Then they put pressure with the belt on the wound, like the nurse putting pressure with the gauze on the pin prick in your arm, and the blood coagulates. They won’t use this cow again for bloodletting for 3 weeks. One of the Masai men then picked up the pitcher and took a big drink of the blood.
Not too surprisingly, the Masai who addressed me also called me “Tall Man.” They are also a tall group, with one or two approaching my height.
Big Five
This would be our last safari in Kenya and we had seen all the big five but the elusive leopard. After lunch and a swim at the pool, it was 4 and time to leave. This time we travelled west in the reserve and it was very quiet. But the scenery was spectacular and we had a lot of laughs with false viewings of this and that, me with stumps, and Dave with red-headed whatever. After an hour and forty-five minutes, we turned back toward the lodge.
As the limbs of the green-leafed bushes were dancing in the evening winds, bobbing up and down, the storm clouds gathered in the north. And you could smell the electricity (ozone?) in the air as Jackie noted. We heard a melodic sound. Another songbird? No, that’s Mario’s cell phone. After 30 seconds of conversation, we rocketed up to a speed of Mach 1 from 15 km. per hour, and we all lunged for the closest available handrails. The spotted hyenas, warthogs, wildebeests, elephants and God knows what were just a blur as we approached Mach 2. We careened from ditch to ditch as Mario yelled, “We’re going to try a little experiment.” Like a Toyota van lifting off? On we sped past the Lodge until we slid to a dusty halt beside two other vans, and they cried out, “The leopard has just left.’ Not to be denied, Mario, and Mario only, drove over rock outcroppings scraping the bottom off our van, and circled behind the ledge. Behold, there is the leopard, 5 feet in front of us and it was a race to see who could get to the cover of the stream first. The leopard won, but not before we got a few pictures. God bless Mario! He did it - the Big Five. Not in one hour, like Prince Charles decades ago as the picture in the bar says, but in time for our departure tomorrow. When he has a mission, get the hell out of the way!
Back to Nairobi tomorrow with a 7:30 AM departure. I will be very sorry to say “Goodbye” to this spectacular country and most especially to our friend, Mario. He has taken good care of us and wanted us to see his beautiful country and learn as much as we could while we were here. We will miss him, but I plan to keep in touch.
Good night to you all.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt and Tall Man
Off at 6:30, getting up in the dark and wearing a sweatshirt due to the windchill in the van, we struck out for new parts of Masai Mara. James accompanied us again with his video camera, and what a show he would get. It was slow going at first, with few animals to see, but we got a call that there were some lions and off we flew to see them. Again, they were at large dirt hills, this one about 20’ high and near a stream so there were bushes under which they could sleep (at least until we showed up). There were four lions, two males and two females. One male was lying at the base of the hill and the females were walking back and forth behind him. The other male was about 15 feet to the right of our van but hidden by the bushes. We all got some great pictures. And as one van backed up next to us to leave, he almost came upon the lion in the bushes. Being rudely woken, he got up, glared at the van, and with great disdain started walking directly at our van from the rear (where Bay and I were sitting) - Bay immediately sat back down in her seat behind the safety of the closed doors and windows while I’m hanging out of the open roof trying to take the picture of a lifetime. The lion passed not 2 feet from me - right next to the van. I could have patted him as he went by.
As we prepared to leave, Mario exited the van to look at the ground to see if it was safe to drive over, and unbeknownst to him, his wallet dropped out of his pocket as he leaned over. Fortunately, he got a call later than someone had found his wallet and they had it at another lodge. How lucky is that! He is a good man, even though I call him “Cheese Man.” The rest of the morning safari was spent traveling over hill and dale, seeing a secretary bird, giraffes, a wildebeest, crowned cranes, warthogs, etc. A male crowned crane has extra tail feathers hanging down just in case you see one and want to know how to tell the difference.
And have I told you that some in our group think that Bay looks like Cybill Shepherd (sp?) in “Moonlighting” and that she is a scientist? And 29? With very white teeth? And she looks great in pink?
Masai Village
Against my better judgment and the piece in the Lonely Planet book, I agreed to go to the Masai village. The cost was the same as the Samburu village ($20) to “help with the education of their children.” Our Masai guide spoke good English and we started off with two dances by the men, followed by the dance by the women. The rest was predictable from our previous experience and the only thing saving me this time from the onslaught of the ladies selling their wares is the promise that I had a gift from the people of America to give to the chief and the Masai people. So they escorted me around the market but there was minimal pressure to buy bracelets, necklaces, knives, figures of animals or Masai warriors, all set up in twig huts in a circle, being their market. The chief’s son and the “Secretary General” followed me and held the things I chose to buy, not telling me how they were until I completed the circle. Then they informed me that the cost would be $40. I said “$20” and they counterofferred $30. I said $20 again, and they replied $25. I again said I would only pay $20. They said OK and shook my hand. I gave them the money. They wanted me to be sure that when I gave them the gift, I handed it into both their hands. So I pulled out an Obama-Biden campaign bumper sticker, and told them that this was a gift to the Masai people from the people of America and they thanked me and the people of America. I put it into both their hands and the Secretary-General took it and opened it up.
The new part of this visit was the letting of the blood of a cow. The Masai’s diet consists of milk, blood and meat. And they get the blood from a cow and demonstrated how they do it. They put a belt around the cow’s neck, letting the pressure build up in the veins like us giving blood. They keep feeling the cow’s neck to be sure they have the right vein and that it is expanding with blood. Then an elder comes with a bow and arrow and shoots the arrow into the vein - the blood spurts out and they catch it in a pitcher getting about a pint before the flow slows to a trickle. Then they put pressure with the belt on the wound, like the nurse putting pressure with the gauze on the pin prick in your arm, and the blood coagulates. They won’t use this cow again for bloodletting for 3 weeks. One of the Masai men then picked up the pitcher and took a big drink of the blood.
Not too surprisingly, the Masai who addressed me also called me “Tall Man.” They are also a tall group, with one or two approaching my height.
Big Five
This would be our last safari in Kenya and we had seen all the big five but the elusive leopard. After lunch and a swim at the pool, it was 4 and time to leave. This time we travelled west in the reserve and it was very quiet. But the scenery was spectacular and we had a lot of laughs with false viewings of this and that, me with stumps, and Dave with red-headed whatever. After an hour and forty-five minutes, we turned back toward the lodge.
As the limbs of the green-leafed bushes were dancing in the evening winds, bobbing up and down, the storm clouds gathered in the north. And you could smell the electricity (ozone?) in the air as Jackie noted. We heard a melodic sound. Another songbird? No, that’s Mario’s cell phone. After 30 seconds of conversation, we rocketed up to a speed of Mach 1 from 15 km. per hour, and we all lunged for the closest available handrails. The spotted hyenas, warthogs, wildebeests, elephants and God knows what were just a blur as we approached Mach 2. We careened from ditch to ditch as Mario yelled, “We’re going to try a little experiment.” Like a Toyota van lifting off? On we sped past the Lodge until we slid to a dusty halt beside two other vans, and they cried out, “The leopard has just left.’ Not to be denied, Mario, and Mario only, drove over rock outcroppings scraping the bottom off our van, and circled behind the ledge. Behold, there is the leopard, 5 feet in front of us and it was a race to see who could get to the cover of the stream first. The leopard won, but not before we got a few pictures. God bless Mario! He did it - the Big Five. Not in one hour, like Prince Charles decades ago as the picture in the bar says, but in time for our departure tomorrow. When he has a mission, get the hell out of the way!
Back to Nairobi tomorrow with a 7:30 AM departure. I will be very sorry to say “Goodbye” to this spectacular country and most especially to our friend, Mario. He has taken good care of us and wanted us to see his beautiful country and learn as much as we could while we were here. We will miss him, but I plan to keep in touch.
Good night to you all.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt and Tall Man
Lake Nakura to Masai Mara
Lake Naivasha to Masai Mara
Security and the War
Up at 6, off at 7 is becoming a too common refrain. I asked the porter about the fireworks I heard as I was preparing to go to bed last night - I even went outside to see if I could see them. The porter said there were no fireworks, those were guns, security people shooting at thieves. It went on for about 20 minutes so it must have been some kind of pitched battle. But everywhere we stay is behind a gated entrance and we certainly feel safe. As we drove to Lake Naivasha, I read about the area and the huge disparity between rich and poor, leading to home invasions, armed robbery and murder. And remember the trip to Samburu, we encountered cattle being driven by soldiers down the road and Mario told us that those cattle had been recovered from rustlers. Then yesterday at a pit stop at a curio shop, we read in the paper that the soldiers had gotten into a firefight with the rustlers and several were killed in the Samburu area. They have recovered over 800 cattle, but 100 more were stolen, usually stolen by those in northern Kenya who are starving.
And then we passed some refugee camps on the main highway between Nakura and Naivasha, and Mario explained that these people had been driven out of their homes during the War following the last election about a year ago, and they had become “displaced persons.” They were not going home There were numerous white tents in each camp. When Kabika, a member of the Kikuyu tribe won, Odinga, a Luo, claimed that the election was stolen, triggering a intertribal war that lasted for two months - it was resolved when Odinga was offered the post of Prime Minister or some such powersharing arrangement brokered by outside leaders. And the frontline of that war was the highway we were on which is the boundary between the Kikuyu land and the Masai land. Thousands were killed, the Masai fighting with their spears, the Luos throwing rocks, and the Kikuyu slaughtering them with their guns and then beheading them with machetes. The Kikuyu tribe is the most populous and the first Kenyan President, Jomo Kenyatta, is a Kikuyu. Mario told us every other President since Kenyatta has also been Kikuyu. “They are very dangerous people. And they say that it is wrong to steal, unless of course you don’t get caught.” So it appears that the dominant tribe is using its power to enrich itself at the expense of the others. Mario is a member of the Gomba (sp?) tribe from southeastern Kenya, and their weapon is a poison-tipped arrow that causes you to faint and then die. I guess I better stop calling Mario “cheese mon.”
Have I mentioned that some in our group think she is a scientist and that she looks like Cybill Shepherd in “Moonstruck” and that she had very white teeth? Bay wanted to make sure I passed that along so I didn’t want to forget (actually I can’t forget because she keeps asking if I have passed this along yet).
Lake cruise
We turned down the road to a lodge, paid our tickets for the boat ride and then drove down to the lakeside. The lake is quite shallow, especially within 50 yards of the shore, so shallow that we, in our grand canoe-like vessel, had to wallow through the mud for 100 yards or so before we were out of the mud. And what a treat it was. It was cool at 9 AM because we are at about 6000 feet elevation and the lake is surrounded with grassy hills, and plenty of trees. We saw several groups of hippos in the water, resting and keeping cool, so close together that one would have his head on another’s back. “Excuse me, do you mind if I lay my head on your butt.” And there were birds on some, eating insects and such off them. We were also fortunate to see a hippo grazing on land. I reached my hand in the water to feel the temperature (it was very warm), and Bay was horrified, getting out her bottle of hand sanitizer. I held out my hands and she poured copious amounts of the sanitizer in them and I immediately cleaned my hands lest I contaminate anyone. We also saw amazing birds, including a Goliath heron, eagles, etc.
