28 April - 5 May 2004

After being introduced safely to "Nairobbery" at night following a reasonable eight-hour flight from London, I was keen to immediately take leave of the metropolis and head out on safari.

I decided first on a three day safari at Amboseli National Park and it was a pretty good safari. It was kind of expensive and badly organised, but the actual safari part was quite nice. Elephants roamed the plains under Kilimanjaro alongside lions, wildebeest, gazelles, giraffes, ostriches etc. A highlight was a brief visit to a Masai village, where despite being the only paying tourist I received a traditional welcome full of jumping and yelping, before touring their meagre habitats.

I spent the three days with two Amsterdammers, a couple, who were good to have as company. They ended up being really hamstrung by the organisation and successfully demanded a third of their money back after a first day catastrophe saw our vehicle break down and an entire day was wasted. I never managed to get a refund myself despite giving over bank details...

The following safari was a trip to the famed Masai Mara near Lake Victoria, and it deserves its acclaim. The drive was a little on the tortuous side as the roads are in appaling condition, but the safari was an experience and a half. We saw many lions, ostriches, rhinos, hippos, flamingoes, cheetahs, zebras, maribu storks and many more creatures, which was aided by the beautiful country setting in the Rift Valley.

At one moment near a Masai vilage we watched six lions track and pounce on a water buffalo only for the buffalo to shake them off and escape! In another instance a Masai was killed by an elephant, the elephant was then shot by the villagers and our camp was subsequently surrounded by lions the same night as the kill spot was not less than a few hundred metres away!

I was on a bit of a lad's trip on this safari as it turned out because there was only one Japanese girl who couldn't speak English that was stuck with three Yanks and three Kiwi blokes. It was good fun although nobody ever had the energy to have a drink in the evening after such a long day being bumped around in the back of a safari truck.

At Naivasha, between the Mara and Nairobi, was a park known as Hell's Gate where you can walk or cycle in the same location where there are cheetahs, leopards and lions, but they are not considered dangerous during the day so you can wander the park safely. I did so and didn't see any of those big cats (thankfully) but went off track for a moment following cheetah prints and heard a purring sound. Naturally I made my way quickly out of there but then when I looked back saw only zebras - what a chicken! Cycling 22kms around Hell's Gate was physically taxing but quite good fun, as it included a shower in a hot thermal waterfall.

Being the first country I had visited in Africa, Kenya was at that stage by far the poorest country I had ever been to. They couldn't even afford cigarettes for the most part. Corruption is the biggest issue in politics, and of all the countries I visited in Africa my observations would suggest Kenya is the most corrupt of the lot. You really cannot see anything of the $US30 for each park entry fee, the roads are terrible and the people are overjoyed when you pay even 5c for a pack of peanuts. Nor do national or local body politics seem particularly well prioritised as it appears the political candidates only have tribal affilition interests at heart and not the country's as a whole. On the upside, in the country they all have a great big genuine smile for you and the kids have all learned 'How are you!'. It never fails to impress me how there can be so much warmth in a society with so much poverty.