AmyH

bix 6 - we absolutely loved Larsen's Camp . . the setting by the river, the tents were beautiful, food was probably the best of the trip.

Leopards were spotted in the Aberdares (crossing the road and staring at us)Samburu (crossing a road and in the classic leopard on a tree branch), Sarara (two different night drives). I'm missing one, but don't have my notes.

bat

Amy:
I did not think that you were being an alarmist and all that I meant re more discussion was more details to put it into context--get a sense of how anomolous it was, etc and see if other posters knew about other incidents.

I had never heard of any such incidents in TZ on the safari routes.

Thanks for the extra information.

AmyH

NAIROBI

We dropped our bags at the Norfolk and headed out of Nairobi to Giraffe Manor. A good way to start the trip for the kids with up close encounters with the Rothschild Giraffes that will eat out of your hand. We spent some time there and then asked J if there was anywhere that we could go for a walk . .we needed exercise! Luckily, across the road there is a nature area and we are able to go for a walkabout for 1/2 hour where we can get a close look at some of the old men giraffes and get our first glimpse at what a serious birder J is. Immediately, it is infectious, and by the end of our trip, we are all calling out when we see lilac breasted rollers, superb starlings, maribou stork and other of the more popular African birds. We have lunch at the Rusty Nail in Karen, a very delightful spot with excellent curry and a wonderful cheese plate of Kenyan cheeses, and, of course, our first Tuskers of the trip.

We then made our way to visit our first secondary and primary schools to bring our soccer balls and pumps (and whisteles for the teachers) to the kids.
We toured both schools and talked to the principals. They are proud of their facilities and have plans for expansion. The primary school has a room for its library, but no books yet. The primary school has over 500 students and about 15 teachers. If they want more teachers, the community has to the raise the funds to pay for extra teachers. The students are all in uniform and classes are taught in English in the secondary schools and Swahili in the primary schools although they also have an English class. The primary school is mandatory and supported by the governement so attrition is not too bad -- most of the tribes and farming community want their kids to go to school. Secondary is mostly private and there is a much higher attrition rate, about 50% between Form 1 and Form 4. It is more typical for families to choose which of their childern are going to go to secondary school and then to go the village elders or work to get the necessary tuition funds.
Both schools are neat and organized and the secondary school has a computer lab even though the bathrooms are pit toilets (outhouses) with no running water. This is Africa, a series of constant juxtapositions and seeming incongruities that somehow work.
The students are thrilled with the soccer balls and immediatley ask our kids to join them on the pitch. The girls all touch my daughter's long brown hair. At first, she is uncomfortable but over time comes to accept this little ritual. At the primary school, the principal asks the students to sing to us and they sing beautifully, in English, a Christian spiritual, as almost all of the schools have some church affiliation. It is a really great introduction to the people of Africa.
We return to Nairobi winding past the the endless slums that surround the city and that were featured in the movie the Constant Gardner. They are rampant with malaria and AIDS. I can't help thinking that these families have left their bomas of cow dung for this . . and it is so much worse. A quite night at the Norfolk and off to bed, our first day in Africa complete.

cindysafari

Amy,
Can't wait to hear about Sarara...we are meeting up with friends in September who will already have been in Kenya for a week before us, and one of the places they are staying at is Sarara. Hope you liked it there!

AmyH

NAKURU AND NAIVASHA (LLODIA HOUSE)

A relatively leisurely start as we head to Wilson for our charter flight to Lake Nakuru. Given the state of the road between Nakuru and Naivasha that comes later, I am very glad we opted for the charter flight. In an hour (as opposed to 4), we are seein cape buffalo and giraffe on the fringe of the airstrip. They have sent a Land Rover and driver, Sammy, down from Llodia House, with a cooler full of drinks and a picnic lunch and we are off for our first game drive in Africa through Lake Nakuru National Park. It is a perfect place to start the trip as the animals are abundant, easy to track, and it gives the kids a chance to get used to using their binoculars and practicing using their quiet voices when they see something exciting, like a mother and baby white rhino going for a stroll!
J and Sammy (and soon the kids) are great trackers. Together, we find black and white rhino (Wow! That tree over there has a really wide trunk. That's not a tree trunk, it's a rhino . .good spot), impala, gazelle (grant's have pants and thompson's don't) vervet monkeys, baboons, herds of zebras, giraffes and, of course, tons of birds, not including the lake of flamingos and pelicans. It is relatively quiet in the park, very few other vehicles. We avoid the crowds and go for lunch at a more secluded picnic area -- Acacia, ask for it. Lunch is yummy chicken pasties, quiche, eggs, chocolate cake and thermoses of coffee and tea.

