Farewell to Kenya

Our flight home was to depart at 1:35am Saturday morning, so we were effectively leaving Friday night.  Our day was spent mostly in transit from our camp back to Nairobi, allowing me to catch up on my blogging while on the road.  We made a couple stops along the way to use restrooms and grab coffee.  Coincidentally at both our first and second stop we ended up seeing the same large group from California that we saw on our way out to the Maasai Mara.  We talked a bit again with some of them at each of the stops. 

Blogging on the Road

Our 6 hour drive back to Nairobi went without major issue, with the exception that the main highway

Scenery in Small Towns we Drove Through

was blocked off for a period of time.  We had gotten advanced warning so Stephen found a detour on a very rough, narrow cliff-side dirt road.  For 45 minutes we bounced about with many other detoured vehicles driving alongside a steep drop to our right with only some bushes and tree-tops to keep us from plummeting if Stephen missed a turn.  Oncoming traffic (which was probably the heaviest this road has seen in years) was a challenge too, as oncoming vehicles could barely fit past us. 

After 45 minutes, the road ended at a gate to the Rift Valley Academy, which we had to enter to proceed.  This appeared to be a very large and upscale boarding academy that served elementary through high school children of both locals as well as expatriates.  We got an unplanned driving tour of the campus as we continued our long detour to the main highway.  Past the academy and on the other side of Kijabe, the

Small Town Scenery

name of the town we were in, we had to pass through a narrow carved out channel in the mountain, this was only wide enough for one car to pass through at a time, and even one car took tremendous skill to not hit the sides.  Stephen navigated it expertly, and we continued down the final stretch back to Nairobi, arriving at about 2:30.  We had booked a room at the Hilton Garden Inn by the Nairobi airport for the afternoon, even though we would need to head to the airport at 10:30pm, as we knew we would need a place to shower, re-pack/consolidate our bags, and maybe nap. 

Small Town Scenery

As we unpacked the van, we thanked Stephen deeply for the great safari and for everything he showed and taught us over the past 6 days.  As with everyone else that shared Kenya with us, we shared our little piece of Nashville with him and gave him a large box of Goo Goo Clusters to share with his family.  Each time I handed these out, it felt like an insignificant gift compared to what we had been provided, but it was our small way of giving them a piece of our home, Nashville.

Checking in at the Hilton Garden Inn

We quickly unloaded our bags at the hotel, and reached out to Thomas who planned on meeting up with us again for dinner. We asked for recommendations on restaurants and narrowed it down to two.  Carnivore Restaurant which had a very epic “all you can eat’ deal where various meats, some exotic, were roasted in the center of the restaurant on Maasai swords, and they continue providing you meat until you put your white flag down, or Ashaki which was a large and lively local hang out with a bar and Nyama Choma, the ubiquitous barbecued meat sold at markets, cooked at home, or ordered at a bar during a guys’ night out. While both sounded intriguing, Carnivore sounded much more touristy, and Ashaki felt much more like the Kenya experience we were looking for. 

Thomas drove us to the restaurant and got us a table, where we sat and ordered a few drinks.  Thomas doesn’t drink, which did work well with him as our designated driver, but I enjoyed several beers. He coordinated with the chef to get chicken nyama choma for Aimee, and lamb for he and I.  The meat is barbecued, and then brought table-side to be carved up by the chef onto a large plate, that is then shared.  As a side, a cornmeal and potato dish is provided (somewhat similar to ugali), but with some spinach as well giving it a green color.  As is typical with Kenyan food, it is all eaten with your hands, so before digging in, we went to one of the many sinks around the restaurant to wash up, and then stuffed ourselves with meet.

Nyama Choma Carved Tableside

We spent quite a bit of time here just talking with Thomas about everything we saw and how much we enjoyed Kenya.  The conversation meandered through Kenyan politics, international politics, American politics, and all sorts of other topics. Both Thomas and Aimee and I expressed how glad we were for the new friendship and said we would keep in touch. 

Final Dinner with our New Friend Thomas

Unfortunately all vacations come to an end. Thomas brought us back to our hotel and said he would return at 10:30 to take us to the airport. When we pulled into the airport, it was a heartfelt goodbye as he was truly a huge part of our Kenyan experience that we’ll never forget. 

