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Kenya:
more than just a safari park by Trudie Lazarus If anyone's off to Kenya there's a lot more than just the safari parks. Three of us - two in our 50s plus one 34 year old daughter - set off with rucksacks. Nairobi bugged me from the start and, indeed, I was proved right as I subsequently had my bag snatched there. It's informally known as Nai-robbery. One town guide I met tells me they meet their clients at the airport, put them under curfew overnight and bus them out ASAP the following morning. Small-town Kenya is another matter. We spent a week in Nanuki which is a good centre for lots of things including climbing Mount Kenya. I didn't make the top but Denise did. I'm told it is not a question merely of age as they have had 16 year olds fail and 70 year olds make it. I was disappointed not to see the hyrax at the top. However, my compensation was that my porter told me about his grandfather's bees and later took me to see the hives. These are hollow logs placed in trees; no sophisticated equipment. Each "hive" yields about 250K per annum - I'm lucky if I get that from 3 in England. But then they have no real seasons as we know them. To collect a swarm, a man will hang the queen in a matchbox on his bare back and the rest of the bees will follow her, forming a sort of hump. Swarming bees don't sting. The man then walks to where he wants to settle the colony, puts the queen there and the rest join her. I think I'll stick to English methods I We were privileged to be invited to visjt an African family who have a smallholding off the beaten tack. There is no electricity and a sporadic water supply. These were the family of my friend's curate. I asked him later how he had coped with the change to our sophisticated lifestyle. He said that both have good and bad sides, though one is freer here: animals are less dangerous to his children than are humans... The buses are unbelievable. Take one covered jeep, put 6 people down each side, 4 at the end and 4 next to the driver. You can't get any more in...until you have someone's kids and / or chickens and luggage thrust on your lap while 4 more people squat down the middle, a few hang on the roof and another 5 on the back. Of course there is a fundamental difference in culture in that the African does not mind physical proximity while the Englishman likes to keep a distance. It's all very good-natured. One small town we fell into was Naharuhu. We went to a cafe for lunch and shared a table with a local gentleman, a bank employee He refused to let us pay for our own lunch and asked his friend, the cafe owner (and also a headmaster), to run us to Thompson Falls in his pick-up. These people are not well-off by our standards but are rich in generosity The flamingo lake is drying up. As much of the timber on the hillside has been cut, the rain no longer falls. The lake has dwindled to a fraction of its former size and the few remaining flamingos are migrating. The poor things stand around looking quite bewildered and are obviously hungry. The bed of the lake - largely exposed now - is littered with animal bones. I wish that I could have brought home the waterbuck skull complete with 3 foot long horns which we saw, but this was (i) impractical and (ii) illegal. Conclusions:
Yes, go there, no a bus journey and an overnight train trip. Climb a mountain.
Avoid Nairobi. First published in VISA issue 20 (spring 1996) |