ALISA'S 2-WEEK-TRIP TO KENYA

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I went to Kenya without Steve, in the middle of May 2006. A friend, Esther, invited her close friends for a two-week visit. I was one of the lucky. Esther and her husband, Weizman, own a large house in one of the "white" compounds of Nairobi. I must admit, this was a very memorable visit.

Most whites live in compounds very nicely manicured, very green, surrounded by trees on which monkeys jump merrily, enjoying the fruits and vegetables in the area. No stranger can enter any compound without first being identified by the guards at the entrance or exit of the compounds. After a couple of days you get used to it. To the right is a picture of us eating at the famous "Windsor Golf & Country Club" located very near the compound.

The Kenyans are very friendly. Everybody greets you with their local "jambo", meaning "hello". They are also very hard working people, as you can see from the 2 pictures on the left. The lower one is of Evans the tailor, who works every day under the scorching sun. The sign on his foot operated Singer says, "WELCOME CUSTOMER". Speaking to some local people, they explained to me that "If you don't work, you die". They take any job offered to them (mostly by the affluent white population) Esther's drivers used to be officers in the army. She has a male cook called Harrison, and a staff of guards who saluted us whenever they saw us, at the entrance of the compound and several gardeners, raking the grounds non-stop.
 

To the left is a picture of Harrison serving us a rich breakfast . Breakfasts included fresh papaya, avocado salad, toasted whole-wheat bread, cheeses, porridge, omelets, coffee and tea. Harrison has his own living quarters, adjacent to the house. He also does the cleaning, laundry and answers the phone. He is a very nice guy, always smiling and speaks very good English. 

Visiting Kenya is both exciting and frightening. It is also humorous and revolting. Going on a safari in the Masai Mara Reserve is an extremely exciting experience. The place is full of wild animals: lions, elephants, zebras, cheetahs, giraffes, baboons, rhinos, gazelles, etc., etc. Wherever you turn your head your eyes will encounter them. Even on our other trips  throughout Kenya we continued seeing many wild animals. Even with the wild animals, the visit to the various parks was very exciting but not particularly frightening. More about the safari later.

On the other hand, walking around the capital, Nairobi, is pretty frightening. People keep warning you not to wear any jewelry, to keep your eyes open, to stay away from crowded places, not to go out alone at night. They nickname this city "nairobbery", because of the high crime rate. I felt very uneasy here even when I was being driven around by Gibor, Esther's Kenyan driver, The city is very crowded, and people and vehicles intermingle in total chaos. I saw only two vital intersection with traffic lights, but nobody was paying attention to them. The traffic continued moving in all directions ! There are no traffic signs anywhere either. At one turn there was a "stop" sign but Gibor told me "no need to stop". When I asked him how one gets a driving license in Kenya, he said that if you manage to drive without getting involved in an accident you get one.

Despite this chaotic situation and the miserable vehicles roaming everywhere, I did not see any accidents on the roads.  On the right is a "matatu", a local minibus (used primarily by the Kenyans). Also, there are no addresses in Nairobi. People who live there have only P.O. boxes! Getting to somebody's place can be very confusing. Even well trained drivers often make  mistakes. One night we ended up knocking on the door at the wrong house. The landlady was kind enough to give our driver the right instructions how to get to our host.

There are other funny facts about Kenya. Polygamy, for instance, is still very common. A woman may cost up to 20 cows.  The price is decided by the parents of the bride. Later on, this same woman is left behind to tend for the herd that the husband will use to "buy" a younger woman. Gibor, our driver, has two women. The first is in his home village with the cows and the older four kids and the younger lives in a closer village with two young children. Discussing this situation with him, he complained that "now it is very expensive to have kids because  parents have to send them to school, and education is expensive!"  He doesn't think it is wrong for men to have more than one woman.

What bothers Kenyan men today (and Gibor is one of them) is the fact that the "new"  Kenyan girls are getting education, finding jobs and not wanting to get married or remarried, after they divorce. Therefore, there are many single mothers. We visited a jewelry workshop called "Kazuri" which employs only single mothers, and which markets its unique handmade jewelry all over the world. Here's a picture to the right. 

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Not only are the Kenyans hard working but they also are wonderful artists!   I could not stop marveling at the abundance of their unique and diversified art everywhere. To the top left is a picture of me with one of the wonderful Kenyan artists. Each tribe specializes in its own "style". The Masai, for instance, do wonders with tiny colorful beads. See the picture to the left. Other tribes use banana leaves to make beautiful pictures or figurines. We watched them use wood (the most impressive is ebony) to carve animals and other statues. In fact, they  use  trash dumped by the affluent white population and turn it into beautiful and interesting art pieces. We saw metal bottle caps turned into boxes and toys made of pieces of wire found in trash sites. On the bottom left is a picture of Nehama and me in front of a selection of metal sculptures.

The best part of my visit to Kenya was the three-day safari. Everybody says Kenya is the best place in the world for safaris, but you can say so only after you have really experienced one. To begin with, there are many different areas where you can experience it. The best one in Kenya is in the Masai Mara (spotted-land). However, you must know that in this "reserve" there are quite a few separate "camps" or "lodges". Each is run by a different owner and you have to check beforehand what to expect. Some camps offer a regular hotel from which safari drivers come to pick you up for drives in the wild. The one we went to is called "The Intrepids". We got there via a tiny 16-seat  airplane (picture on the upper right) from Wilson airport in Nairobi. We enjoyed our stay here very much. It cost about 600 dollars for the entire visit, including the round-trip flight (to and from Nairobi), full board, and all the tours around the park with driver - guide. We added a visit to a Masai village for which we had to add an extra fee of a thousand Kenyan shillings (about 15 dollars). To the right is a picture of me on the "porch" of our 5 star tent.

