An African Adventure

Click here to see all of our pictures from this trip.

As many of our friends know, our trip to Africa had been a long time coming. We'd been trying to plan this trip since 2000. After many fits and starts, we finally managed to get ourselves to East Africa in March 2004. Even this trip almost didn't happen. A week before our scheduled departure, Yatin found out that Northwest airlines had cancelled his tickets! After a harrowing 30 minutes trying to fix the problem, and a rush trip to the airport to get the tickets re-issued, everything was set.

Arriving in Nairobi

We arrived in Nairobi, Kenya on March 22, 2004. We were planning on spending a couple of days in the capital city before heading out for our safari. The wonders of the Internet meant that most of our trip logistics had already been sorted out before leaving the U.S. Nairobi was an interesting city. Although the city is quite bustling during the day-time, everything shuts down by about 6:00pm. So, as tourists, there really isn't much to do after dark. We spent one of our mornings meeting with the people from our safari company. After finalizing our safari plans and visiting the airline office to buy airline tickets for Zanzibar, we were set to explore the city.

We spent some time wandering into the Grand Bazaar. Having travelled in India, we thought we'd experienced our fair share of bargaining in tourist shops. But nothing compared to the amount of bargaining that we had to do in Africa. A pair of fertility dolls started at US$ 80 and we eventually bought them for $5, a mask started at $180, we ended up paying $28! Although the bargaining was fun initially, it did get tiring by the end of the trip.

Dinner at Carnivore

Our second night in Nairobi, we planned to have dinner at Carnivore, apparently rated one of the top 50 restaurants in the world. Although we wouldn't place Carnivore in the same league as say the French Laundry in Napa Valley, CA, it was definitely a unique experience. As the name suggests, the restaurant is all about the African meat experience. We got to taste a variety of game meats including zebra and crocodile. The food is cooked in an open barbecue pit and is served dim-sum-style: the waiters bring large skewers of meat to your table and you get whatever you want until you can eat no more! Each table has a little flag that you put down when you are ready to "surrender".

Exploring the surroundings

The following day, we went on a road trip to the Giraffe Centre, a sanctuary for the endangered Rothschild giraffes. You get to feed and pet the giraffes from a deck at the centre. Just be careful not to let them slobber all over you! When we were there, a large group of school kids was visiting the centre. It was as much fun watching the kids get excited about their field-trip as it was feeding the giraffes ourselves.

Safari, here we come

After a couple of days in Nairobi, we were ready to head out on our safari. Our safari company was Into Africa, a small eco-friendly safari company that we found through the Lonely Planet guide. The thing that attracted us to this company was their blend of wildlife safaris and cultural interactions with the local population. Moreover, they are a fairly small outfit, which we prefer over large mega tour companies.

We were greeted at our hotel by our guide Kassim, our driver Samuel, and most importantly, our cook, Patrick. We had a six day trip planned for just the two of us, and there were going to be three people to help us with our every need during the journey! Our first stop was at the start of the Rift Valley. This is a geological formation that stretches from the Red Sea in the north all the way down to Mozambique in southern Africa. As we drove through the rift valley to get toward Masai Mara on the other side, it started to sink in that we were finally in Africa enjoying the trip of a lifetime!

Our first night on safari was at a small campsite outside the remote village of Olanganaiyo, about a couple of hours from the entrance to the Masai Mara national park. This was an amazing experience. Unlike your typical visit to "tourist" Masai villages, here was a community that was untouched by the ravages of large-scale tourism. We got to meet the people of the village, see their homes, watch as they herded their cattle back into the village pen after a day of grazing in the countryside. As much as we were taken by the friendliness and hospitality of our hosts, they were equally fascinated by our toy: the digital camera. We had quite some fun snapping pictures and showing the results to them right then and there on the little LCD screen of the camera.

Masai Mara

The next day, we were in the heart of Masai Mara. Although we'd always heard about the abundance of wildlife in Kenya, it was still amazing to see the sheer number of animals wherever you looked. Zebras, wildebeest, lions, elephants, gazelles, wild buffalo, what have you! We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the big five: lion, elephant, leopard, wild buffalo, and rhino. Lo and behold, within our two days in the Mara, we managed to see four out of the five!

Kassim (our guide) and Samuel (our driver) were extremely helpful and knowledgeable about the wildlife. Every evening, we would sit down with Kassim, go through our digital pictures and make notes about the variety of wildlife that we'd seen during the day. Those notes certainly came in handy in compiling this journal!

Lake Naivasha

From Masai Mara, we headed on to Lake Naivasha. On our way, we had a run-in with the Masai Mara park rangers. They wanted us to pay the daily US$ 30 per tourist rate for entering the national park even for the day that we spent at Olanganaiyo, which is outside the park. To their credit, the IntoAfrica people dealt with this snag very well without inconveniencing us any more than the slight delay that we had to put up with. Although they ended up having to cough up the extra park fees, we found out upon our return, that it all got sorted out eventually and the park rangers returned their money apologized to the IntoAfrica group about the inconvenience.

Lake Naivasha is a paradise for bird lovers. The lake is teeming with birdlife in addition to tons of hippos, water bucks, etc. The digital camera was quite handy in taking pictures of birds in flight.

Lake Nakuru

From Lake Naivasha, we headed on to the town of Nakuru and the national park near the town. Nakuru is home to a huge flock of flamingoes as well as two species of rhino, the final of the "big five" wild animals that we were yet to see. Although our first game drive in Naukuru was rained out by the advent of the monsoon, we managed to get a pretty solid second drive the next day where we got to see a trio of white rhinos as well as a couple of black rhinos.

Mount Kenya

After Nakuru, we headed north east across the Equator (and soon back again) on our way to the Mount Kenya region. The highlight of this part of our trip was going to be a one-night stay with a family in the village of Gitero. We got to visit the Gitero primary school, walked up to the village reservoir (that the villagers managed to build entirely with their own initiative using funds that they managed to procure from international development organizations), and visited one of our host's friends for tea. All in all, it was quite a pleasant experience.

Gitero was the last stop on our safari around Kenya. From there, we headed down to the road that would lead into Tanzania. Patrick, our cook bid us farewell in Gitero; Kassim and Samuel drove us down to Ilbisil (also known as Bissel), a small Masai town halfway between Nairobi and the Tanzanian border. We spent the afternoon wandering around the Bissel market marvelling at the abundant displays of Masai culture all around us. Although we were sad that one half of our trip was drawing to a close, we were looking forward to more adventures in Tanzania.

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