"There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne - bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive." - Karen Blixen
The drive from Nairobi to Amboseli takes about 14 years. It would take less time if all of the roads were paved. Some are just paths of dirt. During the wet season they take the long route. Along the way there are tiny villages, people living in incredible poverty, roving animals, and lots of dirt. By the time I got there I was wondering if it was all worth it. This was not the main wildlife spot I would be seeing, but merely a minor destination before the main event.
My cabin at Amboseli was very nice. I was expecting little more than a glorified hut, but it turned out to be one of the best lodgings in which I have ever stayed. It was well designed for both ventilation and security against mosquitoes. It also looked good and fit in well with the natural environment. But in a few short days I would be taking an even longer drive to my next destination. I was originally thinking that I could have skipped this place and spent more time elsewhere.
After scraping off the filth of the road and a mediocre lunch I wandered about the grounds. I came to a sign that pointed one way for “elephant view” and another for “mountain view”. My cabin was on the elephant side and the only elephants I had seen at this point were probably those vague small dots far in the distance. I followed the mountain arrow and turned a corner to find myself standing in the middle of a postcard. Casually standing before me as if it was no big deal was Mt Kilimanjaro. The thought that going to Amboseli might have been a waste of time disappeared faster than most women I have known after the first date. Kilimanjaro is the largest mountain in Africa and yet I had not seen it until I turned this corner. Despite the heat I was feeling, the mountain was crowned with snow. At almost 6000 meters it always is. An old Maasai legend tells of a great and angry god who lives atop Kilimanjaro. It is said that he will turn numb the hands and feet of anyone who dares enter his territory. To people who have never seen snow or heard of frostbite this seems perfectly reasonable.
Mt Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania but best viewed from Kenya. On the Tanzania side it looks like a few different jagged peaks and is often too shrouded in clouds to be seen well. On the Kenya side it looks like every photograph of Kilimanjaro you have ever seen. The plains and acacia trees in front of it make it ideal for wildlife photography. From Tanzania there really is no good vantage point where animals are concerned. It should be in Kenya anyway. It sits within the Kenya side of the diagonal border between the two nations. When the British controlled Kenya and the Germans controlled Tanzania they agreed to bend the border just enough to fit Kilimanjaro within the Tanzania side. The myth is that this was Queen Victoria’s birthday present to her grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II.
When I returned to my cabin I found that the small dots in the distance were indeed elephants. They were slowly coming toward the cabins and were soon close enough to see quite clearly. I eventually became accustomed to the sight of an elephant herd outside my window. By the time I left Africa, seeing elephants had become commonplace.
My first game drive in Africa was rather uneventful. Other than elephants, zebras, buffalo, gazelles, vultures, lions, giraffes, hyenas, cheetah, impalas, jackals, monkeys, warthogs, ostriches, topi, wildebeest, eagles, herons, and the assorted birds, small mammals, plantlife, landscape and scenery, I did not see much. The goal in most game drives is to see the Big Five: buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion and rhinoceros. These were the most coveted of the big game animals back when hunting them was legal, supposedly because they are the hardest to track down and eviscerate. I can see where leopards and lions would be hard. Elephants and rhinoceroses would be difficult because they are very large and tend to react negatively to being shot. But buffalo are neither fast nor too terribly smart. Killing them should be like shooting buffalo in a barrel. Now that they are protected (as if no one kills them anymore), rich white people come from all over the world to look at them.
It is probably easier to shoot the Big Five with a camera. They do not run away as much. Most of them just ignore the people. Elephants walk where they are walking regardless of who or what is in the way. On more than one occasion lions came up to us. The shade of a safari truck can be a great place to nap when the sun is just too much. Leopards are always hard to find. They do not care much for visitors. There are none at Amboseli anyway. Rhinoceroses do not shy away from humans, but it is generally a good idea to keep a distance. The white rhinoceros is relatively social as long as no one interferes with its eating habits. The black rhinoceros will attack pretty much anything. The average sized rhinoceros can turn the average sized safari truck into local gift shop souvenirs with little effort. At one point or other (not necessarily at Amboseli) I got close enough to spit on most of the Big Five and a variety of other large mammals. Not that I did. We never tried to get too close to a rhinoceros.
When I say we I am referring to myself and my driver/guide, whose name I have since forgotten. It was something exotic, like Larry. Ordinarily one has to pay extra for a private safari. Most companies send people out in groups of 8 to 12 or more. For reasons never satisfactorily explained to me I was in a group of one. At first I thought this might be an indication of how popular this particular company is, but after spending some time with Larry and his wildlife wisdom (if he made it all up he was quite convincing), I decided that this was not such a bad deal and I was, in fact, rather fortunate. There are serious benefits to not traveling with a group of strangers whose preferences and interests may be different from your own.
