Monday, 25 August 2014

Day 33 & 34:en Route Nakuru National Park, Naivasha, Great Rift Valley, Kenya

Our trip up from the Mara to Nairobi was a long and eventful trip. Again the first part was on a dirt road which is never maintained and full of holes but we are getting used to that. Then we hit tar and nearly jumped out and kissed the road but thought better not as we might get run over and also there was no guarantee that it wouldn't turn back to dirt after 10 Kms or so. We saw some really amusing signs on the way up ... A car wash is called a "wasafin" and one sign advertising a restaurant that advertised its food as hot, delicious and indulging... Not sure we would agree but I wasn't about to try it out.

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.

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!
 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment