The Great Wildebeest Migration

 

The Great Migration.  Even more of these were all around us!  

Some refer to it as the Greatest Wildlife Show on Earth.  From what I could tell after three days there, if it isn't the greatest, it's certainly one of them.

It was rough getting in there, to the Masai Mara National Reserve.  Seven hours driving, the last two over dirt and rock-studded roads that'd jounce your liver and loosen your fillings.  Most of us in the safari car were tired and snarly as a result.  But much of that evaporated when we went on our first game drive.

Our timing was good.  The bulk of the big game had streamed out of Tanzania and into the Kenya side of the Serengeti grasslands, which is where we were heading. 

We were up top, where it says AUG.

It's not so much a migration as a continual circling/grazing of approximately a million-plus animals.  Sometimes they can mass up for miles across and are even visible from space!

Wildebeests make up the most of it, but also zebras, impalas, cape buffaloes, antelopes and so on.  They follow the rains and the resultant green grass and have been doing so since time immemorial.

Wildebeest or "gnu" around acacia tree.

Cape Buffalo -- ornery critters, sometimes called the "black death."

Where you have grazing animals on the move, usually you have predators following:  Lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, wild dogs and more.  We saw our share of these, including twelve to fifteen of the king of beasts.

The big cats rest and sleep up to fifteen hours a day.  The equatorial sun being what it is, most we saw were lounging in the shade.  But not all...

His Highness out on the prowl -- with column of wildebeest at top.

Her eye color matches her hide!

Toting junior off like a domestic cat.

The migration is fraught with drama and danger.  Calves are born along the route and make easy pickings for predators.  The old or crippled often are singled out and taken down.  River crossings are scenes of chaos and panic as huge crocodiles chomp unto the unfortunate and stampede the rest.  

We didn't see a river crossing, but we did watch from a distance as a lioness chased down a wildebeest.  She seized it by the neck and choked the life out.  Along with other safari cars, we bounced over and observed as she ripped into it with fang and claw.  

The lioness and her kill.  Note blood-stained snout.

A male ambled over to partake.

Before we set out that first morning, our guide told us that we'd be fortunate to see a leopard, even one.  Generally they roam and hunt at night, and perch up in trees by day.  With so much of their movement after dark, it's hard to pinpoint where they might be.  Plus, compared to lions, there's not so many of them.  

As it turned out though, we didn't see only one leopard, we saw three.

Sleepy bones.  

  This leopard stashed a wildebeest carcass up there for later -- note legs dangling along right side of tree trunk.

Cheetah taking its leisure in the shade.

Hyena wallowed into the mud to keep cool.

Safaris are not just about spotting big game, of course.  Camp life also is an integral part.  We stayed at a safari camp near the entrance to the Masai Mara Reserve, which allowed for easy entrance and exit.

However, because we were all so exhausted from the day's activities, there wasn't much of the usual conviviality and sitting around the campfires afterward.  Most of us shuffled off to bed early to rest up for the next day.

Nonetheless, the food was decent and the service courteous and friendly.  Mornings and evenings, the staff fired up the generator for a few hours to provide lights and hot water.  It wasn't like at the Hyatt, but all you needed.

My digs at safari camp.

Our wheels, a Toyota Land Cruiser.  Two spare tires are due to rough roads.

"Jimmy," our driver and guide.

Safari camp was located near a Maasai tribal village.  I wanted to go for a walk through the bush before I left, but the village chief wouldn't let me.  An Englishman had been stomped to death by a rogue elephant there years earlier and the chief insisted that I have an escort.  However, for good measure evidently, not just one escort turned out, but six.

My entourage for my walk.

A Maasai starting a fire the traditional way.

Maasai tribal dwelling.  The stick is traditional for males.

The Great Migration was a fitting climax to my three weeks in Kenya -- it was one of the most memorable sights that I'd ever witnessed.  In fact, I could've stayed there longer as I couldn't quite get enough of the wildlife.  But all such idylls come to an end.  In this case, reality intruded in the form of that darned pandemic thing again. 

I had to get a Covid test to board the airplane back to the U.S. and had to allow a few days in Nairobi to accomplish that.  So when I boarded the Land Cruiser at safari camp, to go back to Nairobi, I was actually beginning the long journey home.

(For what it's worth, I hardly thought about the pandemic the whole time in Kenya.  I didn't think about it, didn't hear about it, didn't talk to anyone who had it.  All in all, I was more worried about mosquitoes and malaria!) 

If I ever come again, I'd land here and avoid those roads in to the Reserve.

In closing, a hearty thanks to those of you who followed along with me on this, through all four posts.  Wishing you the best on your own safaris, wherever they may take you.  Until next time then, if there ever is one... 

J.M.

