Monday 13 February 2012

On to Tsavo

    A bit of background: Everyone goes to the Masai Mara in Kenya when they visit. The Mara is essentially the Serengeti North, and is where the huge wildebeast migration occurs every year (remember the videos of crocodiles eating massive amounts of hooved animals during river crossings?) Well, we planned to go to the Mara like everyone else, but there are a ton of other parks in Kenya with lots to see. Of these many parks, the biggest is Tsavo. Tsavo is divided into two parks (East and West) by the Uganda-Mombasa highway southeast of Nairobi. The East is the larger of the two, and is mostly dusty scrubland. It's a favorite of the red elephants of Tsavo and, by extension, of poachers. It's pretty wild, and probably too dangerous for two americans on vacation. The west, on the other hand, is safe (from people) and is where we elected to go for the first two days. In addition to the beautiful African vistas available in Tsavo west, we would be guaranteed to see the monster mountain of Kilimanjaro on the flight down. We also hoped to make a day trip to the Patterson bridge while we were in Tsavo. In 1898, John Patterson built a bridge over the river Tsavo as part of imperial Britain's quest to expand into East Africa. The construction was famously delayed by two man-eating lions (130 workers were killed) as recounted in Patterson's book, and later in the movie The Ghost and the Darkness (Val Kilmer is Patterson). The plan, then, was two nights in West Tsavo and three nights in the Mara. In Tsavo there is amazing scenery. In the Mara there is wildlife. Beauty, then the Beasts.

    We got a very early start from Kijabe. Phillip picked us up at 5am for the drive to Nairobi and Wilson Airfield. We took only essential luggage, and left the rest in Kijabe for Phillip to bring later.

Just the basics for a week in the bush.

    On the way in to Wilson Airfield, we braved the boiling cauldron of Nairobi drivers in the roundabouts. As we blazed through a red light, I asked Phillip: "Can't you get pulled over for running redlights?" His answer was great: "Red or green, in Nairobi we just go." It's a crazy place to drive around in, and the police seem more keen on collecting funds from overloaded Mutatus than traffic stops. As a result of our time in Nairobi, we've been able to understand the major rules of driving here. Basically, driving is all about establishing who has the right-of-way. If it's you, then you can go into whatever lane you choose whenever you choose (even if it's the one running in the other direction). There are three determinants of who has the right-of-way. From least to most important, they are: 1. Whoever is ahead, 2. Whoever has the bigger vehicle, and 3. Whoever cares the least about crashing/dying. That third one is the toughest to pin down, because you often don't know if it's you or the other guy. Safe bet: If the other guy is a Mutatu driver, then it isn't you. When we got to Wilson, Phillip walked us into the first terminal. The greeting for our arrival was less than enthusiastic...

HellOOOooooo?.....

    Thankfully, we were in the wrong place, and our real terminal was a good big nicer. Phillip dropped us off and headed back to Kijabe while we waited in the terminal. I even discovered that they had free Wi-Fi, and we checked in on Kate and Kira on facetime.

This is the entire terminal. 

    When our plane was ready, we were taken by bus to another terminal for security clearance and boarding. Security is... well, there is no real security for these flights. Wilson airfield serves most major regional african fields, and so many of the flights out of Wilson are taking supplies and equipment to rural Africa. For this reason we had to wait for lots of people carrying batteries and tires and other equipment through the security point before we went through. Interestingly, the metal detector alarmed on every single person, so I didn't think much about it when I walked through and it triggered. For some reason, the guard stopped me and asked if I had any metal on me. I took off my belt and handed it to him. Instead of making me go through the detector again, he held the belt in the detector and confirmed that it alarmed. "Yeah that's it." he said as he handed the belt back. I could have also been carrying a loaded shotgun, but he wouldn't have known. Thankfully, there's very little reason to hijack a Cessna in Kenya, so I put my belt on and continued on my way. We waited in the second terminal for a few minutes and watched the tires roll by before boarding. The flight out was amazing, full of beautiful views of Kilimanjaro, and our landing was supplemented by three ostrich milling about the runway. They quickly ran to the margin of the landing strip when they realized we were the bigger bird. Apparently, Nairobi rules for right-of-way apply to flying as well. Here's some shots from the 50 minute flight out to Tsavo:

Tires from security. 