“Spotted land”
On we went, this gallant group of 7, Riz and Jane, Dave and Jackie, Bay and I, from the main highway onto a “shortcut” being a dirt road, then gravel, then big rocks, but ever forward toward Narok, the gateway to Masai Mara. Dust devils to left and right of us, dust kicked up by vans or trucks ahead of us or meeting us, the strong wind sweeping across the plains - you didn’t know whether to leave the window all the way down due to the heat (about 90) and let in the dust, or put it partway up keeping out most of the dust but heating up the vehicle. We refueled in Narok - the girls had to pick up toilet paper on the way into the ladies room, and everyone had to put some coins in the box when they exited. The toilets were filthy and although we had water, there were no towels to dry our hands. Of course, we were besieged by those seeking to sell us trinkets but we’re much more experienced now and can keep them at bay - “Niko sowa” (sp?) meaning “I’m okay.” Only 100 km left, with the last 60 km on a dirt road, and before we could leave civilization, Mario had to buy a lottery ticket. With his promise that I would have a real job with him if he won, I punched in the numbers on his cell phone. Alas, he did not win. He should have let me buy the ticket if he really wanted to win.
When the white men came, they drove the Masai, were living in the beautiful Mt. Kenya territory all the way to the southwestern border of Kenya and into Tanzania. Iti is as beautiful here as anywhere, with large vast open spaces with 2-3 foot high grass, trees spotting the open landscape (“spotted land” or “masai mara”), abundant trees and bushes next to the streams in the valleys between the hills. It reminded Bay of New Zealand, and me of South Dakota. You all must come here - it is heaven on earth, and you see abundant wildlife as it has been for thousands of years. The migration of hundreds of thousands of wildebeests starts near our lodge, Keekorok Lodge, the first lodge in Masai Mara, built in1963. We cleaned up, had lunch and reboarded our van for a safari.
“Go to the top of the hill and take a left”
Off we went in the beautiful, sunny, hot afternoon, accompanied by James who is filming some of the trip for Friendly Planet.
Security and the War
Up at 6, off at 7 is becoming a too common refrain. I asked the porter about the fireworks I heard as I was preparing to go to bed last night - I even went outside to see if I could see them. The porter said there were no fireworks, those were guns, security people shooting at thieves. It went on for about 20 minutes so it must have been some kind of pitched battle. But everywhere we stay is behind a gated entrance and we certainly feel safe. As we drove to Lake Naivasha, I read about the area and the huge disparity between rich and poor, leading to home invasions, armed robbery and murder. And remember the trip to Samburu, we encountered cattle being driven by soldiers down the road and Mario told us that those cattle had been recovered from rustlers. Then yesterday at a pit stop at a curio shop, we read in the paper that the soldiers had gotten into a firefight with the rustlers and several were killed in the Samburu area. They have recovered over 800 cattle, but 100 more were stolen, usually stolen by those in northern Kenya who are starving.
And then we passed some refugee camps on the main highway between Nakura and Naivasha, and Mario explained that these people had been driven out of their homes during the War following the last election about a year ago, and they had become “displaced persons.” They were not going home There were numerous white tents in each camp. When Kabika, a member of the Kikuyu tribe won, Odinga, a Luo, claimed that the election was stolen, triggering a intertribal war that lasted for two months - it was resolved when Odinga was offered the post of Prime Minister or some such powersharing arrangement brokered by outside leaders. And the frontline of that war was the highway we were on which is the boundary between the Kikuyu land and the Masai land. Thousands were killed, the Masai fighting with their spears, the Luos throwing rocks, and the Kikuyu slaughtering them with their guns and then beheading them with machetes. The Kikuyu tribe is the most populous and the first Kenyan President, Jomo Kenyatta, is a Kikuyu. Mario told us every other President since Kenyatta has also been Kikuyu. “They are very dangerous people. And they say that it is wrong to steal, unless of course you don’t get caught.” So it appears that the dominant tribe is using its power to enrich itself at the expense of the others. Mario is a member of the Gomba (sp?) tribe from southeastern Kenya, and their weapon is a poison-tipped arrow that causes you to faint and then die. I guess I better stop calling Mario “cheese mon.”
Have I mentioned that some in our group think she is a scientist and that she looks like Cybill Shepherd in “Moonstruck” and that she had very white teeth? Bay wanted to make sure I passed that along so I didn’t want to forget (actually I can’t forget because she keeps asking if I have passed this along yet).
Lake cruise
We turned down the road to a lodge, paid our tickets for the boat ride and then drove down to the lakeside. The lake is quite shallow, especially within 50 yards of the shore, so shallow that we, in our grand canoe-like vessel, had to wallow through the mud for 100 yards or so before we were out of the mud. And what a treat it was. It was cool at 9 AM because we are at about 6000 feet elevation and the lake is surrounded with grassy hills, and plenty of trees. We saw several groups of hippos in the water, resting and keeping cool, so close together that one would have his head on another’s back. “Excuse me, do you mind if I lay my head on your butt.” And there were birds on some, eating insects and such off them. We were also fortunate to see a hippo grazing on land. I reached my hand in the water to feel the temperature (it was very warm), and Bay was horrified, getting out her bottle of hand sanitizer. I held out my hands and she poured copious amounts of the sanitizer in them and I immediately cleaned my hands lest I contaminate anyone. We also saw amazing birds, including a Goliath heron, eagles, etc.
“Spotted land”
On we went, this gallant group of 7, Riz and Jane, Dave and Jackie, Bay and I, from the main highway onto a “shortcut” being a dirt road, then gravel, then big rocks, but ever forward toward Narok, the gateway to Masai Mara. Dust devils to left and right of us, dust kicked up by vans or trucks ahead of us or meeting us, the strong wind sweeping across the plains - you didn’t know whether to leave the window all the way down due to the heat (about 90) and let in the dust, or put it partway up keeping out most of the dust but heating up the vehicle. We refueled in Narok - the girls had to pick up toilet paper on the way into the ladies room, and everyone had to put some coins in the box when they exited. The toilets were filthy and although we had water, there were no towels to dry our hands. Of course, we were besieged by those seeking to sell us trinkets but we’re much more experienced now and can keep them at bay - “Niko sowa” (sp?) meaning “I’m okay.” Only 100 km left, with the last 60 km on a dirt road, and before we could leave civilization, Mario had to buy a lottery ticket. With his promise that I would have a real job with him if he won, I punched in the numbers on his cell phone. Alas, he did not win. He should have let me buy the ticket if he really wanted to win.
When the white men came, they drove the Masai, were living in the beautiful Mt. Kenya territory all the way to the southwestern border of Kenya and into Tanzania. Iti is as beautiful here as anywhere, with large vast open spaces with 2-3 foot high grass, trees spotting the open landscape (“spotted land” or “masai mara”), abundant trees and bushes next to the streams in the valleys between the hills. It reminded Bay of New Zealand, and me of South Dakota. You all must come here - it is heaven on earth, and you see abundant wildlife as it has been for thousands of years. The migration of hundreds of thousands of wildebeests starts near our lodge, Keekorok Lodge, the first lodge in Masai Mara, built in1963. We cleaned up, had lunch and reboarded our van for a safari.
“Go to the top of the hill and take a left”
Off we went in the beautiful, sunny, hot afternoon, accompanied by James who is filming some of the trip for Friendly Planet.
Rift Valley
Rift Valley
Two hundred miles, 3 worlds and 7 hours
The alarm went off and up we got for a quick packing, billpaying and breakfast for a 7 A.M. departure. Mario wouldn’t let me drive because I didn’t have a valid license so I told him how to pack the suitcases. First, I’m giving him Swaheli lessons, then road directions and now packing directions. Bay just shakes her head with her tight lipped smile. Mario just smiles and says I’m a “cheese mon”, in other words, I’m crazy. We drove through the bush near where we saw the cheetahs yesterday and exited the park and onto the road under construction by the Chinese. Finally after about an hour, we reached pavement. But even on the pavement, it was pretty slow going because we had to avoid monstrous potholes, and as soon as we hit a rhythm, we would enter a city, town or village where there would be speed bumps, pedestrians everywhere, goats and cows on the very edge of the pavement, bicyclists, you name it. We drove south though Isiolo, a predominantly Moslem city of 2,000,000 and then started climbing into the wheat farm areas we had passed through before - it is spectacular countryside, Dances with Wolves-like, with bright tan fields of wheat on the slopes of these big hills with evergreen and deciduous trees on the tops of the hills. We took a “shortcut” of about 20 miles on a dirt, then gravel, then boulder road - I can’t even imagine going on that road in a motorcycle. Even a large truck taking the “shortcut” had a guy out ahead removing large boulders. And Mario plowed on without hesitation. After an hour or so, we again reached pavement and continued to climb even higher and higher up to 8,200 feet, where the trees were tall, the growth was lush, the streams ran, and the temperature was cool enough to close the window most of the way. We reached the top of the escarpment and then came around the corner - ahead of us was the Rift Valley, lying thousands of feet below us, a splendid sight of farms, villages, trees, bushes, flowers and just grand scenery. The road dropped quickly to the floor and we climbed up the escarpment on the other side, through Nakura (the 4th largest city in Kenya with about 2 million people) by means of another “shortcut”, arriving at our lodge (a tent lodge which is really nice) in the Rift Valley at Lake Nakura 7 hours after starting this morning, a trip of only 200 miles and we only made two stops, one lasting only 5 minutes, and the other about 20 minutes. So we went 200 miles in that time passing through the bush of the savannah at Samburu, into the farm country and then the highlands next to the Aberdare Mountains, and finally from the escarpment with its tea and coffee growing farms to the floor of the Rift Valley with its rich farmland and historical significance. As you may know, the Rift Valley runs from Jordan to Mozambique, about 6,000 miles and this area was ruled for centuries by the Masai until driven south by the British colonizers. It was a primary area of transportation for peoples for thousands of years. and has been called the most significant land feature in Africa.
The tea is grown on a bush which we saw is about 3 feet in height, with bright light green leaves of uniform height throughout the bush. On the other hand, the coffee bushes we saw had a darker green leaf, are taller by a foot or so, and is shaped more like a tree with the leaves on the limbs being at various heights.
