Trying to Describe Kenya

Breathtaking sunset, Nanyuki, Kenya

The other day I tried to describe Kenya to someone and I was kind of at a loss. How do you describe living a dream, a fantasy to someone? I've travelled to a lot of major cities and to a lot of places in this world, but I have never been in jaw-dropping awe of someplace every moment I was there before.

I always dreamed of Kenya. Born Free was on the television - perhaps the Wide World of Disney on Sunday? I had to have been no more than three or four. What I saw made me obsessed with lions and Kenya for decades after. I can't tell you why I never took a job travelling or just backpacked for a few years. I took the responsible job route and have lived to regret it.

But I had the opportunity to travel to Kenya last year on my honeymoon. For most women the wedding was the high point - to be honest I wanted to get that over with so we could be on a plane for our short (NOT) 2 day trip to Kenya.

Arriving in Kenya was easy. We waited on line for really less than an hour to get entry into the country. We got our Visas right at the airport. I remember having our passport stamped with Kenya on it - such excitement!

We had a driver waiting for us since we had just missed the flight to Amboselli and had to take a minivan the four hour trip. Directly out of the airport - right in Nairobi - we saw our first giraffe. A giraffe! In the wild! After about 2 hours driving we stopped to get a soda and some gas and then took our turn off the main road and into Masailand. We passed the local Maasai market where everything from cloth to fruit to goats were traded. And then the land opened up. It just literally opened up to the biggest sky I've ever seen. The air was dry and thin. The sky was bigger, bluer, more three dimensional than I've ever seen it. It was like when Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz lands in Oz and black and white turns to technicolor. The land and the air smelled too - a good smell of dryness, dirt and faint animal smells. What I remember noting is that everything was so dry. Kenya isn't a jungle - it's a savanna and the colors are green and gold and red and brown.

Young elephant in Amboselli

As we drove to our first camp, our driver picked up and dropped off various people - Maasai tribesmen getting a lift in their day. I remember looking at us in our khakhis and our beige clothing with our beige skin and looking at them - with their dark brown skin nd their red robes and tons of beadwork bracelets, belts, necklaces, earrings that would make any woman jealous. Every safari book admonished us to get a wardrobe of beige and khaki. This helps camouflage you to the animals. What a crock - our guides were as colorful as peacocks! And far more beautiful. I look at our pictures and compare their color to our blandness and I laugh!

On safari

We stayed at Porini Ecocamps - totally solar powered, they sit on conservancies. We went to a Maasai village and I remember the people - how we as Americans would think of them as "poor" or "in need of help". These people need nothing from us. They are rich in culture, in family, in beauty, in livestock and in land. They have natural remedies for everything from coughs to bug bites to animal scratches. They are far wiser than us. And they do go to school. In fact a lot of the people we met go to university in Nairobi and come back to live in their villages. Culture and tradition is important to them and they strive to not lose that. The only thing they would like from us is for us to come to Kenya so that they can earn an honest wage as a cook or a driver or a guide.

Beautiful Maasai Girl

But I haven't spoken about the animals. The only thing I can say is that to see these animals that we've all seen in pictures and in zoos here...in person...living, running, playing, having babies and even dying is a gift that I will cherish forever. Now more than ever I feel the need to protect nature and wildlife.

In our travels throughout the country, we saw elephants nurturing and protecting the smallest possibly newborn elephant I've ever seen. We saw a pride of lions on a hunt at night - their calls so deep that the ground shakes. We saw two male lions - brothers - one healthy and robust, the other bony and sickly. The healthy one will stay with the sick brother, making sure he is fed, making sure he is not attacked. He will stay with this brother until the brother is well or dies. He will stay even if it means his death.

small lion, big world

We saw Mt. Kenya's snow capped peak and the Abadare mountain range. We saw lions nursing their cubs. We saw warthog families runnin, teeny babies in tow with their tails straight in the air, like flags waving. We saw a cheetah mother teach her cubs to hunt and a zebra separated from her herd - limping, knowing she probably wouldn't make it through the night.

