Your ideas make perfect sense to me. Thanks for articulating--eloquently, by the way--what I'm sure many feel.

It couldn't have been said in a clearer way.

You've summed it up perfectly MyDogKyle. So eloquent for a canine!

Thanks, you guys. I wanted to be sure it didn't come across as "all about me."

So, I'm trying to figure out the least time-consuming way to share some photos before I get too much farther into the trip. Here's a link to a little test album on Snapfish (since I already have all my photos on that site). Let me know if it works without you having to sign up for an account with Snapfish.

http://tinyurl.com/2qeule

If this doesn't work, I'll look into some other options.

"All about you!" Of course not. There's Kyle too!

I think we all expect your thread to be all about your trip and you, so it's not like you are droning on in person and no one can get in a word about anything.

That reminds me of the comment, "Most conversations are monologues with spectators."

The more detail, the better reference your report will be for the future.

I used to read comments from someone
who posted who would go on and on about themselves, their trip, the luxury of it all, in the midst of someone else's report. I didn't care for that.

Oh no, I hope I am not turning into someone who goes on and on in the midst of someone else's report!

No worries, you're not one of those people!

I mainly meant to emphasize this strange tension right now between me writing about my wonderful experiences of several months ago, and then seeing in the news every day that the same area is in such distress. I want to be sure that it doesn't seem like I'm saying, "Oh, the poor people of Nakuru... now back to MY amazing trip!!" And from your comments, I know you guys understand where I'm coming from.

Any chance the photo link works? Were you able to try it?

I get you.

Kyle (I assume) appears in the photo link. It also appears you must register. I don't know if you can control that part. In Kodakshare you can have people register or not.

Worked for me. Kyle is a beautiful dog.

What you describe, an acute awareness of suffering and injustice colliding with joy and amazement, informs, I think, many African trip reports.

Thanks, Leely! (Kyle says thanks, too.) He's one of those wonderful mutts that got the best of whatever breeds are in him. And what you said about travel in Africa is absolutely true (in other parts of the world as well, of course).

Never mind that link, then. Yes, the test album was just a few pictures of Ky and a bunny. I can't seem to figure out how to make my pictures accessible where they currently are without requiring a login, so I'll have to move a few over to another site...

I can't remember if I've registered to see past Snap Fish albums or not. I know I've viewed Snap Fish albums and even used the site at one time.

I think people can put in a fake email, so anyone who doesn't want to register for real can do that.

Unfortunately Snapfish does require you to sign in to view photos (I double-checked)... and also unfortunately I don't have time to set up new albums on another site (considering how long this report is taking me just to write!).
But one thing I do really like about Snapfish (other than that it's free and they make good quality prints) is that you can view the slideshow on a black background. As Lynn suggested, you can always create a fake account if you want to view them. And if that is too much hassle, feel free to skip my photos (I am certainly not one of those expert photographers you see on this board!).

Having said that, here are some pictures to go with the report so far. I've included all the photos we took of the camps and lodges, in case that will help anyone plan their own trips. I've also included some of the less-than-expert shots we took out the windows as we passed through towns. Sometimes blurry, but these are some of my favorites. And, of course, a few animals...

Nairobi, Mt. Kenya and Samburu:
http://tinyurl.com/2ox9cs

Sweetwaters and Lake Nakuru:
http://tinyurl.com/38j6kj

Hope to get another installment posted this weekend.

I tried to create a Snapfish account, but discovered I already had one!

Thanks for the photos. It looks so sunny and warm everywhere, even in Nairobi. Elephant Bedroom really does look like a nice camp. You’ve captured the essence of Samburu in a perfect way. I particularly liked the dustrolling zebra. It was also nice to see the fronts of some business establishments.

In Sweetwaters I like the bushes full of lion cubs. I know young lions can be a bit spotted, but yours were the most spotted I’ve ever seen. The baby oryx and baby zebra were adorable. As were the baby humans. Lake Nakuru looked more like the cloudy Kenya I know. Waterbucks and flamingos in the rain is a nice combination.

