Nairobi

After nearly eight months I have reached my final country in Africa! I arrived in Kenya on a night bus from Kampala, which is never the most comfortable way to travel. On my first day in Nairobi I met an Australian woman called Michelle in my hostel that I ended up travelling with for a couple of weeks. We went to the National Museum of Kenya, and then to the Giraffe Centre where you could get up close and feed the Giraffes. The following day we went on a walking tour of central Nairobi with one of the hotel staff, which was pretty interesting, and you wouldn't want to do it alone without a local to guide you. My favourite part was probably the busses, or "matatus", which are all decorated with various famous people and fictional characters, and usually have coloured lights and very loud music blaring from them! It was also the first time that I directly witnessed corruption as some railway security guards tried to get us to pay them as we hadn't followed "the proper procedure" to be allowed to take photos. Much to their annoyance Michelle and I just walked off, but the guy from the hotel and another tourist Mathias went to the office to sort it out. Of course the rules for the proper procedure didn't exist, and Mathias just flashed his Swiss ID claiming that he was a diplomat and would call the embassy to sort it out - and the security guards all swiftly backed down!

As Kenya was my last African country on this trip I had to make the most of it and do one more safari! As it was the time of the great migration we headed to the Masai Mara to try and see some of it. Millions of herd animals such as wildebeest and zebra migrate back and forth across the Serengeti and Mara, and in July/August they cross from Tanzania into Kenya across the Mara River. At this time the plains are covered with animals as far as the eye can see! We also saw some other interesting sights that I hadn't seen on safari yet, which included some giraffes fighting by swinging their heads and necks at each other, and some hyenas, jackals, and vultures all tucking into the same carcass.

After the Masai Mara we headed to Lake Naivasha, where we did a boat trip to see some interesting birds including pelicans, storks, and fish eagles, plus a pod of hippos. In the afternoon we visited Elsmere Lodge, the home of Joy and George Adamson of Born Free fame, who raised Elsa the lion and other rescued animals to release into the wild. The story of Joy Adamson was really interesting, but I particularly enjoyed the free afternoon tea and watching the colony of colobus monkeys in the garden!

Another day and another great lake in Africa, next we were off to Lake Nakaru. The draw here is the large flocks of greater and lesser flamingos. What I was not expecting was to get so close to 5 white rhinos! Up until now I had only had very distant sightings of lone rhinos, and this park had both black and white rhinos. The black rhinos were hidden away from the road with a new baby, but the white rhinos were happily chomping away at the grass just meters away from the van. This was an amazing sighting in itself, but at the same time there was a pride of lions on the other side of the road chowing down on a young buffalo. It was quite stressful as I didn't know what direction to look in! For a few minutes the rhinos were forgotten as the whole pride including the cubs came right to the road to take a drink from a very dirty looking puddle. I guess there is less chance of a crocodile lurking or a surprise hippo attack coming from a puddle!

Lastly, we went to Hell's Gate National Park, the landscape which inspired the gorge scenes in The Lion King where the wildebeest stampeded and killed Mufasa! Luckily there are no lions there so it is pretty safe to cycle through the park to see the giraffes, zebras, and buffalo, although you're not allowed into the gorge any more due to the risk of flash floods.

The nature and wildlife in Africa is spectacular and I don't think I'll ever get tired of going on safari! But with my itch for safari temporarily scratched, off we headed back to Nairobi...Read more