…this is how it felt to arrive in Dubai airport, and Bangkok airport after Nairobi!
It was like being thrust into the future – a shiny, future with mind-numbing advertising everywhere!
At 2am I walked aimlessly around the shopping centre that is Dubai airport in search of a Thailand Lonely Planet book – mission accomplished I was pleased to jump on the flight to Bangkok.
The day after turtle bay, it was time for us to leave Kenya behind. More to the point, time to say goodbye to Dan Pilar and Alex:(
This was a teary affair to say the least – for me and Pilar anyway. We cannot thank Dan and Pilar enough for letting us stay. We had a brilliant time, and are so pleased to have had the chance to get to know them better.
Dan, Pilar – we are looking forward to seeing you again soon! Come and visit!
These are a collection of photos taken in Kenya on our around-the-world trip.
Just a quick update about our three day trip to these three lakes about 3-5 hours north of Nairobi.
Lake Nakuru is amazing, a soda lake with lots of flamingoes as well as a large national park where we saw white rhinos (being re-introduced to the park after almost going extinct), waterbucks, ostrich, lots of buffalo. We also had close encounters with a solitary male buffalo grazing near our tents and some cheeky baboons fighting over our waste spaghetti and banana skins!
Baringo is a fresh water lake further north than Nakuru. Bird life there is amazing, too many to mention but I did manage to get a few decent shots (including the one of the hornbill tucking into a bit of bread). We took a boat trip out on to the lake and, other than being a very beautiful place, also saw hippos, crocodiles and hunting fish eagles. The pics of the geysers are at Lake Bogoria, a bit south of Baringo. The water is too hot to touch (in fact Alex hurt his foot when he slipped into a stream of hot water). There were lots of eggshells around as people evidently boiled a few eggs there!
Off to the coast on New Year’s Day, Mombasa and Watamu. Hopefully the rain will stop so we can do a bit of sunbathing!
Happy New Year to everyone!
Love Paul and Becs.
Have just noticed that we forgot to mention the tea plantation visit – I think this was in Limuru – outside Niarobi. We went with Dan, Pilar, Alex, Tanya and Kim (Hello all!). Where better to visit for big tea drinkers like us than this!
What a relaxing and rather refined experience. It was a bit like staying at my grandad’s house – the same style furniture, and the table all layed properly for every meal. The couple that owned the place were lovely – more English than the English it seemed.
The walk around the plantation was great with amazing views – monkeys, and of cours, lots of tea.
I should also mention the rain / hail – it was the heaviest I have ever seen – hopefully Paul will get the photo of alex in the rain on our site.
Dan taught everyone to play poker and we had a great game for low stakes. Eager to make up some of his losses, Paul did rather better this time (unlike me – I kept buying back in), and walked away with quite a bit. Jon – we are looking forward to testing our new skills with you 
We haven’t been up to a great deal over the last few days but before we head off up north I thought i’d write a few words whilst enjoying some boxing day sun.
Thanks for the emails, calls and texts wishing us happy christmas. It’s been our first xmas away so it’s been a bit strange and we’ve missed having a family get together. However it was great watching Alex (Dan and Pilar’s 3 yr old) on xmas eve as he put out his stocking and a carrot with wine and a biscuit, then get incredibly excited on xmas morning.
We’ve also been to Hell’s Gate national park, 2hrs north of Nairobi. There’s a gorge we walked down that has geothermally heated water dripping from the sides. Also did a safari in Dan’s 4×4, and saw giraffe, buffalo and giraffe up really close. I also spotted a hyena cub in a bush near the track.
We’ve quite used to travelling around Nairobi, but it’s still fascinating. There are people everywhere. Walking on the sides of the road. Most of the buildings are little more than shacks with the poorer areas being quite depressing. Shops (shacks) on the side of the road are gaudily painted with their names. There are armed guards on the entrances to the bigger houses and guards man barriers on entrances to estates, like at Dan and Pilar’s. We also witnessed a stick beating on the side of the road. Unfortunately it’s not really safe enough to wander around; a couple of the ISK teachers have been attacked and car jacked. It’s a shame as it’s very green (although lots of traffic) with forests and groves dotted all over the city. It’s also fairly hilly with lots of streams and rivers criss-crossing the city.
Tomorrow morning (27th) we’re off for a 3 day trip to Nakuru, Beringo and Begoria; these are lakes a few hrs north that are famous for their birds and wildlife. We’re camping again so it should be a great trip! Back on the 30th before heading to the coast on new year’s day.
More news soon.
Love Paul and Becs.
We could write so much about this. It was only two full days (three nights) but I could go on and on as we saw so much!
Click here for the photos on Flickr.
Maasai Mara is a nature reserve in Western Kenya, near the border with Tanzania. It’s big – about 1500sq km – and is not fenced off. The animals are completely wild and free to roam. It’s the site of the famous wildebeest migration around July-September each year. See the pics to get an idea of what it looks like – a mixture of open grass plains with groves and woods of trees, crossed with various rivers (the Mara being the one after which the park is named).
It’s only about 250km from Nairobi but a long drive (6-10 hours) as the roads are extremely bad – massive pot holes and with dirt tracks on either side having been created by drivers not wanting to drive on the tarmac! It took us 10 hours as the guide we went with has an old Toyota Landcruiser that has leaf spring suspension (ie very rigid) and only goes 50mph. Very much like driving in our old landy.
