Acausted

This weekend, I took a trip with friends to the Great Rift Valley. The Rift Valley has been on my list for some time. It’s famous for national parks, game drives, spectacular views and some of the world’s most famous archeological sites with early Cro-Magnon fossils (including the famous Olduvai Gorge). The Kenyan Rift Valley is also a politically charged area: it was a hotbed of violence during the last Presidential election and was the only area firmly opposed to the new Constitution in this month's referendum.

But this weekend was all about the animals. Our trip included two mini-safaris: a walking safari on Crescent Island and a game drive in Nakuru National Park.

I had never done a walking safari before, but it was a cool experience. Crescent Island has no predators, so it’s safe to walk around and track down animals on foot. There are giraffes, hippos, zebras, a number of gazelle-like things, wildebeest and water buffalo.

The main advantage of a walking safari is that you can approach the animals on foot and generally interact with (read: harass) the various creatures. The highlight of the harassment was chasing a giraffe, some wildebeest and a small group of zebra. I learned that every animal there can run twice as fast as a sprinting human. I’m glad we’re not early Cro-Magnon hunters anymore. Or gatherers, for that matter. Here, tracking the animals:



On Saturday night we stayed at Maili Saba Tented Camp, a luxurious facility whose accommodation only loosely qualifies as “camping.” Instead of sleeping in normal tents on lumpy ground, Maili Saba is equipped with permanent luxury tents on platforms that contain large, comfortable beds covered with fresh white linens. Each tent has its own porch, hot shower and clean toilet, plus electric lighting installed into converted kerosene lanterns. The Camp is perched on the edge of a bluff overlooking the valley, so the views are spectacular.



As people who read my Ghana posts will know, I am currently migrating from the hostels-and-backpack phase of my life into the budget-hotels-and-rolling-luggage phase of my life. I guess I’m simply willing to pay a little more for the nicer touches.



After breakfast, we left with our guide to Nakuru National Park. Nakuru is one of two “premium parks” run by Kenya Wildlife Services, meaning that the animals are more interesting and the prices are higher. Nakuru is particularly famous for its abundant bird life and the presence of both black rhinos and the rarer white rhinos. I am not an ornithophile, but the birds at Nakuru were terrific: foul vulture-like Marabou Storks, giant flocks of flamingos and other exotic avian life whose names I’ve already forgotten (the Red-Crested Groundbill, maybe?)



Morning is the best time to visit the park since the predators feed then. We didn’t see any kills, but we did watch a pack of hyenas trying to isolate a baby water buffalo from the pack. They were unsuccessful; several adult buffalo managed to chase them away. While all this was going on, the larger animals, such as the adult rhinos, seemed completely unfazed. As long as you’re not the weakest, I guess you’re ok. An unfazed rhino:



While we were watching the hyenas we came across a rare white rhino. There are fewer than sixty in the whole park, so it was a great find. At one point, we saw a white rhino and black rhino – both adult males – facing each other across a distance of about 75 yards and slowly closing the gap. Although adult males from different species occasionally attack each other, these two decided to be gentlemanly; the white rhino turned around and lay down by the road:



The most hair-raising experience of the weekend was not, however, a close encounter with wildlife; it was a run-in with a disgruntled tanker driver. Halfway back to Nairobi, a large white tanker swerved in front of our van and braked sharply, trying to force us off the road. When the tanker pulled onto the shoulder, our driver dodged around it and kept driving. All of us muttered something about crazy Kenyan drivers, including our driver. It’s true: Kenyan drivers are dangerous, with recklessness roughly proportional to vehicle size. So the tanker’s erratic swerving didn’t really shock us.

Ten minutes later and many miles down the road, as we were rounding a highway on-ramp, the same white tanker tried to force us off the road again. This time was worse than the first: he nearly clipped us, forcing our van to swerve right onto the shoulder. With the oncoming traffic, the on-ramp was so tight that we were trapped behind the tanker and had to pull over and stop. Our guide, Boniface, was very mad at this point and decided to sort things out. He marched up to the cabin of the tanker and started yelling at the guy.

This went on for a few minutes. The shouting match attracted the attention of a police officer who pulled over. He probably saw a chance to investigate possible wrongdoing and discover bribe-taking opportunities (known locally as “eating”).

The tanker driver was yelling in Swahili that our driver had hit his tanker and caused a dent in the side. Our driver pointed out that our van had no dents and that the tanker must have been mistaken, which was definitely true. I think that the tanker driver was probably looking to pin the blame for his dent on someone and force them to pay the cost of repairs. Before long, the two drivers were soon screaming at each other, with the policeman yelling and gesturing his baton menacingly at both of them.

I decided to step in at this point. I walked up to the officer and told him in my best Swahili that the other man had tried to run us off the road twice but that I was absolutely certain that we hadn’t hit the tanker.

The tanker driver looked like he would have hit me if the policeman wasn’t there, but things seemed to turn around in our favor. The policeman got very loud at this point and told the tanker driver that he was trying to hit our van “like it was full of luggage” and that “he was trying to kill people like animals.” The officer told us we could leave, just before grabbing the other driver by the arm and taking him behind the tanker. I’m not sure what happened at this point, but I think that the tanker driver probably regretted his decision to try and knock us off the road.

