Tag Archives: Dragoman

Kenya: Lake Mburo and Naivasha

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Zebra skull.

At Lake Mburo we camped fairly wild. There was a big expanse of dirt by the lake and a small shelter for cooking in. Some warthogs came by to investigate and Mash (our cook) had to chase them off with a camp chair. While I was washing up I kept thinking there was one right behind me. Warthogs are one of the few animals that are simultaneously kinda cute and scary. When we were in the Masai Mara we saw one chase a cheetah, so while they might be a friendly character from the Lion King, they’re also capable of killing a big cat. ‘Pumba’, btw, is Swahili for ‘warthog’. See? This blog is entertaining *and* educational.

Snuffling around the tents.

We got up pretty early in the morning and the tent was muddy when we packed it up. We did a walking tour the next morning but didn’t see much, although I did spot (and identify – I’m like the African equivalent of Crocodile Dundee) a lion print. Mainly we looked at animal spore, insects and plants.

Zebra bits.

I quite liked seeing the smaller detail stuff that you don’t see from a jeep. I would’ve liked to do a bush food walk. We did see a baby warthog that had been left behind in a burrow by its parents.

Everyone gathers to take a photo.

It nearly ran under Luke’s feet when it tried to escape and it was about the size of a guinea pig. Unfortunately female warthogs don’t have much in the way of protective instincts towards their children and, faced with danger, will just run as fast as they can and not go back to look so there’s a fair chance this little one might not find its parent again.

Poor little thing!

Other than the warthogs, Lake Mburu wasn’t terribly exciting. We heard the hippos but they were mostly submerged and there wasn’t much else to see there. Our next stop was at Naivasha, a campsite not far from Nairobi and by a lake. There was an electric fence around the lake to keep the tourists away from the hippos. Apparently a lady had been squashed by one a few years back.

This campsite was close to Elsamere, Joy Adamson’s home. She was the author of ‘Born Free’ and raised lions, cheetahs and a leopard, as well as being an accomplished painter. Having read the Wikipedia article on her life, it has a lot more information about the way she died than was given when we visited the house. She seems to have been one of those people whose strong will and determination allow them to accomplish much but also makes them difficult to get along with.

Part of the visit to the house and museum was an afternoon tea in the garden. While I was taking a photo for Scott and Michelle a Colobus Monkey ran up behind me and made a grab for my food! I kind of grabbed it by the shoulder (they’re medium-sized monkeys) and pushed it away. It felt a bit like my dog Penny – rough haired. It managed to take a biscuit with it then sat up the nearest tree munching away, A bit exciting, really.  My first hands-on brush with nature.

Tea in the garden where lions were raised.

Uganda: Lake Bunyoni and the Little Angels Orphanage and School.

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Lake Bunyoni is the deepest lake in Uganda at 6300 feet. Our campsite for two days was on the edge of the lake and it’s certainly the prettiest campsite we’d yet seen. The steep hills surrounding the lake are terraced with banana trees and other crops, the lake is a lovely clean greeny-blue and the air is a bit misty from cooking fires. Fishermen in dugouts ply the lake and you can hear cows mooing at the farms. Our tents sit by the water’s edge on thick green grass and even though it is very warm and humid during the day, at night it is nice and cold.

The cutest kids in Africa!

We spent half a day visiting a school that is run by a man who used to be a sponsor child himself. His name is Duncan and he told us that his sponsor parents lived in England and he wants to help the community here and give other children the same chance he’d had. He took us for a very steep walk over the hills to see the village the children come from and to meet a local lady, Frida. He warned us beforehand that Frida is ‘mad – but not crazy, just mad. I don’t tell her that!’ She is 87 years old and a tiny little lady full of life and smiles. When we arrived she came out of her house and spoke to us, giving each of us a hug, feeling our arms and, in the case of ladies with decent ..ah.. assets.. she felt those too. We all laughed with her. She always asks Duncan which of the ladies is his girlfriend and he gets her to guess. This time she guessed Nikki was. Leigh wasn’t so lucky, Frida asked whether he eats anything because he is so thin. Poor guy!

Everyone in Africa loves a beard.

Then we walked on to the school through plantations of eucalypts. It is a free school and many of the children are orphans or their families are very poor. The school gives the children two meals a day. When we arrived they were having lessons so we split up and went into the classrooms. There were about 30 children in each room and about 200 children in the whole school. Thirty is unusually small for classes in Africa but then the rooms were so small they wouldn’t have fitted many more.

Year one classroom.

The classrooms had dirt floors, no door and the walls were rough boards with huge gaps and a corrugated iron roof. Each room had a blackboard and some posters – some of which were identical to the ones we have in my school at home.