This particular camp has 30 luxury tents, like the one to the right above, fully furnished, with flush-toilets, showers (hot water, too), cabinets, chairs, a table and canopied beds. I was surprised to find bottles of mineral water and an anti-mosquito flask in the tent. Every evening the maid put hot water bottles under the blankets to keep us warm (the savanna is quite cold during the night). In the picture above right, I'm holding  these hot water bottles. The food is served in a wooden-buffet-like restaurant. The meals we had were excellent. All the fruits, vegetables, meats, fish and desserts served can compete with any top European restaurant. Service was carried out by good-mannered attentive Masai waiters. See the pictures to the right. Each morning we had a game-drive in an open 4x4 safari vehicle at half past six. The butler brought us a thermos with hot coffee, milk and cookies to the tent before the drive. Our driver, David (his Masai name is Koshol), is a very experienced Masai safari driver, whose English is perfect. He answered all of our questions about this wonderful Kenyan tribe and the wild animals in the Mara. We had a lecture accompanied by a slide-show the night before we visited this tribe. The currently playing movie "The White Masai" describes the lives of these people very well. David has been a safari driver for over ten years, dresses modern style while on the job, but when he goes back to his village (every couple of months) he dons his tribal clothing and eats their peculiar diet (freshly "squeezed" cow blood mixed with cow milk). He has one wife and four children who go to school. Each day we went on three drives with David, who did his utmost (and succeeded) to show us all the "big five" as they call them: lions, cheetahs, buffaloes, rhinos and elephants as well as herds of alpacas, gazelles, giraffes, hippos, ostriches, etc. This safari was just exhilarating! When you go on a safari it is very important to make sure you have a very experienced driver like David! 

5 STAR DINNER ON SAFARI.

HERE I AM CONKED OUT AFTER A HARD DAY OF SAFARI

ABOVE, DAVID, OUR DRIVER, SHOWN IN THE MIRROR CAREFULLY WATCHING A CHEETAH.

Our hostess, Esther, told us that her son and wife had visited her the month before and went on a safari, too. However, they had been extremely disappointed with the food and with the fact that they had been charged an arm and a leg for every water bottle they had to buy. They stayed at a different camp, the Kichwa Tembo.  Esther's sister, Lea, had been on a safari a few years earlier, and stayed at a hotel in the Mara. She told us that she and her husband wanted to save money by reaching the Mara driving a car from Nairobi. It took them over six hours(!!)and when they got to the hotel, Lea passed out from exhaustion. The roads to the Mara are poorly maintained dirt roads. I think it is preferable to take the 45-minute flight and enjoy the visit the moment you get off the plane.

In general, I suggest that visitors should not tour Kenya on their own. Road signs are hard to find and those that exist are hard to see (some of them are stuck in the ground and illegible) . Despite the fact that Gibor, our local driver, drove us around he had to keep asking people on the way for directions in Swahili or their tribal language. I don't know how we could have reached Elsa Meer or the Crater Lake if it hadn't been for him!

One of the last things we did in Nairobi was to visit the Mathare Valley. Weizman said that he wanted us to see the "real Nairobi". It's hard to describe what we saw. This is one of the poorest and most densely populated slums in the entire world. To get an idea of what it's like, visit this site - "Urbana.org" which describes the area and a church program called  "Achor Mathare Valley",  which exists to assist the local population. Check out this site to see some pictures of Mathare Valley.

Below are some more pictures of interest.

IN THE MASAI MARA RESERVE, WE HAD TO CROSS THIS RICKETY BRIDGE IN ORDER TO GET TO THE SAFARI VEHICLES.

HERE'S OUR WHOLE GROUP, WITH ESTHER'S HUSBAND WEiZMAN PETTING A CHEETAH IN THE NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK.

HERE'S  A "JUA KALI", (HOT SUN), WHERE YOUNG MEN LEARN A PROFESSION, IN THIS CASE, WOOD CARVING.

GIBOR

ABOVE ARE TWO KENYANS WHO REALLY MADE OUR VISIT INTERESTING. ON THE LEFT IS GIBOR, ESTHER'S DRIVER WHO TOOK US EVERYWHERE, AND TO THE RIGHT IS JOSEPH, A MASAI WHO WAS OUR HOST WHILE WE WERE AT THE MASAI MARA RESERVE. HE SPEAKS MANY LANGUAGES AND WAS VERY HELPFUL AND ENTERTAINING.  JOSEPH IS WEARING THE TYPICAL MASAI CLOTHING.

JOSEPH

BELOW IS MY FAVORITE PICTURE OF THE TRIP. I THINK IT SHOWS THE KENYAN SENSE OF HUMOR WHICH IS ALWAYS IN EVIDENCE DESPITE THE HARD LIFE THESE PEOPLE ENDURE. 

This is a page from our site "Travels with Steve & Alisa".  It describes one of the many trips we have made together.  We've built these pages not just to describe our trips, but to help other travelers if we can.  Please use the information we've provided freely, and let us know if you have any questions we might be able to answer about your own planned trip, or just let us know if we have helped you. Or perhaps you have some information we could add to the site. Visit our home page using the link to the right.                 

Enjoy your next trip!!                         ~Steve & Alisa~