Fake Plastic Trees

There is a strange tree in the middle of the Masai Mara. It looms on a hill top as you approach the Mara River, spiky, pine-like in its lonesomeness, its branches jutting like the fletching of an arrow fired at the heart of the earth. It is an alien thing, unlike every other tree on the plain and it draws the eye like a cynosure.

It's also clearly made of plastic.

I say clearly - it took me a few seconds to process the fakery, possibly because it's so unexpected. Moses helpfully pointed out that it was a disguised mobile phone mast, but we would have worked that out for ourselves as we passed close by, the branches giving off a plasticky sort of glow on the sporadic sunshine.

Fortunately this was the only part of the day that reminded me of my Windsor Safari Park delusion. This time the sun shone (most of the time), we got to walk about (under armed guard) and even crossed the border into Tanzania (very briefly).

Speaking of which, I always thought it was pronounced TAN-z'-NEE-a. Not according to the locals, who call it Tan-ZAN-ya. I checked this out when I got home. I visited my local news agent and told him I'd been to Kenya. "Really?" he said. "I grew up in TanZANya!".

You learn something new every year.

The day started positively with another sighting of the gorgeous cheetah family. They're definitely my favourites, and the gang were incredibly lucky to find them sunning themselves on a grassy knoll only a few feet from a track. Throughout the trip was I was amazed at the complete lack of reaction from the animals as a motor vehicle full of gawping monkeys pulls up only yards away. They must have worked out long ago that monkeys in a box pose neither a danger nor an opportunity for a three course meal. You can't eat them, they don't eat you, and hopefully you can't have sex with them. Presumably in savannah speak that means the monkeys in a box aren't really there at all.   

Quick! Monkeys in a box, hide our faces!

We gazed happily at the fluffy family of lightning death for a while before heading off through a green sea with bouncing Thomson's Gazelles replacing dolphins scattering around our ship's prow. So far we had been a bit disappointed with our rhinos (sadly never quite resolved) and lions, who had decided to impersonate ostriches (also missing so far) and stick their heads in the ground whenever we passed. Our first glimpse of that most sought after commodity - "Lion Face" (TM) - was found after our first detour from the previous day's track, as we trundled over the hills and far away, and spotted a pride lounging about under a tree.

Of course, none of these we helpful enough to to give us any Lion Face either, but a lone young male, perhaps banished further out from the shade of the tree for some sort of adolescent offence, was gracious enough to raise his head to the level of the grass tips as he sulkily watched his pride mates at rest.

As usual he wasn't at all interested in the monkeys in a box, but his precarious social position appeared to make him more restive and alert than the comfortable inactivity of his female pride mates. His mane - if it could be called that - appeared short and ruffled, as if he's been experimenting with Bed Head. Eventually we left him, hopeful that we would eventually get a closer look at the King of Beasts. Shortly afterwards we would pass a lone female, similarly concealed at grass tip level. It wasn't looking good.

After a trip through elephant country we had another budget safari moment. Moses dropped us off at a little airstrip. At first this was for a toilet break - the strip had one of the few toilet stops in the Mara. After the safari crew had taken advantage of the facilities, Moses showed absolutely no inclination to get the monkeys back in the box. After a while, when pressed, he admitted that we were actually awaiting another crew member arriving by plane, but of course that plane would be arriving in five minutes. We settled down for a long wait.

Six five-minutes later, Conor joined us. Conor was an African specialist with one of the biggest NGOs of all, and had tacked on a cheap safari during a visit to another part of the continent. Having flown into the Mara on a very nice looking plane he may have been slightly surprised to find himself bouncing about in the back of Moses' Monkey Box, and probably more than disappointed by the fact that the abundance of animals that had greeted us in the early hours had now melted away to be replaced by endless sightings of Warthogs. A few elephants did deign to flap in the distance, and Magnuss' Marvellous Magnifier did pick up some far away Ostrich action, but otherwise Conor had to pin his hopes on happy hippos at the waterside.

The border with TanZANya is marked with a small obelisk advertising TK Max. There is an utterly futile sign suggesting that it is a bad thing to climb on the stone, so obviously everyone climbs on it. I'm not even sure it really marks the border, since I had been told that the Sand River marks the border, and the stone is in a muddy patch in the middle of a field that whilst a touch damp shares very few attributes with your average river. So I don't know if I've taken a short walk into TanZANya or not. I'll try not to let it bother me.