Lake Nakura
After finishing lunch, we had 45 minutes or so before again boarding our van for a safari trip to Lake Nakura. We are very close to the lake which is very shallow, very salty, has no outlet and may be dieing. It is a national park. We cleared through the gate, and proceeded to the lakeside with its storks and pelicans on one side while buffalo, gazelles, warthogs, white rhinos, zebras and hyenas roamed, slept and grazed on the grassy plain on the other side of the road. We also climbed up to a scenic overlook, probably 500 feet above the lake for a few pictures, not only of the lake but also the baboons who were there to greet us. When Mario got trapped by the lady who never stops talking and everyone had had enough, I took the bull by the horns, got into the driver seat, told everyone to get in and started up the engine. That was the cure - Mario came over to rescue his van and after driving several feet and telling him I’d pick it up later, I stopped and turned it back to him. Good thing as the road back down from the scenic overlook was steep, bumpy and narrow.
Tenting
Our accommodation is a tent - but don’t feel bad for us. It is very nice with two twin beds, a full bathroom, and a porch.
It’s been a long day so I’ll cut this short. And no Internet so it could be an early night, and it should be because we have another day tomorrow like today. Off at 7 and a long trip ahead of us.
Bon soir, Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt, TM, Whip, etc.
Two hundred miles, 3 worlds and 7 hours
The alarm went off and up we got for a quick packing, billpaying and breakfast for a 7 A.M. departure. Mario wouldn’t let me drive because I didn’t have a valid license so I told him how to pack the suitcases. First, I’m giving him Swaheli lessons, then road directions and now packing directions. Bay just shakes her head with her tight lipped smile. Mario just smiles and says I’m a “cheese mon”, in other words, I’m crazy. We drove through the bush near where we saw the cheetahs yesterday and exited the park and onto the road under construction by the Chinese. Finally after about an hour, we reached pavement. But even on the pavement, it was pretty slow going because we had to avoid monstrous potholes, and as soon as we hit a rhythm, we would enter a city, town or village where there would be speed bumps, pedestrians everywhere, goats and cows on the very edge of the pavement, bicyclists, you name it. We drove south though Isiolo, a predominantly Moslem city of 2,000,000 and then started climbing into the wheat farm areas we had passed through before - it is spectacular countryside, Dances with Wolves-like, with bright tan fields of wheat on the slopes of these big hills with evergreen and deciduous trees on the tops of the hills. We took a “shortcut” of about 20 miles on a dirt, then gravel, then boulder road - I can’t even imagine going on that road in a motorcycle. Even a large truck taking the “shortcut” had a guy out ahead removing large boulders. And Mario plowed on without hesitation. After an hour or so, we again reached pavement and continued to climb even higher and higher up to 8,200 feet, where the trees were tall, the growth was lush, the streams ran, and the temperature was cool enough to close the window most of the way. We reached the top of the escarpment and then came around the corner - ahead of us was the Rift Valley, lying thousands of feet below us, a splendid sight of farms, villages, trees, bushes, flowers and just grand scenery. The road dropped quickly to the floor and we climbed up the escarpment on the other side, through Nakura (the 4th largest city in Kenya with about 2 million people) by means of another “shortcut”, arriving at our lodge (a tent lodge which is really nice) in the Rift Valley at Lake Nakura 7 hours after starting this morning, a trip of only 200 miles and we only made two stops, one lasting only 5 minutes, and the other about 20 minutes. So we went 200 miles in that time passing through the bush of the savannah at Samburu, into the farm country and then the highlands next to the Aberdare Mountains, and finally from the escarpment with its tea and coffee growing farms to the floor of the Rift Valley with its rich farmland and historical significance. As you may know, the Rift Valley runs from Jordan to Mozambique, about 6,000 miles and this area was ruled for centuries by the Masai until driven south by the British colonizers. It was a primary area of transportation for peoples for thousands of years. and has been called the most significant land feature in Africa.
The tea is grown on a bush which we saw is about 3 feet in height, with bright light green leaves of uniform height throughout the bush. On the other hand, the coffee bushes we saw had a darker green leaf, are taller by a foot or so, and is shaped more like a tree with the leaves on the limbs being at various heights.
Lake Nakura
After finishing lunch, we had 45 minutes or so before again boarding our van for a safari trip to Lake Nakura. We are very close to the lake which is very shallow, very salty, has no outlet and may be dieing. It is a national park. We cleared through the gate, and proceeded to the lakeside with its storks and pelicans on one side while buffalo, gazelles, warthogs, white rhinos, zebras and hyenas roamed, slept and grazed on the grassy plain on the other side of the road. We also climbed up to a scenic overlook, probably 500 feet above the lake for a few pictures, not only of the lake but also the baboons who were there to greet us. When Mario got trapped by the lady who never stops talking and everyone had had enough, I took the bull by the horns, got into the driver seat, told everyone to get in and started up the engine. That was the cure - Mario came over to rescue his van and after driving several feet and telling him I’d pick it up later, I stopped and turned it back to him. Good thing as the road back down from the scenic overlook was steep, bumpy and narrow.
Tenting
Our accommodation is a tent - but don’t feel bad for us. It is very nice with two twin beds, a full bathroom, and a porch.
It’s been a long day so I’ll cut this short. And no Internet so it could be an early night, and it should be because we have another day tomorrow like today. Off at 7 and a long trip ahead of us.
Bon soir, Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt, TM, Whip, etc.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Smell of Africa
Sounds, colors and smells of Africa
Kit has asked that I describe the sounds, colors and smells of Africa, so I’ll start with sitting here on the front porch of our lodge (a duplex log cabin with two twin beds, a small desk, mosquito netting that goes over the beds at night, high ceiling with a ceiling fan that sounds like “Lift off” when you put in full speed, and a bathroom with shower).
Closing my eyes, I hear the distant roar of the wind, like the sound of the ocean a mile or so away; birds chirping in every direction; the hard swaying of branches as baboons jump from one tree to another and sometimes the crack of a limb they break while jumping onto it; the baboons’ screeching when something is amiss and the loud thud of their feet on the roof of a lodge as they jump from a tree. And I can hear the whir of our ceiling fan as Bay naps. And her screams as a lizard climbs up her bed cover.
The colors here in Samburu are definitely predominantly light khaki - the dry grass and the dry river beds, like the one in front of me (the rainy season doesn’t start for another month or so). There are green bushes and trees only near the riverbeds and the lowlands. Otherwise, the trees are leafless and look dead, like our trees in late fall. But these trees, acacia mostly, look much more fragile and definitely deader than ours. Mario tells us that when the rainy season comes, all the leaves will come back and it will be a completely different view, and much harder to see the animals. There is green grass in front of my porch but it may be watered periodically. The soil here is a lighter brown than the soil at Mt. Kenya, possibly due to the moisture content.
And the smell of Africa? B.O., according to Bay.
And the size of elephant scat? About the side of a basketball, but only an inch or so high. So I love to hear from any of you, and will try to answer your questions. Thank you Kit.
No rest for the weary
After finishing my blog, publishing it and downloading my photos from both of my cameras, I checked out the photos of the lioness and her puppies. They are really great and I can’t wait to show them to you. I am especially happy because I used my new camera exclusively on our game drive yesterday and my experimentation at Mt. Kenya and at home has definitely helped. Then off to bed at 11:30, wrestling with the mosquito netting which had already been pulled over and around my bed when my bed was turned down at summertime.
The alarm went off at 5:55 and we rushed to get our clothes on, put in our contacts, grab our cameras and rendezvous with Mario for a 6:30 departure. We headed out to look for more animals with Dave and Jackie, and Jane and Rhys, with me in the back with Bay because my head would hit the popup cover of the van. I have to lean out over the back of the van as my head is about 4 inches over the top of the cover. We saw the same two male lions, this time asleep and still on the shore of the same riverbed. We also ran into another guranuk, an antelope-like creature that stands on its hind legs to eat the leaves further up the tree - maybe, Kipling-like (or is it Darwin-like), it’ll turn into a giraffe; ostriches, which are almost as tall as me; more elephants, Cape buffalo, giraffes, impala and others I may have already forgotten. The others are great bird lovers and quite knowledgeable as is Mario, and we saw many different types of birds, some with fantastic coloring (bright blues and yellows and greens), and some eagles (one a tawny eagle). We returned at 9:00. Getting out of the bus, a penny lay on the step and I insisted that Mario keep it, and told him that the man on the coin was our greatest President, the man who freed the slaves.
Saint Patrick
After breakfast, we had about 20 minutes to brush our teeth, use the toilet, etc. before we departed at 10 for the Samburu village a few miles away. Upon our parking on the top of a hill, next to their village, we were met with Patrick, an attactive and well-spoken young man who explained that he was the Secretary of the Samburu, and he introduced the Chief standing next to him. a 45 year old man wearing a red skirt and a pinkish shawl over his shoulder and a “Ryder Cup 2004” hat. Patrick further explained that they had a school and that they raised money for the school through these presentations to visitors. So we paid to the Chief our $20 per person and watched a dance show of about 10 men who were later joined by 6 or so women, all colorfully dressed and wearing large necklaces (not sure of the proper term but collar like - you all have seen them).
Patrick then led us into the village made up of quonset hut style buildings belonging to the Samburu (so shaped because it matches the shape of their sacred mountain in the distancet, and round huts (like rondovals that we saw in SA) that belonged to the other tribe in the village. There are appoximately 350 in this village - 2000 or so total under this Chief in 7 different village separately placed on the large savannah. Patrick took us into the round house, a house for a family of 10 who eat there, but only the parents and children under 7 slept there - children over 7 slept in another house, and the grandparents had another house altogether. The hut had walls that were made wth dung, water and grass, I think, and only the women are permitted to make the houses. After a year and a half, they are forced, due to termites, and general deterioration of the roof made out of intertwined twigs, to make a new house - always made in the dry season. The village is surrounded by brush with sharp thorns on the branches to keep wild animals out, and the cattle, sheep, donkeys owned by the villagers are placed in a corral enclosed by brush as well. We saw no animals as they were off grazing. And we saw no schoolage children as today is the last day of exams for them. The community is run by a council of elders who choose the Chief and the Secretary and there is a meeting every 3 days to iron out any problems. At the end of the month, they meet to have the Chief report on the funds available and they use the funds to pay the teachers, pay for the person servicing the health clinic, buy school supplies, etc. I asked if we could contribute money to purchase mosquito nets for them, and Patrick readily agreed and stated that he had told us all this so that we could contribute whatever we wanted toward their health fund - to cover evacuations when bitten by a poisonous snake, care for malaria, hospitalization, etc. So we all contributed more money for the community. After watching a fire lighting demonstration with sticks, donkey dung being the kindling, we were treated to another dance and then we had to go to the market, more aptly described as a gauntlet of about 30 women on each side stretching 40 yards or so, each pleading with you to buy something. I made it through unscathed. Well, not really, the Chief called me “my friend” and handed me his fly swatter made with the tail hair of a giraffe, and then said he would sell it to me for $30 - I said $10 and we settled on $20. Then Patrick came up and thanked me for my contributions, and said I had really helped them out and he wanted to give me his club in appreciation - of course for another $30. I gave him $20. These encounters are tough to take but quickly forgotten as Mario and I got into a discussion about Obama, Obams’s father (who grew up in a village like this one) and Abraham Lincoln - I explained the significance of the penny he had found and how Obama patterned his run for the presidency upon much of Lincoln’s experience when he was running 148 years before. His eyes absolutely lit up when I described Wikipedia and what he could do with that. We have a lot of laughs (especially when I bring up our 400-500 meter “mountains” ) and he says, “Tall mon, you are so funny. I will not forget you when you leave.” Nor will I you, Mario.