End Of Series On Kenya

Faiza's Farm

 

MUZUNGU!  It was a word that had been following me for the last ten days, ever since I'd been in Kenya.  MUZUNGU!  The cry went up again as our car crunched onto the driveway of St. Theresa's School.  Only instead of from the occasional onlooker, this time from hundreds of ecstatic little voices. 

MUZUNGU!  MUZUNGU!  MUZUNGU!...  As I climbed out of the Toyota, the sound picked up in intensity as it swept through the children playing outside that a real live white person was in their midst.

Within seconds I was swarmed so tightly that I could barely move -- wide-eyed, smiling children -- some reaching out to touch my skin, finger my shirt -- but mostly they just stood, beaming, giggling.  I smiled back as best I could and waved and waved...trying to acknowledge the attention.

It struck me that I was experiencing a tad of what Gandhi must have experienced -- or Jesus or Mohammed or the Rajas of Asia...

They pressed in to the right of me...

...and to the left of me.

I was rescued away by the headmistress to address a class, to tell about America. 

 

Of course, I am a long ways from the Mahatma or any such historical personage.  However, I was in a part of Africa where whites are seldom seen, if ever.  Thus the excitement.

And the gratitude.  Through the time that I was there, the headmistress shook my hand and repeated "thank you, thank you for coming" and "karibu, karibu" (welcome, welcome) so many times that I lost count. 

Originally the word "muzungu" comes from the Swahili meaning "white as a ghost."  Then in colonial times it came to refer to white Europeans who passed through and were gone, you know, like a ghost.  Now it has come to refer to people such as myself -- travelers, only there for a few days.  

All of this came about courtesy of a woman named Faiza, who was my host in this part of Kenya.  She was born and raised nearby, later married a German man.  She lived in Europe and Canada, and visited many other places, including the U.S.A.  A few years ago she moved back to her native land; bought a ranch house with acreage and set out farming.

Faiza and some of her farmhands.

 

Faiza's mother and the farmhand who served as my guide.

One morning, with fog hanging thick over the land and the sun but a pale disc on the horizon, I walked about to see a worker pouring out feed to clucking chickens, another doing the same to muddied up pigs, still another squirting milk from a cow's udders into a pail...A crew of three, two men and a woman, had assembled and were being handed hoes and rakes to go out and work the soil...

The farm was coming to life, awakening unto the day.  There's nothing quite like it.  And there, in the heart of Africa, so far away both in miles and in memory, I was harking back to growing up in Pennsylvania, where I had partaken of such tasks more times than I can remember.

That's the thing about travel, you never know where it's going to take you -- in the here and now or otherwise.

 

Maize or corn out drying -- field after field after field of it here.

 

 Stirring ugali or cornmeal mush.  Eaten by both people and livestock.

     

More bounty of the land -- bananas, mangoes, fresh eggs.

Faiza has had her challenges getting the operation going.  Early on, a disease that affects poultry wiped out hundreds of her chickens.  Then overly rainy weather drowned out acres of a tomato crop.  A lot of the labor still is done by hand and throughout the day I could hear workers hacking up an outlying field for planting.  (While I was there, I hardly remember a tractor in the whole area, much less on her farm.)

To do all the work she hired locals and this provides some employment for what is a very poor part of Africa, of the world for that matter.  So I salute what she's doing and wish her the best.  I was particularly admiring of her spirit, that she would even undertake such an endeavor.  

As much as I was taken with the place and the people, after a few days it was time to move on.

I squeezed into a jammed matatu (van/bus) and set out for the city of Kisumu, situated on Lake Victoria.  Bordering three countries, it's the largest lake in Africa and part of the headwaters for the fabled Nile River.

Because I was getting short on time, I had to pass on exploring the famous lake and its environs.  I was down to less than a week in-country and I had yet to see the main reason that I came there -- the mass of wildebeests, zebras, impalas, cape buffalo and more that stream out of the Serengeti Plains in Tanzania this time of year and into southern Kenya.

After a day or two of getting things organized, it was off on safari to the Masai Mara Reserve and the largest herd migration of animals on the planet.

Part IV To Follow Next Weekend

The Seashore And The Serpents

The villa in Watamu.  The hostels were closed so I had to settle for this.

It was all Covid's fault.  Usually I stay in hostels in countries that I visit.  That means half-a-dozen people or more cramped into a room, generally in bunk beds.  Yes, it can get crowded, but you can travel inexpensively as well, six, eight or ten dollars a night, including breakfast.  In India a few years ago I was paying four and that was in one of the best places I'd ever stayed!

But not so on this trip.  Because of the pandemic, the Kenyan government had mandated that only two or so people could share a room.  Most hostels were closed as a result.  I had to adapt or before long I'd be breaking the bank.  