The Mara River flows into Kenya from Tanzania before making its windy way to Lake Victoria. At drier times of the year it is a magnet for the thirsty wildlife of the Masai Mara and Serengeti, but for us in our rainy paradise it was just a chance to see hippopotamuses and crocodiles. Just to really annoy us, all the Monkey Boxes arrive and congregate on one side of the river. The hippos, being much smarter than us, have worked out they they will get better uninterrupted yawning time if they stay on the other bank. The crocs, possibly not needing to eat for several months after gorging on bits of Wildebeest several weeks before, sent a lone delegate to show they were interested, but she, too, sat on the far bank, pretending to be a twig.

With an air of hopefulness we agreed to claim the services of a Park Warden. The services of this Warden would eventually cost us 200KSH each. These value for money services were:

• trying to persuade Mario to become his Italian pen pal
• tell us he liked talking a lot
• talking a lot
• telling us he liked jokes
• telling jokes
• not funny ones
• taking us to places where there weren't any animals
• asking for $25 whilst holding a gun

We took a risk and paid him on 2,000KSH. He didn't shoot us. On the other hand, at one point were were only a few hundred yards from where we'd spotted some lions, so his gunly presence was reassuring, if slightly irritating, and it was a delight to get out of the Monkey Box for a while and get the backs of our necks properly sunburned at last. The highlight of the trek was probably a camera shy dung beetle who flew away as soon as we tried to film it. Needless to say we had to spot that for ourselves. 

After feeding the Carnivorous Sparrows (who were very keen on the left-over chicken) at the Wardens' hut, and chasing a red headed lizard into a bush, we were hoping to get a treat from Moses who'd promised us a close up of lions if - and this was the crucial bit - there were no other Monkey Boxes around. The park rules are quite stringent. The following day Moses would get fined for driving up a grass verge trying (in vain)  to get a good look at leopards - one of the other drivers took his number and reported him. So, 4WD or not, trundling over the grassy verges to get proximal peek at predators was full of risk for him. Sure enough, as we reached the lions they were being gawped at by a succession of minivans. We stopped, whisked out various forms of magnification, and then forlornly headed back past the Fake Plastic Tree. 

To cheer us up, Lauro whipped out his iPhone and flicked through the contents until he found what he was looking for. For the next 5 minutes we were all entertained with a sing-a-long version of Hakuna Matata from The Lion King. What the local animals thought of the Box of Singing Monkeys rocking down the track we will never know, nor if the warthogs were confused by the cries of "Pumba!!" that accompanied a sighting for the rest of the day. 

The adrenaline highlight of the day was probably Moses' Stig impersonation as he tried to drive us past a pod of Monkey Boxes that had got bogged down in the Masai mud. I'm hoping the footage appears on YouTube eventually, especially the moment where two unsuspecting minivan drivers who'd been having a sly fag emerged from behind a vehicle to see Moses hurtling towards them, spraying mud like sparks form his chariot's wheels. But we weren't quite done on the wildlife front. The mud was keeping the other minivans off our tail, so when Moses spotted another splash of beige against the baize, he fulfilled his promise and drove down a small hill to pull up a few metres away from a couple of recumbent lionesses. At first they were both intend on tussock nuzzling like every other lion in the Masai, but a rather naughty open-and-close trick on the driver's door soon caught their attention, and gave an uncomfortable reminder that while the animals might have worked out that they can't eat Monkey Boxes, they know they can eat the soft delicious centres if the shell is breached.

So Conor at last got to see something more exciting than a warthog, and we finally got over the frustration of slightly lions.

Less convincing, it must be said, were the Masai Villagers that the tourist trail inevitably led us to that night.The village lies within striking distance of one of the park's main gates, and offers short tours to Safari-goers in return for $15. The very fact that it works on such a commercial basis makes it slightly questionable value for money. They all start off very friendly, though Mario felt the traditional jumping dance, or adumu,  was done a little half-heartedly. They also warned off a village drunk who was trying to promote his new invention, The Random Bulbous Wooden Thing, from harrassing us, so we felt pretty safe from hawking. We got a chance to see the many creative uses of car tyres (a cross-Kenyan feature), including a cattle trough and many pairs of sandals,  and got to see various stages of the building of a traditional home. All the while though, the activity of the village seemed to have stopped, and large groups of masai women and children would hang around staring calmly at us.