“I will protect you.”
Bay and I put on our bathing suits and went to the pool. Of course, there was an iguana near our chaises so we had to move, We took a dip and returned to our chaises where I almost fell asleep when Bay said, “Well, I guess I’ll have to go back to the room.” I sat up. “Why?” “Because of him,” pointing to a baboon about 20 feet away. I said “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” She replied, “You said that last night with a little tiny lizard. How are you going to handle a baboon?” “Bay, you’re in Africa!” And laid back down as she huffed and puffed and uneasily sat back, calculating that the baboon had to climb over me to get to her. Then a whole colony of baboons invaded us, swinging from limb to limb, crashing down onto the hotel and the cottages. But we stayed for awhile longer.
Mario’s Mission
We were told to congregate at the front desk at 3:45 so that we could be off at 4 as “we have a long way to go.” When everyone was there by 3:50, we departed with Mario driving over hill and dale, speeding by giraffes, herds of buffalo, warthogs, oryxes, impala, a couple vultures, elephants - nothing was stopping him. We drove on and on, me hanging on in the back seat (where I am relegated on game drives), and the miles really flew by when we hit Interstate 95, a high plateau with no bushes at all, and flat.
Oh, by the way, the people at our dinner table tonight, thought Bay was in her late twenties.
Okay, continuing, after fixing the muffler which Mario had broken on the first couple miles, we just flew down the dirt road on this plateau. After about an hour we joined two other vehicles at a spot with two CHEETAHS, a mother and a baby. They had made a kill the previous day and were very logy. Mario circled them so that they would get up and go to a better spot to photograph and what a show it was! Just spectacular and the photos are phenomenal. I’ll try to send one with the blog again tonight. So Mario accomplished his mission - he had a one track mind and there was no way we weren’t going to see these cheetahs! Good job, Mario.
And did I tell you that the people at our table tonight, Dave, Jackie, Rhys and Jane, thought Bay was in her late twenties, and thinking that I must have been very wealthy and dying from malaria or some such disease that would take me away quickly to have such a babe. Sounds good to me.
And by the way, Mario said he has cancelled my flight home. He wants me to be an attorney and he will collect the money for me. So, Sugar, better start making arrangements, getting Kandi the necessary shots, etc.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt, Bwana
PS Mario calls me “T.M.” What does that stand for? I’ll start with the easy questions. First one who responds correctly will get a prize.
PPS Tomorrow we leave at 7 for Lake Nakura, a 300 km drive.
PPPS I had lamb flakes for dinner with some fish and rice. It was great as the food has been all along.
Kit has asked that I describe the sounds, colors and smells of Africa, so I’ll start with sitting here on the front porch of our lodge (a duplex log cabin with two twin beds, a small desk, mosquito netting that goes over the beds at night, high ceiling with a ceiling fan that sounds like “Lift off” when you put in full speed, and a bathroom with shower).
Closing my eyes, I hear the distant roar of the wind, like the sound of the ocean a mile or so away; birds chirping in every direction; the hard swaying of branches as baboons jump from one tree to another and sometimes the crack of a limb they break while jumping onto it; the baboons’ screeching when something is amiss and the loud thud of their feet on the roof of a lodge as they jump from a tree. And I can hear the whir of our ceiling fan as Bay naps. And her screams as a lizard climbs up her bed cover.
The colors here in Samburu are definitely predominantly light khaki - the dry grass and the dry river beds, like the one in front of me (the rainy season doesn’t start for another month or so). There are green bushes and trees only near the riverbeds and the lowlands. Otherwise, the trees are leafless and look dead, like our trees in late fall. But these trees, acacia mostly, look much more fragile and definitely deader than ours. Mario tells us that when the rainy season comes, all the leaves will come back and it will be a completely different view, and much harder to see the animals. There is green grass in front of my porch but it may be watered periodically. The soil here is a lighter brown than the soil at Mt. Kenya, possibly due to the moisture content.
And the smell of Africa? B.O., according to Bay.
And the size of elephant scat? About the side of a basketball, but only an inch or so high. So I love to hear from any of you, and will try to answer your questions. Thank you Kit.
No rest for the weary
After finishing my blog, publishing it and downloading my photos from both of my cameras, I checked out the photos of the lioness and her puppies. They are really great and I can’t wait to show them to you. I am especially happy because I used my new camera exclusively on our game drive yesterday and my experimentation at Mt. Kenya and at home has definitely helped. Then off to bed at 11:30, wrestling with the mosquito netting which had already been pulled over and around my bed when my bed was turned down at summertime.
The alarm went off at 5:55 and we rushed to get our clothes on, put in our contacts, grab our cameras and rendezvous with Mario for a 6:30 departure. We headed out to look for more animals with Dave and Jackie, and Jane and Rhys, with me in the back with Bay because my head would hit the popup cover of the van. I have to lean out over the back of the van as my head is about 4 inches over the top of the cover. We saw the same two male lions, this time asleep and still on the shore of the same riverbed. We also ran into another guranuk, an antelope-like creature that stands on its hind legs to eat the leaves further up the tree - maybe, Kipling-like (or is it Darwin-like), it’ll turn into a giraffe; ostriches, which are almost as tall as me; more elephants, Cape buffalo, giraffes, impala and others I may have already forgotten. The others are great bird lovers and quite knowledgeable as is Mario, and we saw many different types of birds, some with fantastic coloring (bright blues and yellows and greens), and some eagles (one a tawny eagle). We returned at 9:00. Getting out of the bus, a penny lay on the step and I insisted that Mario keep it, and told him that the man on the coin was our greatest President, the man who freed the slaves.
Saint Patrick
After breakfast, we had about 20 minutes to brush our teeth, use the toilet, etc. before we departed at 10 for the Samburu village a few miles away. Upon our parking on the top of a hill, next to their village, we were met with Patrick, an attactive and well-spoken young man who explained that he was the Secretary of the Samburu, and he introduced the Chief standing next to him. a 45 year old man wearing a red skirt and a pinkish shawl over his shoulder and a “Ryder Cup 2004” hat. Patrick further explained that they had a school and that they raised money for the school through these presentations to visitors. So we paid to the Chief our $20 per person and watched a dance show of about 10 men who were later joined by 6 or so women, all colorfully dressed and wearing large necklaces (not sure of the proper term but collar like - you all have seen them).
Patrick then led us into the village made up of quonset hut style buildings belonging to the Samburu (so shaped because it matches the shape of their sacred mountain in the distancet, and round huts (like rondovals that we saw in SA) that belonged to the other tribe in the village. There are appoximately 350 in this village - 2000 or so total under this Chief in 7 different village separately placed on the large savannah. Patrick took us into the round house, a house for a family of 10 who eat there, but only the parents and children under 7 slept there - children over 7 slept in another house, and the grandparents had another house altogether. The hut had walls that were made wth dung, water and grass, I think, and only the women are permitted to make the houses. After a year and a half, they are forced, due to termites, and general deterioration of the roof made out of intertwined twigs, to make a new house - always made in the dry season. The village is surrounded by brush with sharp thorns on the branches to keep wild animals out, and the cattle, sheep, donkeys owned by the villagers are placed in a corral enclosed by brush as well. We saw no animals as they were off grazing. And we saw no schoolage children as today is the last day of exams for them. The community is run by a council of elders who choose the Chief and the Secretary and there is a meeting every 3 days to iron out any problems. At the end of the month, they meet to have the Chief report on the funds available and they use the funds to pay the teachers, pay for the person servicing the health clinic, buy school supplies, etc. I asked if we could contribute money to purchase mosquito nets for them, and Patrick readily agreed and stated that he had told us all this so that we could contribute whatever we wanted toward their health fund - to cover evacuations when bitten by a poisonous snake, care for malaria, hospitalization, etc. So we all contributed more money for the community. After watching a fire lighting demonstration with sticks, donkey dung being the kindling, we were treated to another dance and then we had to go to the market, more aptly described as a gauntlet of about 30 women on each side stretching 40 yards or so, each pleading with you to buy something. I made it through unscathed. Well, not really, the Chief called me “my friend” and handed me his fly swatter made with the tail hair of a giraffe, and then said he would sell it to me for $30 - I said $10 and we settled on $20. Then Patrick came up and thanked me for my contributions, and said I had really helped them out and he wanted to give me his club in appreciation - of course for another $30. I gave him $20. These encounters are tough to take but quickly forgotten as Mario and I got into a discussion about Obama, Obams’s father (who grew up in a village like this one) and Abraham Lincoln - I explained the significance of the penny he had found and how Obama patterned his run for the presidency upon much of Lincoln’s experience when he was running 148 years before. His eyes absolutely lit up when I described Wikipedia and what he could do with that. We have a lot of laughs (especially when I bring up our 400-500 meter “mountains” ) and he says, “Tall mon, you are so funny. I will not forget you when you leave.” Nor will I you, Mario.
“I will protect you.”
Bay and I put on our bathing suits and went to the pool. Of course, there was an iguana near our chaises so we had to move, We took a dip and returned to our chaises where I almost fell asleep when Bay said, “Well, I guess I’ll have to go back to the room.” I sat up. “Why?” “Because of him,” pointing to a baboon about 20 feet away. I said “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” She replied, “You said that last night with a little tiny lizard. How are you going to handle a baboon?” “Bay, you’re in Africa!” And laid back down as she huffed and puffed and uneasily sat back, calculating that the baboon had to climb over me to get to her. Then a whole colony of baboons invaded us, swinging from limb to limb, crashing down onto the hotel and the cottages. But we stayed for awhile longer.
Mario’s Mission
We were told to congregate at the front desk at 3:45 so that we could be off at 4 as “we have a long way to go.” When everyone was there by 3:50, we departed with Mario driving over hill and dale, speeding by giraffes, herds of buffalo, warthogs, oryxes, impala, a couple vultures, elephants - nothing was stopping him. We drove on and on, me hanging on in the back seat (where I am relegated on game drives), and the miles really flew by when we hit Interstate 95, a high plateau with no bushes at all, and flat.
Oh, by the way, the people at our dinner table tonight, thought Bay was in her late twenties.
Okay, continuing, after fixing the muffler which Mario had broken on the first couple miles, we just flew down the dirt road on this plateau. After about an hour we joined two other vehicles at a spot with two CHEETAHS, a mother and a baby. They had made a kill the previous day and were very logy. Mario circled them so that they would get up and go to a better spot to photograph and what a show it was! Just spectacular and the photos are phenomenal. I’ll try to send one with the blog again tonight. So Mario accomplished his mission - he had a one track mind and there was no way we weren’t going to see these cheetahs! Good job, Mario.
