Return from Kenya

I have just reading your report but have taken the freedom to copy your thread in to another interesting one: The death of the Kenyan safari?" because there is a discussion going on regarding behaviour of minibus drivers etc.

Now I am going to read thru your lines....

Welcome back!

SV

Filipa
Good you liked Governors and you were quite lucky to see the leopard and almost a cheetah kill!

When you report about the elephants - I had the same experience once when one particular elephant came back night after night to "work" on bushes right around our tent.....in the end we became used to it

SV

I thought your response was timely in light of the "Death of the Kenyan Safari" thread.

Thanks for your candid thoughts on what you liked and disliked and comparisions with other travel in Africa.

Sorry you had only 2 hippos on your second night, instead of 11 elephants. The fact that you knew it was 11 makes me think you were nervously peeking out of the tent windows at night and watching the activity.

Glad you had some good experiences in the Mara.

Could you please comment on crowds and other vehicles? Thank you.

Hi

About the number of vehicles, I did not notice mini bus at Mara. I saw a lot of them in way back, from the plane (near Kikexe I believe).
In Governors area in a spot like lions...we find sometimes around 5 cars...
To see the crossing I count around 12 cars (Land cruisers)...and that I believed that it is too much and may cause some stress at animals, and may change their behaviour.
I believed that the main problem is that all cars may go out of roads.
That is not possible at Etosha or Kruger.
So animals can preserve their privacy.
In Okavango vehicles can drive out of roads, but the vegetation is more difficult to cross, and there are only a few cars in each area. Camps at Okavango have 12 tents…10 tents…I have no idea of any camp who has more then 20 tents.
At Mara, maybe the cars could be bigger and transport 6 or 8 tourists. But it is not easy, as the vehicles must be comfortable for everyone.

At Nakuro I really doubt that the drivers of Mini buses know anything about wildlife...they drive so fast...with no respect for animals...space...lots of dust...me and my husband were obliged all the time to close the window...

FO

Filipa
5 cars at a lion pride and 12 at a crossing: You can consider yourself extremely lucky and "thanks" to the credit crunch.
In "normal" years you might find up to 20/30 cars at a lion pride and more than 50 at a crossing.

Good you did your safari in 2009.

SV

Maybe...as was my first time in Kenya, I can not compare...
But it is true that I choose Governors Camp only 5 days ahead...at out first night there, the place was quite empty (35% occupancy, I believe). The others 2 nights it had about 80% occupancy.

For animals, at Mara, the note is 10. For the Camp, I consider that although very good, is not exclusive as others Camps in Okavango, so the price should be less expensive.
When a camp as 12 tents…and an excellent service, I understand that we must pay more.
If the camp in bigger, there are some cost that maybe cut down.
I have some difficulty to understand the prices in Kenya.

Filipa

"I have some difficulty to understand the prices in Kenya."

Filipa - you are not the only one who questions the "value for money" in Kenya.

SV

Hi Filipa! We too are just back from the Mara - perhaps we passed each other - we spent a lot of time in the marsh near Governors' Camp. It was a beautiful area!

We actually found that the drivers/guides were quite well behaved in the Mara Triangle thanks to the Rangers who patrol constantly to ensure that the strict rules are followed. They were handing out fines quite readily to those who stayed too long at a kill, were too close to the animals, went off road even by a metre (we received a warning when two wheels of our vehicle went off the road as we steered our 4x4 around another vehicle when leaving a kill - ridiculous, really - we had to leave because our 10 minutes was up and we couldn't get past the other vehicle!). We also watched as a ranger shooed everyone away from a lion and lioness that were next to the road - the ranger wasn't allowing anyone to be there. Not sure why - I guess he thought the lions had had enough. Radios have been banned from the Triangle to prevent the mass of vehicles that appear at any predator sighting, but the guides have simply switched to cell phones so the problem continues. The minibuses are annoying - they drive like lunatics from one sighting to the next, stirring up dust as you said and disturbing both the animals and folks like us who creep around the parks. I am not sure what the solution is - perhaps they will ban cell phones next.

We found both Kenya and Tanzania quite expensive - US$50 pp/pn for the special campsites (on top of vehicle fees and park conservation fees) but like you, given all that we saw and experienced, we feel that it was money well spent. The lodges and tented camps were expensive, but it was great to have the occasional hot shower - tossing cold water over your head is refreshing after a hot day, but there is nothing like standing under a stream of hot water....and three-course dinner. Serian Camp in the Mara seemed to be doing well (Ngare Camp was full on all three nights that we were there), while at Lemala (at Ngorongoro) 4 of the 8 tents were full on the first night and 6 of the 8 tents were full on the second night. We never found the parks busy (with the exception of one crossing where there was 21 vehicles - we didn't stay), but then we chose to drive the back roads to avoid the minibuses. The animals seem to have figured this out too - we always had our best sightings in the most isolated areas.

Based on our experience, we would return to both Kenya and Tanzania tomorrow if we could - we would self-drive and camp again, with a few nights of luxury at tented camps thrown in. Robin

Robin
These are very good news regarding the monitoring in general in the Mara! That was long over due....
But chasing cars away from lions which are laying close to the road is going over the top. These cats would not lay there is they didn't like it. I would have been curious whether a "bill" would have had an impact

Regarding the minibuses - there was a thread recently dealing also with that problem and I got bashed for "blaming minibuses".
Anyway - great to have your first hand experiences as well.

SV

I must admit that we found the ranger chasing the vehicles away from the lions a bit annoying, but we don't know what events led to it - we were coming back from the Wilderness Area and arrived just in time to see it happening. It may have been that the vehicles were too close or that there were too many of them - I can't say. It was the only time we witnessed this happening.

Threatening to fine us for driving partly onto the shoulder of the road as we went around another parked vehicle to leave a sighting in the allotted time was ridiculous, however (we were breaking the "no driving off-road" rule apparently). I would have been very annoyed if the ranger had made us pay the fine. They will put both self-drivers and guides off if they take the rules too far.

And you're correct - I shouldn't have called them all "minibuses" - I was refering to all vehicles - the open safari vehicles, the SUVs and the minibuses - I should have been more specific with my description - it was the minibuses that we saw most often so I generalized, which I shouldn't have done. Some of the minibus drivers were the best behaved. Some of the worst offenders were the safari vehicles from the Serena lodge. Robin

I know exactly what you mean Robin.
It's extremely difficult to not generalise when describing a major issue to get across what one means.

And yes - we have also witnessed bad behaviour by camp guides - in 2006 a Governors' guide/vehicle almost drove over 2 cheetahs which were running and at one stage jumping into the tracks when the guide was pressing hard at them and speeding........

SV

Wow! I am glad we didn't witness anything like that! Robin