Then along came Hendrik, the German guy who I met on the train.  So that we both could save on expenses, we decided to team up for a week at the shore.  Soon after we were inserting the key into the lock of a villa compound, a whole compound...in Watamu ("Waa-taa-moo"), a beach town along the Kenyan coast.  

Hendrik at the door to the villa compound; he was bound for the beach, a ten-minute walk.

Seven Islands Beach, Watamu

Hendrik and others were jumping off here, but not me.  Note black, volcanic-type rock.

The villa was an Airbnb rental.  My first.  It was owned by a wealthy Italian who used it during the winter and rented it out while he was up north.  In fact, the whole neighborhood was villas owned by wealthy Italians who lived up north.  It was a veritable Little Italy, replete with Italian restaurants and stores with wines from Tuscany and cases of pasta and olive oil.

Courtesy of Airbnb's website, the cost per night was $38 U.S.  That's $19 apiece.  I thought that I had died and gone to heaven.

Interesting how my attitude changed while staying in this semi-luxury.  Hendrik and I went out to dinner one evening to the Coconut Beach Restaurant & Bar.  I had forgotten my glasses and was holding the menu at arm's length, squinting over the offerings...I thought that I was ordering the Linguine Tuna.  Imagine my surprise when, almost an hour later, the waiter presented me the Seafood Extravaganza.

I'll spare you the exact number, but it cost more than a night a the villa!

Normally I would've had a fit at my mistake.  Instead I just shrugged it off.  "Ehh," I told Hendrik, "it's only money."  (We people of wealth are like that.)  

 

Nice place to eat overlooking Watamu Bay.

The Extravaganza.  It cost a lot, took forever to get, but maybe the best I ever had.

Hendrik, the German guy.

Because of problems with skin cancer, I can't take the sun much anymore.  Usually I stroll the beaches early mornings or evenings and find something else to do midday.  One thing else that I found there was to visit the Watamu Snake Farm.  It's one of the most renowned in Africa, containing dozens of the most deadly snakes on the continent.  Various other reptiles as well. 

Now this may cause some of you to recoil.  But remember -- I, your humble correspondent, tend to venture where others fear to go.  For instance, I'm the guy who ate street food for five weeks in India a few years ago -- and survived.  Didn't even get sick!  So I have a history of courting danger.  

Street food in India in 2019.

If you do like to see dangerous though, the Farm is the place.  It houses approximately fifty different snake species; kept in wooden enclosures with glass fronts for viewing.  Among them, spitting cobras, tree-dwelling Boomslangs and the dreaded Black Mambas.  Also tortoises, chameleons, monitor lizards, boa constrictors, pythons and more -- a reptile-lovers paradise!

    

But the place is not only for show.  They "milk" the most poisonous of snakes -- to help produce anti-venom to save victims from bites that can kill or maim.  You can even order up some for the species in your area.  It's a research and education center as well with the mission to save both people and reptiles.  

  

I took the tour and was fascinated as the guide walked me past the displays and exhibits.

Venom extraction (photo courtesy Watamu S.F.)

A Black Mamba, a.k.a. the "Smiling Death"

Chameleon that transitions to a camo coloring.  Hard to spot, eh?

Afraid of snakes?  We hope to change your mind before you leave, states the Farm's website.  To accomplish this, the guide explained the behaviors of the most lethal of the residents.  Also how to avoid and cope with them.

Knowledge is power, as they say.  And in this case it helped me be more at ease about the slimy buggers.  But I can tell you, I was watching where I was stepping when I left the place!

Your humble correspondent.

At any rate, my time at the seashore was over.  Hendrik tipped me to a woman who had a farm in the far west of Kenya, almost to the border with Uganda.  She offered home-stays, where you live for a while with a local family.  In this manner, you get out of the tourist zones and experience the life of regular folks.

I bid a reluctant good-bye to the coast and boarded a flight of JamboJet.  Next stop, the far side of Kenya. 

Part III To Follow Next Weekend

The Chinese Train

The Madaraka Express, a.k.a. The Chinese Train.  Note Kenya flag on front.

After a few days in Nairobi, getting my bearings and exploring Kenya's largest city, it was time to take in more of the country.  

My first venture out was toward the coast.  At first, I was considering flying or taking a bus.  Then I learned that a gleaming fast train had been put into service a few years before, running from Nairobi to the city of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean.  That settled it right there.  When I'm given a choice of transport over land, I prefer to go choo-choo.

Eventually I learned more about it, the train and the line.  The prime contractor was the China Road & Bridge Corporation, which supplied the engineering, the financing, etc., and hired 25,000 Kenyans to work on the project.  China also supplied the locomotive, the rolling stock, the training to operate the system, and more.