As we walked away from his car with tons of luggage, we prepared ourselves for our upcoming three flights (for a combined 21 hours in the air) and approximate 8 hours of airport time to get back home to Nashville, where we would be adding two more pins to the travel map.

Dancing With the Maasai

After a hectic 9 days, Thursday was a welcomed slow day to be customized as we desired.  We had the option to take a balloon ride in the morning, however, dangling several hundred feet in the air wasn’t something of interest to either of us.  So instead, we slept in a bit, and had a leisurely morning doing not much of anything around the resort. 

Monkeys at our Lodge

At 2:00 however, we had a tour scheduled of a Maasai village.  This was something we had been very interested in when we were planning but had some reservations on the nature of these types of activities.  While such experiences can be incredibly educational, we were somewhat hesitant for fear that the experience would be awkwardly exploitative.  There can be an odd feeling of being an obvious outsider coming into a rural village where naturally there is a difference in wealth by incredible multiples, jumping off of a bus where a bunch of people are told to do their dance for you, so you can buy a trinket and leave. If this was the case, we weren’t interested.  (A traveler I met many years ago on a safari in Namibia described the feeling of such a village visit elsewhere as feeling like “tapping on the windows” as if at a zoo trying to get an animal to do something for you.)

Fortunately, the research we found, indicated that this was generally not the case.  Instead, it is a way for the Maasai to teach others about their history and culture which is something they enjoy doing.  Furthermore, the fees to do this are an important part of the local economy and are what help sustain the locals so that they can continue to keep pace with the modernizing world around them.  Therefore, we scheduled the tour.

We met Stephen in the lobby, where he was accompanied by a Maasai man that I would guess was around 35.  He introduced himself as Simon  I had expected that we were getting into the van with Stephen and that we would then drive to the village, however, at the door of the lobby, Stephen bid us farewell.  I asked if he was not driving us and he said “No, you are walking to the village.”  Stephen remained back at the hotel, and we continued with Simon.

As we walked down the entry road that led to our resort, Simon stopped to show us a tall bush which I believe he referred to as an “orange plant”.  He said that the Maasai would boil the root of this plant and use it to soothe intestinal issues.  We continued walking for what was probably a half a mile or so down the dusty gravel road and then turned down a dirt road towards the Masai village.  Ahead of us we could see that there was a group of several young Maasai men all in their traditional clothing, awaiting our arrival. 

Maasai Welcoming Committee

When we got to the spot they were, Simon directed us to a large bush that was creating a little bit of shade.  He said, “I know it is hot for you, so you can stand here in the shade.”   He then told us that in this area, no one knows him as Simon, but they all know his name as Simary (Sigh-MAY-ree).  He then let us know that we could take pictures of anything we want to, and that they would teach us about Maasai life.  He said they were going to start with a traditional dance that is often done at the beginning of large events.  Nine men began to sing in something that is reminiscent of the Mongolian throat singing band “The Hu”.  The song was in a crisp 6/8 (for the musicians out there).  Some of the men sung a single unison low bass droning whole notes that emanated deeply from within their throats, with minor emphasis on each 1st and 4th beat.  A few of the men did more of a percussive sound of eighth notes that was more forced breath than tone, in a bit of a “Heh-hoo-hoo Hih-hoo-hoo.” Where I believe the “Hih” may have been inhaled.  Then the tenor overlaid lyrics that I’m assuming were in the Maa language.  From here the song was punctuated with a few high pitched battle-call “yiyiyiyi” and rhythmic blowing into a horn that I believe was an impala horn.  This provided a single pitch which they blew in 8^th note triplets towards the end of what would be comparable to a verse.

After performing this for a bit, they then grabbed our hands and brought us into the line to dance and sing with them.  I was next to one of the percussive singers, and he tried to teach me the part.  I struggled a bit to keep my dancing going along with the singing while also trying to figure out the pattern of the phonetics.  I kept getting close but not quite there.  He was a patient teacher though as I was attempting to learn during our spontaneous live performance.

After the dance, we then began the competition of jumping.  This is traditionally used to identify the strongest man in the village so that he can win the right to marry a wife.  As the rest of the men stand around, two men face off jumping as high as they can.  If I understood it correctly, it almost seemed like “scissor, paper rock”  where you do a couple small jumps together to get the rhythm, and then the third jump is the one that counts.  The Maasai performed the ritual for us, and then pointed to me and said “it is now your turn to compete.”

