Samburu & Nairobi - Kenya
The main drawback to staying at Lion Camp was not
being allowed to have a camp fire, Nazeer was concerned it would
mess up the area in front of the Meru, which was fair enough
considering how much they charge the punters who fly in
and stay there, however we did miss it of a night.
The other drawback was the staff looking after the place were
never too far away and as we normally camp in places where we are
completely alone then it was a bit off putting but we could live
with it providing they were quiet, which in the main they were.
However last night we were awoken after midnight by voices
shouting, sounding pissed and then loud music started up. It was too
dangerous to go out and walk over to the staff camp to
complain so we had to put up with it until finally around 2am we
heard people getting into vehicles and leaving, this in itself was
a big no no as no one is supposed to drive in the reserve after dark
for the sake of the animals.
Despite the disrupted night we got up early to go
out on a game drive, as we were leaving Duncan came over and we
complained to him about the noise last night. He apologised but then
surprised us by saying the noise was caused by the park warden and his
mates who had come over for drinks, it's saying something when
the most senior park official blatantly flouts the regulations!
The morning was lovely and sunny and we were out on the road just
after 7am, heading along the river bank the scenery was glorious and
not a soul about so despite the disturbed night we felt
privileged to be there.
One thing we had noticed since being in
Samburu was how quiet it was along the river game wise. Normally in any game park which has a major river that is where you will find regular amounts of game, especially
during the dry season like now but in Samburu the Ewaso was
noticeably quiet, maybe the settlements on the other bank had
something to do with it.
That's not to say there was no game about and what Samburu lacked
in quantity it certainly made up for in quality. The Beisa Oryx for instance
is one of the five special species found in Samburu, similar to the
Southern African Gemsbok it is now considered a separate species.
Due to it's impressive horns the Oryx has been widely hunted for
years so now
the Arabian Oryx is extinct as is most probably the North African
Oryx sadly this just leaves the Beisa and the Gemsbok both of which are
now also considered threatened, it's possible in less than 30 years
that no Oryx will exist in the wild in Africa.
On the other side of the coin in every game park a common sight
is the Guinea Fowl, the chicken of the bush. Normally we see
the Helmeted Guinea Fowl but in Samburu there was the much less
common Vulturine Guinea fowl, the largest and most striking of the
Guinea fowl family. We had seen them just once before Swaziland so
it was great to see them again.
One thing we did notice was the Elephants in Samburu were much
more nervous than the ones we are used to in other parks, a decent
herd crossed our path at one point and rushed away as soon as they
heard our vehicle. Their reaction was more akin to Elephants we
sometimes come across outside of game parks where they
sense they are not protected, again this made us wonder about what
goes on in the reserve.
Driving on we suddenly came across a Lioness sitting on her own
under a bush, it's not often you come across Lionesses on their
own as they tend to stay with their pride sisters, maybe she was new
to the area or had become separated from the pride but she looked in
good condition so nothing to worry about.
We watched her for quite a while and the great thing was there
were no other vehicles around,
always the best way. Suddenly she got up stretched and walking
right in front of Rupert slid off into the undergrowth. Just as her
bum disappeared out of view we saw a game viewer quickly
approaching, the first we had seen all day, followed in the distance by more vehicles.
One of the drivers had obviously spotted us stopped for a while,
came to investigate and radioed the others, however by now
there was nothing to see, we have to say we love it when this happens as the
game viewer drivers rarely if ever tell us where to find a
good sighting.
Back at camp Duncan greeted us with hot water for our showers,
obviously he was feeling a bit guilty about last night, still it was
very welcome all the same. The next day would be our last in
Samburu and of the five specials we had yet to see a Somali Ostrich,
hopefully tomorrow would be the day.
Each day we had had Vervet monkeys and Baboons around camp but
for once the Baboons were not a problem as they kept their distance
concentrating on foraging in the bush for food, a good indication they
were unused to humans or afraid of them!
The Vervets however were as troublesome as ever constantly trying
to steal anything they thought was edible so we needed to be alert
whenever they were around. Unfortunately today was not the day as just after we got
back I forgot and left one of Rupert's doors open and before we knew
it a
Monkey had got in grabbed a packet of crisps and was off - the
little bugger!
For our last day we decided to take the track to the Kalama gate
situated on the Northern border of the reserve, this is real desert
country, isolated and totally deserted. After an hour or so
we found the gate but it was deserted and looked like it hadn't been
used in years if ever?
The track continued on into the desert, real wilderness
country, if you lost it here you were in a world of pain, we found
out later the area is earmarked to become a conservancy which would
be worth a visit if it ever comes off.