We sat in a room with the kids and they were singing songs and doing spelling. Due to a lack of resources most lessons seem to be aural, which would be hard on kids who learn better through seeing or doing.

Dancing at assembly.

After the class time there was an assembly and then we helped hand out the lunches. The kids had two meals at school. We gave them a banana, juice, cup of porridge (no sugar or salt) and a slice of bread (plain). I can only imagine the look on kids’ faces at my school if you gave them food like that, but while they were eating the teachers gave a spelling quiz and if a child answered correctly they got another slice of bread.

Lunch time.

Along with the school we saw the beginnings of buildings Duncan had designed for volunteers to stay in. A lot of places charge volunteers money to stay but his plan is to offer free accommodation for people who want to come and teach. If I ever decided to do something like that, Lake Bunyoni would be the perfect place. My only regret is that Swahili is not the local language and I’d have to start all over.

I’d happily go to work every day in this fashion!

We were rowed back to camp in dugout canoes and I reflected on the roll of aid in Africa and how this kind of grass-roots organisation that grows from within a community but looks to draw on knowledge and experience of outsiders, is probably one of the most sustainable and successful we’ve seen yet.

Leigh plays with one of the kids.

Rwanda: Gorillas!

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The top of our hiking poles.

We spent three nights in Rwanda, the first two at a small town just outside Volcanoes National Park, just over the border from Uganda. The road from Lake Bunyoni to the Rwandan border is surprisingly, startlingly beautiful. Not only is it a new piece of tarmac but it winds through steeply hilly countryside that is lush and green, terraced with crops and eucalyptus trees. It made me think of my friends who like to drive their sports cars along winding roads.

Rwanda is one of those rare countries that has banned plastic bags and the second you’re over the border the difference is noticeable. Buildings are also more solidly built, everything has a slightly more prosperous air than the other countries we’ve been to. Which is surprising (at least to me) as Rwanda seems to be a byword for trouble and poverty to the rest of the world.

Although I could wax lyrical about Rwanda for pages I’ll cut straight to day 2 and our gorilla trek.

Unexpected bamboo.

We were broken up into groups and Luke and I went with Joan, John, Miriam and Adele from our tour group and we got the guide who was driving to the closest group of gorillas. The chances of seeing a group are extremely high as they are tracked constantly during daylight hours and the guides are in contact with the trackers by radio.

We took a jeep from the muster point to a farming area, were given walking poles and then headed uphill through fields of daisies, potatoes and beans. People came out to say hello, especially the ubiquitous smiling, rag-clad children. Further up we met our armed trackers and crossed the stone wall into the park. Unexpectedly, most of our half hour walk through the park was within a bamboo forest. Apparently gorillas love bamboo and actually get drunk on bamboo shoots. The guide told us that they act in a more outgoing manner when drunk and are also more likely to try to box people who come to see them.

On the way through the forest we got to see a giant earthworm, although apparently it was just a baby.

Urgh!

Not long after this we were told to put down our backpacks (if the gorillas see them they will try to get into them and look for food), picked up our cameras and headed down a little muddy slope. As I negotiated the tricky turn, crouched down and surrounded by bushes, I looked to the side and there, within a metre, was a gorilla. It was sitting down just watching me. I’m not an emotional person but I felt my eyes fill with tears and I can’t even really say precisely why. I couldn’t even take a photo, I was so close. We had to move on quite quickly as we were on a slope and everyone had to get down.

At the bottom was a clearing full of ferns and stinging nettles and –  gorillas! We worked our way around to a group that included a silverback, several females and juveniles. The little ewok-like youths were rolling around, wrestling. It was as though a couple of rambunctious toddlers had been dressed up in gorilla suits and given a litre of red cordial.

So close!

We watched them for about half an hour (we’re limited to an hour of viewing a day so as not to disturb them too much) then moved around the corner. There were two little ones and then, not far away, a mother with a 5 day old baby. Unfortunately (but understandably) she didn’t want us to see the baby so we only saw the top of its head. We spent a little over an hour in the clearing, taking photos, sitting almost within touching distance of the animals. It was magic.

All-over-afro! At this point I almost died from too much cute.

The money we paid to see the gorillas goes in part to the parks and guides but also to the local villages to pay for infrastructure and education. Apparently this has reduced poaching to almost zero, in fact now locals will direct animals back into the park rather than killing them if they find them eating crops.

If you ever get a chance to see these amazing, gentle animals I highly recommend doing so. The more people who do these treks, the greater their chance of survival. It is definitely something to add to your bucket list – plus Rwanda is a beautiful country full of ridiculously friendly, welcoming people.

The great explorer.

Camping in Africa.

