Big Five and the Burj Khalifa - 2 - Wildlife Diary

This is the 2nd part of the 3-part travel diary "Big Five and the Burj Khalifa", featuring the wildlife in Kenya. You can read Part-1 here and Part-3 here.

Tamed in the city
Nairobi has some wildlife parks right in the city, possibly to prepare the uninitiated for the wonders that lay beyond. One such is the Nairobi Safari Walk & Animal Orphanage, which we visit on the last evening of our stay.
The place is steeply priced for us foreigners. But the thought of exorbitant admission charges for the foreigners at Tajmahal serves as a sobering context.   
We are let in to an expansive, well-kept zoo, with winding wooden walkaways through the enclosures & cages.  

The Wooden Walkaway

Hyenas look at us across the fence with curiosity while the white rhino sleeps on, ignoring us completely.
    

The Curious Hyena

The Sleeping White Rhino

The albino zebras munch on nonchalantly, as do the giraffes.   

Albino Zebras

Giraffe, of course!

Lions talk to us through the glass partition, while the Colobus monkeys chatter incoherently.

Keshav & the Lioness in intense dialogue 

Colobus Monkey

The cheetah sleeps too far away in the bushes for us to see but there are gazelles, crocodiles, ostriches. wildebeests, birds. Many of these animals and birds are rescued from being orphaned, injured or extinct. 
Having primed thus, we can not wait to be in the wild.  

The Great Rift Valley & Nameless General Store  
As we leave Nairobi for Masai Mara, the road winds down the mountains and before hitting the planes, we oversee the Great Rift Valley - a vast expanse of green lined by mountains.

The Great Rift Valley

The Great Rift valley is the name given to a geographical trench stretching a mind-boggling 9600kms from Israel to Mozambique, as Coke dutifully informs us. Look closely at the map in the photograph below and you can see it dropping down from Ethiopia and sliding down over the horn to reach Kenya and then Mozambique.

As I resolve to look up the details on the Wikipedia, I realise how the vastness of nature humbles us. I also suddenly recall the National Geographic gene mapping project, which has established Africa as the place from where the human species originated. I have a strange feeling of having established a lost connection with our collective past, a sort of completing the circle of life.... Why am I getting these goose-pimples?  

When we hit the plains, the road is lined mostly with villages and some towns few and far in between. If the names are any indication, the villages are deeply religious - a large number of shops and small businesses along the highway are named after biblical virtues like Beauty, Grace, Joy, Honesty et al. I do actually see a lot of churches (and an odd temple too). 
There is one shop despairingly named as "Nameless General Store". What is this about, I wonder - atheism or plain laziness?  

Lions and Warriors 
Masai Mara, the world famous game reserve, home to the Big Five, carries its world-wide reputation lightly. 
As we turn south-west from the town of Narok after around 3 hours drive from Nairobi, the road turns to gravel, and then disappears altogether. After a while, we are driving through a jungle of mostly grass, short trees, intercepted by small streams and brooks. It is slightly hot (the vehicles have no air-conditioning) and in between the trees, we catch a flash of red, which turns out to be a cowherd draped in a bright red chequered shawl. 

The Masai Cowherd in Signature Red of the Masai  Tribe

Slowly, the big trees give way to a land clearing leading to a big gate. At one side is a group of  women draped in bright colours, who run towards us with their wares. Beyond the gate we get a glimpse of a zebra, which is grazing next to buffalo skulls lined up like trophies. We have arrived at Masai  Mara Game Reserve.

Masai Mara takes its name from "Masai" - the ancient hunter tribe which inhabits this area. They are fierce, nomadic warriors and it is said that lions do not attack Masai people.
"Mara" means "mottled" or "spotted" and refers to vegetation pattern of the area. 
Big Five is part of an hunters' lexicon of the yore, referring to the five most fierce and dangerous animals to hunt - the Lion, African Elephant, Buffalo, Rhinoceros and Leopard.