Maasai Jumping Contest

I tend to be both competitive and also very much try to immerse myself as much as possible in cultural experiences such as this.  So upon their invitation, I took off my hat and sunglasses off, and much to the surprise of the Maasai removed my shoes and socks and entered into the ring.  I competed against one, and they told me that I jumped higher.  I went back to the line of men feeling accomplished, but then was told I needed to compete against the next opponent. This happened two more times after which I received some congratulatory high fives from the other men. 

After my victorious competition, we all marched into the inner part of the village continuing to sing. Here we were met by some of the village women who joined us in dancing and singing.  The women introduced themselves to Aimee, and after we all finished dancing and singing, Simary told Aimee that the women liked her and said they’d like to keep her in the village.

Now that we were on the inside of the village enclosure, there were several mud huts with mud roofs.  On top of two of the huts were women working on the roofs. The one had a large pile of mud mixed with cow dung that she was using to seal the thatch that made up the roof.  Simay explained that rains will be coming, and they must finish the roof beforehand.  This was quite the dirty job, as her hands and arms were covered in the concoction up to her elbows as she grabbed handfuls of the mixture and spread it around the roof.

Inside the Village

Simary had us sit down and taught us about life in the village.  He told us if you have multiple wives it can get complicated and you must build each wife a house.  He said the man must go into each of the wives’ huts and satisfy them at night, and be careful that they are treated equally because jealousy between wives can become a big problem.  At the end of the explanation he summed up his lesson by saying “more wives, more problems.”

Simary Inside Hut (his leg is bent behind him)

He then gave us a tour inside one of the huts.  These were very similar to the ones we had seen earlier at the Bomas of Kenya.  As we walked in the door, there was a partially enclosed pen to the left for animals.  Inside the main hut however it was extremely dark.  Coming in from the bright sun, we could see nothing.  In the bedroom, he had us sit on the bed, which was a structure of reeds about 2 feet of the ground, just under 3 feet wide, and about 5 feet long.  To the left was some shelving, also made out of reeds, and opposite us was the children’s room (next to Simary in the picture).  In the center of the floor a few rocks were arranged, and this is where the fire would be built on cold evenings.

Hut Shelving

After the tour of the hut, Simary took as back out, and walked to the other side of the village.  Here he sat us down again in the shade, and he shared the history of the area and the tribe. After this they demonstrated how they make fire by taking a flat piece of wood with a round notch carved out of the edge and a long stick that is placed in the notch, and then twisting back and forth with the hands, pushing down hard.  The Maasai’s hands would start at the top as they rubbed their hands back and forth vigorously, until their hands slide to the bottom, then they’d quickly place their hands at the top and do it again.  It did not take long until smoke appeared.  Under the flat piece of wood they had a machete, so that once an ember formed and dropped onto it, they quickly brushed it into a pile of elephant dung.  They then began blowing on the dung which began smoking quite a bit.  In under two minutes start to finish, they had a flame.

This was the last part of the actual tour and we were then brought into a large fenced off area where several tables had been setup in a large square.  Each of the women had their souvenirs for sale.  Simary told us that we could grab whatever interested us, and then he we would meet in the middle of the square with us at the end to negotiate a price.  At each table the woman behind it would encourage us to look at specific items, and of course encourage us to buy them.  We eventually selected a few and met for the final negotiation.

Simary initially quoted us 13,000 shillings for all the items we had picked up (roughly $95). I had offered to remove one of the larger items, and offered 8,000 for the rest.  He countered with “I could do 12,500 for all of it”.  Then I made things complicated for him and pulled out my wallet and said “I only have 10,000 shillings, so will you take 10,000 for all?  He asked if I had more shillings at the hotel, which I said no.  (partially true…I did have some shillings but only enough to tip our waitress from the last 3 days, whom I had not tipped yet, and to tip the men that I knew would carry our bags for us the next day to the car.

Simary said he would need to discuss it with everyone else.  He pulled together a couple Maasai men, and went through each item, calling to the woman at the table.  It appeared he was having to figure out how much each person would get paid for the lesser amount.  Finally he came back and said it was good.