As we pulled away, I noticed English writing on the back of the tanker: “WARNING: Caustic Soda. DANGEROUS.” I guess it was a closer call than I realized.

Adventures in Monopodding

You've heard of iPods. You know about tripods. But have you ever seen a monopod?

I recently got one as a gift. The monopod (brand name: QuikPod) is a remarkable device that allows you to take pictures of things with an extra 6/12/18" of reach. That way, you can take pictures as if your arms were longer -- like an orangutan's.

Here is a picture of the monopod itself:

This is me setting up the device:

And here is a monopod-assisted self-portrait. No awkward angles!

So, asante to the person who gave me the gift of reach.

Born to be Wildebeest

[Safari post -- part 2 of 2.]

Where we left off, I was heading to the bar at the Seronera lodge.

The lodge was way more luxurious than I was expecting (esp. for the price, which included dinner, breakfast and a boxed lunch). Definitely not the usual Al-roughing-it accomodations, which have included: an illegal guesthouse in Uzbekistan that was shut down by the police during my stay, a sixteen-to-a-room hostel with one toilet, and a rent-by-the-hour Costa Rican dive. No, this place was filled with honeymooners and rich people, and had an amazing restaurant and a pool terrace. Oh, and a bar carved out of a boulder. This is the courtyard of the hotel (inside that big boulder is the bar):

I was there by myself, so I settled down next to the predictable Masai spear display and did a little reading and Safari-sipping. I started a jumbo collection of short stories by Eudora Welty, a Southern author I really like. She reminds me of Flannery O'Conner, my favorite author (and also Southern).

We left early the next morning to pack in as much as possible. The serengeti was pretty low on animals for the first couple of hours, except for a bunch of ostriches and a clan (squad?) of baboons. The baboon unit had a lot of young, who were jumping around and trying to climb up a tree. A few were clinging to their mothers' backs. The baboons seem totally fine with people being close -- some of them came right up to the car.

After that, not much to see for a while. There was some back and forth between one of the other passengers and our guide. Such as: why couldn't we see any lions; where are the rhinos, and can't our guide make them come to us? In reply: this isn't a zoo, it's a park, you can't just have lions on call; plus, we saw lions yesterday; also, there are no rhinos in this park. As this was going on, we came across the Mega-Jackpot of animal sights: one of the last wildebeest herds of the season beginning their migration to Kenya. Our guide said that this was a small group, but there were still tens of thousands at least. This was one of the more awesome and powerful natural phenomena I've ever seen. Even these pictures don't really do it justice:

The migration unit didn't move as a group, but had a bunch of different herds that would start to run in spurts and then stop. The older, gruntier wildebeest would make a honking sound and gallop along the outside of the pack, trying to get the rest to pick up the pace. They might also have been trying to protect the edges of the throng from potential predators. The combined sound of honking and grunting was incredible. At some points, half the wildebeest would just start galloping for ten seconds, which was incredible to watch. I think the wildebeest leaders were suspicious of us -- look at them stare.

I think the herd would have been running much faster if they knew about the two lions sleeping close by. The lions were a young couple (probably college age). They were lying in the shade after a morning hunt. With that many wildebeest migrating right now, it was probably dining a la carte for those two. The male lion stared at us for five minute without moving, and then, looking bored, rolled over and started scratching his back on the ground.

The female was a bit livelier:

Our guide started driving back to the park gate after that. It was much, much further than I thought to get there -- we were actually very deep in the park by late morning. On the way, I saw an impala which had been slaughtered by a leopard and dropped in the branches of a tree. Apparently leopards always drag their kills -- whole -- onto a branch before they eat it. The idea is to put it where other predators (esp. hyenas) can't get it. It's like getting takeout.

On the way back, I saw a few assorted animals. There was a group of female ostriches fighting each other over a male ostrich (the lucky guy is the black-and-white one on the left):

Here is a croc by the Grumeti:

And here is a human by the Grumeti:

Next, a giraffe crossing the road (pedestrians have right of way in the park):

And another pachyderm shot. This one is a middle-aged female, maybe around 30 years:

When we got back to the park gate, I saw some very proper-looking school children about to visit the park. They were ridiculously well behaved. To get kids to behave that way in North America you'd need to drug them.

Our last exotic animal of the trip: the Small White Monkey (monus smalliensis). Then we were done. The only animals I saw driving home were cows and goats -- boring!

All in all, the safari was an amazing experience -- probably gets a spot on my top ten travel list. I should give a quick shoutout to Exotic Expeditions, who put together the trip. If anyone reading this is looking for a Mwanza-based tour operator to take them to Sukuma areas or Serengeti/Ngorongoro NP, you should book them and try to get Henry as a guide. The happy customers:

Thus ended the safari. More adventures coming soon!

Your Lion Eyes

[Aforementioned safari post -- part 1 of 2. Enjoy!]

It's Saturday evening at Seronera Wildlife Lodge in the middle of Serengeti National Park. I just finished an incredible first day on safari.