PART 9 – “Death and the Mara” (Sept. 30th, 2007)

Today was almost entirely taken up with driving: a very long, bumpy, dusty drive (yes I know I’ve described length and bumpiness and dustiness on previous drives, but this was like nothing that had come before it) from Lake Nakuru to the Masai Mara, a brutal trip that lasted about 7 hours and really helped us understand the concept of flying safaris. But as with our other drives in Kenya, we were glad to have the chance to see the country from the ground, to pass through small villages and wave back at waving children and feel like our small picture of Kenya is a bit more complete than it would have been if we’d only seen the national parks.

We drove via Naivasha, a place that struck me as particularly odd because of the huge hillside mansions I could see from the rutted, torn-up road. Most of them appeared to be still under construction, or perhaps abandoned. I wondered what the deal was with that. Just about every inch of the road seemed to be under construction—lots of trenches dug and piles of gravel and heavy machinery about, but nothing actually going on. Every now and then we would see a guy with a shovel. The ice cream bus bounced and jolted along in a permanent cloud of grit, little rocks pinging off the windows, and we passed the time by listening to a mix of East African music my husband had brought along for just such a day—feet up, buffs over our mouths and noses, really feeling like travelers. Every now and then we’d hit a smooth(ish) stretch of road, and each time it was a welcome relief. But I enjoyed the rough parts, too, just being here.

We stopped a few times, as usual, to get a cold drink and use the toilet at curio shops. At one of them, my husband decided to ask about some beaded bracelets, just to see how the prices would compare with the lodge shops. The guy wanted $40 for three little bracelets, which sold for about $3.50 each at the lodge! Even using the “offer half” method of bargaining, this was absurd. But someone must pay it, because he wouldn’t budge below $30. Oh well, not a big deal and we didn’t want them that badly anyway. We thanked him and walked off, and he just honed in on the next group walking through the door. Our next potty stop was a relief in more ways than one—I was so happy to just hop out of the bus at a gas station and use a plain old squat toilet, rather than having to dodge a sales pitch. As I left the toilet, the gas station attendant apologized, saying “you are brave to use our terrible toilets,” but it wasn’t bad at all. I’ve seen much, much worse. Plus, James bought a bunch of sweet little bananas from a passing vendor, and we all shared them on the next leg of the drive.

Heading south, the landscape became increasingly dry and flat, the trees few and far between. We were starting to see Maasai men and boys walking along the road in bright red, herding cattle and goats. Several times I saw these guys standing alone in the middle of nowhere with their animals, staring off at the horizon, and I wondered what they think about all day, how they pass the time.

Then, something happened that would alter not only this day, but how I will forever remember our trip to East Africa. We saw a group of people over by the side of the road, with a handful of vehicles pulled over and some brightly-dressed Maasai women gathered in a group. All the cars on the bumpy road were slowing to look as they drove past. We both initially thought that these safari vehicles were stopped to buy crafts from the women, but there just seemed to be a lot of standing around—all these people in safari clothes, standing very still. No one was crying, no one looked especially upset… which is why it took us a moment to realize what was actually going on. I can only imagine they were in shock. Because there on the side of the road was white minibus just like ours with its blunt nose crushed in, so pulverized that huge torn strips of metal were peeled away from it like the skin of a banana. There was no other vehicle nearby to explain what had happened, but it looked as though it had hit something very large (a truck?) head-on. The front door was hanging open. And inside, I could see the driver crushed in his seat—his slack arm, the side of his leg in tan safari pants, pulled up to expose his bright white sock, his dark shoe. So still. My husband told me later that he also saw another person’s body on the ground outside the minibus, this one with a blanket draped over it. But I only saw the driver, and I will never forget how he was—trapped in the minibus that he’d climbed into that morning at some lodge, maybe even the same one we’d left that morning, and now he was dead and no one had even covered him with a blanket. What was his story? Did he have a family somewhere who didn’t know yet what had happened? Had he driven this same road hundreds of times, from Nakuru to the Mara, just like everyone else? Everywhere on this road—in front of us, behind us, as far ahead as we could see—were vehicles just like this, and how easily could this have been any of us?