At this point, I wanted to present him a gift.  I thanked him for teaching us about the rich historical culture of the Maasai people.  I said my gift did not have deep historical culture, but was something visitors to Nashville Tennessee buy as souvenirs.  I told him unlike the Maasai cow’s blood that makes them big and strong, my gift will make you lazy and fat.  Nonetheless, I handed over a large box of GooGoo Clusters for them to pass around and enjoy in the village.  

A Gift of Goo from Nashville

After this we collected our purchases and were escorted back to the resort by both Simary and another of the Maasai men.  On the way back he congratulated me again for my strong jumping. 

Maasai Escort Back to our Camp

As we walked back we passed a massive herd of hundreds of cows that stretched as far as the eyes could see.

Cows for Days

When we arrived back Stephen was awaiting us, and asked what we wished to do now.  We had said we would like to do our last game drive.  This would be a short one as the National Park closed in 2.5 hours. 

As soon as we entered into the park, there seemed to be a nervous buzz among the wildlife.  There were quite a few animals right near the entrance and many seemed to be standing at attention.  Stephen heard on his two-way radio that something had happened at the first intersection of trails, and that there may have been a recent kill.  We headed in that direction, but before we got there, we saw a couple hyenas.  We stopped to take a look (there were several other trucks around also, which is always an indication something of interest is near). As we looked at the two hyenas we heard some braying somewhat similar to a donkey, and saw a third hyena running around making the noise.  He ran towards us and crossed the road right in front of us.  He was carrying the bloody severed head of some small antelope in his mouth.  There was a fourth hyena nearby, and the one with the head in its mouth pranced towards it proudly braying the whole way.  As we sat there, the hyena ran around continuing to call attention to himself to every animal that would pay attention to show off the head.

A Very Proud Hyena

We asked Stephen if the hyena would have killed whatever it was he was carrying, and Stephen said probably not.  They are not good hunters they usually just scavenge other kills.

At this point we noticed there were two lions further up the road, and it appeared one was eating something it had killed. The hyena with the severed head in its mouth was prancing closer and closer to the lion.  It seemed to have not realized the lion was there.  At one point though when it was still 100-200 feet away it stopped, apparently having caught site of the lion.  While the hyena did stop in its tracks, it seemed to suddenly become once again awash in bravado, as it again started prancing, this time towards the lion proudly showing off the head in its mouth.  However, the closer it got to the lion, rational sense seemed to take over and he veered off in another direction.

We continued to sit and watch the lion.  We still could not see what was in the grass that it was eating,

but it seemed to be enjoying the last few bites and relaxing while letting it digest a bit.  While the hyena with the head had disappeared somewhere off in the distance, the other hyenas were still slinking about the area.  The lion closest to us (the one that had been eating) seemed to have been annoyed by the first hyena’s antics and saw the other ones in the distance on the other side of the road we were on and decided to get up and deal with the situation.  The lion got up and began walking towards the road. It seemed not to care at all that there were over a dozen safari vehicles filled with humans watching it.  Instead his sights were trained directly on the hyena in the distance.  It trotted across the road and into the taller grass where it crouched down a bit as it stalked the hyena hurriedly. He got closer and closer but did not get within 50 feet.  At one point the hyena sensed something behind it, and began galloping into the distance.  At this point the lion decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and gave up the chase.

After staying in this area for about 30 minutes and watching all the interactions between the two lions, four hyenas, and hundreds of other animals keeping a wide berth around the lions, we decided to venture deeper into the Mara.  There was not much else in terms of wild game that we saw over the next hour, just a few animals here and there, and a few interesting birds.  A few miles in the distance, we could see rain coming down on sections of the Mara.  In our section the air and the ground were dry, but the sky was overcast, and the air was filled with the smell of cool rain which had stirred up and mixed with the sweet smell of some of the flora from the Mara.  The smell was fantastically refreshing.  I stuck my head out of the safari van for most of the rest of the trip just to inhale as much of the scent as possible.  I did a quick google search to see if I could find an incense that could fill my house with the smell of “Maasai Mara in the Rain”.  I couldn’t find it.  If anyone ever comes across it, it is a fantastic smell and I recommend you buy a lifetime supply.