The game reserve itself is a vast undulating grassland - an expanse of green merging in the horizon with the azure blue of the skies or the dark green of the mountains. 

Perched inside our safari vehicles, it seems we are in the midst of an animation movie, with all the animals lined up on a single wide canvas. 
There is a herd of wildebeests munching on one side. 

On the other side are zebras, with their stripes looking almost hand-painted, with a backdrop of gazelles.

We stop to let a tower (yes, that's what a group is called) of giraffes pass; watching giraffes walk is a surreal sight, like these tall animals are moonwalking.

Buffaloes hold their famous "whatsup" stare with us, while elephants are not concerned.

We furiously click our cameras, wishing to capture the spirit of what our naked eyes see and our hearts feel, unsuccessfully. In the two safaris we take while in Masai Mara, there are a lot of animals and birds we get a chance to watch in their natural habitat.  

But the stars of the show are indisputably the lions. The moment the wireless radios crackle with the news of a lion sighting, all other animals are promptly forgotten and all vehicles converge upon the spot to make the most of the moment. 

  
A lion truly is a magnificent animal and as we watch, holding our breath, we come to realise what does it mean being in a royal attendance.

His Highness

  In our safari the next morning, we meet the family.

The Morning Scent

 

In the night, at our lodge in the midst of the jungle, we are invited to watch the feeding of wild animals. As the attendant puts raw meat in the centre of the clearing, we see a hyena, a jackal and cats standing, poised to fight each other for the biggest share. As he withdraws, the matter is sorted out in minutes, and there remains an eerie silence on the scene.

Masai Mara is nature at its serene best, largely unsullied by us human beings. Animals proudly and justifiably own the space, graciously allowing us to have a peep in to their world. As we leave, we carry a lot of memories of this world in photographs, and a lot more in our minds. 

Next - Dubai  
Previous - Nairobi

Big Five and the Burj Khalifa - 1 - Nairobi Diary

Last month I visited Kenya and Dubai on an official trip. This is a 3-part diary, containing some experiences and observations.

Zero Degree

As we get off the plane at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, I realize with a surprise how green it is - green and pleasant. 

For some inexplicable reason, I have been imagining the whole of Africa to be hot and harsh. After all, it lies bang on the equator. Nairobi is just 1 degree south of equator. But the temperature in Nairobi is a wonderful 25 to 30 degree Celsius almost all the year round. It is at a slightly high altitude but as we are told, rest of Kenya is also equally pleasant.    

The British Connection

Kenya was liberated from the British in 1963. I am not a sociologist but seems the British effect has not entirely worn off.

Downtown Nairobi & the buildings are beautifully styled in European manner, people on the streets from all walks of life wear suits regularly and I suspect English is spoken and understood more than Swahili -the official language. Of course, that might also be because there are 43 different tribes in Kenya, all having their different languages and English makes a useful bridge. 

Downtown Nairobi

The soccer craze  also seems an important remnant. The day we check in to the hotel,  fans of two rival teams are out on the roads. Groups of blue and green clad young men and women are singing and dancing, chanting their team cries and stamping their feet. They are  cheering their home teams and mocking the opposite team - one young man holds a clucking and flapping hen, presumably a revered bird to the rivals. The revelry ends with the police being called and the fans dispersing. 

Soccer Banter

We are like that only

I am pleasantly surprised to see very orderly traffic on Nairobi roads, even on the highway. My "pucca" Indian (read feudal) instinct always told me that good manners were the prerogatives of rich countries, which Kenya is not.
But people are well-behaved on the roads, far better than what we see here in India. We traveled 700 kms on the road and I do not find a single instance where the pedestrian and cycling lane (yes they have them on the highways too, adjoining the villages and towns) being  intruded upon, not even when a long line of cars is waiting to approach the airport. All through the journey, our driver keeps to his speed-limit, so obviously frustrating to us 'Dilliwalas'. Our growing economy and development notwithstanding, I wonder when we will be able to sort out our horrible traffic mess.
While on the traffic, I do not find many new cars - either in downtown or on the highway. There are lots of motorcycle taxis though lined up at the village squares. The drivers all wear fluorescent jackets, and lounge around on their vehicles waiting for the customers, which could be some old lady carrying a pail of potatoes or a young man fiddling with a mobile phone.

