Safari part two
In our first blog on Kenya and Tanzania, Kyran gave a typical day on safari. Our routine did not change much for our 10 days on safari. We were either on game drives or travelling from one location to another.
As distances are long and roads no more than dirt and rubble our main form of transport between locations was via small aircraft from tiny airstrips. We were instructed to keep luggage to less than 15 kilos per person in a small bag and this made sense when on our 6-seater plane I literally had one of our bags on the spare seat next to me.
Our Safari consisted of long days with just our family and guide(s) cruising in roofless four-wheel drive vehicles on the look out for animals, which I wouldn’t suggest for fidgety or young children. Our timing must have been perfect as we knocked off the ‘Big 5’ (Buffalo, Lion, Leopard, Elephant and Black Rhino) within the first two stops (Lake Manyara National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater). However no day or moment was ever spent wasted. The National Parks were spectacular in their raw beauty. When catching sight of animals we never just stayed for a few minutes, instead we spent hours watching animals in their environment. We were engrossed in their activities, be it lazing around (not for nothing are Lions called lazy), chasing a kill, or in a most spectacular moment spending 2 hours watching a lioness giving birth to two cubs. Days were broken up with bush breakfasts, lunches at camp, sundowners overlooking the Mara or the Serengeti, or being serenaded by Masai Warriors. Dinners at camp were after dark and were a communal affair. It was lovely to meet other people and share stories and made us feel very youthful, as most guests were over 60.
We stayed at three camps:
Lamara at Ngorongoro Crater
Alex Walker in the northern Serengeti (Lamai)
Elephant Pepper in Mara North.
The camps themselves varied. As mentioned in the first safari blog it’s a bit like glamping. Bedding and furniture are plush and there were always lights available at night (Solar I think). In-tent electric plugs were only available at Alex Walkers and we had to do the charging of phones (why when there is no reception?) and laptops elsewhere in communal areas in the other camps. WIFI was only available at Elephant Pepper and Cell (Mobile) access wasn’t available anywhere (neither UK and Australian). This I think is pretty standard in all camps except the more commercial ones.
Every tent had its on bathroom and toilet. Bucket showers were the norm (the bucket outside) meant we had to give warning when wanting a warm shower. Cold nights meant the hot water bottles provided were welcome and yet it was still cold enough for Erin to insist on having her daytime clothes in bed with her so they could warm up before putting them on at 6am (one night she just didn’t undress). It’s noisy at night too, more so than during the day. Animals seem to have a telepathic ability to instruct each other during the day and after the car has stopped there was nothing but silence. At night it’s party central especially when the animals are a few metres away. A number of times we were woken by the night cries (or was it terrors) of lions, baboons and hyenas.
We took family tents that varied from one room with three beds to two distinct tents joined by a ‘living space’. When it’s raining it’s like Glastonbury – all mud and cold (however that being said rain only started late afternoon and only on three occasions). We were told to take a fleece but I should have brought my Scottish blanket – for sure I would have matched the Massai in all their tartan glory. Yes, the colour of choice for the bush is red, red and more red. The tourists in all their khaki and neutral as to ‘blend in’ are in direct opposition to the bushmen who acted as our spotters who wear the red tarten specifically to deter the animals coming to close. Not sure why Tartan…an American woman tried to convince me it was something to do with the Egyptians doing trade with the Scots in the 1500s…Not sure how good her history is but one thing is for sure the other common denominator between Scots and Masai is their lack of troosers…!
As it was the Italians were in black leather, and the Thai’s wore jeans and jumpers and Steve his Quicksilver shirts and board shorts so I think you can probably wear what you want and not worry too much.
Food at camp is sometimes a small buffet or fixed 3 course meals. With a fussy eater in the family it meant at some meal times Kyran ate little or nothing. However, neither he nor I made a fuss as I felt sure he wasn’t going to starve in 10 days. It also made Kye and Erin both more appreciative of the effort I go to at home so it was a good lesson.
Vital for a good trip is a guide, and we had three different guides supplied by the camp and sometimes an accompanying ‘spotter’ (lookout for animals). They were invaluable for spotting animals that we couldn’t even see with our binoculars and keeping us safe. As our trucks got close they repeatedly assured me that animals saw the vehicles as one large animal and our maneuvering around the windowless and roofless vehicles did not present any danger. While this seemed true the majority of the time, I wasn’t entirely convinced when the matriarch of the elephants came within stroking distance and almost put her enormous trunk into the car, nor did the cheetah protecting her cubs look convinced as she sat in a gully underneath us and started growling at the children and I standing up (me ‘ kids sit down and please Bene (our guide) move the car before she jumps through the window’).
Over the course of many hours the guides were also a source of information on Kenya and Tanzania. These neighbours share many cultural similarities and animals migrate freely across the border but government attitudes differ and there was a definite difference of opinion on ‘who’ does ‘what’ better! The cultural landscape for Kenya is changing rapidly. In the words of one pilot, ‘we still have poor and we still have mega rich but there is a rapid rise in the middle class’. The prompt for this is of course money and education. While Swahili is the national language for both countries English is the language used in high school. All our guides came from large families (One had 11 siblings) but the improvement of health and life expectancy over the last 40 years means they are now keen to keep their own families small in order to pay for a good education. Depending on where we were, views on girls education (see my next blog on the Kenyan school visit) differed from Western society but as our own feminist revolution has (is) taken a while I don’t think we can expect these countries to change overnight. Our guides were equally as keen to know about Australia. The children were keen to trump them on the ‘dangerous animal’ scale but failed miserably once onto the mammal section. They were intrigued with our companies that use Indian call centres and are keen to know about Chinese culture as the Chinese are the next potential new boom tourist (Not sure the Jimmy Choos are going to make it onto a safari though…) the fact that the Chinese companies appear to have the contracts for building all the new roads indicates China is in Africa in a big way.
The last thing I’ll add is that I did a walking safari one early morning while the kids and Steve went to watch lions playing with a mongoose the way a cat does a mouse. The guide gave 5 minutes of instructions of what not to do should we meet a predator. I was not encouraged that I was the shortest and only one without a knife. I put myself in some situations sometimes but am glad to say I met nothing more dangerous than a thorn bush which a plaster quickly resolved!
