This...is AFRICA!

There’s really nothing too exotic about flying coach at 2:20 am, connecting through a town in Ethiopia. But on the positive side, the plane was not too full, we had an aisle to ourselves and it was quite a pretty sight flying into the capital, Addis Ababa at day break. Surprisingly, at least from the air it looked to be a modern city; skyscrapers and such. The airline, Ethiopian Air is one of the largest in Africa with a great safety record and great service. Both legs were on the very comfy Airbus 350, too! Wheels down in Nairobi, Kenya early afternoon on Day 35, July 6, 2022.

 

It is here that we meet up with Andrea’s brother Chris and fiancée Julie for the next three legs. We’ve been cooking this up for a couple of years and it is their first trip to Africa. They arrived yesterday after a grueling 2-day journey starting from Sarasota, Florida. The meeting place is at the Nairobi Serena Hotel and they are standing in the lobby. Our tour company, “Naked Wilderness” met us at the airport, got us to the hotel and will be our safari guides for the next five days. After a quick orientation, we have an extended happy hour, catching up on our travel adventures, then have a decent dinner and are ready to crash in anticipation of the finding the Big Five.

 

Our driver and expert safari guide’s name is Patrick Ndogono, a very professional, educated and pleasant African. He has been at this for twenty years and was born in a village not too far from Nairobi. Our destination today is Ashnil Safari Camp in Samburu National Park in northwestern Kenya, about six hours away. Our Safari truck is comfortable but the roads are not. It’s a slow grind because of the hundreds of villages we passed through, along with the locals walking along the road gawking, waving while tending to their goats and cows. Frankly, the poverty is shocking in these little villages. Huts with tin or cardboard roofs, dirt floors, etc. But, we observed that it’s apparently all relative and it is their way of life from birth until death. Bustling markets are everywhere selling everything from cabbage heads to auto parts. The drive turns out to be seven hours of hell, going through dozens and dozens of villages, dodging goats, natives carrying stuff on their heads and smelling exhaust fumes from motorcycles, toot-toots and clunker cars.

 

Ashnil is an upscale safari camp in Samburu National Park, Kenya, 100 kms northwest of Nairobi. We spend the next two days on early-morning game drives, lunch and beers, naps and then late afternoon game drives. Comfortable accommodations and pretty good food. Then, we moved on to Meru National Park, due east about 75 kms but a much shorter 3-hour ride. Here, we are staying at Elsies Kopje (Elsies Hill in Swahili). It is here that George Adamson raised Elsie the lion from a cub and then successfully released her back into the wild. This story is better known as “Born Free”, a popular movie and even more popular song in the mid 1960’s. The place is stunning, on a hill overlooking the vast plains of Africa. The service is top-notch and the food is Michelin-grade. We finally see four of the big five and are looking for the illusive leopard. Our time here is too short, but we must finally say goodbye to our guide Patrick who drops us off at the Meru landing strip (gravel\dirt) for our bush-plane flight to Nairobi and on to Tanzania, Segment 5.

The easiest way to complete this post is with pictures.. I have so many it was difficult to choose but here is a good sampling of Kenya!