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I’ve never done much camping, except for at music festivals, which is less like camping and more like moving half the contents of my house into a field for a short period of time. So doing the relatively rough and ready camping that we’ve done with Dragoman has been an interesting experience.

The tents we’re using are super heavy canvas dome tents that have metal poles and a heavy waterproof fly – a far cry from the cheap $80 tents that I used to buy and which would last maybe two weekends if I didn’t forget to unpack them before they went mouldy. In some ways they’re great – more waterproof, windproof and heat-retaining than any other tent I’ve ever used. On the other hand they’re heavy, hard to roll up small enough and have no awning so when it’s raining they’re not much fun.

Most mornings we’re up between 5 and 6:30am, although this morning (we’ve got two nights in one place) we slept in til 8am. It was magnificent.

We have a cook with our group – the cook for the first leg was Charles, a 50 year old man from Kenya. His catch cry was ‘Please guys, don’t wait!’ when the food was ready. Always smiling, helpful and relaxed, Charles was great fun to be with and we were all sorry to see him go. Now we have Mash, who is younger but also super laid back, makes amazing food and is teaching me some Swahili too.

Saying goodbye to Charles.

Every day for breakfast the cook makes toast and eggs, sometimes bacon, and we have a range of fruit and cereal. When we’ve finished eating we have to wash our plates and then flap them dry – this means standing around waving them like we’re signalling to aircraft. Everything gets air-dried to avoid unhygenic tea towels and is a good chance to stand around chatting with people. Everyone pitches in to help with meals and cleaning, although two or three people are rostered on to turn up early and help with preparation and then finishing clean up.

Lunch prep.

Lunches are usually sandwiches, sometimes pasta salad. If we’re on a game drive during the day we pack our own lunches at breakfast. I bought Luke and I plastic lidded containers at the supermarket the other day to keep salads or sandwiches in as I’d rather not be throwing away cling wrap every day. Plus then our food doesn’t get squashed in our bags.

If we stop for lunch on the road we get out our little camp chairs and get food ready. We’re so quick now that everything can be made, eaten and packed up in 40 minutes. Not a bad effort for about 25 people!

At lunch yesterday we’d stopped at a petrol station that had a nice shady tree and some grass for us to sit on and we’d just about got everything ready when we heard music booming down the road. A small truck came into view with a banner across the front and lots of people standing in the back.

Unexpected lunchtime entertainment.

They pulled over, possibly because of the big group of muzungu staring at them, and disgorged a man with a megaphone who told everyone about Breast Feeding Awareness Week. Then a group of guys in matching outfits got off the truck and performed a dance routine Beyonce would’ve been proud of. Then they got back into the truck, to much clapping and cheering, and drove off down the road. Don’t worry, we got footage.

Dinner on the trip is usually served in whatever campsite we’re staying at and most have an area set aside for groups like ours to use – some benches or tables and, if we’re lucky, a sink and tap. We’ve had something different for dinner almost every night of the trip and there’s almost always enough for seconds. The dishes and the style of cooking are very reminiscent of the New Year’s holidays my friends go on – there’s about 40 of us who go away for a week and self cater in school-camp-style accommodation. Having run a kitchen like that, and also worked in festival camp kitchens where we fed over 100 people but have no running water, I really appreciate the way Dragoman cooks run a pretty tight ship and get everything done so quickly.

About half the time we’ve camped we’ve had upgrades available. These range from quite dingy rooms to whole houses for quite reasonable prices. The other night it was raining so 6 of us chipped in for a house that was $12 each. Not bad when you get a four poster bed, lounge and equipped kitchen to yourselves. We’ve upgraded a few times and did so last night, with Kat, Lucas, Luke and I sharing a four bed dorm. When we woke up to the sound a rain on the roof we were glad we did!

Some of the upgrades have been tented campsites, where the tents are set up permanently under thatched roofs. Although there’s no ensuite there’s lots more room, proper beds (well, foam mattresses, I’m yet to encounter a sprung mattress in Africa) and sometimes even a powerpoint.

Tented campsite at the Maasai Mara.

The biggest frustration of our traveling and the way we move around so much has been getting laundry done. We can’t dry stuff on the truck and at night it’s not enough time. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to come across a native African Laundry Tree, which helps.

A Laundry Tree in full flower.

If anyone has heard about the Nairobi airport fire and wondered whether we’re affected, well – yes, we’re supposed to be flying out of there in about 10 day’s time, but hopefully everything will be ok, as they seem to have already started reorganising the terminals so that people can arrive and leave. Fingers crossed! If you don’t know what I’m talking about google it – the flames are visible above the roof of the building. It’s pretty impressive… or depressing, depending how you look at it.