Migration and Masai Mara

Migration and Masai Mara

We are at that stage of our African adventure where our social balance is possibly in question. Are we becoming more feral than is healthy and forgetting the usual social norms?! When cooking on a smoky fire is standard, using a squat pit latrine in preference to a flush one, vigorously recycling clothes and reminding Zara that using a spoon and fork in preference to her hands might be a good idea! That said, we feel a harmony with the land and the people we meet and revel in this raw African experience away from our normal organized and sophisticated lives. We have turned the corner (geographically not metaphorically!) crossing the Equator for the second time and now in Kenya, start our migration south.

From the Rift valley we are headed for the Masai Mara game reserve in the south of the country, but have many pleasant surprises to come on our way. We drop dramatically from our high perch on the Rift Valley escarpment down into the Kerio valley and, with a busload of excited, local school kids, marvel at a deep river gorge and spy a resident croc. We climb steeply again up the far side of the valley and are headed for Kembu farm and camping in the Highlands, were many white settlers enjoyed their colonial life of old. We shun the conventional route and stick to the spine of the escarpment enjoying dramatic views of Lakes Baringo and Bogora in the Rift valley below but are once again on a rough pot-holed ‘tar’ road. We stop for our favourite local lunch of Chapatti, beans and chai and for about R14 reckon we are doing pretty well!

Kembu Farm is owned and run by the Nightingale family, who have been in Kenya for a few generations, and is a fascinating, co-operative, comprehensive, community involved enterprise. Various family members run the dairy and horse stud, agriculture, camping and cottages and the wool weaving project. We share the campsite with a couple of novice overland trucks fresh form Nairobi and erect our tents not far from the milking sheds with a good waft of cow! Margot and Zara waste no time and are soon exploring the dairy, bottle feeding calves, walking with highly strung yearlings being prepared for sale and romping in massive mountains of hay bales. We purchase fresh milk from the dairy and enjoy the luxury of a bar/restaurant and that evening, a lovely wood fire. Ilda works marvels with home baking managing to bake bread in the hot water “donkey” and I enjoy an early morning jog with the 15yo Nightingale son who is training for his rugby season. It is winter chilly in the morning and at about 2400m the air is thin. We visit the wool weavers as the morning school project and are impressed by the home spun wool, natural dyes and hand knitted wares that, like Kenyan fruit and flowers, are exported around the globe.

From Kembu we choose a cross-country route again that our guide book describes as “a good dirt road that could become problematic in the rainy season” and skirt massive potholes and trenches but are spared the deep mud. Zara buys hot roasted corn-on-the-cob from a street vendor and we arrive at the Masai town of Narok. Like most Kenyan towns, and in stark contrast to Rwanda, the filth and litter is appalling, but we dine in an excellent local restaurant on our usual chapatti, chips and fried cabbage washed down with sweet hot milky chai. We are impressed by the hand washing facilities where neatly cut newspaper serves as hand towels and Ilda buys fresh fillet at the entrance of the restaurant where a large carcass is suspended from a meat hook above. The meat was surprisingly good and we seem to have suffered no ill effects.

The road from Narok to the Masai Mara has comfortably earned the mantle of our worst road in Africa, making even those in the west of Tanzania seem pretty smooth. Massive pot holes, remnants of tar, rough gravel and dust, lurched and rocked the poor Pathfinder to the limit and we were surprised at this poor access to Kenya’s iconic park. But then most guests probably fly in anyway! The trip was alleviated slightly by good sightings of giraffe, wildebeest and occasional strutting warthog. We pass Masai hamlets in almost desert-like over-grazed countryside, and their herds of cattle, and find this blurred mix of game and livestock interesting. We arrive at dusk at the Sekanani gate and skirt west on a vague track to avoid entering the park and the exorbitant park fees. We are headed for the Talek riverside camp and after about five minutes the deluge started. I think that we now have some idea of what Noah must have felt sitting in his ark. The arid ground was impermeable and our surroundings turned rapidly into a lake and rushing rivers. I will admit to having some concern for our safety and that of the Pathfinder and we were relieved to link up with a Bakkie laden with locals who, through a slit in the window and bucketing downpour, shouted, “We go together!” We skidded, slipped and sloshed after them and, to avoid a flooded Talek river, detoured into the park onto better roads and even enjoyed some good sightings of beautiful Topi, large herds of Zebra and hyena. Again, the lack of a boundary park fence meant that we frequently encountered herds of Masai cattle intermingled with game. The complete lack of grazing outside the park makes this their only hope, but I wonder how sustainable this will be and whether man’s encroachment will once again be at the expense of Africa’s wildlife.

We find, with some relief, the Talek campsite and the inevitable overland truck with its skitterish load of English backpackers. We erect our tents in the now abating rain and get an early night in preparation for an early start. Our Masai guide directs us into the park through a ‘back’ entrance and we are struck by how different this park is, with its massive meadows and savannah and paucity of bush and trees, to those of South Africa. On the plus side though, it is easy to spot game and we soon see massive herds of zebra, wildebeest and a herd of about 1000 buffalo. We are about two weeks too early for the migration though but enjoy some time at the famous Mara River where the ‘crossing’ will happen and watch hippo, giraffe and enormous crocodiles. We are alerted to some action buy numerous hyena sauntering across the plains and follow them to a gruesome Zebra carcass where up to thirty Hyena, numerous black backed Jackal and a huge flock of white backed vultures squabble, snap and tear away fresh flesh from the last scraps of this unfortunate beast. The sight of bloody faced hyena with glistening white fangs burrowing into the red carcass was dramatic and kept us enthralled for ages. We later saw the bloated sleepy lions on a nearby hillock. We return to camp, again avoiding the official gates and reckon we may be lucky and avoid the US$190 (R1330) park entry fee, but a visit by the Park guards, after we refused to pay the dodgy campsite owner who was intent on pocketing the fee, put an end to that.

The next morning, while toasting bread on the fire, we are visited by a human-size baboon which I scare off, but he runs straight for Margot, and only her piercing scream and holding her ground deflects him off into the bush, with a few stones following. We laugh later, but that was scary! We visit the local clinic again, all donated by a Canadian aid outfit, and like RSA, the emphasis is on vaccination, malaria and HIV.

Back on the nightmare road again the fuel gauge suddenly reads empty. We peer into the engine and scan the sump for leaking fuel but all looks dry and we cautiously purchase ten litres of exorbitant diesel at a local village and enjoy the company of a trio of immaculately turned out traditional Masai teenagers. We make it back to town followed by some helpful Americans and deduce that the fuel gauge is bust and add it to the list of things to do in Nairobi next week.

Now we are camped under massive Fever trees on the edge of Lake Naivasha enjoying Colobus monkeys and hippos and a wealth of birds, including flamingos, pelicans and exquisite Love birds. Tomorrow we have a visit arranged to one of the famous Kenyan flower ‘factories’, then we climb the volcanic crater Longnot on our way to Nairobi.