We drive out of the park and start on the "highway" to Naivasha -- a horrificly pot holed filled road that is jarring from start to the 2 1/2 hour finish at Llodia House on the far shore of Lake Naivasha. I have already learned that the driver tip is key and should not be messed with in any way.

Llodia was built by Italian POW's brough to Kenya by the British. Our room (#1) is quite large and sits in the front of the house with leaded glass windows facing the lawn and the Lake. There are also two separate cottages, but we did not check out those rooms. We tried to take a walk to stretch our legs at around 6pm but are told it would upset the cape buffalo that are on the property so instead we are "escorted" from a distance around the grounds by one of the staff members.

We go out in two cars for a night game drive before dinner. We are back with Sammy! We see spring hare, and two hippo that have left the water to start their nightly feast of grass. After dinner, they will join us on the lawn and around our windows for most of the night.

Dinner is a communal affair, with Peter the manager quite the story teller. We are joined by a Frecnh couple that live in Portugal and an Italian couple from Tuscany. Dinner is a multi-course affair and it is delicious. No weight loss on this trip. It is quite damp and chilly. Luckily, we have water bottles in our beds to ward of the chill and off we drift to sleep to the sounds of hippos chomping and a steady rain.

7/28 - CRESCENT ISLAND

We leave our son home in bed as he is not feeling well and the four of us join the French couple for a rough and cold crossing to Crescent Island where some of Out of Africa was filmed. Our guide, Moses, meets us and it is good to be able to walk. Most of the animals on the island were actually brought there for the filming of Out of Africa and to make the island an attractive location for film crews and are quite domesticated. Our daughter is impressed that parts of one of the TombRaider movies with Angelina Jolie were filmed on the island as well. I am impressed with the baby giraffes that still have their umbilical cords! Our first viewing of love birds and wildebeests, and, of course, zebra, gazelle, giraffe and polo horses.
We walk for about 3 hours. The French coupple is continuing on to Hell's Gate and we cross the lake with our very able captain navigating some significant swells.

After a rest, my daughter and I go for a two hour horseback ride on the Llodia grounds. We ride through hers of gazelle and antelope and up a hill overlooking the Lake. It is a wonderful ride. In the meantime, my husband tries to go running by himself but when he heads stright for an area where a cape buffalo is lurking in the bushes, he winds up with three staff members chasing after him (he had his ipod on and did not hear them warning him to turn around)until they catch up and pair him with a Kenyan marathon runner to join him on his run.

The power goes out in the middle of the night, so this morning our wake up call is our coffee on a try and the staffer lighting all the candles in our room. It is quite romantic and beautiful . . a few extra minutes in bed can't hurt . .

Next, the Aberdares and our first leopard.

Patty

I'm jealous you saw a leopard in the Aberdares. Can't wait for more!

waynehazle

I am doubly jealous!
You saw hippos at Naivasha. When we got to the Naivash Sopa, the hippos were done for the day. And yes the road from Nakuru to Naivasha was... well you already said it.

I can't wait to hear abou the leopard in Aberdares. I had started to think that was just a myth.

AmyH

7/29 ABERDARES (The Ark)

Luckily, work is not too busy today, so I am going to keep typing . .

We wake up to a steady rain. James has rejoined us from Nairobi and will be with us as our driver until we leave for Tanzania. The kids are happy to see him again as he is quiet nice and has lots of stories to tell. It is a long and cold drive to the gates of the Aberdare National Park. At this point in time, we grow to love the unpaved dirt roads as they are smoother and far les rutted than the Kenyan "highways." Apparently, there is an election in November and it is likely that the government will miraculously work on and finish the Nairobi to Naivasha road in time for the elections to remind everyone of their good works.