Maasai Mara in the Rain

We exited the park only a few minutes before the 6:30 closure.  We headed back to our lodge, cleaned up, went to enjoy our last dinner on safari, and had a few cocktails to celebrate as well.  While the lodge had been fairly quiet and empty previously, today a large group of around 20 Canadians as well as a separate group of about 10 French had now checked in, so the restaurant was very full.  With the much larger crowd, a group of the Maasai had been arranged to come in and do their singing, dancing, and jumping for the enjoyment of all of us at dinner. They also came by each of our tables and greeted us.  We didn’t recognize any from our earlier outing, but I was sure to brag to them that I had won the jumping contest in the village. 

Maasai at Dinner

After relaxing for quite some time and bidding farewell to our waitress from the last few days, we handed her a box of Goo Goo Clusters as a thank you, and we retired to our room.

Lions on the Mara

The plan For Wednesday was fairly simple.  A full-day game drive throughout the Maasai Mara. We started our day with breakfast at the restaurant.  Halfway through breakfast I suddenly heard a rapid thudding commotion behind me, and then saw Aimee start quickly, and simultaneously saw the waitress rush towards me.  In that split second I had no idea what happened, but then I saw a black/gray flash to my right, and looked up in the tree, and a small monkey of some sort (it was not a baboon, but beyond that I’m not sure) had run down the rail of the porch of the restaurant where we were sitting and attempted to steal something from our table.  Aimee and the waitress together were able to thwart its plans.  I however was useless in the situation.  Aimee noted that as he darted down the railing he had locked eyes with her and was clearly intent on mischief. 

Maasai Giraffe Outside Our Camp

After a more exciting breakfast than anticipated, we headed out to meet Stephen.  The day started with
about a dozen Maasai giraffe directly outside the grounds of our lodge.  Note, the Maasai giraffe in this area have markings all the way down their legs, unlike the Rothschild giraffe we saw earlier in the week which have white legs.

As we entered deeper into the Mara, we also came across our first group of elephants since we had been here.  After spending some time watching these massive creatures, we continued to drive around.  The Mara was filled with lots of activity, mostly the various types of antelope: hundreds of  gazelles, impalas, eland, and topi, with the occasional wart hog trotting around and a few other species here and there.

Impala

At one point as we continued to drive, we saw several safari trucks circled around a small tree.  This is

always a sign that there is something exciting, so we headed over there as well.  Once we got close, we were amazed to see a massive pride of lions snuggling together in a pile of fluff under a tree.  There were at least fifteen.  While we sat there, one by one three lion got up and very slowly walked away.  They walked in and between the safari cars without a care in the world, occasionally looking up at all the humans taking their pictures with the absolute least bit of interest they could have.  These three walked off to some other shaded areas away from us, leaving about 12.  We remained in the area quite some time watching them occasionally shift, get up, turn around, plop back down.  This happened over and over.  Right as we were about to leave, the male leader of the pride got up, stretched, and found a new spot to lie in.  The rising of the sun had caused his shade to move, so he repositioned under the tree where he was back fully shaded, and went back to sleep.

After this, we drove a bit further, and once again found a bunch of vehicles together.  When we pulled up, Stephen asked one of the drivers what they were looking at (since there was nothing obvious in front of the group) and the other safari guide told him there was a black rhino that had just walked into the woods.  Stephen shared with us that the black rhino is endangered, and that there are only black rhino, not white rhino in the Maasai Mara. (also note, the differentiation of black vs. white rhino have nothing to do with their color.  I’ll leave it to the internet to explain that though.)

We pulled in amongst the group and looked out in the distance.  A few times Stephen and Aimee both thought they saw something moving in the bush along the creek far in the distance, however, after thirty minutes or so, we never did see a clear shot of anything that could confirm it was still there. 

After this minor disappointment we drove further in and looked at more wildlife.

Around noon, we came to a restroom in the middle of the Maasai Mara.  It was strangely clean, and

Carcas in a Tree

nicely designed with ceramic tile throughout on the floor and walls.  As we stood for a bit and stretched our legs, Stephen showed us that there was some sort of meat (we think the remains of a gazelle) that either a leopard or a cheetah killed and pulled into the tree, waiting for a better time to eat it.