James did not stop, just gruffly said, “We go now,” and I wanted to argue with him that we should stop and see if we could help, but I couldn’t say a word. I suppose I sort of understand his not wanting to get us involved, and I can only imagine what thoughts went through his head at such a sight. But I still felt such a horrible, hollow feeling; I could see that driver’s image burned on my brain, and I started to cry. I was as silent as I could be, not wanting to make things worse, but my husband reached across the aisle between our seats and grabbed my hand and did not let go. This is something that will always be a part of my memories of Africa, a blunt reminder that no matter how dreamlike these weeks might seem to us, what a fantasy it is for us to visit Africa, this is a real place just like any other. So many times we’ve been floating on that traveling high, forgetting how everything is so fragile. I thought of all the minibuses and Land Rovers we’d seen racing past each other and narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic, and I was grateful for James’ good driving. But mostly I felt miserable for those poor people who had lost their lives, everyone involved in that horrific scenario, and I thought with some irony of the kinds of things people had “warned” me about when I’d said we were going to East Africa—aren’t you afraid of wild animals attacking you? Aren’t you afraid of robbers and bandits and Nairobi’s reputation? Didn’t you see “The Ghost and the Darkness?” When really, the greatest danger we faced on this trip was the same one I face every day in my commute to work.

Farther along, we passed two more minibuses pulled over to the side, all their passengers standing or sitting outside on the shoulder of the road, many of them crying this time. We couldn’t tell what had happened here, because the vehicles did not look like they’d crashed and no one looked injured—maybe mechanical problems. Since no one else had stopped, this time James slowed and called out the window to the other driver to see if they needed help, but they waved us on. By this point we’d had quite enough of this cursed road, and I no longer felt like an intrepid, happily dust-covered traveler. I just felt sick at heart and wanted it to end soon, and I wondered when I would be able to enjoy this adventure again, and how often I would feel guilty when I did so.

We were now fully into Maasai country, passing the occasional boma with mud-walled huts (and once a group of concrete block houses with a satellite dish) surrounded by acacia-thorn fences. At one small park by the roadside I saw several thatched umbrellas over benches, with a sign that said, “Karibuni Shade Site.” Which gives you some idea how hot and vast and treeless this area is. We were somewhere past the busy town of Narok when we began to see animals of the wild variety rather than just cattle and goats – tommies and a giraffe nibbling at a lone acacia and a pair of black ground hornbills with their brilliant red bellies. And finally we’d made it, to the gates of the Masai Mara. As soon as James parked the bus to settle our paperwork, several Maasai women hurried up to our windows, knocking and asking where we were from and waving handfuls of beaded jewelry and plastic-wrapped blankets in our faces. Since our windows were still closed against the hot wind and dust, it was awkward and we felt very rude. “Hapana, hapana, thank you, we’re not interested,” we kept saying, but since no other cars were around they concentrated all their energy on us until we pulled away into the park. I completely understand why they do this, and it must work sometimes… but at the same time, it was hard to always be saying no to people through the window. It would certainly be pointless to keep telling everyone that we’ve already bought souvenirs elsewhere, let alone that after paying for this safari we really can’t afford to spend very much more! Because, of course, to them we are wealthy enough to buy something from everyone.

Our first animal sighting in the park is a common one, but still one of our favorites: Burchell’s zebras in a large herd, with a few wildebeest mixed in. Our first look at some of those clever migrating critters. Can we say we’ve “seen the Great Migration,” we wondered, if they aren’t actually leaping into a river or running en masse around our vehicle?

We stopped for lunch at the Mara Sarova, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful to get out of a car… or felt more disoriented and guilty and miserable looking at an overflowing buffet. I was still shell-shocked and sad from the day’s events, and I felt like I was walking in a strange dream. I ordered a Tusker beer and ate some fruit and tried to appreciate that this was a really beautiful place.