Inside the park, it reminds me of the type of Africa you would expect to see in the high jungle -- all misty, tundra ferns and shades and varieties of moss that I have not encountered. We stop and hike at two waterfalls, Kitaro (sp?) and Chando. We have lunch at the foot of the falls at Chando and take a little break to give the boys a chance to do some fly fishing. All morning, we have been following the signs of an elephant pride foraging through the forest . great gouges in the sides of the road as they search for salt and ripped up bamboo trees, we know we are close but we don't see them until we head over to the east side of the park. It has warmed up a bit on our descent to the Ark and we are all keenly looking for the ellies when we come around a turn and see a leopard just beginning to walk slowly (pole pole) across the road about 20 ft in front of us. He politely stops and turns toward us so we can take a few quick snaps . .and then disappears into the forest on the other side of the road. And there you have it, our first leopard of the trip!

Now, as the climate warms and we descend further, the park comes alive with groups of warthogs, hyenas, groups of elephant moms and aunts and young, more gazelle and antelope, our first look at waterbuck and bushbuck, vervet monkeys and baboons and finally the blue monkeys. We had searched for colobus monkeys, but no luck.

We arrive at the Ark. While the common areas are still nice, in particular the huge fireplace in the lower level and the viewing areas, the actual cabins are really run down and quite shabby. It is also very cold, both inside and out. You come for the salt lick and it does not dissapoint. We see a group of elephants very up close from the turret room that extends toward the edge of the salt lick and we watch the family interaction for a good while. Later, two males fight for territory with the younger male giving a nasty gash below the eye to the older male who skulks away in disappointment only to slowly return about twenty minutes later. It is also a birder's paradise here but my son is the one who has kept the animal and bird list and it is at home . . sorry!

We enjoyed dinner and everyone settled in to wait for the night alarms to ring to alert us to new game at the salt lick. Alas, it has begun to rain again and the salt like is completely shrouded in fog.There would be no alarms this night which gravely disappointed the children.

As I said above, there are really no great alternative accomodations in this area, and the salt lick game viewing is quite unique, so there it is. A damp and chilly night spent at the Ark but we had seen our leopard.

NEXT UP, SAMBURU and LARSEN'S CAMP

Patty

"Luckily, work is not too busy today, so I am going to keep typing . ."

Lucky for us too. I take it that Fairmont hasn't done any renovation on the Ark?

AmyH

Patty- Our guide spent a long time chatting with the current manager at the Ark whose name escpaes me and I did not note it in my journal. Apparently, the rnews is that the Fairmont is going to close the Aberdare Country Club very shortly . .whether for a complete overhaul or permanently closure is still unclear. They also have changed their mind and do not have any current plans to renovate at the Ark. My guess is that given the scaricty of beds in this region and the unique appeal of the Ark, they really don't have to make any changes and can still fill the beds.

OUT OF SEQUENCE NOTE - NAIVASHA

I forgot to add that while we went riding at Llodia and H was being chased by Llodia staff, Peter took our son to visit another primary school, one that some of the staff's children,including Sammy our driver's son, attends. A large school of over 600 students, they appointed our son as the guest of honor for the day during closing ceremonies and he was sung to and spent a great deal of time playing with the boys and the girls.

waynehazle

Hmm.

Maybe that is the same mentality with Treetops, also in Aberdares. They are bsdly in need of renovations.

AmyH

7/30 - EQUATOR, NANYUKI, SAMBURU(LARSEN'S CAMP)

We awake and it is still foggy, rainy and cold. We leave the Ark in a bus and head down to the ACC to meet James, get our boxed lunch and start our jounry to Larsen's Camp in the Samburu National Park. We are really looking forward to our first tentted camp experience. First stop is at the equator outside of Nanyuki. Along the way, we see lots of evidence of the growing flower farm industry both here and in and around Naivasha. Kenya is exported airplane loads full of fresh cut flowers to Amsterdam on a daily basis where they are routed to the rest of the world. There is some impact on the lakes and the roadways, but it is a good industry overall and creating many jobs.

There is a collection of shops at the equaot crossing and I decide to roll up my sleeves for some bargaining. I slowly visit most of the shops and settle on the small ebony animal figures that I have decided will make perfect gifts. I wind up trading a few rubber bracelets I had brought just for the occassion and $15 for 10 ebony animals. Another $10 for five larger wood animals -- leopard, rhino.