And we saw death. We saw an elephant that died stuck in a mudhole. We saw the carcass of a wildebeest that had died while still running - the body eternally in a run position. We saw an antelope carcass in a tree, it's horns hooked onto a branch. Placed there by a leopard so she could come back and finish her meal.

Eat or be eaten - first rule.

But we mostly saw life. Life in every form. The struggle to say alive, be it hunter or prey. The life in Kenya's people - full of pride and laughter.

They say Kenya and the Great Rift Valley is the origin of mankind, perhaps the origin of all living beings. Being there that's easy to believe. The land, the very air is alive and she sings a song. It's a song of freedom. It's a song of coming home. And that's the only way I can describe Africa - for all her strangeness and differentness to the United States - it's like coming home.

The Bat Cave

The thing I liked best about Nicaragua is that Granada, one of the main little towns in this country, has no gift shops, no souvenir shops and only one tour operator in the entire town. Perhaps because people still think of Contras and Sandinistas and poverty when they think of Nicaragua. I think of volcanos and lakes and Tona beer that's so cold you get a beer brain freeze.

We had spent the day climbing and exploring Mambacho, the largest volcano in that area. Mombacho is impressive and still considered active but no lava and no sulphur. I want my volcanos to be all hellish with fire and lava and acidic steam. I love volcanos. Obsessed with them. I wanted more. As we passed the tour operator on the way back to the little lodge we were staying at, I noticed a sign. This sign to me like probably heroin to an addict. The sign simply said - See the Bats and Lava at Volcan' Masaya at Night. OK - we had been to Masaya volcano already - impressive in that it was very active and stank of sulphur and everything around it was dead because of the poisonous gasses. But we hadn't seen lava and we hadn't seen bats. I was in! Jack opted to go to the little pool and have a caprihiana. Most people would have agreed with his plans.

So I get on a bus, myself. The lone female american tourista off to see the bats and the lava. We stopped at the Masaya Market (a traditional place where you can but everything from fruit to fish to clay pots to god-awful fake Mickey Mouse Pinatas) and picked up some more americans - mostly missionaries that took the evening off from feeding orphans and preaching gospel to see some real fire and brimstone and creatures of the night.

Masaya Volcano is more impressive at dusk. There are three craters and a large cross off to the side. The cross was put up because the volcano is believed to be the gateway to hell and that is supposed to stop the devil from burning the local villages to the ground. The cross has been replaced several times after eruptions burned it to the ground. I'll let you form your own opinion of that. The most active crater spews out toxic sulphur and it's recommended you stay only 15 minutes by this crater. The air is moist and stinks and it's hard to breathe - it's awesome! But in this poisonous atmosphere life finds a way. Parrots live in the walls of the craters. They go out foraging all day and at night they come back to their toxic home. And sure enough we hear in the distance the caws and screams of hundreds of birds. And in an instant as if on cue, they fly past and into the small holes in the side of the crater.

We then trek up to the other crater - past a DANGER FALLING ROCK sign. This is Nicaragua and really, if you fell into a volcano would anyone know? No. No safety rope, no signs. I love this.

And then time to see the caves and the bats. Which is interesting becauce it's night. And pitch black. And we have to climb DOWN a tree to get down to the caves - which are wet, slippery and pitch black. We are given flashlights and then told to shut them off and stay still. You cant see the hand in front of you. It's that kind of dark that hurts your eyes.

And then...we feel them and hear them. Whooshes right near your ears. Little screeches. Then more. Then hundreds of little bodies that go at you in kamakazi fashion and veer off to the right or left at the last second to avoid a head on collision with you. Thousands of little bats - not seen but felt, heard. This must be what it feels like to have a bullet whizzing by you. the rustle and wind of tiny wings flying by your ears. I take a single flash picture and when I look at it afterward, there's a dozen bats in front of me - small, furry yellow bodies, red eyes, leathery black wings and smiling fanged grins - amazing. What an experience.

