Kenya

A month in Africa was pretty wild. From Morocco, Camille and I took a 1:20a.m flight to Paris (which was booming because the Olympics was starting in a few days) to transfer then to Nairobi, Kenya where we arrived on little sleep at 6AM.

Nairobi airport arrival was chaotic with no real organization for people to walk through and people standing around confused. The correct line opens and even being close to the front took an extended period of time even with a Chinese lady trying to cut the line and she acted like she had no clue it was unacceptable. Outside of the airport was chaotic as well with all of the drivers awaiting tourists but we easily found Jack and began our adventure. First stop was at a gas station for breakfast that included fried dough and Kenyan tea (hot water, milk & tea boiled together), but Jack just drank warm milk. The three of us were off in the Toyota Landcruiser on a 4 hour drive to Amboseli National Park. The traffic was pretty crazy with a ton of large trucks which were hard to pass on 2 lane highways and plenty of haze/pollution from the city and the heat combined.

We arrived at Amanya camp just outside of Amboseli with amazing views of Mt. Kilimanjaro (it was hiding when we arrived as it does often with ease for a mountain over 19,000 feet). We went for an evening game drive and saw elephants, zebras, hyenas and giraffes. It was our first taste of a game drive but on the way back as I was capturing some elephants and hyenas in the sunset, Camille felt uneasy and vomited over the side of the truck.

After the drive there was a beautiful sunset and Kilimanjaro appeared as the clouds cleared. We ate a delicious dinner but Camille couldn’t keep any food down and continued to puke throughout the night and into the early morning. It was our first night in a tent which had an amazing outdoor shower and toilet as well as our first night sleeping with bug nets to protect from the mosquitos.

What those nets didn’t protect us from was other intruders. Camille got bug bites all over and swears she has the blood type any bug (or gecko) loves. With Camille not feeling well she was trying to eat a few crackers and drinking as much water to stay hydrated. In the middle of the night we heard rustling which I thought was the wind on the tent. It continued and I got up to investigate with my phone flashlight. A mouse was having an absolute blast destroying the pack of crackers Camille had accidentally left out on the table. We discarded the crackers and the mouse exited the tent fat and happy for our mistake.

The next morning, Camille still couldn’t keep any food down at breakfast so we were at a crossroads. Jack asked if she needed to go to the hospital but she said no. She stayed in bed to rest and drank fluids and two angels named Regina & Irene took care of Camille all day. While all of this happened, someone took our packed lunch so we had to wait about an hour for them to make a new lunch making us later than normal to get into the park. Usually the animals are most active in the early morning but it was now after 8AM.

It was one of those “all things happen for a reason” moments as we had heard there was a cheetah with 5 cubs in the area and on our way saw other animals on alert which is where I got to spot my first cheetah (a different one by itself) who was gracefully walking right towards us. Jack had positioned us well and I got my first close up of a big cat. Then we ventured another 400 yards to where about 20-30 cars had gathered. Apparently, the cheetah with cubs had been last seen in the bushes and everyone was waiting for them to reappear.

A car full of people from Asia next to us gave up after a short time and started heading the other direction thinking they saw a rhino (it definitely wasn’t a rhino). But with wildlife patience is key. After maybe 15-20 minutes, the mother appears and the cubs pop out shortly after. They were around 2 months old and adorable. They walked along the grassline then crossed the road right between a pile of trucks and were off in the other direction. In Amboseli, the guides had to stay on the main road but it appeared she was on the hunt so we positioned ourselves near the closest prey, a wildebeest off in the distance.

She was using the grass and stalking but it seemed she saw another easier prey so we went back to our original position and just as we were almost there she took off. The fastest land animal was in pursuit of a Thompson’s Gazelle at top speed. Dust flying everywhere and within 10 seconds she had brought it down and began finishing it off then, exhausted, dragging it back across the field to where she had hid the 5 cubs in the tall grass. She laid in the tall grass recovering with her cubs, waiting until it was safe to eat. The show was over but it was exciting. The rest of the day Jack and I saw zebras and elephants then mid afternoon went back to camp to see if Camille was alive. Thankfully she was on the mend. The unofficial culprit she believes was the milk in the african tea we had the prior morning. On the way out of the park we had to check out and as Jack was doing that, the Maasai women surrounded the car and pressure you to buy something. I love supporting locals (but these were not locally made items) but I picked up a wooden lion for Camille and a giraffe for me. 

Along the drive to Lake Navaisha Jack had jumped in the car and was driving and the door flew open. He had forgot to close his door all the way (he did it again entering the Masai Mara one morning and the guards stopped him and we all had a good laugh. Speaking of the police. Kenya and kind of all of Africa has a decent amount of corruption that happens on a daily basis. Kenya was much worse than Tanzania. They had road police who would stand all along the highway and hand signal cars to pull over all day long. We didn’t think anything of it until Jack got pulled over for literally no reason at all. He got out of the car with his papers. All the correct documents were there but the policeman pointed out one page was faded a bit. Later we found out Jack had to give him money and that this happens all day every day. Basically, you either pay them, or they put drugs in your car and arrest you. Gladly, he paid them and the journey continued to the lake.  

From what we gathered, Kenya’s government does not support its own people well. Tanzania had a similar set up but in recent years the guides all got together and made the government make a rule that they were not allowed to do that to tourists because they wanted good reviews and tourism is such a source of income. We were only stopped once in Tanzania and he just pointed to the papers and continued driving. On our last day in Kenya we also had some wild moments but I will get to that soon. 

