Nairobi & Lake Baringo - Kenya

It rained all the way back to Nairobi so we were thankful we would be back in a room with a nice hot shower. After the storms Indaba's phone lines were down so next day we headed into town to pick up email to see if we had any news from UK about  going back for Xmas.

Sue's brother, Mike, had emailed to say we could stay with them from the 22nd but we would need to leave by the 8th January, however our tenants were not due to vacate until February so we would still need to find a way to get round this if we were to go back early.

Next day we went the the Norfolk for lunch and did some shopping while we considered our options. Nairobi as you would expect is good for eating out and has first world shopping malls both of which are much appreciated after the basic facilities in Malawi and Tanzania.

Before leaving Nairobi for good we decided to go see Chyulu our latest orphan Elephant. If you foster an Ele then you are allowed to go in the early evening to see them being bedded down for the night whereas ordinary visitors can only visit the sanctuary between 11am and midday.

Chyulu was rescued after she was found stuck in the mud of a community waterhole in the Chyulu Hills near to Tsavo West NP. It was believed her Mother had been poached as an adult female had been found dead near to the waterhole 10 days previously, the waterhole is frequently used by herds of local Elephants so poaching is rife in the area. 

When we arrived Chyulu was still out in the surrounding Nairobi NP with the other orphans and the keepers. Each day they go walkabout in the park returning each night for their bottles of milk. The Ele's can walk wherever they like which is a bit hazardous for the keepers as they are not allowed to carry weapons so they rely heavily on the Ele's to avoid Lions and other dangers.

As the Ele's came in from the bush they broke into a run in anticipation of getting their milk, amongst the group was a new very small orphan called Lesanju. She had been rescued after  falling down a well used by the Samburu tribe to water their livestock, she was just four weeks old.

The Samburu had pulled her out of the well and then got in touch with the Sheldricks but before help could reach her the local tribesmen had sadly cut off a large part of one of her ears, which is a tradition amongst the Samburu to signify ownership of their livestock. The ears are very important to an Elephant as they use them to keep cool so it remains to be seen how she copes with the injury but she looked such a sorry sight that we decided to adopt her as well.  The amazing thing was even after all she had gone through she was very affectionate, even preferring the company of humans as she sniffed us all over.

However, it is not always such a happy ending, another baby Ele had been brought in from Amboseli a couple of days previous, the poor little guy had somehow got separated from his Mother and been attacked by Hyenas. When we saw him he was under intensive care by the Vet but sadly we heard later that he died from his injuries.

Next day we bought a new tyre for Rupert while we had the chance then refilled our Calor gas bottle before heading over to the Giraffe sanctuary, another of Nairobi's attractions. Whilst still not certain it was starting to look less and less likely we would be able to go back to the UK for Xmas so we were now thinking of heading over to Lake Baringo for a few days.

The Giraffe Sanctuary is not along the lines of the Elephant sanctuary where the majority of the inmates are rescued orphan babies, here most of the Giraffes are adults, the purpose being to preserve the most endangered sub species of Giraffe, the Rothschild by breeding them in captivity.

The sanctuary was started by Jock Leslie-Melville, the Kenyan grandson of a Scottish Earl and his wife Betty in the 1970s when the were less than 200 Rothschild Giraffe in the wild. Since then they have had great success in providing breeding pairs to various Kenyan National Parks. The great thing about the place is you get to look a Rothschild in the eye as they come to a balcony to be fed biscuits, something you could never do elsewhere.  

On the way back to Indaba we also called in at the Karen Blixen house and museum. Blixen who wrote under the name Isak Dinneson was the Danish lady played by Meryl Streep in the film 'Out of Africa' , honoured today by the whole suburb simply being known as Karen.

In Blixen's day the house and farm were out in the bush a long  ride from Nairobi, today it is a exclusive suburb with beautiful houses well screened by hedges, trees and fences, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Surrey rather than Africa. 

We had been here before so this was just a short visit to walk around the grounds, enjoy the atmosphere and take some photo's which you can do free of charge, the only charge being to enter the house/museum. The Blixen house with the Ele & Giraffe sanctuary's forms the 'Karen triumvirate' of Nairobi's main tourist attractions so it always attracts lots of visitors.  

Even so it is very pleasant to sit in the grounds amidst old relics of the farm machinery and imagine Blixen with her lover Denys Finch-Hatton enjoying sundowners on the verandha, although the ladies will be disappointed to hear at the time Finch - Hatton was rather bald and not like Robert Redford at all!

