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Sunday, 18 July: Nairobi
Two days of air travel (Note to self: never do two overnight flights in a row again) and endless waiting but I'm finally in Africa. For those of you who aren't aware, my brother, Kurt, lived in Kenya for a year in the mid 80s (attending the University of Nairobi) and Tanzania for two years in the late 80s (in the Peace Corps and working in Jane Goodall's headquarters), then in the 90s he started leading wildlife safaris in East Africa every year or two. I housesat for him in the desert (because I couldn't afford to go) during the previous two in '99 and '00, and then the following year, slaving away at (No)Futurekids, I finally saved enough money to go, but for various reasons "Baobob V" was postponed until this year.
With twenty in all, this is Kurt's largest group ever, and always on the lookout for new recruits, he has persuaded Helen, our 84-year-old "fake relative" (she's a friend of the family, she grew up next door to my mother with no living relatives left on the planet) to be my "roommate", warning me with a slight smirk that Helen's memory ain't what it used to be. (The thing is, it never was what it used to be; she's one of those people who, although kind-hearted and well-meaning, constantly asks you loads of questions yet dizzily, never pays attention to the answers.) I am happy not to pay a single supplement and decide not to worry.
Helen flew on her own from Phoenix and joins our flight from London to Nairobi. As we get off this second overnight flight, Helen requests a wheelchair as she is feeling rough. This turns out to be a plus for Candice (my brother's girlfriend) and me: we push the chair and get to breeze through Immigration with no waiting.
It's early in the morning and here we are at our luxury hotel (I'm not really expecting this and I'm not accustomed to places that give you bathrobes and slippers) on a hill above the city, the Nairobi Serena. Helen dons the dressing gown and crashes as soon as we're shown into the room and I struggle to stay awake. After channel surfing (the only local television channel seems to be an East African MTV with a lot of tedious booty-shakin going on, and there seems to be a very wide range of trashy American "Lifetime television for women" biopics (inside joke to those who know him: no Ramsay sightings unfortunately) available at all hours) and sitting in the Jacuzzi for a while (it's way too cold to go swimming), I end up guzzling coffee at the poolside bar, mildly pestered by a sunburnt builder from Reading (his hols: a two-day "Big 5" type safari followed by a fortnight on the beach at Mombasa) who accuses me of being unfriendly because I'm trying to read my book. (He shuts up when I tell him I'm hoping to see some bats, probably thinks I'm some kind of goth freak.)
Finally it's 2 PM and five of us are taken to the Nairobi National Museum. It's adjacent to Nairobi Snake Park! We must go in. I believe we're the only tourists in there. Relieved to see that there are large enclosures in this vivarium/aquarium, though it could do with more frequent cleaning - we see some quite enormous boa turds.
The museum is wonderful and although it's much bigger, it brings to mind the sorely missed (at least by me) Leeds City Museum (which also had a very small vivarium/aquarium, wonder what happened to those mud puppies!), as well as the very Victorian Dublin Natural History Museum. I'm drawn to the Leakey skulls (Homo Habilis!!), although the hall of dead birds was very useful for future identification, and the hall with local art was amazing.
We stop off for a drink on the veranda of the Norfolk Hotel (Nairobi's oldest), where I have my first Tusker lager.
Dinner that evening at the hotel restaurant is a four-course affair, the first of many. Helen has slept through it, and consequently is up all night, noisily pottering about.
Monday, 19 July: Nairobi
Helen finally emerges from the room for breakfast. She decides not to go on our first game drive however, saying she plans to spend the day sitting by the pool. At any rate there is more room for the five of us in our pop-top minivan.
We have about a half hour wait outside the gates of Nairobi National Park, and are encouraged, for the first of many times, to visit the gift shop. I ask if I can go into the Animal Orphanage instead, and they arrange for us all to go in. (Note: Richard Leakey was once head of the orphanage, and this is where Jane Goodall worked when she first came to Africa.) This is not something they normally do so everyone is quite pleased that I suggested it, as we get to frolic with cheetah and lion cubs.
The cheetahs are teenagers, about the size of a German Shepherd (though more the shape of a greyhound of course), and they purr as you scratch them under the chin and like to lick your face.
The lion cubs are much younger and play roughly just like kittens:
climbing up your leg, grabbing your arm and sinking claws and teeth into
it - only they're about twenty times the size of kittens with a
corresponding twenty times larger teeth and claws. I manage to
disentangle myself and merely receive a surface scratch but poor Sandy's
leg is kind of a bloody mess, requiring an application of iodine.Not as exciting, but still very cute, here's a dik dik:
Nairobi Park is a good introduction to African game drives as it encompasses so much in such a small area; beyond every corner is a different kind of terrain, from forest and bush to swamp and savannah. At certain points you can see the skyscrapers of Nairobi behind herds of giraffe. Giraffes are everywhere; we drive ten feet past the gates and about a dozen are blocking the road.
No big cats or elephants yet, but we also see zebras, impalas, gazelles, bushbucks, elands, hartebeests, wildebeests, buffalo, vervet monkeys, warthogs and loads of birds.
I have an eye to eye brief encounter with a malachite kingfisher, who flies away as soon as I notify others of his presence.
Lunch is at a restaurant called the Verandah, owned by an American woman. It's very nice and I'm relieved that we didn't have to dine at the Carnivore Restaurant (with a selection of "bush meat") up the road.
Afterward we visit the Langata Giraffe Centre. It houses three tame Rothschild's giraffes which you may feed:
you climb up a tower in order to reach the level of their mouths and they'll take the food, which is like rather large rabbit pellets, off your hand or out of your mouth (several young boys get very into this!)
A giraffe tongue is quite soft but not wanting to get covered in giraffe spittle, I mostly toss the pellets as one would toss fish to a seal.
They're greedy buggers too! Way down below, some warthogs are eating the pellets that have fallen on the ground, but there aren't many of those.
Apparently for some extortionate sum you may stay in the giraffe towers on the premises, and they, the giraffes that is, will stick their heads in and wake you up in the morning. I'm sure if they were given free rein they'd be happy to wake you up in the middle of the night too!
Next we travel to the district of Karen and visit Karin Blixen's house and museum. All I remember about Out of Africa is that I wasn't impressed by her taste in men - going for those macho big game hunters. I guess she did a lot for the locals, or at least gave them work on her plantation, but she actually only lived in Africa for fourteen years or so. You'd think if you thought of somewhere as your spiritual home and had nice digs (as this house was, and what a view too!),
that you would want to spend the rest of your days there, but no, she went back to dreary Denmark and never returned to Africa! Not once!! In Denmark she died of malnutrition. I reckon she wasn't getting enough fresh vegetables. But back to that fourteen years thing - I lived that long in Leeds! Will Meryl Streep play me someday in Out of Headingley, working the door at the Warehouse (turning away cranky ligging journalists who want us to subsidize their dates), buying cheese & onion pasties at Stanley's Bakery, doling out cash advances on wages to stage crew at the Playhouse, riding my bike across Woodhouse Moor and driving Bob (my old Mini) through the dales? Will the "district" of Hyde Park be renamed in honour of me? Only time will tell.
Back at the hotel we learn that Helen called for a doctor and was later taken to Nairobi Hospital! I won't go into the details but it wasn't anything life threatening. Okay, she was just a little stopped up, if you get my drift. Kurt goes to fetch her and later all is well; he says she's fine to travel tomorrow though she seems a little cranky. Again she's up all night so again my slumber is disturbed.