Next stop is the Nanyuki Weavers and Lynda has done a very nice job of describing this women's cooperative that was started by an American in the 1970's. It is a great story. The women have grown in number from 10 to 137 -- some are spinners of the "'ool" and some are weavers and the cooperative takes painstaking track of the amount of wool that is spun and how much is woven by each women. They use wooden spinning wheels and looms to spin and weave the 'ool and the dye process is all done with natural plant extracts. The farmers with the sheep have become less reliable as other larger companies want the wool, so the Nanyuki Weavers have purchased their own sheep and will keep the entire process on the church grounds where the cooperative is located. It was Sunday so not very much work was going on but it was a fascinating tour nonetheless and very effective . .although we had no plans (and no need) for a wall hanging, there we were deciding among several before we made our purchase.

Sunday school was in session, and so there were plenty of children curious to look at us . .a perfect time for another impromptu soccer gift and game!

We drove down through the valley to embark on 22 miles of the world's worst road -- it was something out of a Mad Max movie, particularly as we passed tanks and troops headed for Somalia. We crossed the "border" into Samburu and headed for the park gate. It made the Nakuru to Naivasha road look like iw was paved smooth.
On the way to Lrsen's, we see our firt gerenuk . . such odd creatures as thye stand on thier hind legs to eat from shrubs. We also have our first encounter with the wildly striped Grevy's zebra and reticulated giraffe along with the requisite dik dik, Peter's subspecies of grant's gazelle and an abundance of thompson's.

Larsen's Camp is beautiful, spectacular, everything you see in pictures about the tented camp experience, fill in your own superlatives. The tents are well spaced apart and all overlook the river that flows from the waterfalls we had seen only a day earleri in the Aberdares. We are welcomed by Florence, the camp manager, who also happens to be Peter's (the manager at Llodia) daugher. She hands us cold towels and cool watermelon juice and describes the camp, including warnings to close the tents tight as the resident vervets have figured out the zippers. The tents are large and spacious and handsomely appointed with desks and other wood furnishings. The bathrooms are large and also very nice although hot water is somewhat sporadic.

We go out on an afternoon game drive and see our first ostrich, beautiful blue legged males and the "duller" females, as well as large groups of giraffe and elephant. As we drive along, I think I spot the curved tail of a leopard as we pass a cross road. We slowly back up and, sure enough, there is another leopard in the road headed into the brush but in our direction. We inch forward and are able to visually intersect him as he cuts a corner from one area to the next. We have a good opportunity to watch him until another car comes along and proceeds to radio to several others. Soon there is a hunt on to spot the leopard that by now has disappeared into the brush. Having spotted him first (and with just a little smugness) we leave the others to the chase. All that is left of the Big 5 is the lion and although james is intent over the next two days to find us one, it will have to wait until later in the trip as our group is long on leopards and short on lion until we get to the Crater.

Dinner is delicious red snapper and others have steak. The next day, lunch is New Zeland spring lamb with a chutney sauce. The food at Larsen's is the best of the trip.

We melt into our beds and think it can't get any better than this!

Will finish the Larsen's report and move onto Sarara on Monday.

simbakubwa

Amy,

So... with the poor rooms and cold weather, would you still recommend a one night visit to the ARK, or is it just a waste of time?

Leely

Amy,
I'm really enjoying your report. Thanks for posting.

stakerk

Amy:

Sorry we failed to meet you in the Mara. We asked but they were not aware of any plan to get us together that Friday afternoon.

Glad to hear you had a good time,

Kevin from California

stakerk

Maxygirl:

We jus got back. I would change U.S. dollars into Kenya shillings as much as possible for you on arrival. Almost all places (villages, shops, people who receive tips) take dollars, but would prefer shillings, especially instead of small U.S. bills. Exchange rate is over 70 sounds like they only get 65-66 shillings per dollar when they cash in. Dollars really force them into a 10 percent discount. I really disliked doing to our guides, especially.

Kevin

Nyamera

Amy,
I’m enjoying your report and looking forward to the continuation.

alijay

Well, I am just into the first few days of planning our first trip to East Africa next year. I really have no idea where to start to search all the necessary information, so I've saved all your updates so far as I am sure the masses of information will prove invaluable!

It makes great reading and I'm looking forward to the next installment.

Kavey

Me too! Enjoying the report immensely and looking forward to more!

maxygirl

Stakerk,

Thank you so much for the advice. I will make sure to do the switch from US $ to shillings. Where were you exactly? Were you with Micato?