Category: Nairobi & Lake Naivasha

After morning game drive and breakfast in Meru, we drove for 7 hours  around Mt Kenya to Nanyuki and back to Nairobi. Nice views, passing small towns and villages, observing local life along the highway. Many people in Kenya just walk on or along the roads, even main highways.

Next day, we spent relaxing afternoon with our friends at Kiambethu Tea Farm (20 km NW from Runda/Nairobi) learning about growing and harvesting tea, about different types of tea, tasting some teas from local farms. We brought their black tea with us to Chicago.  We heard the family story of the plantation and had a short nature walk, followed by delicious lunch on the lawn in front of the old plantation family house,  which now serves also as a visitor center.

We spent last day in Nairobi meeting animals up close, made possible by organizations that save orphaned, injured and endangered animals. Visitors are one source of income used to support the animals and to educate on wildlife and environment conservation. We visited three places all located on the edges of Nairobi National Park, 15-20 km SW from Nairobi center. The Giraffe Center saves and breeds endangered Rothschild’s Giraffes. It’s fun to feed giraffes by hand and watch them so close. David Sheldrick’s Elephant Orphanage saves orphaned and injured elephants and reintroduces them to the wild (which takes about 10 years). Most are in trouble because of conflicts with people (mothers killed or injured by poachers, some trapped in illegal wells). Some are handicapped and will be released to spent their lives with other problem animals. You can adopt one, helping in its upbringing. It was very exciting to see over 20 baby elephants run to get their morning milk and play, and to hear their (sad) stories.

Sheldrick’s Elephant Orphanage

 
We also visited Safari Walk, large and nice ZOO, quite pricy and not comparable to the other two places. Not safari, but we saw leopard and met cheetah, and many other animals reminding us all the game drives. Our friend took us to the airport for late evening flight back home.

Finally we were able to travel a bit on our own by matatus, frist to Naivasha and then to Westlands/Nairobi (shopping mall) were we were picked up by our friend. Some 120 km and 3 hours total. First matatu was supposed to go directly to Naiorobi, but of course we had to switch vans and wait in Naivasha.

Matatu stop in Naivasha

 
Luckily, both matatu drivers were good and patient, especially older driver for the ride from Naivasha to Nairobi. Traffic and driving on main highway was really tough and dangerous. First matatu was small and very crowded, the second had more space and took more or less as many passengers as there were seats. I (Joanna) happened to sit at the back next to recent collage graduate who studied biotechnology – and this was also my major! We chatted the whole way to Nairobi about biotechnology, research, industry, agriculture, healthcare, gardening, food and customs, I had great time. Piotr was not so lucky at the front with too good view of dangerous and hectic traffic. For the rest of the day and following day we were sleeping, washing and shopping, and relaxing (and Joanna was fighting a stomach bug) before next leg of our trip to Mt Kenya and Meru.

It was 5.5- hour drive from Mara to Lake Naivasha, where we were dropped off at Fishermen’s Camp, several kilometers from Naivasha, directly on the lakeshore. Finally on our own! We came early enough for boat ride on Lake Oloiden, short hike  at Crater Lake and on-foot evening nature walk.

Water “safari” on Lake Oloiden, nature walk at Crater Lake National Park

We went with hired car and driver from Fisherman’s Camp, which worked very well. Both places were great, we highly recommend community boat tour on small green Oloiden Lake instead of large Lake Naivasha – we were the only tourists there. We saw several pods of hippos, countless birds and many animals on shore.

Hippos in Oloiden Lake

 
Then we walked part of Crater Lake rim and drove and hiked in game sanctuary. So nice to be on foot watching extended giraffe family with several babies, antelopes and other grazers. It was getting late, we still saw hyena (from car). I wish we had more time there, but evening was perfect to see  animals. On the way back a huge giraffe was walking along the road (there is nature corridor between small and large lake) – I just saw long legs next to the car window.

In the camp hippos came to shore after dark to graze (electric fence separates them from people at night ). There were monkeys and so many birds, very close. We stayed first night at a banda which was very old with bathroom in need of urgent upgrade, not good and way overpriced. We switched to cottage for 2 nights, slightly more expensive, but so much better. Restaurant had very good food and good travel atmosfere.

Biking and hiking in Hell’s Gate National Park

Next day we rented bikes to ride in Hell’s Gate National Park. We didn’t want to ride on main road from camp, so we tried to rent bikes at park gate – they were all in bad condition. We went back down dirt road and got slightly better ones. We were “pushed” a bit to hire guide which I regret as we would prefer to spend more time exploring on our own (except when we asked the guide to go first to face scary  buffalo). Nice to see many animals without car – antelopes, giraffes, zebras, warthogs, and vary friendly rock hyraxes near Fischer’s tower. Scary to pass a buffalo so close. We went for a hike in very narrow Ol Njorowa gorge with hot springs. Biking back at midday was hot and tiring. We relaxed at the camp in the afternoon watching birds and monkeys.