And did I tell you that the people at our table tonight, Dave, Jackie, Rhys and Jane, thought Bay was in her late twenties, and thinking that I must have been very wealthy and dying from malaria or some such disease that would take me away quickly to have such a babe. Sounds good to me.
And by the way, Mario said he has cancelled my flight home. He wants me to be an attorney and he will collect the money for me. So, Sugar, better start making arrangements, getting Kandi the necessary shots, etc.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt, Bwana
PS Mario calls me “T.M.” What does that stand for? I’ll start with the easy questions. First one who responds correctly will get a prize.
PPS Tomorrow we leave at 7 for Lake Nakura, a 300 km drive.
PPPS I had lamb flakes for dinner with some fish and rice. It was great as the food has been all along.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
My father's son
My father’s son; Peter’s white linen suit: Mario; Crossing the Equator; Simba’s pups
I am my father’s son, and Janet had to pee
Last night at supper, we signed up to have someone wake us anytime any animals showed up. And animals showed up, at 1:00 or so, at 2:00 or so and again at 3:30. There was a wild pig the first time (I couldn’t see it without my contacts); and deer or antelope the second time (yawn), but the third time the knock came at the door, I moved to the window while Janet headed the opposite way to the bathroom. I looked down at the waterhole flooded with the spotlights from the hotel - nothing. Then in the corner of my left eye, I detected movement. I turned and watched this dark figure slink from left to right, on the other side of the pond, hoping that it was a leopard, but not seeing clearly and wishing Bay would hurry back. But, oh no, she went on and on and on, while the shadowy figure passed across my sight, and just going into the forest at the right when Bay reached my side. At breakfast, someone asked, “Did you see the leopard last night?” Well, yes I did, but with my eyesight, it might as well have been a raccoon.
We found Peter’s white linen suit!
Several days ago, Ursula sent me an email telling me to look out for Peter’s white linen suit that he wore to meet her and a friend many years ago. He arrived in this suit, it being too small and making him look like a pimp or Mafioso. After two days, Ursula and her friend finally convinced Peter to give away, and he did to a taxi driver who was thrilled. Well, we have discovered it and I even have a picture to prove it. It is now owned by the Assistant Manager at the Hotel Serena at Mt. Kenya. His name is Titus and it looks great on him, fitting him to a “T” and making him look very professional. So, Peter and Ursula, rest assured that your suit has been put to good use, and it has finally found a home with an honorable young man.
Mario
David is our driver and I have named him “Mario” because he is an excellent driver under very adverse conditions, 3 or 4 speed bumps in a space of 200 yards every mile or so in some areas; dodging pedestrians, goats, cattle, and other impediments to a safe trip like a real pro (like Mario Andretti); and then when it got really tough, driving in the dusty dirt for hours beside the road under construction and maintaining his good sense of humor (he wants to laugh, he said, every time I speak Swaheli) and patience. David, 2 brothers and 2 sisters, grew up in the home of a “white man” in which his father was a cook. When David got to be school age, the white man told his father that it was time for David to go to school and the man saw that David was educated. David is not a cook, and now thanks the white man so that he could get a job “better than being a cook.” His father died of prostate cancer at age 67 six years ago, and his mother has moved out of Nairobi and lives with her divorced daughter. One of his brothers is a taxi driver and the other works in a hotel, and he feels they are very fortunate. He said he did not know what happened to the white man or his family. They haven’t kept in touch. As he was telling me this, we are driving by these huge farms growing acres and acres of wheat and pyretheum or something, a natural bug repellent I believe, or a farm that raises flowers to send around the world. I asked him who owned these enormous farms - each time he replied, “A white Kenyan.” As you will see, there is great discrepancy in wealth in Kenya. So I am sitting shotgun on the front seat of the van with Mario and we are having a good time kidding each other. At one point, I asked a Swaheli question, whether I should refer to this woman who had helped us as “bibi” (meaning young woman) or “mama,” meaning older woman. He laughed and said I should say, “Assante sana, Madame.” And I corrected him, that Madame was a French term. Bay pipes up from the back, “Oh, and now you’re correcting his Swaheli?”
Crossing the Equator
We left Serena Mountain lodge at 9 and arrived at the Equator an hour and a half later. There was a sign saying “Equator” and we were given a demonstration of pouring water in a pot with a hole 20 yards north of the Equator, where the two matches in the water turn clockwise, and the reverse 20 yards south of the Equator. And the water pours through the hole in a spiral as well. At the Equator, the water poured out without any spiral whatsoever. Bay and Nat, meet the Coriolis Effect. Unfortunately I also met a few other people as there is a “shopping center” at the site of the Equator, and I had promised David that I would come see his wares at Store No. 6 after the demonstration. After picking out two items, he said that the price was 6000 Ksh, or about $75. After haggling, I said I would pay him $20. He objected so I started to leave when I was surrounded by others saying “No problem.” I was then turned over to Dennis to do the “paperwork” in the next store, and while he did the papers, I was to look as his wares and pick something out to “sustain” him and his father sitting at the front entry. I declined and after some unpleasant discussion, I said I had a present for him. I left the store, got my suitcase out, took out an Obama bumper sticker that I had brought with me, and only by giving that to him was I able to leave his store with my purchases and without buying something from him. Of course, others surrounded me and wanted an Obama sticker, pin, or maybe shoes or my Harley hat. We left.
Later en route I had a similar experience, and when I refused to buy anything, I got quite a lecture about my responsibility to him and his family, They were poor, I was not, and I had a responsibiltiy to help him. Sounded right to me. Two bracelets and giving him a pen later, I was freed from my responsibility. Bay just shook her head.
Simba’s pups
We continued on, the last 1 1/2 hour over dry, dirt, dusty roads next to a new highway in the early stages of construction by ... the CHINESE. Mario did a great job, and after a slight hiccup going to the wrong hotel, we arrived at 2:30. We had lunch and then joined Mario for a game drive through the Samburu National Park or Game Preserve or something. He told us to say “Stop” when we saw something and he would stop for us. Wrong, We would see an elephant or giraffe or lion, yell “Stop” and he would keep on going because he had already seen the animal and got us to a better position for pictures. After following two male lions down a dry riverbed and watching them drink their fill in a small pool, we moved on and soon came upon a female lion with 3 small “puppies” as we were told. The puppies were playful, jumping on each other while the lioness looked on, panting in the 90 degree heat. We also ran across 7 giraffes together, a zebra, elephants, impalas, and many other types of antelope, and many varieties of birds. It was a spectacular show and will be tough to beat in the coming days.
MIscellany
There is a Mt. Kenya - I got up early and there wasn’t a cloud in the 48 degree dawn sky, and we had a view of Mt Kenya with its glaciers for much of our ride. Spectacular.
We had Mary as our waitress at the Mountain Lodge and she was great, although worried about Bay’s inadequate food intake.
It is much hotter here in Samburu and shorts are the thing to wear.
Our van has a top that pops up so that all six of us can stand up and take pictures. We can’t get out of the vehicles.
The water from the faucet is incredibly hot here so you must be careful.
We are all on malaria medication and tonight sleeping with mosquito nets around our beds.
Dave, a retired ex-Los Alamos alum, and his British wife, Jackie, are in our van. They’re from New Mexico and are very nice.
Please forgive the length of these emails.
Good night.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt, etc.
I am my father’s son, and Janet had to pee
Last night at supper, we signed up to have someone wake us anytime any animals showed up. And animals showed up, at 1:00 or so, at 2:00 or so and again at 3:30. There was a wild pig the first time (I couldn’t see it without my contacts); and deer or antelope the second time (yawn), but the third time the knock came at the door, I moved to the window while Janet headed the opposite way to the bathroom. I looked down at the waterhole flooded with the spotlights from the hotel - nothing. Then in the corner of my left eye, I detected movement. I turned and watched this dark figure slink from left to right, on the other side of the pond, hoping that it was a leopard, but not seeing clearly and wishing Bay would hurry back. But, oh no, she went on and on and on, while the shadowy figure passed across my sight, and just going into the forest at the right when Bay reached my side. At breakfast, someone asked, “Did you see the leopard last night?” Well, yes I did, but with my eyesight, it might as well have been a raccoon.
We found Peter’s white linen suit!
Several days ago, Ursula sent me an email telling me to look out for Peter’s white linen suit that he wore to meet her and a friend many years ago. He arrived in this suit, it being too small and making him look like a pimp or Mafioso. After two days, Ursula and her friend finally convinced Peter to give away, and he did to a taxi driver who was thrilled. Well, we have discovered it and I even have a picture to prove it. It is now owned by the Assistant Manager at the Hotel Serena at Mt. Kenya. His name is Titus and it looks great on him, fitting him to a “T” and making him look very professional. So, Peter and Ursula, rest assured that your suit has been put to good use, and it has finally found a home with an honorable young man.
Mario
David is our driver and I have named him “Mario” because he is an excellent driver under very adverse conditions, 3 or 4 speed bumps in a space of 200 yards every mile or so in some areas; dodging pedestrians, goats, cattle, and other impediments to a safe trip like a real pro (like Mario Andretti); and then when it got really tough, driving in the dusty dirt for hours beside the road under construction and maintaining his good sense of humor (he wants to laugh, he said, every time I speak Swaheli) and patience. David, 2 brothers and 2 sisters, grew up in the home of a “white man” in which his father was a cook. When David got to be school age, the white man told his father that it was time for David to go to school and the man saw that David was educated. David is not a cook, and now thanks the white man so that he could get a job “better than being a cook.” His father died of prostate cancer at age 67 six years ago, and his mother has moved out of Nairobi and lives with her divorced daughter. One of his brothers is a taxi driver and the other works in a hotel, and he feels they are very fortunate. He said he did not know what happened to the white man or his family. They haven’t kept in touch. As he was telling me this, we are driving by these huge farms growing acres and acres of wheat and pyretheum or something, a natural bug repellent I believe, or a farm that raises flowers to send around the world. I asked him who owned these enormous farms - each time he replied, “A white Kenyan.” As you will see, there is great discrepancy in wealth in Kenya. So I am sitting shotgun on the front seat of the van with Mario and we are having a good time kidding each other. At one point, I asked a Swaheli question, whether I should refer to this woman who had helped us as “bibi” (meaning young woman) or “mama,” meaning older woman. He laughed and said I should say, “Assante sana, Madame.” And I corrected him, that Madame was a French term. Bay pipes up from the back, “Oh, and now you’re correcting his Swaheli?”