In the middle of Amboseli stands the cleverly named Observation Hill. It is little more than a hill, ideal for observation. A sign says that it stands 1150 meters above sea level, which is curious since Amboseli itself is 1200 to 1400 meters above sea level. When you ignore the math problems and the fact that someone somewhere did not do their research the view is remarkable. There is a completely unobstructed panoramic view of Amboseli, Kilimanjaro and the entire Noomotio Valley. The declination gets you a pretty good sense of just how many safari trucks there are out there. When you are alone in the bush your impact on the environment seems negligible. If you add up all the individual trucks that drive through every day, year after year, it is hard not to realize just how much damage we are doing. Everyone who comes here wants to see and experience this unique environment, and yet we are all helping to destroy it. Most of the animals ignore us, but all these trucks driving through their homes must certainly interfere with their breeding, feeding, and migration habits. In the national parks like Amboseli vehicles are only allowed to drive on designated roads; mostly dirt trails. In the national reserves like Maasai Mara small trucks and cars can drive pretty much anywhere, creating more dirt trails each day. Maasai Mara is the most popular game park in all of Africa. It gets more visitors than all of the national parks in Kenya and Tanzania combined. It is large enough that it should be years before we completely destroy it, but we will eventually. Africa used to be the Dark Continent. Its jungles, plains, deserts, savannah, rainforests, wetlands, grasslands, and valleys took up far more space than its cities and developed lands. Today North America has more wilderness than Africa. Some have suggested that the game parks limit the number of visitors each year, but that would mean considerably less money for those agencies that collect the fees, and money is the single greatest reason the continent is allowing outsiders to destroy its natural inherency. Money from visitors is also the main funding for preservation efforts.
The drive from Amboseli to Lake Nakuru is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. Not that I have any enemies. Other than the asshole who invented squeaky shoes for children. Lake Nakuru is fairly small, but it is home to one to two million flamingoes (they breed elsewhere and do not always come back), 44,000 pelicans, 450 species of birds, and a wide variety of wildlife. It is impressive, but the drive to and from takes away far too much from the experience. I would suggest flying in. It is more expensive, but the time saved and pain avoided should balance everything out.
Lake Nakuru does not sit within a national park or national reserve. One side of the lake borders a game reserve where the animals are protected. The other side borders the small village of Nakuru. The lake itself is under the jurisdiction of several different agencies, all of whom claim sole possession. Appropriately, all of the agencies consider it illegal to hunt or otherwise kill the birds that feed off the lake. Without the birds there would be absolutely no reason to visit Lake Nakuru. The adjoining game reserve has a few white rhinoceroses brought in from South Africa, but there are plenty of black and white rhinoceroses at Maasai Mara and other reserves.
I spent less time at Nakuru than I did getting there and leaving, and that will always be what I remember. There was an amusing incident at the lake where a soldier from one of the reserve agencies solicited and received his regular bribe from my driver. This is apparently nothing new, and Larry told me that this particular soldier has a reputation for gouging the safari companies. I call him a soldier because, like most of the people we would call game wardens, guards and police, he was wearing a military uniform and carrying a large automatic weapon. This is standard. The police in Nairobi walk or drive in small groups, carrying large guns and wearing camouflage.
Maasai Mara is best known for its annual migration of over 1 million wildebeest, 400,000 zebras, and assorted affiliates. Every Spring this massive herd travels across the Serengeti from Northern Tanzania into Southern Kenya. While crossing the Mara River many drown in the raging waters, since they cross while it is at its most active, and others are snatched by the river’s crocodiles. For those who survive there are always hungry lions waiting beyond the banks. Most do survive, and they reach their final destination by July or August. For whatever reason they do not return together. They gradually go back in small groups at different times, which is far less impressive to watch. Not coincidentally the Tanzania side has most of its visitors in April and May and the Kenya side in July and August. I was there in late January and February, so I saw none of it. But even without the stench of a million wildebeest and various rotting corpses strewn about the plain, the Mara is a great place to visit. It is with good reason that this is the single most popular game park in Africa. The scenery alone is worth the price of admission. The Mara also has almost every animal you will find anywhere else in Tanzania and Kenya, south of the Equator. North of the Equator the wildlife changes dramatically. It is one border most of these animals seem unwilling to cross. After about five minutes in the Mara I decided that it would have been best to skip Lake Nakuru altogether and spend more time here, although I am glad I did not.