Hells’s Gate

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Rim hike, Mount Longonot National Park

We travelled with the same driver to Mt Longonot National Park, hiked ~2.5 km from park gate to the rim and then ~6 .5 km all the way around the crater, and back to the gate (11.5 km, total elevation gain ~900 m, 2140-2776 masl). This time on our own, without a guide – it’s an easy hike although some parts are steep and dusty. We heard that buffalos on the trail could slow us down. Didn’t see any animals (small herd of cows on side of the mountain), only footprints. We met other hikers from Fisherman’s Camp, they returned with us to the village, where we had chapati with vegetables at a very local place called  “5 Star Hotel”  :). We strolled through two small villages and a market. Our new friends helped us find shoemaker’s shop set-up in the ditch by the road, my shoes were fixed very professionally while we were waiting – they are still fine – and it was a lot of fun too. A good warm-up before Mt Kenya.

Mt Longonot

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Visiting the village with hikers we met at Mt Longonot

Relaxing at Fishermen’s Camp

With so many animals, lush vegetation and lake it’s great place to relax. Too bad we didn’t have time/energy for camp fire. We watched bands of Superb starlings instead.

Superb starlings at Fishermen’s Camp

We were a bit scared and stressed before traveling to Kenia because we were coming just after elections and serious unrest was a real possibility. We also worried about arranging safaris on internet with unknown companies. Fortunately, it was peaceful when we arrived, all people we met were nice and kind, and our travel arrangements worked out well. The election results were annulled while we were there and unfortunately Kenyans face more uncertain times, we will follow the events from Chicago.

We were staying with friends in Runda Nairobi. First, we recovered Piotr’s backpack from the airport: a weird case of “mistaken identity” solved thanks to our investigative skills and FB, we sent backpack we picked-up by mistake to Swedish tourist on safari, had briefing downtown for Mt Kenya trek and Meru NP safari. Crossed the city a few times, eating out and shopping. Quick introduction to the city, not much time for photos. And finally on second day we had a couple of hours for relaxing walk in Karura Forest, park just in the middle of Nairobi very close to Runda. Closed the second day with briefing with Keron Safaris and Hotels for Samburu/Ol Pejeta/Lake Nakuru/Masai Mara safari starting early morning the following day.

More on our tour operator Keron Safaris and Hotels

10 day/9 night trip from Nairobi to Samburu/Ol Pejeta/Lake Nakuru/Masai Mara with  ☞ Keron Safaris and Hotels. All planning and arrangements for the trip were made by e-mail, and the process was very effective. We made the payment in Nairobi just before the trip. We chose a private tour for the flexibility of visiting places and staying longer in some parks than group tours do, and for the style of the game drives. It was good decision also because we were standing in the van most of the time during the game drives (when the roof was up). We had a lot of space and could turn around freely. It would still be OK with 4 people, but for sure not with 6 or 7, like we saw in many other safari cars.

We passed some nice landscapes on the way between the parks, Rift Valley, hills, coffee and tea plantations, villages and small towns, street/highway markets, but even with the private tour we didn’t stop and had to rushed to the next destination, although often it would be fine to arrive an hour later. Driving on Kenyan main roads is tough, but our driver Mike was very good and careful. Our safari was well organized, lodges/camps were very good, better than we expected, food was OK and safe (many choices, tasty but quite heavy and often fried). Our safari van was older, but well prepared and survived the journey without a problem. Mike did also excellent job on the bumpy roads and stream crossings, knew the parks well, spotted many animals, and showed great interest in birds. Venant, one of the owners who came along as our guide, provided assistance, but spent quite a bit of  time on his phone arranging tours for other clients. He didn’t volunteer too much information, but when asked provided facts about birds and animals, and Kenya in general, but not so much about habitat, environment etc. We didn’t have a radio, but it didn’t matter at all, as Mike with help from Venant were very good deciding where to go and at finding animals and birds. We often had them to ourselves, even in the very popular Masai Mara. All the safari drivers/guides exchanged info about animals when passing and before/after the drives. In theory we had unlimited game drives, in practice we had to bargain a bit for time. In most cases we got enough –  8 -9 hours a day, with two full-day drives in Masai Mara. We were promised some before-breakfast drives and I really regret we didn’t insist more firmly on an additional early morning drive when the animals are up and most active! It didn’t help that Piotr was not too keen on getting up so early. Our Masai Mara lodge (Mara Sentrim) was not inside the reserve, as we were told it would be, and for every drive we had to go to the reserve entrance on a super bad road and through a village losing a lot of time. Before booking we had multiple discussions about it, as the lodge’s location was not so clear, and they assured us it was a better choice and definitely inside the reserve. I wanted to stay near more centrally located Talek gate rather than Sekenai gate. The lodge was very nice. As a result we spent 3 days in Masai Mara Reserve instead of 4 and could not  have an early morning game drive on the last day, which was disappointing. This misrepresentation was the only negative score point. Our trip included a short visit to Maasai village (Masai Mara), a bit touristy but still interesting.

All in all the tour was very good, we had great time and saw many animals very close, everything we expected and more,  except for the leopard. Venant and Mike were very friendly and easy to interact with.