I started the trip today at 8 am. To keep things affordable, I joined up with a family of three from Gujurat who just moved to a region near here. Traveling with them has been a mixed blessing. The dad could be a bit annoying at times (e.g., chucking garbage out the window and yelling at passengers in other vehicles, which made the animals ran away.) They were very nice people, though, and the mom made up for it by giving me a lot of Gujurati food that I'd never tried before. I ate this snack mix called chouro, fenugreek parathas, cucumbers with piripri, and some dessert thing. Better than the boxed lunch of hard-boiled eggs and fried chicken I packed the night before.

The animals have been pretty incredible. When we got into the park we saw what I think of as warmup animals: guinea fowl, warthogs and serengeti foxes. The warthogs (pumba) didn't come very close to the car, and the car is not allowed to drive off the road to chase down the animals. Something about disturbing their habitat. Pics:



As we drove further into the park, I saw a lot of the big grazing animals. Wildebeest were thin on the ground because the famous migration had already started, but we caught some small groups anyways. Wildebeest are not the most attractive animals: they look like underfed cows that grunt and leap around.



The water buffaloes are like fatter, rarer versions of the wildebeest. They are also less grunty and travel in smaller groups. This one was solo:



Zebras are just plain awesome. I don't why no one ever tried to domesticate them, because it would look incredible to ride around on one of those. They're skittish, so I had to take most of my pictures at a distance. The zebras tended to mix in with the other animals; I saw small groups of them mixed in with deer and wildebeest herds.



We also saw tons of deer-like things: regular deer, impala, Hartebeest (sp?), a herds of mini-deer (not babies, just smaller ones). I couldn't really tell the species apart, but these ones are definitely impalas:



I saw the Grumeti River, one of the most famous sites in the park. This is the place where millions of wildebeest cross every year on their northward migration to Masai Mara in Kenya. They've made a few movies about how dangerous the journey is. Although the missed the main crossing at this point, there were still plenty of crocs and fat hippos. I hoped the hippos would come out of the water, but they just sat in the river and blew water out their noses. Here, one hippo is coming out of the water, but it looks like a rock:



We stopped for lunch at Seronera, a sort of safari staging ground smack in the middle of the park. Take a small outdoor lodge, fill the parking lot with a dozen giant SUVs, add fourty tourists with boxed lunches, and you have the Serengeti Visitors Center. I was in the small minority of guests who wasn't wearing a safari hat, khaki suit, and/or fanny pack. (Side note: I noticed on my hotel dry-cleaning form that there is a separate, more expensive entry for safari suits... hilarious!) The lunch area at the center had some mongooses (mongeese?) -- the grown up one was fat, happy and tourist-fed, and the babies looked like they were well on their way to tubbiness. I was surprised to see them eating grass, though; I thought they ate eggs and snakes.



In the afternoon, we looked for the hard-to-spot creatures like lions, leopards and elephants. I saw a small family of elelphants (middle-aged females and one baby). Definitely my favorite of the day:





A few times, we came across groups of giraffes. Here's a family with a baby:



Leopards and cheetahs are the hardest animals to see in the park, because there are fewer of them and they're good at hiding. We got cheated out of seeing a cheetah, but our guide managed to track down a solo leopard sitting up in a tree. Amazing spots!



We drove around for a while trying to track down the lions (simba). The pride areas are in a different part of the park, with no prey animals around. There is a higher-elevation section of the serengeti with ten or so rock clusters that give a good lookout of the surrounding area. It seemed fitting that the king of the beasts gets the best vista around. One rocky outcropping seemed like it might have been the inspiration for Pride Rock in the Lion King. Each of the rock clusters had a family of lions sleeping on it. Most of them were hidden from view, but I saw a bunch of them sleeping on the rocks. A lioness:



We also saw a family of six lions sleeping in a big tree outside of the main lion area. I wouldn't even have noticed them if our guide hadn't pointed them out. We waited for a while, but they were sleeping and didn't seem like they were going anywhere fast. They were scratching their heads lazily on the tree branch. You can just make them out if you look carefully on the right branch.



Right before we went back to the lodge, we came across a rare lion trifecta: mom, dad, and 2 cubs. I guess it wasn't actually a trifecta since there were four of them, but hey... good enough. They were crossing the road when we came across them. The dad watched us without moving, like he was just waiting for someone to get out of their SUV so he could have a quick snack. The mom stayed very close to the cubs, both less than a year old. The pictures here don't show the cubs very well because of the grass (they're left of center):



By later this afternoon, I had almost become used to seeing big animals everywhere I looked. I never stopped being amazed by the landscape, though. The terrain is stunning, and it's actually quite varied across different parts of the park. Some sections have Lion King-style serengeti trees and long grass, and some parts just go on for tens of miles without any tall vegetation at all. Most of the edge of the park is ringed by low-rising wooded mountains, which act as natural barriers to keep the predators away from settlements. This photo gives a sense of the vastness of the serengeti:



That's all, folks. I'm going to wrap up today's safari with a cold bottle of Safari.