Indians in Nairobi

There are a lot of Indians in Nairobi, some of them here for three generations, their ancestors brought here in the British Raj to work for the Railways and the plantations two centuries ago.  Today, Indians seem to be well settled and respected in Kenya as shrewd businessmen, who provide employment and pay reasonably well. 
Moving in to the city from the airport, we are greeted with large signboards of Indian companies – Tata, Ashok Leyland, software companies. Later in the day, when we shop in the largest Kenyan superstore, Nakumatt, I find the owner’s photograph displayed there and am told he is originally an Indian. So is another famous resort chain - Sopa Lodges. Nakumatt and other stores stock many Indian products. Airtel is omnipresent with their phone services and their mobile microfinance service called m-Pesa.
People are aware about India and ask about various things. I did not know Air India was earlier operating to Nairobi till the time various people, including an airport official, asked me why has Air India stopped Kenya flights and when would it restart?
As an aside, there is some scorn reserved for our Chinese bretheren, who are there working on different infrastructure projects. People complain they are stingy, do not mix with people and do not give work opportunity to the locals in their projects.  A telling comment came from our electrician friend Tony who states matter-of-factly that the Chinese “impregnate our daughters and then do not care.”

Indian Food and Kenyan Coffee

And where there are so many Indians, can Daal and Dosa and mukhwaas be far behind? Nairobi boasts of not only some very good authentic Indian restaurants but a true-blue Paan shop too! I was treated to a tasty paan by a Kenyan behind the counter, who insisted on putting it in my mouth, all the while singing “Khaike Paan Banaras Waala”. 

Khaike Pan Banaraswala, 

We also partake the famous Kenyan coffee, which some say is the best Arabic coffee in the world. 

Coffee House

Greedy Pigs, Hustlers and 80km walks  

On the second day of our stay, the newspapers splash pictures of pigs eating & wallowing in gore in front of the national assembly of Kenya, not very far from our hotel. It turns out that this is a part of a people's protest against the "greedy" Kenyan MPs demanding a wage hike. Sounds familiar?
Tony, about whom I talked earlier too, is a young man with a genial smile and honest eyes. He has come to fix the electrical connection at the convention we are participating in. When we ask him about the greedy pigs story, he smiles sadly and tells us about the poverty in Kenya and about lost opportunities. He is a hustler, he says, which means that he does not have a regular job like many more people. He is out on the streets in the morning, seeking work - any work - for the day, hoping that in a month he would be able to save enough to visit his family in the village. He tells us there are a lot of people like him.
Paul is our regular taxi driver for the four days we are there. He is a talkative and jovial man, who complains that people have become much too accustomed to a cozy modern life. His father  thought nothing of walking down to his village home-town, a distance of 80kms. Eighty kilometers??, I ask in amazement. Yes, he says, we lazy people seldom walk more than fifteen in a day! Huh?      

The story of the missing luggage  

Before we leave for Masai Mara, the world famous wildlife reserve, I finally receive my missing suitcase from Delhi via Mumbai. When we took off from Delhi, the pretty girl at the airline counter forgot to tag the case and I landed at Nairobi without any clothes, except the ones I was wearing. 

While I shop for the essentials and make the airport rounds to enquire about its arrival, my family in India is coaxing the airlines people to get it to me pronto. In this case, pronto turns out to be 4 days, during which time I lose much sleep and poise. The twin airline response to my justifiable claim is still awaited, as I post this. 

Next - The Wildlife in Nairobi