While we were standing there we heard the rare sound of American voices behind us.  We turned around

and asked where they were from, and they replied “Detroit.”  We talked to them for a bit.  The guy, who was in his thirties, was wearing a safari shirt, and complemented me on mine.  I exclaimed how amazingly practical I’ve found them to be, with just about a pocket or a loop for everything and anything you could ever need.  I demonstrated with my sunglasses, by quickly slipping these in the loop provided.  He excitedly agreed.  We compared some notes about our travels, and then ultimately piled back into our van and headed to a spot for lunch. 

Apparently there was an area of the Maasai Mara that must not be frequented often by animals, as there were several trees, and each of them had a group sitting under it eating lunch.  We found one that was unoccupied, and Stephen handed out our box lunches.  Aimee suggested eating in the car to minimize having to compete with the bugs outside for our food.

While we ate our sandwiches, we got to know a bit more about Stephen’s background and shared ours also.  He has five children that are a bit younger than ours, and he lamented the fickleness of children’s life decisions, the damaging impact of the COVID lockdowns on his children’s schooling, the cost of trying to raise children, and just the day-to-day challenges that children bring.  We shared some of our own similar stories.  This had been our first real chance to get to know Stephen, and I’m glad we were finally able to.

After lunch, we headed to a cliff side along a river (similar to what we had been to yesterday).  When

we got close enough to the cliff to see the river below, we saw several dozen hippo.  We counted over thirty, and there may have been quite a bit more than that.  Most of them were deep enough in the water that they looked like large rocks, but a few had ventured out onto land so we could get a good view of them. 

We continued a bit further down the river and came to another lookout point, and again there was a

massive herd of hippo down in the water.  These were much more vocal than the previous group whichhad been fairly quiet,  One of them made a loud noise which sounded like a motorcycle with a starter issue.  This was immediately followed by about 10 others that whined and moaned loudly in response as if to tell him to keep it to himself.  As we were focused on the hippos, Stephen pointed out that there was a Nile Crocodile basking in the sun on a small sandbar further down the river.

After this stop, Stephen took us to an interesting point in the Mara.  The Maasai Mara is a large

Standing in Kenya and Tanzania

grassland on the southwestern border of Kenya.  It runs to the border of Kenya and Tanzania.  While the country changes, the grassland continues.  In Tanzania, instead of referring to it as the Maasai Mara, it is called the Serengeti.  There is one point on the border, where a marker has been placed. (It’s actually a bit of a tiny enclave of Tanazania that is created by a loop in the river which exits Kenya and comes back to Kenya only a few hundred feet downstream.)  So while this small piece of land is in Tanzania, it is entirely separated from the rest of the country by the river. 

We took some obligatory photos straddling the marker, and then continued on.

Not long after this, as we were going down a narrow path in our vehicle, we came up behind a single

vehicle that had stopped.  The driver motioned for us to come up along side him.  When we did, the obvious reason was directly in front of us—a female lion was walking away from us down the path. As we followed her a bit further, a second lion showed up and began walking along side her.  They wandered together off into the distance. When they got about 50-100 feet away, another lion showed up that appeared to be looking for the other two.  All of them appeared to be on the prowl for food.  We stayed awhile, but they continued to wander out to an area that wasn’t easily accessible, so we carried on down the road.

After some meandering, we once again came upon several vehicles gathered around a tree.  As we got closer, Aimee’s face lit up with glee as she realized there were a bunch of lion cubs along with their parents..  The parents appeared sound asleep, and the cubs were probably supposed to be as well.  The parents had somewhat blocked them into a natural playpen under the tree.  The several cubs (we think there were around 5, in two different age groups) were fighting sleep as much as they could while they either laid under the tree, or in the crook of the tree. We spent several minutes viewing this family from about 4 different directions, and then moved on.

At this point we were very far from camp, and needed to begin to head back that way.  We trekked onward occasionally stopping if we saw some animals, though for much of the rest of the drive there were not many, with the exception of a couple places.

Jackal

We were on fairly lightly used trails, not on a main road in the park by any means.  In the distance was a creek that we needed to get around, and we were trying to make our way up creek to a place that would

Passable Road?

be passable.  As we were driving however, long before getting to the creek we reached a very muddy spot, where clearly many vehicles had struggled to get through.  There were many rows of trenches dug by tires trying to get through, and even though we had about 8 car widths of areas to try, all of them looked really bad.  The very edge of this area looked like it may be ok, but it was difficult to ascertain the condition of the trail beyond. 

