Kenya

Hi,

I've almost finished my travels around East Africa now. The tour finished yesterday. Terry and I are now killing time in Nairobi until our flight tomorrow evening. As in the time honoured tradition I'll give a day by day account below.

15th - 16th August

After posting last time we went for a wander around Jinja and had lunch in a cafe. The heavens then opened and we got a boda-boda in the torrential rain was a slightly scary experience. Two people riding pinion on a motorbike in the rain on crap roads is probably not the safest thing we've ever done! Quad biking in the afternoon was good fun, I've never really been on a full size quad before so it was all new to me. I'm pleased that I took Kit's advice and told them I had been on before as they gave me a much more powerful quad. IT was a good way to see the countryside and all the villages, but our guide wouldn't allow us to properly open up the throttle and go as fast as we could. Despite this I still managed a few power slides through muddy corners. The odd thing about the trip was that it felt a little bit invasive on all the people who lived in the villages. It can't have been pleasant to have people driving through gawking at you. Still, everyone seemed friendly enough.

On Sunday we packed our things, said goodbye to Uganda and headed for the Kenyan border. In order to get to the bus stop (we were taking the public bus) we loaded all our bags into one taxi and then rode in a fleet of boda-bodas through the streets of Jinja. We must have looked quite a sight. Upon arrival at the bus stop, we discovered that there was not enough space on the coach for all our luggage, so Edmond decided that we should get on the coach and he would travel with all our bags on the next one. I have to say I wasn't entirely happy about leaving my bag behind, but TIA and there wasn't any other choice really.

The border crossing took about an hour, mostly spent queueing, so was fairly painless in all. From there it was another two hours to our first port of call in Kenya, Kisumu. Travelling through Kenya to Kisumu I noted a large degree of similarity between Kenya and Uganda, but some stark differences too. Kenya is clearly a much more wealthy country; more of the buildings are completed, more have two stories, there are many more paved roads and a lot more cars too. Plus assorted other differences that I don't have time to go into now.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the Kisumu market. Sunday is the most important market day of the week in the local area and the place was buzzing with activity. If you wanted to buy anything, chances are it could be found in Kisumu market. Unfortunately Edmond insisted we had a guide take us around the market, I would have preferred to wander myself, so we didn't have free reign as to where we could go.

17th August

Monday was spent pottering around Kisumu finding things to do. I have to say that there is not a lot! We went on a boat trip on Lake Victoria in the morning, which was interesting as we got to see lots of local fisherman out fishing in various traditional manners. We also visited a small fishing village to see the catch of the day (very smelly). Other than the boat trip we spent most of the day eating lunch in a restaurant, chilling on the hotel balcony and eating dinner in the same restaurant.

18th - 20th August

As was becoming the norm on the trip, we awoke early to begin travelling for the day, but ended up leaving an hour or so late anyway. We were met by our safari vehicles for the trip to the Masai Mara and began the long drive. It was again fascinating to look out the window and watch the scenery change from lush green tea plantations to almost arid desert to savannah. We arrived at our campsite in mid afternoon, having completed the last hour of our journey driving pretty much off road through the Masai bush. We spent the two nights in the Masai staying in semi-permanent tents, which is basically a tent with beds that has had a metal roof erected over the top!

We went on four game drives over during the time we were there. Two morning ones and two evening ones. There were so many animals of every description. Highlights include spending half an hour watching a pride of lions drink at a river and sit in the sun, seeing spectacular sunrises over the Masai savannah, having a pair of lionesses walk past a few feet from the car whilst returning from a nights hunting and seeing the courting and mating display of two ostriches was just hilarious. I'll write more later and post some photos.

On thursday we drove back out of the Masai Mara across huge plains with dust storms and into Nairobi. We spent the evening at the Carnivore restaurant, which as the name suggests serves a lot of meat, and said goodbye to everyone.


It seems like I've been saying goodbye a lot recently. I've met so many different people from all walks of life and from all over the world. I wish I didn't have to say farewell, but such is the nature of travelling I suppose. I also know that I have friends in various places around the globe who I can hook up with if I'm ever in town. Meeting all these people has reconfirmed the goodness of human nature in my mind, despite all the evil and nasty things and people in the world (who unfortunately make most of the news stories), the average person is good, decent and friendly.

Until next time,

Asante Sana for reading.