The road into Nairobi is typical of an African
town... Just chaos! There is so much traffic - big trucks and cars, bikes and
bicycles people and animals that you are not sure whether anybody is on the
right side of the road or not, plus the guys just stop anywhere, do U-turns,
pass on blind rises and solid white lines. I really don't know how Ernest manages
to navigate his way through the whole thing, quite calmly with his wife putting
on breaks and generally shouting warnings at every turn. Gosh I make it nerve
racking for him just sitting in the dam truck!
Anyway the distance was only about 200 kilometers
but it took us a good 6 hours to reach the campsite at Karen, which included a
short shopping stop at Narok to buy some of those wonderful Masai blankets,
belts and curios. The markets are almost as bad as the roads, you just get
swamped by everyone trying to sell you their goods for the best price and they
don't let up for a second. You just have to keep moving and ignoring the five
guys all pushing to sell sell sell.
On our way into Nairobi I was a little nervous
that the campsite at Karen was maybe going to be closed down, it was pretty
dilapidated last time we were there and that was three years ago but I need not
have worried... It was still here, in a sorry state but still operating. Gosh
it is interesting how you can drop down to the irreducible minimum.
We went off to the Karen shopping Centre to have
a little bit of very late lunch/dinner, had coffee and flopped into bed trading
in our lions roaring, and wildebeest honking for the dogs barking around the
camp site.
Our aim was to get in and out of Nairobi as fast
as possible. We were there to restock especially on our meat supplies as we had
used up a lot when there were 11 of us, get the gas cylinders refilled, fix the
fan belt on the alternator and try and find a cap for the hydraulic tank. Karen
has a great Centre with a huge supermarket where you can buy anything from a
box of matches to a washing machine.... It has everything you could possibly
need, except a fan belt of course.
The other thing that I wanted to do was to visit
the David Sheldrick orphanage to see all the little baby Elephants that were
being raised there. Last year I had read the book “an African Love Affair"
By Daphne Sheldrick. Reading her story had a huge impact on me, it
totally changed my attitude to Elephants, somehow they became far less
terrifying and I had really wanted to meet her, even if just to tell her how
wonderful I thought she was and what her book had meant to me. We had a mutual
friend who could possibly arrange and introduction but unfortunately she had
recently had to undergo back surgery and was not well so we were not able to
see her. However while we were looking at the littlest Elephant that had just
been brought in, we were fortunate enough to meet her Granddaughter who was
with this tiny baby.
I am so glad that we were privileged enough to
be able to see all these little ones
that have been saved from certain death because their mothers are mostly
lost through poaching or for some reason they have been abandoned and it is
something that I would just love to bring my grandchildren to see. The real
tiny babies of less than a year were brought in and settled down before we got
there and then we saw them bring in the ones ranging from 18 months to three
years old. They had been out in the Nairobi reserve for the day and then they follow their
"minders"/fathers in at about 5 in the afternoon to get their bottle
of milk and were put into their "
stable " for the night. Oh my gosh to see how they literally grab the
bottle out of their minders hand and drink it down so fast. It was so sweet to
see their different personalities, some handed the bottle back and others just
hung onto the bottle and refused to give it back. We were then able to go and
see the real little ones who had been settled down for the night. They have a
human "dad" with them 24/7 and are never left alone. I took some
photos of those little things all fast asleep and tucked up in their blankets.
They only sleep for about three hours at a time and then have to be fed....day
and night. What a full time dedication it is and you could just see the
affinity between the baby and their father. Then the most special little one
was a baby that was two weeks old, she had been abandoned and flown in by
helicopter just a few days ago ... Oh my gosh I would love to have just stolen
it and brought it home. Unfortunately when they are brought in that young, they
have about a 50/50 chance of survival but this little one was apparently
doing very well on camel milk and they were hopeful she would survive. Her “daddy" was one of the older men and
obviously had a lot of experience in raising these orphans. It was a very
special experience which I would highly recommend to anyone visiting Nairobi.
So
we managed to get everything done in one day and headed out of the big city the
following day. None of us had slept very well there. Gosh the noise was
absolutely terrible. There was an owl that would suddenly make the most
terrible noise and then start screeching, that would set the dogs off for miles
around, then the peacocks, then a hissing sound which the guard told us was
some sort of rodent that was introduced from America (related to Obama) which
were obviously scared of the owl and that started them off hissing. Then the hadedas
and the cocks crowing at four in the morning, one of which had a throat
disease. It was worse than a circus so we were very pleased to brave the
traffic and get the hell out of the city.
Then it was off to Nakuru National Park, which we had all been looking forward to and it was like a new restart to the trip.
Until tomorrow!
We set our sights for Naivasha which is in the Great Rift Valley and is the
heart of Kenya's most productive farming land. It sits on a huge lake called Elmenteita
and is close to the Menengai crater which is the second largest volcanic valderia
in the world. It is now dormant and in the area Dr Louis Leaky and his wife
Mary in 1926 discovered Neolithic and Iron Age pits and trenches with a rare
discovery of some 8000 stone tools and six Indian coins aged at 500 years old. In
the 1930’s British Airways used to land their planes on this lake and then
ferry their passengers to Nairobi from there.
It
was also here in Naivasha that Joy Adamson found and raised Elsa the lion and
later wrote her very famous book " Born Free"
We
eventually gave up trying to find her house and settled for lunch at the
Naivasha country club ( now a hotel ).... Big mistake, it was expensive and
everyone agreed we should stick to food inside the Queen, even if we have to
eat on the side of the road.
Then it was off to Nakuru National Park, which we had all been looking forward to and it was like a new restart to the trip.
Until tomorrow!
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