Crossing the Equator
We left Serena Mountain lodge at 9 and arrived at the Equator an hour and a half later. There was a sign saying “Equator” and we were given a demonstration of pouring water in a pot with a hole 20 yards north of the Equator, where the two matches in the water turn clockwise, and the reverse 20 yards south of the Equator. And the water pours through the hole in a spiral as well. At the Equator, the water poured out without any spiral whatsoever. Bay and Nat, meet the Coriolis Effect. Unfortunately I also met a few other people as there is a “shopping center” at the site of the Equator, and I had promised David that I would come see his wares at Store No. 6 after the demonstration. After picking out two items, he said that the price was 6000 Ksh, or about $75. After haggling, I said I would pay him $20. He objected so I started to leave when I was surrounded by others saying “No problem.” I was then turned over to Dennis to do the “paperwork” in the next store, and while he did the papers, I was to look as his wares and pick something out to “sustain” him and his father sitting at the front entry. I declined and after some unpleasant discussion, I said I had a present for him. I left the store, got my suitcase out, took out an Obama bumper sticker that I had brought with me, and only by giving that to him was I able to leave his store with my purchases and without buying something from him. Of course, others surrounded me and wanted an Obama sticker, pin, or maybe shoes or my Harley hat. We left.
Later en route I had a similar experience, and when I refused to buy anything, I got quite a lecture about my responsibility to him and his family, They were poor, I was not, and I had a responsibiltiy to help him. Sounded right to me. Two bracelets and giving him a pen later, I was freed from my responsibility. Bay just shook her head.
Simba’s pups
We continued on, the last 1 1/2 hour over dry, dirt, dusty roads next to a new highway in the early stages of construction by ... the CHINESE. Mario did a great job, and after a slight hiccup going to the wrong hotel, we arrived at 2:30. We had lunch and then joined Mario for a game drive through the Samburu National Park or Game Preserve or something. He told us to say “Stop” when we saw something and he would stop for us. Wrong, We would see an elephant or giraffe or lion, yell “Stop” and he would keep on going because he had already seen the animal and got us to a better position for pictures. After following two male lions down a dry riverbed and watching them drink their fill in a small pool, we moved on and soon came upon a female lion with 3 small “puppies” as we were told. The puppies were playful, jumping on each other while the lioness looked on, panting in the 90 degree heat. We also ran across 7 giraffes together, a zebra, elephants, impalas, and many other types of antelope, and many varieties of birds. It was a spectacular show and will be tough to beat in the coming days.
MIscellany
There is a Mt. Kenya - I got up early and there wasn’t a cloud in the 48 degree dawn sky, and we had a view of Mt Kenya with its glaciers for much of our ride. Spectacular.
We had Mary as our waitress at the Mountain Lodge and she was great, although worried about Bay’s inadequate food intake.
It is much hotter here in Samburu and shorts are the thing to wear.
Our van has a top that pops up so that all six of us can stand up and take pictures. We can’t get out of the vehicles.
The water from the faucet is incredibly hot here so you must be careful.
We are all on malaria medication and tonight sleeping with mosquito nets around our beds.
Dave, a retired ex-Los Alamos alum, and his British wife, Jackie, are in our van. They’re from New Mexico and are very nice.
Please forgive the length of these emails.
Good night.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt, etc.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
How did Kenya get its name? Don't even try.
The Great Migration; Performance by Benson
And where do I begin on a day where so much made me so speechless. When in doubt, “begin at the beginning, and go on until you reach the end, then stop.”
After a wonderful breakfast of fried eggs, bacon and all the fixings, we met our guide, David, who would be taking us on safari, and loaded our bags in the van. He is native to Nairobi, a city of 3.8 million in a country of 38 million. The drive out of the city was much easier than the drive into the city last night, and after 45 minutes or so, we were in the countryside. I sat in the front seat with David and, despite my wish to keep up a conversation with him, I became stunned by the people - hundreds of men just sitting by the side of the road; hundreds of men walking along the side of the road, or pushing a bicycle laden with most anything (an auto tire, charcoal bricquets, whatever), or riding along on a bicycle, or stopped by the side o;f the road trying to fix the bicycle; and the women, women carrying huge loads of firewood, or goods on their backs, or digging in the fields, or dressed to the nines carrying a suitcase. And the homes - homes built with roofs of corrugated steel (is it steel?), with rust all over, the same color of the earth of the path or way leading to the home. No electricity; no plumbing; their garbage collection was to dig a hole by the side of the road and then throw their garbage in it and cover it back up. And we passed scores of schools, grade schools, high schools, colleges, teacher schools, and many, many Christian churches, all tiny. Our road turned from a 4-lane divided highway, to a 2-lane road, and finally to a one-lane road into our Serena Lodge at Mount Kenya. But it was never a 2 or 4-lane road because that is not counting the two lanes outside the road, the lanes used by those walking; usually wide enough for just one person, and some wide enough for 3 or 4 to walk abreast, but always there until we reached the Mt. Kenya National Park access road - no pedestrians are allowed in here. The wildebeests have a huge migration and what I saw today made me think of that. It’s a tough place to live for these people, and you tack on the drought they’re having and the horrendous financial situation (no one is coming to visit), and it is almost disastrous.
After lunch at our lodge (check it out on the Internet), a log cabin type structure overlooking a mud pond where a lot of buffalo were sitting around and hopefully later elephants, we signed up for the nature walk through the forest, led by Benson, a 25-30ish Kenyan. He was most demonstrative in his presentations, enunciating each syllable and speaking slowly but accenting syllables and pronouncing words in a different manner so you had to concentrate to get the information he was seeking to impart. It was like going to a play starring Benson. Among other things I learned that Kenya got its name from Mt. Kenya, the highest mountain in Kenya. And the mountain got its name from Swaheli “Kii nyaa”, meaning “place where the ostrich lay” because the top of Mt. Kenya has dark rocks with the glacier, making it look like the Somali ostrich which is supposed to be black and white. The British anglicized the name to Kenya, pronouncing it “Keenya” and then when Kenya became independent, its first president was Jomo Kenyatta so the pronunciation changed to conform to the pronunciation of his name. And I also learned that Mau Mau (as in the Mau Mau rebellion from 1952-1958) consisted of abbreviations of Swaheli words - the first MAU being “whites go back to Europe” and the second being “Kenyans obtain independence” or “Uhuru” (being the "U" in the second MAU) as we’ve learned from the movie of that name.
We’re off to dinner in a few minutes, and we will let them know in writing what animals we wish to see and they will knock on our door in the night if that animal appears. Sounds good to me - I’d like to see a leopard, and they bait a platform on a tall post just in front of and slightly below our balcony. Bring it on.
PS By the way, being the excited animal watcher I am, I took a picture of this “teal” (Bay’s word) iguana or lizard on the lawn just below us, three stories down. I had never seen one, and grabbed my camera and took a picture of it, while calling Bay. She put her binoculars on it - it was a piece of wood or bark. I guess I better not quit my day job - I’m no threat to Benson.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt and Bwana
PPS Tomorrow we leave at 9 AM for a 6-hour drive down dusty, bumpy roads but we’ll stay there at Samburu for two nights which will be nice.
PPPS And they are so worried that we will be cold up here at 7200 feet elevation, they put a hot water bottle in my bed and gave me an electric blanket. And Mt. Kenya? Haven't seen it yet due to the clouds.
And where do I begin on a day where so much made me so speechless. When in doubt, “begin at the beginning, and go on until you reach the end, then stop.”
After a wonderful breakfast of fried eggs, bacon and all the fixings, we met our guide, David, who would be taking us on safari, and loaded our bags in the van. He is native to Nairobi, a city of 3.8 million in a country of 38 million. The drive out of the city was much easier than the drive into the city last night, and after 45 minutes or so, we were in the countryside. I sat in the front seat with David and, despite my wish to keep up a conversation with him, I became stunned by the people - hundreds of men just sitting by the side of the road; hundreds of men walking along the side of the road, or pushing a bicycle laden with most anything (an auto tire, charcoal bricquets, whatever), or riding along on a bicycle, or stopped by the side o;f the road trying to fix the bicycle; and the women, women carrying huge loads of firewood, or goods on their backs, or digging in the fields, or dressed to the nines carrying a suitcase. And the homes - homes built with roofs of corrugated steel (is it steel?), with rust all over, the same color of the earth of the path or way leading to the home. No electricity; no plumbing; their garbage collection was to dig a hole by the side of the road and then throw their garbage in it and cover it back up. And we passed scores of schools, grade schools, high schools, colleges, teacher schools, and many, many Christian churches, all tiny. Our road turned from a 4-lane divided highway, to a 2-lane road, and finally to a one-lane road into our Serena Lodge at Mount Kenya. But it was never a 2 or 4-lane road because that is not counting the two lanes outside the road, the lanes used by those walking; usually wide enough for just one person, and some wide enough for 3 or 4 to walk abreast, but always there until we reached the Mt. Kenya National Park access road - no pedestrians are allowed in here. The wildebeests have a huge migration and what I saw today made me think of that. It’s a tough place to live for these people, and you tack on the drought they’re having and the horrendous financial situation (no one is coming to visit), and it is almost disastrous.
After lunch at our lodge (check it out on the Internet), a log cabin type structure overlooking a mud pond where a lot of buffalo were sitting around and hopefully later elephants, we signed up for the nature walk through the forest, led by Benson, a 25-30ish Kenyan. He was most demonstrative in his presentations, enunciating each syllable and speaking slowly but accenting syllables and pronouncing words in a different manner so you had to concentrate to get the information he was seeking to impart. It was like going to a play starring Benson. Among other things I learned that Kenya got its name from Mt. Kenya, the highest mountain in Kenya. And the mountain got its name from Swaheli “Kii nyaa”, meaning “place where the ostrich lay” because the top of Mt. Kenya has dark rocks with the glacier, making it look like the Somali ostrich which is supposed to be black and white. The British anglicized the name to Kenya, pronouncing it “Keenya” and then when Kenya became independent, its first president was Jomo Kenyatta so the pronunciation changed to conform to the pronunciation of his name. And I also learned that Mau Mau (as in the Mau Mau rebellion from 1952-1958) consisted of abbreviations of Swaheli words - the first MAU being “whites go back to Europe” and the second being “Kenyans obtain independence” or “Uhuru” (being the "U" in the second MAU) as we’ve learned from the movie of that name.
We’re off to dinner in a few minutes, and we will let them know in writing what animals we wish to see and they will knock on our door in the night if that animal appears. Sounds good to me - I’d like to see a leopard, and they bait a platform on a tall post just in front of and slightly below our balcony. Bring it on.
PS By the way, being the excited animal watcher I am, I took a picture of this “teal” (Bay’s word) iguana or lizard on the lawn just below us, three stories down. I had never seen one, and grabbed my camera and took a picture of it, while calling Bay. She put her binoculars on it - it was a piece of wood or bark. I guess I better not quit my day job - I’m no threat to Benson.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt and Bwana
PPS Tomorrow we leave at 9 AM for a 6-hour drive down dusty, bumpy roads but we’ll stay there at Samburu for two nights which will be nice.