Maasai Mara is where I watched lions mate (very quickly), kill (very quickly), and eat (very loudly). I saw a family eating at Amboseli, but I did not witness the kill. I saw the military precision of elephants as the adults surrounded the cubs. Because they are so large they look like they are moving slowly. But as we approached, the larger elephants had covered the small faster than you can see a needle wink its eye. They were not afraid of us. A small safari truck is no match for several fully grown African elephants. But when humans are around it is always best to use caution.
I got close enough to touch the supposedly shy cheetah. I am fond of my outer extremities, so I chose not to try. As we were driving along the side of a small hill my guide spotted something in the tall grass several kilometers away. I could not even make out the tree he was pointing to, let alone what was lying next to it. Previously he had dramatically spotted something, only to find nothing, so I was not sure if this was for show or if he really could see these things. After we drove down the hill and around a small river any doubts I had were forgotten. He had seen the head of a cheetah sporadically peering out from the tall grass while driving a good distance away. We drove up to the tree very slowly, both of us expecting the cheetah to flee at any moment. It completely ignored us as we got closer and closer. We stayed inches from the cheetah for quite some time, since this was a rare occurrence, but my driver decided we should leave when he saw a few other safari trucks approaching. The more optically challenged drivers will look for trucks that have stopped anywhere for a few minutes and head toward them to investigate. While driving away we told the first truck to arrive what we were watching all that time. Although there is competition between safari groups it is common courtesy to tell others what is where. Especially if you are leaving. As we drove away I watched three trucks approach the cheetah tree. The cheetah predictably sped away. He was not moving at full speed, but it looked pretty fast to me. In the bush it is best to get there first. On another occasion I watched a small family of cheetah search the horizon for dinner. We did not get as close to them, but we were close enough to interfere. They were looking for food and we did not appear all that appetizing, so we were ignored. Cheetah do not like an audience, but none of these seemed all that concerned by our presence.
At the Mara River I watched as about a hundred hippopotamuses did pretty much nothing in the shallow, Dry Season current. I saw a crocodile stalk a large bird. He lunged at it as they do in nature documentaries, but the bird flew away, only to land several feet away on the same river bank. I watched the sun rise from a hot air balloon fairly high above the Serengeti. I had my most international experience to date. I, an American teaching English to Chinese children had a rudimentary German conversation in Kenya with a French teacher from Switzerland. And I spotted the elusive Phil Collins.
Taking the hot air balloon ride was never part of the original plan, but at Lake Nakuru I decided that it would be stupid not to. It did not last very long, they crammed entirely too many people into the basket, and it took up almost all of my spending money. But it was worth it. The view from a safari truck is amazing. The view from a balloon is even better. The weather was perfect if not too hot. The sky was clear. When the sun rose over the plain it was a Kodak moment™, priceless™, a time made for Taster’s Choice™ and Miller time™ all rolled into one.
It is a cliché to say that Africa changes a person. But I think it does in some way. I think it may be impossible to go to such a place and look at the place where you came from the same way again. When Dr John Carter returned from his first trip to DR Congo he said that it was a life-changing experience, but he was not sure how. True, he is a fictional character, but according to one episode he and I were born just days apart, and Noah Wyle was very good in “White Oleander”. To paraphrase Einstein, in the universe everything eventually balances out.
One night as I sat on the porch of my cabin gazing at the stars, a couple wandering toward me glanced upward as well. No matter where I am or what I am watching, if there is anyone else nearby they will inevitably look toward whatever it is I am looking at. The couple, whom I decided were British, seemed perplexed. The man mentioned that he could not find the North Star. I chose not to point out that we were in the Southern Hemisphere since I could not immediately find a way to say so without overt sarcasm, and I was abstaining from sarcasm for the duration. As he said this I was looking at the Southern Cross. I am certainly no astronomical authority, but the Southern Cross is pretty easy to spot, especially when the sky is devoid of smog or anything even resembling city lights. The couple left after she spotted the Big Dipper (it wasn’t) and I just sat there staring at the clear sky and enough stars to make Carl Sagan proud. Although I have always been aware of it, it really occurred to me how incredible it was that someone of my background and upbringing was sitting here and had been to so many different places and seen as much as I had. I have a good job, a home, and a woman who is madly in love with me. I have a good life. It could all end tomorrow in a million different ways, but right now I am extremely fortunate. And I know it.
1 comment:
There are too many black people in the serengeti. They would rape my daughters if they had the chance.
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