Walking out to the plane.

On-board the Cessna Caravan every seat is first-class.

Kili from the plane. It's amazing how much larger
this stratovolcano is than anything else in the country.

Greeting crew taking their places on the ground in Tsavo.

A look back at our plane.

    Our residence for our time in Tsavo was the Kilaguni Serena Lodge. In addition to being one of the oldest lodges built in Africa, it has been renovated to be one of the nicest. That makes it expensive, but believe me when I say that it is worth the extra shillings. The lodge is attached to the airstrip, so we drove all of a few hundred yards to the lodge doorstep, where we were greeted with fresh passionfruit juice and invited for the tail end of breakfast. All the meals are served at least partially buffet-style, and that first meal was a welcome respite from hospital food.  

The Tsavo lion story on the walls inside the lodge.

A view out of the dining area into the park. The watering
holes are in the front, and Kili's snow-capped peak is in the back.

The beautiful Tsavo landscape to his back,
Joe peers towards the open-air bar.

The omelet station. My favorite

Inside the open-air dining area.

Breakfast

An advertising poster for the railway.
I really wish they were selling copies.

    We finished breakfast and made plans to go on a game drive in the afternoon with some other tourists. The park fee is $65 per person per day. That's not cheap, but it is necessary to visit any park in Kenya. Hopefully the money is used to protect the endangered game in the park. We were then shown to our room (which was probably nicer than we should have had since they tried unsuccessfully to move us later). We had a few hours to kills, so we took some pictures and settled into the room.

View from our deck. I told you it was a good room.

The male and female Agama Lizards. These were everywhere.

The red dirt of Tsavo.

A Rock Hyrax. He looks angry.

On the deck outside our room.

The roof of the dining area is just to the right.

A large mirror showing the setup.

    We actually ended up eating lunch as well before the drive. A fantastic assortment of animals wander by the watering holes while you eat. In our first two meals, we saw many types of antelope and gazelle, warthogs, and zebra. When the time came for our first game drive, I was just excited to get out and see the landscapes. Turns out that that was a good thing because we didn't see jack for the first 20 minutes. Thankfully, we were accompanied by three older travelers who carried british accents and a bird identification guidebook. Interestingly, our first big find turned out to be a rather rare bird known as the Somali Ostrich. What's more, he was hanging out with a male Masai Ostrich (the much more common type). Here's some pictures from the first game drive. It ended up being one of the best ones we had during the week thanks in no small part to a surprise guest (as you will see):

Waiting for the vehicle.

The Masai Ostrich. Nice legs.

The rare Somali Ostrich.

Elephants defending their young from the Americans.

A fully-grown Dik Dik, smallest of antelopes.

Curious George was apparently a Vervet Monkey.

The Masai Highcow in its habitat.

The huge-trunked Baobab Tree

The rare Greater Kudu. Appropriately caught fleeing from people.

Landscapes of Tsavo.

Tsavo elephants. Note that one is grey and the
other the more classic Tsavo red color. The red
comes from spending more time in the red Tsavo
dirt, so the grey elephant is a newbie to the area.

Ta-da! A very rarely-seen young male Leopard. 
He was hunting a Dik Dik on the roadside.

The Leopard in his natural habitat.

Driving back to the lodge at dusk.

Full moon over Tsavo. Almost haunting.

Back at the lodge. Our room is the far right on the second floor.

    After getting back, we cleaned up and headed to dinner. The food was again incredible, and we spent the evening watching the animals meander by the waterhole's floodlights from the safety of our table.

Bon Apetite.

The finest cheeses in Tsavo.

Carved elephants in the dining area.

The waterholes at night. Long-exposure shot. 
Note the planet in the upper left. A few minutes
later it disappeared behind Kilimanjaro.

A look back at Joe in the dining area before bed.

No comments:

Post a Comment