PPPS And they are so worried that we will be cold up here at 7200 feet elevation, they put a hot water bottle in my bed and gave me an electric blanket. And Mt. Kenya? Haven't seen it yet due to the clouds.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
No "stripper pole"
No “stripper pole” nor bloodstain, just bars on the windows
So February 23-24, 2009 me of you have heard that Bay was relieved when she saw our hotel room here in Jamaica (no, not THAT Jamaica) - there was no “stripper pole” in the middle of the room, and she couldn’t find any bloodstains on the floor from a recent murder, as she found when, 2 years ago, we stayed at the Skyview Hotel (actually the only hotel in NYC without a view of the sky). Of course, here we have bars on our windows, we are in the basement, people walking by on the sidewalk can look into our room, and there was a shootout this morning at the Best Western nearby as we learned from the news on TV. On the bright side, it is a flatscreen TV. Life is good. And when the shuttle van pulled up to take us to the airport, it said “Holiday Inn Express, Best Western” but I didn’t see any bullet holes.
Big Papi’s friend
Arriving at the airport 7 hours before the scheduled departure calmed me down, and a visit from Toby helped pass the time. He looked good although his loss of a job has depressed him so spread the word, Toby needs a job and would make someone a very good lawyer (how’s that for networking, Toby?). The check-in started at 2:30 for a 6:15 departure and we were in the first 6 in line. We were unable to get exit row seating but the attendant changed my seat and assured me I would have “all that room” pointing at her computer screen showing me plenty of room in front of my seat. But when we boarded the A330, it turned out that seat 25B had the same lack of room as all the other seats and all the “room” on her computer screen was the bathroom across the aisle from me. A large man came up and said he had seat 25A beside me, but seeing how I was crammed in the seat, he took the seat in front of me. A few minutes later, he was thrown out of that seat so he came and sat beside me. We started talking - he was on his way to Zurich (pronouncing the “h”) because his sister had just died there of cancer. His mother had flown over, rented a car and driven to the hospital to find her daughter already deceased, and he was flying over to be with his mother. He had a soft smile and kind eyes, and was from the Dominican Republic ( a “Dominican Republican”?). He, Elias, was a professional trumpet player, the no. 1 trumpet in a 14-member band that had 3 concerts scheduled for this coming weekend, one of them at Madison Square Garden. So his trip would be short as he had to return to rejoin the band in time for these important concerts. He is friends with other famous Dominican Republicans - Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez and David Ortiz (“Big Papi” to Red Sox fans), and even had 4 autographed batting gloves in his bag that he was taking back to his son who is a developing baseball star at home. Can you find out his full name for me and the name of the band for if I get to the DR, I will want to go see him play?
I did get to change my seat to a bulkhead seat, took an Excedrin PM and actually slept 3 or 4 hours on our 7-hour flight to Zurich.
$800 glasses
And of course, after landing in Zurich and making our way through security, who was there to meet us but Peter and Ursula. They looked great even though they had just arrived from a 12-hour flight from Bangkok. They told us the story of how Peter lost his glasses in the taxi in Bangkok and he had to get new glasses when they arrived in Phuket for their vacation. He had to go to an optometrist an hour away and after taking his eye exam, the optometrist gave them a ride back to Phuket saving them a taxi fare. And when the glasses were ready 2 days later, he even drove them to Peter. “And what about the fancy pen?” Ursula asked. Peter proudly took out a nice pen that the optometrist had given him “for free.” And the cost of the glasses? $800! Translated, the glasses cost $250, the two trips to Phuket cost $225 apiece, and the pen cost $100. But the glasses look great - they say “Mercedes Benz” on them. Peter proudly told us that he had bought two pairs of reading glasses as well, the first pair being too weak (so he was saving that for Ursula for when she would need them) and so he had to buy another pair. And due to Ursula’s diligence,when they returned to Bangkok, they recovered the glasses Peter had left in the taxi cab. Apparently, the doorman at their hotel noted the number of the taxi on a hotel business card and gave them the card as they entered the taxi. Upon their return 2 weeks later, after numerous phone calls by Ursula, the glasses were waiting for them at the hotel in Bangkok. Peter exclaimed with delight, “Yes, I spent over $1,000 on glasses.” Some people buy mementoes on vacation, and Peter? Well..... It was great to see them and Peter even got our seats changed to bulkhead seats so that we would have room on our 7 1/2 hour flight to Nairobi.
I’m typing this, legs stretched out in my bulkhead seat, at our cruising altitude of 37,000 feet as we cross over from Libya to Sudan (over Tibesti Mountain as the map on the screen shows), about 4 hours to go. Our route took us over Florence, Rome, Naples, Sicily, Benghazi, and now through central Sudan and then into Kenya. The plane is almost empty, a complete surprise, but we have met several other Friendly Planet people who will be on our trip. Bay is holding up well and we’re getting pretty excited - we’re due to land at 7:05 tonight.
And yes, like you, I am thinking of the people below us in Darfur. And of Elias and his mother.
Nairobi = Swaheli for “chaos”
And now we’re here after a wonderful flight from Zurich on an almost empty plane, passing through customs and no check of our bags whatsoever to meet our guide, James. I changed some money, and then boarded the bus with our eleven others, for the trip into Nairobi, only 20 km, to take 25 minutes, an hour or all night depending on the traffic according to James. Well, the first 8-10 miles went fairly peacefully, with only four accidents en route, ambulances wailing away heading toward the airport, and dark figures darting on and off the highway. Then we hit the roundabouts - these normally work well when people give others the right of way, but not here. It’s just everyone for himself. As we waited at the roundabouts for our turn, little urchins would come up to our minibus offering us peanuts for $1 to “buy books for school.” Janet warned me not to do something “bad.” So we continued on with our stop and go and they would run along side and then when we really got going, they would dart to the side of the road and run as fast as they could to catch us at the next stop. After about an hour and a half, we arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel, and after a briefing by James, adjourned to our room where we decided we really, really needed to visit the bar. Two Tuskers later, we are both feeling much better.
And my Swaheli has been a big hit. But when I asked our waitress in Swaheli if she understood Swaheli, she asked in English, “What are you trying to say?” Well, she pricked that balloon.
Tomorrow we split up into two groups of six. I know which group we’ll be in, the group with the older lady who can’t stop talking, You just wind her up and she’s good for at least an hour of nonstop monologue. Like, as we came in from the airport, she was sitting next to Bay and after a wonderful 2 minutes of silence, she exclaimed, “You know, I don’t have a flatscreen TV.” And off she went for another 20 minutes of why she didn’t have a flatscreen TV. I heard something from Laura recently about talking, when to talk, when not to talk and we should ask ourselves, “Does it improve on silence?”
And with that I have gone on long enough. Good night. Sleep tight.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, etc.
So February 23-24, 2009 me of you have heard that Bay was relieved when she saw our hotel room here in Jamaica (no, not THAT Jamaica) - there was no “stripper pole” in the middle of the room, and she couldn’t find any bloodstains on the floor from a recent murder, as she found when, 2 years ago, we stayed at the Skyview Hotel (actually the only hotel in NYC without a view of the sky). Of course, here we have bars on our windows, we are in the basement, people walking by on the sidewalk can look into our room, and there was a shootout this morning at the Best Western nearby as we learned from the news on TV. On the bright side, it is a flatscreen TV. Life is good. And when the shuttle van pulled up to take us to the airport, it said “Holiday Inn Express, Best Western” but I didn’t see any bullet holes.
Big Papi’s friend
Arriving at the airport 7 hours before the scheduled departure calmed me down, and a visit from Toby helped pass the time. He looked good although his loss of a job has depressed him so spread the word, Toby needs a job and would make someone a very good lawyer (how’s that for networking, Toby?). The check-in started at 2:30 for a 6:15 departure and we were in the first 6 in line. We were unable to get exit row seating but the attendant changed my seat and assured me I would have “all that room” pointing at her computer screen showing me plenty of room in front of my seat. But when we boarded the A330, it turned out that seat 25B had the same lack of room as all the other seats and all the “room” on her computer screen was the bathroom across the aisle from me. A large man came up and said he had seat 25A beside me, but seeing how I was crammed in the seat, he took the seat in front of me. A few minutes later, he was thrown out of that seat so he came and sat beside me. We started talking - he was on his way to Zurich (pronouncing the “h”) because his sister had just died there of cancer. His mother had flown over, rented a car and driven to the hospital to find her daughter already deceased, and he was flying over to be with his mother. He had a soft smile and kind eyes, and was from the Dominican Republic ( a “Dominican Republican”?). He, Elias, was a professional trumpet player, the no. 1 trumpet in a 14-member band that had 3 concerts scheduled for this coming weekend, one of them at Madison Square Garden. So his trip would be short as he had to return to rejoin the band in time for these important concerts. He is friends with other famous Dominican Republicans - Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez and David Ortiz (“Big Papi” to Red Sox fans), and even had 4 autographed batting gloves in his bag that he was taking back to his son who is a developing baseball star at home. Can you find out his full name for me and the name of the band for if I get to the DR, I will want to go see him play?
I did get to change my seat to a bulkhead seat, took an Excedrin PM and actually slept 3 or 4 hours on our 7-hour flight to Zurich.
$800 glasses
And of course, after landing in Zurich and making our way through security, who was there to meet us but Peter and Ursula. They looked great even though they had just arrived from a 12-hour flight from Bangkok. They told us the story of how Peter lost his glasses in the taxi in Bangkok and he had to get new glasses when they arrived in Phuket for their vacation. He had to go to an optometrist an hour away and after taking his eye exam, the optometrist gave them a ride back to Phuket saving them a taxi fare. And when the glasses were ready 2 days later, he even drove them to Peter. “And what about the fancy pen?” Ursula asked. Peter proudly took out a nice pen that the optometrist had given him “for free.” And the cost of the glasses? $800! Translated, the glasses cost $250, the two trips to Phuket cost $225 apiece, and the pen cost $100. But the glasses look great - they say “Mercedes Benz” on them. Peter proudly told us that he had bought two pairs of reading glasses as well, the first pair being too weak (so he was saving that for Ursula for when she would need them) and so he had to buy another pair. And due to Ursula’s diligence,when they returned to Bangkok, they recovered the glasses Peter had left in the taxi cab. Apparently, the doorman at their hotel noted the number of the taxi on a hotel business card and gave them the card as they entered the taxi. Upon their return 2 weeks later, after numerous phone calls by Ursula, the glasses were waiting for them at the hotel in Bangkok. Peter exclaimed with delight, “Yes, I spent over $1,000 on glasses.” Some people buy mementoes on vacation, and Peter? Well..... It was great to see them and Peter even got our seats changed to bulkhead seats so that we would have room on our 7 1/2 hour flight to Nairobi.