We headed back to the river and finally we got our
reward for staying on the extra day, not a Somali Ostrich but a
lovely Leopard instead. Samburu has a reputation for seeing Leopard
but you hear that about a number of places and rarely do they
deliver so we were very pleased to find one particularly because
he/she was in classic Leopard pose lying on an Acacia branch.
The only down side was the Acacia tree was a long way off and
there were a number of other vehicles around. No one could drive
closer to the tree as unlike the Masai Mara off road driving is
prohibited in Samburu and anyway the bush in between was too thick
to get through so everyone had to make do with long distance shots.
We carry a 500mm super telephoto lens and a 2x converter for such
occasions so we were able to get some decent shots at about 750mm
length but the tourists in the other vehicles just had small digital
cameras with in built zooms so they couldn't have got much but they
kept snapping away anyway. We all watched the Leopard until he woke
up, realised he had company so calmly climbed down from the tree and
disappeared into the thick undergrowth.
On our way back to camp along the river storm clouds started to
gather, by now it was past 5pm and with the late afternoon Sun the
lightning was magical it was a great end to our Samburu visit,
tomorrow we would leave for Nairobi.
Back at camp we paid our bill to Duncan, five nights camping at
Lion camp had cost 5,000 Kshs (~£40) which was very good plus £2 per
day for preparing the showers and £5 for the Monkey Guard while we
were out on our game drives!
We had been told this was necessary to prevent the Baboons from
trashing the camp but as we said earlier the Baboons in Samburu were
probably the best behaved of any we had come across and anyway we
never leave anything out which they would take. No the
probable truth was this was either to guard against animals of the
two legged kind or just simply a way of wringing more cash out of
you.
Wouldn't mind if it had helped but the first day we left the
solar shower in the sun to heat up and when we got back found it was
stone cold cos the guard had moved it into the shade, then he
without asking he decided to clean our paraffin lamps and being
heavy handed buggered one so we had to tell him not to do it again,
still we paid him anyway, poor sod!
Overall we had mixed feelings about Samburu, the scenery was
dramatic in parts but there was not much game and the settlements
strung out along the opposite bank of the river were off putting,
still just for the special species, you can only see there, it is
worth going at least once.
We left Samburu just after 9am and immediately came across a
large herd of Camels and goats with their Samburu herdsman moving
through the bush, for us this epitomised the problem for Samburu as
the local population grows and the climate increasingly gets drier
the pressure on access to the river and the grazing around it grows,
this in turn reduces the wildlife which in turn reduces the
visitors.
We had decided to take a different route back to Nairobi which
would take us via the Aberdare's and Mount Kenya. 25 years ago
whilst living in Bahrain we had booked a holiday to Kenya and one of
the places we were supposed to stay was the Mt Kenya Safari Club. It
would be our first time to Africa and we had spent weeks planning
the trip so after five years of living in the desert we were really
looking forward to it.
Then the day before we were due to fly we heard on the radio
there had been an attempted coup on the then Kenyan President Daniel
Arap Moi and all Kenya's airports had been closed, it was months
before the country returned to some sort of normalcy so we had no
choice but to cancel the trip, it would be another four years before
we would eventually set foot in Africa by being posted to Botswana.
At the time we were bitterly disappointed but now we were
thankful it had turned out the way it did because our feelings
towards Africa may have been completely different if our first
experience had been a lightning tour of Kenya staying in luxury
lodges!
Mind you that isn't to say we weren't curious to see what we had
missed but by the time we reached the turn off for the Mt Kenya
Safari club the weather was dull and Mt Kenya itself was masked in
heavy cloud so we decided to press on, it would just have to wait
yet again for another day.
Crossing the Equator the weather began to clear and soon the Sun
was out again, at Karatina we found a big 'bend down' market going
on alongside the railway line. Most towns and villages have bend
down market days so called because everything sold is on the ground
so you constantly bend down to inspect the goods. This one was a so
big the whole rail track was blocked by the crowd there was no way
any trains would get through today, why hold it on the railway line
in the first place is anyone's guess!
By mid afternoon we found ourselves back at Thika and this time
the road we were on was lined with Flame Tree's, though sadly not in
flower at the time of year they would look stunning when they are.
The traffic into Nairobi was as bad as before and the heavy
cloud had returned so we were very glad to reach Indaba before it
got dark.
We had been away just less than a week and two overland trucks
had arrived in our absence so the place was jumping but after
a snack and a shower we went to bed, very tired, we had just three
days to recover and re-stock before we were due back in the Masai
Mara.
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