Furthermore, the Chinese are rebuilding the port of Mombasa to become a major cargo hub and connect into the new rail line, extending deep into the heart of Africa.  Part of the Chinese Belt & Road Initiative so much in the news, it's one of the projects that the Chinese are undertaking in approx. seventy countries worldwide.  That's correct -- seventy countries. 

What they're doing this all for, I'll leave to others to figure out.  I can tell you this though -- it was 360 miles (580 km) to the coast.  Cruising along in those new coaches, over that new rail bed at 80 mph, I've never had a more pleasant ride.  The cost was only 1,000 Shillings ($9 U.S.) and it arrived at Mombasa terminus at 8 p.m., on schedule to the minute. 

Snazzily dressed and courteous conductors welcome you aboard.

Inside of coach # 8, economy, the Madaraka Express.

Kenya flag on the left, Chinese flag on the right -- symbolizing the type of joint

venture that the Chinese are doing throughout the world.

Along The Way, The Tsavo Bridge

The new line that I was riding on ran alongside the old line completed during British Colonial rule in 1901.  The new was standard gauge track, the old was narrow gauge -- less stable and jerkier in the turns.  The old was called the Uganda Line because it extended through Kenya and on into Uganda.  It was also called the "Lunatic Express" because it chugged along so slowly and roughly and had so many stops that it supposedly drove people half nuts by the time it reached Mombasa.  

What took us five hours in the new train took the Lunatic Express twelve -- if all went well.  But veterans of the route will tell you, sometimes the old one took twenty-some hours to reach the coast.  I think that I'd be a little batty, too.  

Map of the old route from colonial times.

About three hours into my journey, I had struck up a conversation with a German trekker named Hendrik.  We were spotting elephants, giraffes, zebras and other big game along the way as the route cut through still-wild country.  For whatever reason, genes maybe, the elephants displayed a brownish color on their backs.  In the setting sun, they appeared copper-colored, like a shiny U.S. penny.  Quite a marvel to see.

Then crackled over the intercom:  Ladies and gentlemen, coming up on your left, the Tsavo Bridge.  This is where so many Indian workers building the old line in 1898 were attacked and eaten by a pair of lions...

What? I recoiled.  I had seen the movie on this a few years back; The Ghost And The Darkness, starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas.  It was a dramatized version of the man-eaters and the horrors that they inflicted the railway workers.  Despite studying up on Kenya before I left the U.S., I had missed this, that I'd be passing through the area.

As sometimes happens when traveling, I blunder upon places that I didn't even know were in my path!  This was one such occasion.

The Tsavo Bridge after completion in 1899.

Lt. Colonel Patterson and the "big lion" of the two; a male reputed to have killed and eaten dozens of railway workers over a nine-month period.  More than nine feet from nose to tail, it took eight men to carry it back to camp.  Patterson eventually shot the other lion as well.  Due to genetics, neither had the usual mane associated with male lions.  

 Man-Eater Fact vs. Fiction

When I returned to Nairobi a few weeks later, I visited the Nairobi Railway Museum there.  I wanted to get the story from the local angle, not after it had been processed through the U.S. and other Western media.

The Railway Museum.

 

The museum housed a few telling artifacts from the incidents -- a plastic box containing three of the claws from one of the man-eaters, for instance.  The official railroad logs of how many workers turned out missing for another.  But mainly the curator was a wealth of knowledge and facts about the attacks:

• Rather than the oft-reported 135 victims killed by the lions, the staff put the number at more like 35-40, with the bigger lion taking twice as many as the smaller.
• One night a lion did indeed jump onto the top of a structure and try to rip off the roofing to get at the workers huddled and trembling within.
• Another night, with one worker snatched by a lion and dragged off screaming, so many workers clambered up a tree to get away that the tree toppled over, spilling the terrified men off onto the ground.
• The hides off the lions eventually made their way to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago where they were fashioned to life-size and are on display there to this day.

Display at Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago

Meanwhile, Back On The Express...

Hendrik, the German guy and I had reached an accord of our own, a joint-venture if you will:  He is an avid scuba diver and wanted to go underwater exploring off the Kenyan coast.  To keep his expenses down, he wanted someone to share an Airbnb rental in the beach town of Watamu.

Now at the time I didn't know Watamu from Kathmandu.  Nor did I know I know about an Airbnb rental.  But it took me about a second of deciding to tell him, "I'm in."  We decided to meet up in a few days and take it from there.

More often than I can remember this has happened:  I go off on these trips solo, only to join up with someone along the way.  It's gotten to the point where I expect it and my teaming up with Hendrik is a prime example.  As they say in German, the deal turned out to be sehr guts. 

 

Part II To Follow Next Weekend