Once you had progressed through the various stages of housing until you got to sit in a finished one (stick your head in a bag for a few minutes to recreate the general experience), the whole thing changed. The reason that, despite the fact that they get countless tourists every week, the women had been staring is that they were about to play their role in the whole affair. Whereas the Science Museum might usher you to Exit Through The Gift Shop, here the Gift Shop gets up and chases you all over its village. Several members of the group left clutching unconvincing jewellery that they confessed they had no use for. Previously friendly masai men tried to turn on the guilt trip. Given they'd just made $75 from us all for a 20 minute tour, forcing us to buy a plastic crocodile tooth seemed a little much.

They wear tartan, but don't expect any shortbread.

To give them some credit, however, the reason for that is that the $15 dollars per head fee goes to a very specific home: nomads they may be, but this village had decided to invest in something very important - a school.

This, weirdly, was the highlight. Not the traditional dress or the mud-walled houses or the tyre shoes. A little primary school full of wooden benches and hope. Multi-lingual writing covered the walls, along with the usual children's paintings of sheep, though these ones were less fluffy and more muddy. We met one of the teachers, a hugely enthusiastic woman who was clearly glowing with pride as she talked. It was the evening, so obviously the kids were back at the village plotting to sell brightly coloured string to tourists, but it was clearly an endeavour that was worth every $15 they get. So go, have a look, give them your money. The tour may not be worth it, but the outcome certainly is.

Oh, and wear boots. That's a lot of sheep shit.

The upside to our camp was mostly the red wine. The beds were damp and I'm told that at three in the morning some other tourists turned up and started talking loudly in the tent next door for about an hour. I didn't hear a thing.

Safari, So good?

I'm used to epic amounts of jetlag. Trips to South East Asia and Oceania have turned my sleep cycles inside out on many occasions, the worst time my very first experience in Sri Lanka where not only did I not know what day it was but would have struggled to tell anyone my name.

Kenya, therefore, was a bit of a stroll in the national park in comparison. But three hours is three hours, and if you're trying to get ready for 8 o'clock, the fact that your body is wrong to think that it's 5 o'clock is only useful for people who like to say 'I told you so' to their own corporeal form.

As it was, being a few minutes late for Nickson and his driver would turn out to be so astonishingly insignificant it makes me laugh to recall that I was bothered by it.

Adventure Panorama Safaris

What follows is an account, not a review. If, however, by reading it you get a decent idea of what Kenyan budget safaris are like, I may have done you a favour - either way.

Nickson's punctuality was impressive. I'd nipped to the local Nakumatt supermarket for drinking water, expecting lateness (Nairobi traffic being what it is) but he was waiting for me when I returned. I apologised, without realising that this was the last time anything would happen, or anyone would turn up, on time in Kenya for the next two weeks.  He introduced me to Moses, my driver, who - suspiciously - had "Jocky Tours" written on the rear windscreen of his Safari minibus.

Although I had booked a three days in the Masai Mara followed by one day in Lake Nakuru, and because of this had planned to be dropped off in Lake Naivasha in order to go to Hell's Gate, the first volte face of the day was Nickson's arbitrary decision to swap the days round and suggest starting with Nakuru. It turned out that two other travellers had booked a reverse trip, and I was being shoe-honed into their schedule. Moses, who would turn out to be something of a genial nutter, cottoned on quite quickly that if I was the only guest who wasn't returning to Nairobi, it made sense to order the trip around me getting dropped off, and the attempted coup was rejected.

Nickson looked dejected.

It didn't matter, but then at this stage there weren't any other travellers. Having boarded the bus at 8:05am, but 8:30 I had gone precisely 150 metres as Moses moved to pick up food supplies for the journey. As he went inside to collect materials for dinner, he left me listening to Kenya Classics 105 FM, where a cheesy voiced DJ was inviting anecdotes from his listeners about evil In Laws.

"Why is it we only hear about the women? Don't men struggle with the in-laws? It is always the women. Perhaps they cannot help it. Come on men, if you have suffered at the hands of your wife's father or mother, call and tell us."

It would then flip to a recording of his previous phone called, endlessly repeating phrases like "she would not even greet me" (love the way she said greet) and "I tried so hard to be nice to her, but she was just nasty".... I never discovered if Kenya men have a problem with in-laws or not.

We'd gone such a short way that Nickson, although we'd left him behind, had caught up and was hovering about during the loading process. As the laden minivan pulled away, this was the last time I would see or hear from him.