It was almost dark when we arrived at the reserve and were greeted by a large elephant. 10 minutes later and we had a puncture, repaired speedily but we were told not to wander away from the vehicle… and almost immediately after setting off again we saw headlights on the plain off the track. Getting closer we could see a pride of lions having just brought down a wildebeest and were tucking in! Seeing kills of any kind is extremely rare, so we were lucky to see this. Just as we approached, a herd of buffalo charged the lions and drove them off (not sure why as it was a wildebeest they had killed). There was a brief hiatus and three lions quietly returned and started tearing the wildebeest up. Hyena noises (not really laughing, ,more of a strange whooping) then filled the air and you could see their eyes in the torch light. The guides reckoned 30-50 of them. After lots of circling, they rushed the 3 lions and scared them off, then tucked in themselves! Quite the most spectacular thing we’ve seen. No photos but Becs took some video that I will try and upload at some point.
We were camping, so the guide (Wilson) and his two helpers (including our chef, Godfrey, who cooked some amazing food on one gas ring and a charcol fire in a little hut) put the tents up for us and lit a big campfire. Over the next two days we went on what they call “game drivesâ€, basically off roading around the plain looking for animals. It’s easy to see things, and most of the animals are fine around the vehicles (leopards being the exception), so we saw wildebeest, zebra, antelope (various different types), elephants, giraffe, hippos, baboon, hyena, jackal, buffalo, lion, warthogs and lots of different birds. We liked the hippos best. Hippos are so happy just floating around in the water, diving and yawning. We also went for a safari walk with Jackson (our Maasai guide), which was beautiful, wandering around on the plain next to zebra and antelope with giraffe and elephants in the distance.
This time of year is the short wet season. This was good, in that the grass was green and the animals seemed to be having lots of young: we saw baby lion cubs, elephants, baboons, antelope, zebra and hippos. All very cute! The bad thing was that it rained a fair bit (heavy showers), so much so on the first afternoon between game drives that our tent leaked so badly that we had to bail out with cups until the storm subsided! The rain also made driving conditions tricky, as the small tracks are just dust which quickly turns to thick mud.
The campsite was in a small wood grove, right in the middle of the plains, i.e. there was nothing between us and the wildlife. This resulted in a late night encouter with an elephant. We could only hear it’s deep and loud “hoooom†sound, a bit like a very bassy snore. They might seem docile but they are extremely dangerous as they don’t like humans much and tend to charge and trample things if they get upset. Luckily the guides woke up and made some noise which deterred it. We also had hyena, baboon and giraffe very close (within 100m) of the camp, and elephants (during the day) about 1km away.
Our guide (Jackson – his picture is on Flickr) is a Maasai, and extremely knowledgeable about the mammals, birds and plants in the reserve so we learnt a lot. The Maasai people live in and around the reserve, tending their cattle and sheep. You can see various herds dotted around the plains each with their red-shouka’d herder. We also were taken to a Maasai village, with the tiny mud huts.
Take a look at the pictures on Flickr. I’ve tried to put comments along with the pictures to help explain what they are of. We have lots lots more of course, but uploading is just too slow.
More updates soon!
Love P&B.
We’ve been in Nairobi for a few days now. Not too much to say but wanted to put in our first post from abroad.
Arrival was fascinating – or at least Paul was fascinated by the baggage carousels and the single luggage scanner for an entire 747 full of luggage!
We are staying at Dan and Pilar’s house in the north west of the City, just outside the suburb of Westlands. It’s green, quiet and leafy and generally very nice! We’re writing this from an internet cafe about 10mins drive from their house, and getting here was our first “adventureâ€, driving on our own in Dan’s 4×4. We have already met lots of Dan and Pilar’s friends (BBQ in the garden, and a meal out to a great North African restaurant).
Everything here certainly seems to happen at a different pace, and it is a bit of a culture shock (not in a bad way). the markets have been fun – lots of bartering – though Pilar had to help out with this at first – thanks Pilar! Also the first time we have ever seen people playing pool under some trees by the side of a market!
Tomorrow we set off on safari for 4 days, which should hopefully be amazing! And this afternoon we are going down to Karen to see giraffes.
We’ll post again soon hopefully.
Love P&B
We had the first of the paid for jabs today:
No massive arm aches or problems yet. Becs had all three in one arm because of her TB jab last week. I had two in one and one in the other.
They are over three sessions (0, 7, 21/28 days), so we have two more visits before the course is complete.
Cost? A very reasonable £460 (total for all three courses for both of us)!
We’re travelling to Thailand and Kenya, both of which have a widespread distribution of malaria. It’s prompted me to look into the anti-malarial effects of both the drugs recommended for prevention. These are doxycycline and malarone. Lariam (mefloquine) isn’t really recommended because of the trippy side effects and the development of chloroquine-resistant strains in some regions.
Doxy is just an anti-biotic (it’s used to treat various bacterial infections). However malaria (Plasmodium) is not a bacteria, it’s a protista, still a single cell creature but biologically very different. It seems that doxy has a side effect of reducing the cell division (ie reproduction) of Plasmodium. Unfortunately it does not completely stop it and, depending upon where the plasmodium is hiding in the body (liver or red blood cells), it might not always reach its target.
Malarone has two drugs (atovaquone and proguanil), both which *specifically* target the reproduction of Plasmodium, and are more effective in their results. The downside is that there are 4 species of Plasmodium, and malarone predominantly affects one (P. falciparum, the one that causes almost all fatalities often via cerebral haemorrhage). It seems to have effects against the other three, especially Vivax, but GlaxoSmithKline don’t seem to promote this.
As Kenya is a region with P. falciparum, we will be taking malarone. However Peru has a fair distribution of P. vivax, which is a slight concern.
Doxy has some weird side effects, the main two being photosensitivity (you can’t spend much time in the sun) and drowsiness/upset stomach.
On the cost front, malarone is £2 per day, doxy is 20p, so it’s a lot more expensive but we’d rather not take the risk.
Although the drugs help, we will also be taking all the usual precautions such as repellent, nets and long-sleeved clothing.