Trying to get back to the UK for Xmas had become such a logistical nightmare of co-ordinating flights, places to stay and dates that in the end we decided to abandon the idea and instead focus our attention on arranging a flight in late January instead.

Fee & Jeff our good friends near to where we live had very kindly offered to put us up until our house became vacant and Taffy & Jenny were ok with whatever dates we chose so before heading off into the bush we decided to book our flights before it became too late. Our choice of flight out of Lilongwe and then onto London was limited to two choices, transit via Nairobi on Kenyan Airways then onto London by BA or transit via Johannesburg on SAA then BA.

Our preferred choice was via Joburg but after spending ages going through Expedia's booking system we found at the very last stage they could not issue an E- ticket for this flight, something we had to have as being on the move there is no way we can receive a ticket any other way.

We booked via Nairobi and now faced the crazy situation where we would drive nearly three thousand miles from Nairobi to Lake Malawi then fly straight back again, still it was great to get the uncertainty which had been hanging over us for the past two weeks out the way and get on with what we do best - bush bashing.

Next day Pete changed the oils and greased Rupert and we stocked up with the fresh provisions in readiness for the next stage of our adventure. We had decided after visiting Lake Baringo that instead of returning to Nairobi we would go straight onto the Serengeti in Tanzania but via the western corridor on Lake Victoria, a long trek but in that way we could avoid the rip off costs of transiting the Ngorogoro Crater. Our last night in Nairobi we had dinner at the Karen Blixen coffee restaurant another one of our favourite haunts, after nearly two weeks messing about trying to organise things we were ready to leave.

Lake Baringo is one of only two fresh water lakes in the Great Rift valley, the other being Naivasha. Once productive for fish it has been badly over fished of late and major wildlife has also declined due to human encroachment, the birding however is still superb with over 450 species recorded in the area and it's for the birds and the scenery that most people go for.

Lying about 300 km from Nairobi it is the most northerly after Lake Turkana of the Rift lakes. Once again we would leave Nairobi on the road towards Lake Nakuru however thankfully this time we had a nice hot sunny day and even the road works at Gilgil that had caused us so much hassle the week before had now gone.

At Nakuru we looked for a sign for Lake Baringo but none were about so by a process of elimination and the Garmin we worked out which way to go. Just after Nakuru we suddenly heard a loud phishing sound and the engine lost power. The inlet hose had come away from the turbo and needed fixing back on, it was the same problem we had encountered in November on our way out of Morogoro in Tanzania only at least this time it was early afternoon and it wasn't raining.

The job isn't difficult the trickiest bit is avoiding burning your hand on the engine whilst holding the hose in place with one hand and tightening it's jubilee clip with the other. As I was head down in the engine three young guys came along and as with all African's, in East Africa at least, they saw straight away that here was a great opportunity to make some cash by helping us.

Now we don't have any problem with that as God knows they have little enough to live on anyway and sometimes their help is very very welcome, however it can also get tiresome sometimes when you are perfectly able to manage on your own and all you want to do is get going ASAP, still I knew from Morogoro getting  the hose on as tightly as possible and tightening the clip on your own was not as easy as it looked.

So with one guy holding the hose I managed to get it tightened up, the guy's mates were thus restricted to watching which still didn't stop them keeping up a constant stream of advice to their friend. With the hose back on I gave the guy who helped me some cash but his mates obviously thought they were missing out for providing the running commentary so he said "what about my brothers"? I told him their bit was in with his so as the boss he should decide what to pay them, he just grinned and as we moved off they waved and got down to the earnest discussion on how to divide the loot, have to say I do love Africans. 

At 3pm we arrived at the Equator, the auspicious spot being marked only by a sign and a row of roadside Dukkas selling  numerous curious, of course we had to stop to take some photo's, it didn't dawn on us till later that since leaving Cape Town we had travelled halfway up the Earth's land mass. 

Despite having to take a diversion through the bush due to a large section of road being washed away we made good progress. Just before reaching the lake we arrived at the village of Kampi ya Samaki, here the enterprising locals had set up a barrier and were demanding 500 KSHs to let us through to the lake. Now Baringo is not yet a gazetted national park so you don't need to pay any entry fees but clearly for the locals the diminishing fish trade has had to be supplemented some way so extorting money from tourists seems to be the preferred choice, either way we had no choice so we paid up and moved on.

We camped at Robert's Camp, probably the most pleasant place to stay on the Lake shore. This late in the year it was quiet so we had our pick of sites, as we were setting up a succession of birds came around to check us out, the weather was hot and sunny so we went down to the lake to enjoy a sundowner and that night after we went to bed we could hear Hippo munching on the grass close by, perfect.