We slowly gathered a crew. Lauro and Mario, Australian Italians from Adelaide, joined us next. It was past 9:00am at this point, and they were surrounded by the their own Kenya crew who seemed to have nothing to do with Nickson's mob. They'd been expecting to go to Nakuru first, of course, but didn't seem too bothered by the alteration.  Lauro was a fund-raiser for an organisation helping refugees in Kenyan camps and had come - on his own money - to see how the cash was being spent. He'd brought his dad with him, who couldn't communicate much with his son as Lauro had chosen to learn Spanish over Italian. It was a little tragic, but they seemed to have a perfectly amiable relationship.

Having waited around for some time, as soon as Moses had three passengers he headed straight for the petrol station.This marked him out as different from most other Kenyans, who like to wait until a vehicle is entirely full before they make everyone wait at the refuelling stop. Moses made up for that accidental courtesy, however, by making us wait at the pumps for another hour.

We were, apparently, waiting for another traveller. Moses' phone, which (amusingly at first, less so after a while) had an elephant-call ring tone, was in constant action as communications between him and representatives of Safari-goer Number 3 continued.

"5 minutes", we were told. Unfortunately we were told this several times, and it didn't get any more true. At 10:30, 145 minutes after my trip-of-a-lifetime* began, we finally started to drive out of Nairobi. Our extra passenger was still nowhere to be seen. Moses mumbled something about oversleeping, but who this applied to was not clear. The Australians suggested a plan to throw the person in a crocodile pit, assuming they ever turned up.

And they did. A car chase ensued, with us speeding down the western highway and a taxi screaming after us. Another trunk call on the elephant phone and Moses was persuaded to stop. A few minutes later another car pulled up. Sally, a woman from Lebanon studying in Nairobi, was our latest gang-member, and we agreed not to throw her in a crocodile pit when we found that she had been just as much a victim of the Keyna laissez-faire approach to time keeping as we'd been.

It was now 11am. I'd been in the van for almost 3 hours and we were on the outskirts of the City.

I'd love to report that from that moment forth we sailed along through decent country roads, occasionally espying a Thomson's Gazelle frolicking amongst the goats and enjoying the greenery as we sailed past it, catching up time as we dashed along. Unfortunately, only the Gazelle bit would be true.

There are a lot of road blocks in Kenya. The average tourist ought to be quite grateful for that, as I'm told it's greatly reduced instances of car-jacking. And, most of the time, a mini-bus like ours just gets waved through.

Most of the time.

We'd been driving for another hour or so when the Kenyan policemen (dressed in exactly the same yellow bibs as you'd get on officers by the side of the M4) finally decided we looked suspicious enough to stop. There ensued a frustrating and bewildering 30 minutes during which we had no idea what was going on, and had to piece together the situation from snippets of overheard comments and remarks from taciturn coppers. 

Amid the various layers of bureaucracy the Kenyan Government trowels onto day-to-day life is one protecting musicians' royalties. If you are driving any kind of mass transit (bigger than a private car, that is) you must have a license to have a radio. It doesn't matter if the radio works (our driver had tried disabling our speakers several miles previously, clearly anticipating this turn of events), or if it is off. Have radio, get license. In a country rife with petty crime, the police then enforce this fastidiously. I say fastidiously - how fastidious they are about making sure the appropriate money is collected I'm not sure. The entire process is dealt with there at the roadside, with the police entirely in charge of how much money changes hand, like judge, jury and bailiff - Judge Bredd, perhaps. Apparently the fine could have been as much as 30,000 Ksh, which would probably have wiped out all of Moses' wages in one swoop. But after half an hour's haggling he clearly reached an acceptable compromise and returned to the van with his song sticker. 

Pity the final member of the party, Magnus, who had been waiting patiently at the world's least interesting service station cafe for two hours. At least when we arrived the cafe got considerably more interesting after their attempt to supply red wine to Magnus and the Aussies. I had a fairly bad feeling about it, and part of me thinks they should have had one too, but with them having pointed quite clearly at a bottle of Merlot on the drinks menu, even I was shocked to see three glasses of luminous, slightly effervescent chemical effluent being brought out and presented to them. Bravely tasting it, we discovered that if this was to be described as wine, then aubergine is a kind of chocolate. Its flavour was mostly indescribable, but I shall try by suggesting that it seemed to be a sort of alcopop, but one which would be avoided by all but the most desperately dipsomaniac teenager. Thanks to 'communication difficulties' the attempt by the Aussies and the Swede to exercise their consumer rights failed, and they ended up paying 100Ksh each for the privilege of a few scant horrified sips.  