We had our first real Mara game drive on the way from the Sarova to the Mara Serena lodge, located farther into the park. At first it seemed as though the Mara might be closed for business—just wide, empty plains with the close-cropped grass that proved the migrating herds had already come and gone. But gradually we began to see some animals: a group of elephants, vultures, a hartebeest with two small babies, warthogs. And before long our eyes could pick out hundreds, then thousands of dark specks in the distance which as we drew closer became the clear outlines of wildebeest and zebras on the vast plains. They had settled in to graze in a new area with long grass. Still one of the most striking memories I have of all the animals we saw in Africa were these massive herds spreading as far as the eye could see—particularly when it was one or two bright zebras mixed in among the dark bodies of wildebeest with their long beards and funny, charming faces.

One of our new animals on this game drive was the topi—a sleek, muscular antelope with a russet coat and dark bluish-grey patches, that can’t be mistaken for anything else. They like to stand up on termite mounds to survey the territory, and we began to see their familiar shapes all around us, as well as reedbucks, impalas, and Thomson’s gazelles with their frantically swishing little tails. We drove over to the border between Kenya and Tanzania, marked by concrete pylons. The one nearest to us was marked with a faint “K” and “T,” so we took a photo with me in Kenya and my husband in Tanzania (I know, about as original as that picture we took on the Equator!). We could see some wildebeest across the border, and felt a faint pang that we wouldn’t be visiting the Serengeti. But you’re not allowed to cross freely back and forth between the two countries here—only the animals can do that. “It is not right,” James told us. “There should not be such foolish rules. It is only people who see a border here.” And then, with a twinkle in his eye, he told us that the Serengeti is really “just the southern Masai Mara!”

As we neared the Mara River bridge, a smell began to seep through the open windows and quickly overwhelmed us—the sweet, meaty stench of decaying flesh. But this was no ordinary kill. We paused on the bridge and looked down into the river to see the gruesome but fascinating sight of hundreds and dead wildebeest: a carpet of dark bodies washed up on the river’s banks and lodged against stones and branches in the water. Marabou storks were busy walking through and over the bodies, doing their cleanup work, while white-backed vultures sat patiently above, waiting for their turn. This was the grim result of a river crossing a few days earlier, all the poor wildies who hadn’t made it. Their bodies had floated downstream to this point and almost dammed the river with their mass. I wondered how the rangers stationed here could stand it, to be enveloped in this smell all day long (perhaps after a while you don’t smell it anymore?). So, we wondered, NOW can we say we’ve seen the Great Migration?

Shortly after moving on from this grim scene, James delivered on the joking promise he’d made to show us a male lion in the Mara (so far we’d seen lionesses and cubs, but none of the Big Guys). “Now your safari is complete,” he announced with satisfaction as we discovered a group of lions that included several females and one shaggy-maned male, all just waking up from their afternoon snooze. The male cracked his eyes open and looked at us just briefly, a moment of his golden gaze on mine, and then he went promptly back to sleep. But the females were getting ready for business. They spotted a warthog noodling around some distance away, and after a brief exchange of glances with the other lionesses, one of them got up and started heading its way—first strolling casually and then moving into a stalk with her body close to the ground. Every few feet she would pause on her belly to watch the oblivious warthog some more, tense and alert. This went on for a long time, and we started to have hopes that we might witness a kill. But eventually the warthog ambled cheerfully away, none the wiser, and the lioness just flopped back down into the grass for another nap. It was getting late, and time to head onward to the lodge. Along the way we passed some large herds of antelopes and gazelles: more tommies, grants, impalas, topis. It’s amazing how even these huge groups of animals are dwarfed by the vast space around them.