I’m typing this, legs stretched out in my bulkhead seat, at our cruising altitude of 37,000 feet as we cross over from Libya to Sudan (over Tibesti Mountain as the map on the screen shows), about 4 hours to go. Our route took us over Florence, Rome, Naples, Sicily, Benghazi, and now through central Sudan and then into Kenya. The plane is almost empty, a complete surprise, but we have met several other Friendly Planet people who will be on our trip. Bay is holding up well and we’re getting pretty excited - we’re due to land at 7:05 tonight.
And yes, like you, I am thinking of the people below us in Darfur. And of Elias and his mother.
Nairobi = Swaheli for “chaos”
And now we’re here after a wonderful flight from Zurich on an almost empty plane, passing through customs and no check of our bags whatsoever to meet our guide, James. I changed some money, and then boarded the bus with our eleven others, for the trip into Nairobi, only 20 km, to take 25 minutes, an hour or all night depending on the traffic according to James. Well, the first 8-10 miles went fairly peacefully, with only four accidents en route, ambulances wailing away heading toward the airport, and dark figures darting on and off the highway. Then we hit the roundabouts - these normally work well when people give others the right of way, but not here. It’s just everyone for himself. As we waited at the roundabouts for our turn, little urchins would come up to our minibus offering us peanuts for $1 to “buy books for school.” Janet warned me not to do something “bad.” So we continued on with our stop and go and they would run along side and then when we really got going, they would dart to the side of the road and run as fast as they could to catch us at the next stop. After about an hour and a half, we arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel, and after a briefing by James, adjourned to our room where we decided we really, really needed to visit the bar. Two Tuskers later, we are both feeling much better.
And my Swaheli has been a big hit. But when I asked our waitress in Swaheli if she understood Swaheli, she asked in English, “What are you trying to say?” Well, she pricked that balloon.
Tomorrow we split up into two groups of six. I know which group we’ll be in, the group with the older lady who can’t stop talking, You just wind her up and she’s good for at least an hour of nonstop monologue. Like, as we came in from the airport, she was sitting next to Bay and after a wonderful 2 minutes of silence, she exclaimed, “You know, I don’t have a flatscreen TV.” And off she went for another 20 minutes of why she didn’t have a flatscreen TV. I heard something from Laura recently about talking, when to talk, when not to talk and we should ask ourselves, “Does it improve on silence?”
And with that I have gone on long enough. Good night. Sleep tight.
Love, Nat, Dad, DB, etc.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
What does a Depression look like?
And what does a Depression look like?
Hearing the forecast yesterday for a 10” snowfall starting today and reviewing the aviation charts for today, I called Delta to see if we could change our flight from 1 PM back to 6 AM to make sure we get to NYC so we can be sure to make our flight to Kenya tomorrow (a very nervous traveler here). The Delta rep heard my story, then checked the availability on the 6 AM flight and told me to just go to the airport in the morning and it would only cost $50 per ticket to change the reservation, rather than $150 per ticket plus the price differential if I changed the reservations over the phone with him. I thanked him. And up we got at 3 AM, drove to Bangor, made our ticket change, paid our $50 per person and off we flew at 6 to JFK. Of course, going through security with my titanium knees and hundreds of electronics in my carryon made the TSA drool - Bay says traveling with me is like traveling with Gammy, except I don’t carry (and don’t even try to carry) a Swiss Army knife through security.
We had a quick flight to JFK, deplaned and arrived at Baggage Claim to find ONE bag, Bay’s. It’s a nonstop flight and they’ve lost my bag? A lady from Delta came over to help and after several phone calls, she determined that the bag did make the plane. After several more phone calls to her staff, she concluded that my bag must have fallen off the conveyer belt, and had someone check for it. Bingo. And down the ramp it came with a bound. I thanked her.
We walked toward the street, and a guy asked if he could take us to the city. I told him that we had a reservation at a local hotel and would try to catch the shuttle. Fine, he said, “you need to take the Air Train to Station C.” I thanked him and we headed for the Air Train.
After arriving at Station C, we followed the chute (looks like the kind they use to herd cattle to the slaughterhouse but it has a canvas top over it) to the “Shuttles to Hotels” area, parking our bags on the sidewalk to the right. An airport employee asked what we were waiting for, I told him, and he said we were in the wrong spot and we should move under the shelter where the shuttles come, pointing to our left. I thanked him and we moved our bags. I was beginning to see a pattern about now.
A Marriott van pulled up. The driver put his window down and asked where we were going. I told him and he said he would have taken us but it was a little too far and our shuttle would be along shortly. I thanked him.
Our van did arrive a few minutes later, and we disembarked at the Holiday Inn Express concerned that we might have to sit in the lobby for 4 or 5 hours since it was only 8:30. The desk man welcomed us, told us he had a room right away, and by the way, we could have their free breakfast. He gave us our room key. I thanked him. After a large breakfast, we are in our room ready for a nap.
So this is what a Depression looks like - people who might have ignored you in the past all doing a little extra to help you out. I mean, this is JFK! This place eats people up, and spits them out, always the worse for wear. So what’s going on?
Times are going to be tough, and I thought it would get really ugly, but maybe it’s going to be just the opposite. This is our time to prove our worth, and maybe we’re beginning to understand that. Or....
it was just Sunday morning and people weren’t busy and had nothing better to do....
Hearing the forecast yesterday for a 10” snowfall starting today and reviewing the aviation charts for today, I called Delta to see if we could change our flight from 1 PM back to 6 AM to make sure we get to NYC so we can be sure to make our flight to Kenya tomorrow (a very nervous traveler here). The Delta rep heard my story, then checked the availability on the 6 AM flight and told me to just go to the airport in the morning and it would only cost $50 per ticket to change the reservation, rather than $150 per ticket plus the price differential if I changed the reservations over the phone with him. I thanked him. And up we got at 3 AM, drove to Bangor, made our ticket change, paid our $50 per person and off we flew at 6 to JFK. Of course, going through security with my titanium knees and hundreds of electronics in my carryon made the TSA drool - Bay says traveling with me is like traveling with Gammy, except I don’t carry (and don’t even try to carry) a Swiss Army knife through security.
We had a quick flight to JFK, deplaned and arrived at Baggage Claim to find ONE bag, Bay’s. It’s a nonstop flight and they’ve lost my bag? A lady from Delta came over to help and after several phone calls, she determined that the bag did make the plane. After several more phone calls to her staff, she concluded that my bag must have fallen off the conveyer belt, and had someone check for it. Bingo. And down the ramp it came with a bound. I thanked her.
We walked toward the street, and a guy asked if he could take us to the city. I told him that we had a reservation at a local hotel and would try to catch the shuttle. Fine, he said, “you need to take the Air Train to Station C.” I thanked him and we headed for the Air Train.
After arriving at Station C, we followed the chute (looks like the kind they use to herd cattle to the slaughterhouse but it has a canvas top over it) to the “Shuttles to Hotels” area, parking our bags on the sidewalk to the right. An airport employee asked what we were waiting for, I told him, and he said we were in the wrong spot and we should move under the shelter where the shuttles come, pointing to our left. I thanked him and we moved our bags. I was beginning to see a pattern about now.
A Marriott van pulled up. The driver put his window down and asked where we were going. I told him and he said he would have taken us but it was a little too far and our shuttle would be along shortly. I thanked him.
Our van did arrive a few minutes later, and we disembarked at the Holiday Inn Express concerned that we might have to sit in the lobby for 4 or 5 hours since it was only 8:30. The desk man welcomed us, told us he had a room right away, and by the way, we could have their free breakfast. He gave us our room key. I thanked him. After a large breakfast, we are in our room ready for a nap.
So this is what a Depression looks like - people who might have ignored you in the past all doing a little extra to help you out. I mean, this is JFK! This place eats people up, and spits them out, always the worse for wear. So what’s going on?
Times are going to be tough, and I thought it would get really ugly, but maybe it’s going to be just the opposite. This is our time to prove our worth, and maybe we’re beginning to understand that. Or....
it was just Sunday morning and people weren’t busy and had nothing better to do....
Monday, February 16, 2009
Anticipation; Visas; eight plus six equals two
A great joy in any trip is the anticipation you feel as the months and days count down to D-day. I read the medical information for the countries and the CDC's recommendations, and then went to Bangor and got $450 worth of shots and medicines to keep me "safe."I ordered Pimsleur's Swaheli CD's (10 of them) and have been listening to them for at least a month, back and forth to work in my car. I am reading "Out of Africa" and will watch the movie before I leave. I ordered the Lonely Planet "Kenya" guide and have been reading those portions of it that cover the places in our itinerary, those portions providing additional Swaheli phrases, and comments on the history and literature of Kenya. I stay up late looking at maps of the places we will visit and I visit the websites of the hotels, lodges and camps where we will stay. I go to the CIA World Fact Book and look up Kenya and Tanzania and marvel at their life expectancies (younger than me in both countries!) and other facts of their existence such as the fact that the median age in both countries is about 18. I ordered "safari" pants for our safari, pants where you can unzip the bottom half of the legs to create shorts, and a safari long sleeve shirt, all to keep the malaria-carrying mosquitoes away. I created this blog so that I can hopefully make it available to those who wish to follow us on our journey.
And I got visas for Janet (Bay) and me, hiring CIBT to attend to dealing with the Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies, and that was another $500 (only $300 of which was for the fees charged by the countries for the visas). How nervewracking that was to send away our passports to some company in Washington, D.C. 6 weeks before our departure not knowing if we'd ever see them again. So for peace of mind, I added "insurance" at $12.50 per passport (I'm not sure what that got me other than the additional charge). And then came the call that my credit card would not accept their charge for these services. Guess I should start paying my bills.
And in my last two Swaheli CD's, I learned that "eight is equal to two" - in time that is. Apparently, they measure time from 6 A.M. and 6 P.M. So if you say "Sasa ne za nane" (I know. YOU probably don't go around saying that.), it literally means "now it is at eight" but what it really means is that, in our time, "it is two o'clock." Eight hours after six o'clock is two o'clock, right? Go figure.
And I got visas for Janet (Bay) and me, hiring CIBT to attend to dealing with the Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies, and that was another $500 (only $300 of which was for the fees charged by the countries for the visas). How nervewracking that was to send away our passports to some company in Washington, D.C. 6 weeks before our departure not knowing if we'd ever see them again. So for peace of mind, I added "insurance" at $12.50 per passport (I'm not sure what that got me other than the additional charge). And then came the call that my credit card would not accept their charge for these services. Guess I should start paying my bills.
And in my last two Swaheli CD's, I learned that "eight is equal to two" - in time that is. Apparently, they measure time from 6 A.M. and 6 P.M. So if you say "Sasa ne za nane" (I know. YOU probably don't go around saying that.), it literally means "now it is at eight" but what it really means is that, in our time, "it is two o'clock." Eight hours after six o'clock is two o'clock, right? Go figure.
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