Stephen was not immediately confident about this section of road.  He told us he needed to get out and take a look.  This left us a bit nervous as the grass around the area was about 2-3 feet tall.  Definitely tall enough for lion or hyena to be hiding.  He checked the area thoroughly and Aimee and I kept watch out of the top of the car.  He seemed to be comfortable with the firmness around the fringe of the mud, but continued walking further to see what was around the corner after this mud.  Once he walked over that way and could see (about 75 feet from the vehicle), he turned around and came straight back.  We asked what his report was, and he said it’s a mess over there.  Far too muddy even if we get past this first part.  We’ll need to find another way.

We backtracked quite a bit and found another trail going off of the larger trail that led us here.  This one was even fainter. Stephen turned down this trail and started driving.  5 minutes later we came upon another impassible section of mud.  We turned around went back and found the next path.  This one was so faint, that a couple times Stephen lost the trail, had to back up a bit, and find it.  Unfortunately, it too led to a mud pit.  It took 2 or 3 more attempts until we finally found a dry road that made an extremely large circle around the other paths to get us back to a main road and around the creek. 

Now we were travelling on one of the main gravel paths.  Stephen picked up speed to gain ground.  Note, that even the main paths here are exceptionally rocky and bumpy, so travelling down these at high speeds is very jarring.  After another 30-45 minutes of driving, we came upon a small bridge over a river that was under construction.  This had happened at a few places previously, but the workers were able to step aside and let us through.

As we pulled up to the bridge, one of the workers held up his arms in an “X”, and then did a “u turn”

Bridge Work

motion with his hand.  Stephen had actually missed this as he was looking to the side to see what all was going on.  He continued to pull up, and one of the workers came up and reinforced (in Swahili of course) that we couldn’t cross.  At this point we could see that part of the entry to the tiny one car bridge was blocked by some building materials, and the other half had about 10 feet of large boulders in front of the bridge that we could not drive over.  The worker directed us to go around to another section of the river 50 feet down. 

Stephen backed up and went around where they directed us.  As he pulled closer to the riverbank, there was a steep slope, and then about 20 feet wide of water, where we saw no sign of bottom, and it was flowing at a moderate pace.  This did not look passable in my amateur opinion.  Stephen quickly voiced his own opinion: “We can’t go through that”.

He drove back to the bridge and got out of the car.  It looked like he was talking to the 5 workers, but I also noticed none of them seemed to want to make eye contact, and didn’t seem too interested in what he had to say.  Incidentally at this point, I realized that these workers were either building or demolishing (not sure which) a cement bridge with hands and hand tools, in the mid-80 degree heat, under the hot sun--and of course surrounded by animals that could kill them.  They were all exceptionally skinny and I’m not sure how their bodies were able to survive these conditions of incredibly hard labor all day.

After several minutes had gone by with him talking to them, we noticed a backhoe with a front loader

Building a Path For Our Van

that had been on the other side of the river came across in the section they had directed us to when we first arrived (this much larger vehicle was able to do it with ease as it of course had far larger wheels and more clearance than our van had).  The workers began moving the materials and medium sized boulders by hand, and the backhoe came over and started clearing the larger boulders.  The operator then used it to, very roughly, smooth out the ground in front of the bridge. After about 10 minutes of work, it was cleared just enough that we could barely squeeze through and across the bridge. 

We thanked all the workers for their efforts (especially after a long day already) and we proceeded.  After we crossed, Stephen told us that they originally told him he needed to go the other way out.  Stephen said “that is the difference between a 2.5 hour drive and a 20 minute drive to exit.  I told him we are not going the other way.”  We proceeded the 20 minutes to the gate of the park, and headed back to our lodge.

After a very long day with bodies that had been tenderized from the bouncing around in the safari van, we went to our room, cleaned up, and came back to the restaurant at our lodge for dinner.  Aside from the power going out a couple times briefly, the rest of the evening was quiet and we went to bed early.

Path to Our Cabin

Sunset From Our Cabin