But onwards! Our company now complete we set off from the Narok services, many miles still ahead of us and the day slowly ebbing away. We were scheduled to reach our camp at 3, to drop our bags, and then head park-wards for an "introductory wildlife drive". We reached the 89km-long access road to the Masai Mara at 2pm. It was, we considered, theoretically possible that we would be on time. 

The optimism did not last long. The Masai Mara road differs only from the surrounding countryside in that it is denuded of vegetation. It cannot be relied upon to be any more level, smooth, dry or basically drivable than the rest of the landscape. It is rutted, pot-holed, ditch-strewn, flooded, rock-infested and feels endless. It was almost 4pm when we reached the national park.Our schedule was in tatters. What would happen? 

I needn't have worried. After all the trials of the journey, we got what we came for. Moses had driven us to the far gate from our camp - we were going home via the Masai Mara, and would get the coveted wildlife drive. And wildlife there was in abundance. It doesn't take long to see Zebra and Gazelle - we'd seen those before we even reached the camp - but within minutes we were ticking off the Big Five. 

Our first friend was a buffalo. Several, in fact, who stopped to glare at us with unbovine hostility. We were told that Buffalo make the Big 5 list simply because they like beating the crap out of people. I hadn't realised that violence was the primary criteria for the list, though it does explain why giraffes - infinitely more exciting than these impressive but cow-like creatures - don't cut it. But I needn't have worried about the giraffes, since they don't know they're not on the list and like to strut around and get their share of the glory.  A trio of them, including mother and baby, wandered contentedly past the van, giving us all a good goggle. 

The Big 5 frittered down the Big 3 a short time later, as a herd of elephants were found eviscerating a shrubbery. The baby was shy, keeping its head in the bush, but the adults seemed fairly relaxed about our presence - all very reassuring since I wasn't quite clear how the slightly flimsy mini-bus was supposed to protect us if Dumbo's mum got twitchy. 

Then we were privileged to find 'slightly lions', as Terry Pratchett once wrote. A little while into the drive we got a close up of a lioness. Or at least some of her. One of the downsides of the moist weather (of which more later) was the lushness of the landscape and therefore the length of the grass. Our lazy lioness, utterly unfazed by us, was determined to stay camera shy. The best view we could get was four furry paws stuck up in the air and she rammed her face further into a tussock. But still, down to the Big 2, and only on our first drive. 

The last candidates were leopards and rhinos, much harder to spot than the others and -according to the books - the ones that most disappoint avid animal appreciators with their absence. But the good men of the minibus driving community have their ways. Moses was spending half the journey on the CB, and the other half on his elephant phone. At one point he heard an excited crackle on the radio, whisked us off on a detour and we were headed to a side road where several other jeeps and minibuses had congregated. 

"Leopard", said Moses.

Leopards are hard to spot because they hang out in trees. But if you know which trees they hang out in the whole proposition becomes pleasingly possible. I didn't quite get the shots I was after, as Leopold the Leopard decided to run down the far side of the trunk, but he or she posed on the the ground for a bit, before going Garbo and slinking off spottily to be alone.  

Big One.

It was getting dark now, and the minivans had formed a convoy to head to the exit. The constant presence of white vans did detract a little from the sense of wilderness. Along with the lush green grass and glowering grey skies all these vehicles did tend to give me the unshakeable sense that I was in Windsor Safari Park. I yearned for a bit of solitude and for an azure sky. But it's reassuring to know the most top-end of the top-end safari splash out couldn't have guaranteed me the latter.

As we rounded the last set of hills, one of the convoy ahead stopped, and its population popped out of the roof, meerkat-style. Up on the hill, barely visible in the gathering gloom, were two rhinos, conveniently picked out against the darkening sky. They stopped, posed for long-range photos, then decided that the other side of the hill would be more private and trotted off.

Finally, as we trundled out of the park, three cheetahs - a mother and two adolescents - stalked across the red earth road, their eyes fixed on some impalas out on the plains to the right. They gave up shortly afterwards, and instead stopped at the roadside, eyeing gazelles hungrily and conveniently showing themselves off to the goggling minivan occupants. Eventually we left them to it and headed 'home' to our acceptable tented accommodation outside the park to enjoy the wonders of lentils and beer-drinking moths.

So there you are - from the ridiculous to the sublime. Make up your own mind if you'd rather pay more.