We arrived after a long haul into the Lake Naivasha area late at night after passing into the Great Rift Valley. We stayed at a hotel nearby and we were literally the only guests. It poured down rain and we were glad to not be out hiking or on a safari game drive. The next morning we arrived at the lake and a young boy maybe 15 years old named Robertson took us on a boat ride around the lake. There were so many birds. Immediately not 12 seconds into the ride we stopped and watched numerous hippos in the water not far from us. Robertson ran the boat down the coast stopping for pelicans, kingfishers, and so many other birds as we passed local fisherman wading in the water or standing on tree stumps. 

At one point he stopped, pointed out a Fishing Eagle on top of the tree and let out a loud whistle. He says “if he’s hungry, I will throw this fish in the air and he will come down and eat”. He mentioned something about the angle of attack and the shadow of the bird which made him swoop down at a particular angle as I snapped away photos of him snatching the fish off the top of the water.

We then went ashore and took a walk with the animals, getting close enough for selfies and exploring these huge “upside down” trees. Then the guide heard a huge bird and said that was the bird who predicted when it would rain. Funny enough when we got back to the hotel it absolutely downpoured all night. We were literally the only guests at the hotel which was pretty wild.

Now for the big excitement, it was time to go to Masai Mara and spend some time in the park seeing lions. Camille hooked her backpack on the hook (for  the Jeep window to hold it up) and then got it unhooked, then hooked her nose on it just like her bag as we departed for Maasai Mara.

Arriving at Maasai Mara we pull into our new home for 3 nights called “Crocodile Camp”. It was an amazing tent for two nights with hippos as our neighbors literally in the river in front of our tent making noises all night. Then followed by a jail cell with a wasp nest inside and then a different room that could fit only a bed and had a bathroom that wreaked like sewage on the last night because they had overbooked and needed our tent to host a big group of people.

Now for the good stuff. Two full days of game drives. We woke up early and were in the park before sunrise both days. The first morning it started off really slow and I was starting to get worried but then maybe 45 minutes into it we came upon a leopard on the edge of a treeline. It was the first cat sighting of many in the Mara.

Not long after that we found two female lions crunching on wildebeest bones and then things just kept getting better from there. We came across more elephants and a gorgeous cheetah family with cubs. But the best part was spotting the two male lions out far away from everyone so we had them to ourselves until we got the truck stuck in the mud and needed to get pulled out by someone else. It was pretty funny because one of the lions tripped in the mud and then Jack slipped in the mud while trying to get us unstuck also.  Jack was a great driver and later that day there was a huge traffic jam of trucks getting stuck and we had to pull other people out. He was so excited to get into the park that at the gate he drove off with his door still open and the guards laughed and yelled at him briefly.

We stopped mid morning for our breakfast with coffee under a tree and continued our game drive until about 3pm. The second day we took a different strategy and did a morning drive, came back for lunch, then went back out in the evening and it turned out to be epic.

Later that evening we stopped at the rhino sanctuary in the village that Jack grew up in. He was telling us stories of playing with them as a kid. The female rhino was named Queen Elizabeth and she was the more aggressive of the two. We walked with them and the armed guards protecting from poachers 24/7 and observed from maybe 40-50 feet as the two southern white rhinos.

The second day also started off great with more lions, cheetahs, and excitement. We also ran into the two Raphael’s. One was Jack’s best man in his wedding and the other was a guard riding with him to protect some Chinese politicians. We got into a good photography talk over lunch and Camille took a great picture of us all looking at my camera and photos while holding a gun. The second day had highlights of a cheetah family with 4 cubs and a lion family with little cubs but it was at the end of the day that things got really wild.

All in all, we saw 19 different lions, one leopard, and over 10 cheetahs.

We were bouncing back and forth between a cheetah hunting and the 3 female lions with cubs when a storm rolled in and lightning began in the background. At one point we were surrounded by the 3 female lions who were taking turns playing and crunching on bones as the storm approached. Just when I thought it was all over we found one more male lion sitting by a tree cleaning himself after a huge feast and then we got to see Jack’s driving skills as we tried to outrun the storm.

The town the next morning was all puddles and the bridge had washed out so we fjorded the river in the Land Cruiser and were on our way sadly to Nairobi to fly out to Zanzibar. It was an incredible experience of a lifetime and my first time seeing lions and a leopard in the wild. It is truly addicting and mesmerizing. This big male lion let out a huge yawn showing off his teeth and then we locked eyes as he took a big poop which made me laugh (and the kids who were in a truck next to us also laughed pretty hard).

Camille was given her new name→Nashipae (happiness in Maasai). And one other really funny story as we were watching the lion family with cubs, a Maasi guide who was driving around a lady from China had pulled up right next to us. She was trying to get photos but the cubs were down in the bushes and she was getting frustrated. She then got up in the driver’s seat with him and told the guide to “get out of my way”. She also said the grass was in her way and he responded that the next time she returns he will have it mowed for her which made me laugh as we looked at each other. Luckily we had Jack as a guide who was very welcoming, friendly, and easy to get along with. He made our adventure a trip to never forget.

We also ran into Jack’s brother James at the lions with cubs and had to push his jeep with our front bumper to jump start it so he could move away from the female lions who were now very close. The last day was so exciting that somewhere along the way Jack had misplaced his wallet which had all our paperwork. So getting back to Nairobi became tricky as the cops pull people over for no reason and now he does not have the correct paperwork could get him in big trouble. We actually had to stop and get in a different car with his friend Peter who then took us the next 2-3 hours to our hotel (upon entering the hotel checked our car for bombs) and we also had to go through security to get into our hotel. Pretty wild ending as we again went to the airport at 3am to catch our next flight to Zanzibar which was an absolute tropical paradise.