As for the lava? Well, in for a penny, I guess. I was the only one who wanted to still see the lava after being shown where it was. Walk in the pitch blackness to the end of the crater. There's a stick in the lava. Hold it and lean into the crater - be careful - that's 50 ft. down and the lava is about 450 degrees. Hey - I drive in Miami - this is way safer. And I am rewarded with the soft glow of fire. Lava at last.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foOfC52WiDM

Scrabble Tournament in Kenya

November, 2008

Jack and I were at our first camp of three in Kenya. I was in heaven - wildlife, amazing people, sleeping in a tent and being awakened by Maasai bringing coffee in bed. I mean this was the fantasy come to life. Our camp was Porini Amboselli Camp - situated near the famous Amboselli National Park - home to elephant and dust devils.

The camp Manager was named Tony. He was a little aloof and in this heat in the bush (very dusty) he wore a white sport jacket. Jack nicknamed him Mr. Rourke (from Fantasy Island). Tony didn't really mingle with us - he left us to our own accord - possibly because he knew we were on out honeymoon, possibly because he had better things to do than talking to American tourists - like run the camp. On our last day at this particular camp, I asked Jack if he wanted to play scrabble with me. I always bring my portable scrabble game with me everywhere I go. And I always force Jack to play. And he always loses and when he starts losing he gets a little whiny and he sabotages the game so he will lose faster. It's kind of a game within a game. We play. Jack gets bored. Loses big time. Starts with the abbreviations (FAA is not a word, honey).

Sooooo I mention to Jack that we have to play scrabble and Tony the aloof camp manager overhears and says "scramble? I love scramble". Jack volunteers him to play with me. OK before dinner TOny and I will play scramble (I love scramble. so much a more appropriate name for the game, don't you think?).....So we get changed for dinner and Tony and I play scramble. Tony is good. And takes it seriously. There is no scramble dictionary so we make some new rules. No Swahili. English only, please. And if someone challenges a word and the other player can't use it in a sentence and give a definition it goes off the board. This makes up for a slight language and culture (Kenyans are schooled in the British way and spelling is British rules) difference.

Anyway, we play. And Tony is good. But I am winning. By now, there are about a dozen Maasai warriors around the game. And the chef is yelling that the soup is burning. Doesn't matter - what matters is the game. I finally found someone who takes this seriously and he's in Kenya....go figure. Well, I'm thinking is it OK for the camp manager to get beaten by an American woman? Will the Maasai give him respect? Hell with that - I'm winning! So I win. TOny shakes my hand and asks for a rematch. I'd love to, I explain, but our flight out of Amboselli is at like 10 am and it's a 2 hour trip to the airstrip and so sad, too bad, maybe next time. So Tony says, I will wake you up at 4am so we can play. Sure, buddy. Go for it I say.


Four AM. Jack and I see a lantern in our sleep traveling toward the tent. "That's your wake up call", Jack says. Oh damn - this guy was serious. I throw on some shorts and my glasses, stumble out of the nice warm tent and into the night trailing a Maasai warrior with a lantern and a spear. There is a fire burning, strong hot coffee waiting and a table with.....the scrabble board all set up. Tony is there with his sport jacket - how the hell does he look dapper at 4am in the middle of Kenya?

We play and to make it more interesting we make a bet. If he wins he gets the scrabble (ahem, scramble) board. We play. Again more Maasai show up. Jack shows up to watch. This is an epic battle - wars were fought over less - woman vs. man. US vs. Kenya. City vs. Savannah. Some words are challenged (apoem is not a word, Tony. yes it is - I wrote apoem. Nooooo)...

As the sun starts to rise, the birds join the tournament. Thousands of birds, millions of birds. Singing and waking. Chattering and flying. As we play scrabble by the fire, the firey sun rises over the African plain. And as I play, I am aware that this incredible and surreal moment in my life will certainly never come again. I am in Africa. I am playing scrabble by the firelight as the sun rises over the land I have dreamed about all my life. I am losing this game that is being watched by Maasai - the most beautiful and majestic people I have ever seen.

I wind up losing. And shaking Tony's hand. And presenting him with the game. He is a formidable opponent and a new friend. We promise each other a rematch. I will make good. Someday.

July 2009 - Just received a message from Wilson, our guide at Amboselli Porini Camp in Kenya. He was playing scrabble. I smiled.