The Mara Serena was quite a place, a big lodge with a spectacular setting high on a hill and a view out over the river and the wide plains beyond. From the entrance it was an unassuming building, but around back the rooms were an arc of little huts, with terraced patios and gardens, a swimming pool and a fire pit on the side of the cliff, and a small balcony with sliding doors in every room—so many ways to soak up that view. The architecture was delightfully funky, what my husband described as “Maasai meets Gaudi.” Our room was the very last hut in the row, with a reading nook near the balcony and a huge, curvy mirror surrounded by colorful Maasai beadwork. Right outside was a path that climbed up rocky steps to yet another inspiring view. Fat little hyraxes darted along the footpaths, taking refuge in the drainage holes and occasionally stopping to pose for a picture.

After dinner, we were pleasantly surprised (considering the size of the lodge and the number of guests here) to see and hear so much animal activity from our room. Geckos crawled along the walls of our balcony and several bats hung in a nearby tree, occasionally darting out to catch insects and then circling back to the same upside-down perch. We also heard a wonderful chorus of sounds in the pitch-darkness below—hippos grunting, a lion’s roar, and the whoop and cackle of hyenas. I fell asleep to their voices, thinking about what an awesome, horrific, overwhelming day this had been. Such extremes of highs and lows, such amazing and awful sights, that by the end I simply felt numb.

I am new to these blogs. I have enjoyed your thread. We, my DH, myself and 2 friends, all who have traveled and worked around the world, Italy, Turkey, Thailand, Mexico, and others, are going to Tanzania and Kenya 6/6/08-06/23-08 on an OAT "Safari Serengeti" extension to Masai Mara.

I have really appreciated the time that those of you who have taken to post your thoughts, feelings about your trips. Also the packing, clothing, etc., that have worked for you. I will be taking my cinnamon jaw breakers from Craker Barrel, because I quit smoking June 2007 and every once in a while I would "kill" for a cancer stick, and sucking on one of these takes care of this problem for me. What can I say, "I'm a cheap date on a Saturday night". LOL

One thing that I have noticed that has not been addressed is that several of the travel sites mention taking "snacks" that you want to have with you. However, with the meals mentioned, I can not imagine that we would "want" for food. Not to mention that I could lose some pounds. BIG LOL

I think that personally that I could do without extra "goodies".

Oops, maybe I should have made this another thread??

llorear,
You will probably get more answers if you start a separate thread "Snacks on Safari" or something equally enticing. But regardless, please keep posting and asking and answering questions. It helps make this board a richer place (and, whoa, I didn't think it could get any richer on this board ).

MdK--great photos. More, more, more!

MyDogKyle,

What a jarring and upsetting experience and you conveyed it so powerfully. It was not what I had in mind when I read the title of this section.

You are so right about the real vs. perceived dangers.

Then to have the masses of decaying wildebeest, though a normal part of nature, must have added to the macabre nature of your day.

If you are able to give me a quick email, MyDogKyle, I wanted to ask you something. Thanks.

Thanks again to those of you still reading (even the depressing parts). I'll post some Mara pictures at the end of our stay there.

llorear, I'm glad you're enjoying my report. You'll probaby get more responses to your question if you start a new thread, as Leely mentioned. But funny you should ask about snacks right after I posted the bit about the dead wildebeest... because this was one time I was really happy we'd brought some ginger candies with us! (nice smell, and good for upset stomach) Generally, though, we never needed to have snacks on safari. The lodges give you so much food it's absurd, and while a safari is non-stop mental activity, there's really very little physical activity most days.

MDK, thanks for another quality instalment ranging from reality in its worst form to the topi.

The two minibuses you saw after the crash site probably were in the same tour group and had got a message about what had happened to the people travelling behind them. I hope I don’t come across as too morbid having this kind of theory …

Llorear, you could lose some pounds and you think you could do without the extra goodies. Don’t take any snacks with you! Sometimes it’s easy to tell people what they should do. I’ll start doing it more often.

MdK, just caught up on your recent post. How terrible for everyone, especially the guide and the other person you saw underneath the blanket. No shortage of suffering in this world, huh? It takes all shapes, visit all spots, some, it seems, sadly, so much more often than others.