All I want for Christmas is........

Well, not my two front teeth, though that was the case many years ago when I was decidedly gappy for a year or so (partly thanks to my brother who had knocked one out with a rather accurately thrown lego brick!)! This year, my Christmas wishes were rather different. Wanting to do something completely different, I arranged for a group of us, none of whom have family in Kenya, to go away on safari. We had one night at Treetops in the Aberdares National Park, and then 3 nights at Shaba National Reserve, close to Samburu and Buffalo Springs. The contrast in scenery was quite dramatic, from the green, hilly, lush countryside around Nyeri, to the stark, desert, arid, mountainous landscape of Samburuland. So, my Christmas wishes:-

1. To see Mt Kenya clearly. I’d circumnavigated this 17,000 feet mountain a couple of times, and both times, it was completely obscured by cloud. Imagine my delight the first morning, when I opened the curtains at Treetops and was looking directly at this majestic mountain. We continued to have stunning views of it that morning as we drove past on our way to Shaba, seeing the glaciers very clearly. And even from Samburu itself, it was clearly visible. What a treat! It was rather nice too to feel that I was getting something of a white Christmas without any of the freezing temperatures! One of my friends was convinced that the fascination with the mountain was an indication that I should climb it (she’s been up 7 times), but hearing her stories of cold, wet and the effects of altitude sickness did nothing whatsoever to entice me. I’m much happier to appreciate the beauty and majesty of the peaks from afar!

Mount Kenya from near Nanyuki

2. To see a leopard, preferably on Christmas Day. Now, this one seemed a bit of a tall order. I’ve lived in Kenya for 8 years now, and have been on quite a number of game drives in that time. Leopard sightings can be counted on one hand, and really on just a couple of fingers! My best ever remains my very first safari in 1987 when I was over visiting two close university friends. We were in Samburu, and had a leopard walking right between us and a couple of other vehicles. Little did I realize at the time how special and amazing this was. I’ve seen trees that may or may not have had a leopard in them (on one occasion, the bit of tree that we thought was a leopard still appeared to be there the following morning, …..), and one time had an incredibly fleeting (not long enough to take a photo) of a leopard, whose markings were vibrant and striking, as he/she walked along a rock near us and then disappeared from view.

On Christmas Eve, we got to see elephant, lots of grazers, an abundance of birds, and just enjoyed the beauty of the place, choosing to just relax at the lodge in the afternoon. On Christmas Day, we were treated to lion and cheetah sightings in the morning, in addition to lots of ellies, greater kudu, reticulated giraffe, gravy zebra, oryx, …... But, still no leopard. We all agreed that it’d be good to do an additional afternoon game drive. And what do you know? We were rewarded with a beautiful sighting of a leopard sprawled on a branch of a tree, its four legs and tail hanging down.

A beautiful spotted big cat - as requested!

No Christmas wrapping or ribbon in sight, but what wonderful gifts these both were!


The Christmas Safari-ers: Julie, Rosie, Jill and Me



Mud and Misdemeanours

It rained yesterday evening, and most of the night. Unseasonably so, as the rains aren’t due until the end of March. However, I’d heard over the weekend a report of one person saying that it always rains on 14th February, and true enough, it was still raining this morning. A good thing as we do need it. The downside though is the traffic that results (even worse than normal), and the dust that has been prevalent turns to mud. Consequently, the mud road down to the office was just that – thick with mud. Knowing how it would be and not fancying having shoes and feet caked in sticky red mud at the start of the day, I drove the 800m or so to work. Even in my 4-wheel drive, I skewed around a little bit, but my tyres managed to maintain a reasonable grip. Saloon cars perhaps wouldn’t have fared so well, and anyone going uphill would have had a harder job.

 

Precisely because of that, when I had to drive home later in the morning, I chose to go the rather longer, though tarmacked (albeit with potholes in abundance), route. This drive could only have been about 5 minutes in length but there seemed to be an abundance of driving misdemeanours in that time:
• Somewhat sporadic driving on the part of one driver, due to their talking on their mobile phone.
• The car in front of me indicating right at one T-junction, but then turning left. Amazing to have any indicators on at all, but not exactly helpful in this case! Perhaps he thought a T-junction is like a filter lane?
• The next T-junction is at the top of the hill. There’s a very clear road sign in the approach for those going uphill, that there’s no right turn allowed there. At least 3 of the cars in front of me turned right!!
• As I was coming to the left-hand turn into my road, a car coming out of it clearly wanted to go right, as he was completely over on the right-hand side of the road, very effectively blocking my way!

 

And that’s without venturing beyond the immediate neighbourhood onto any of the main roads! People do get fined for driving offences here (those who don’t then pay bribes that is), but every day, there are an abundance of others who between them, break most of the rules in the book. To be fair, today's tally did seem to be particularly concentrated.

 

Safe Driving

A number of times whilst out driving in Nairobi on a Friday evening, I’ve been behind vehicles that have been swerving rather alarmingly on the road. Whilst this can be on account of potholes sometimes, I rather suspect that something else was behind these meandering manoeuvres. There was a time a few years ago when police were issued with breathalisers to be used on drivers suspected to be under the influence, but that only seemed to last for a month or so. This year, the ‘Don’t Drink and Drive’ took a rather unexpected turn with the promotion on billboards around the city of drinking yoghurt rather than any other kind of beverage. Not one I’d have thought of!

Kenyan Christmas

My balcony door is wide open as it’s so hot, the sky is a brilliant blue, and we’re just 4 days from Christmas. Even after 8 years, this is not exactly the weather that I associate with this festive season. Much more the freezing snowy conditions being experienced in the UK – not that I’ve actually experienced that very much! We had our home group Christmas party just over a week ago, opting for brunch rather than dinner. The location was the pool area of the house of one of our families. It was beautiful. After a glass of Bucks Fizz, sausages, tomatoes, bacon and eggs (30 of them being fried together in a large paella pan!) were cooked outside over gas stoves or on a large barbecue. We rounded off with a gift exchange, gifts being randomly selected with options of stealing those already unwrapped. It was fun! Having had a number of gifts pass through my hands, and done my fair share of stealing (and being stolen from), I wound up with a piece of wood that opens out to reveal a nativity scene within.

There’s not the mad rush in the shops around Christmas time that you get in the UK. I remember standing in a queue to pay at a supermarket in Newark, Nottinghamshire last Christmas Eve with my parents for what must have been about 45 minutes. Today, I popped into the supermarket down the road and queued for all of, oh, 3 minutes!

However, Christmas is getting more commercialized with billboards advertising special Christmas deals. The singing Santas are present at the doors of the supermarkets again, though they’re new ones this year – Santa’s gone completely bald! Elsewhere, there are tall inflatable Santas outside, which vibrate, duck and dive rather alarmingly in the wind! There are nowhere near the number of Christmas lights that you get in the West, though shopping centres are strewn with white lights, and with an increasing number of shopping centres, that’s an increasing number of lights! One nearby has opted for something more Kenyan this year rather than the traditional fir trees, and has quite a number of tastefully decorated baobab trees made out of banana leaves – including some in the parking area.

My own apartment is decked out with quite a number of lights, candles, a tree, and a vase of red and gold baubles. It all looks very nice. I’m leaving that behind tomorrow as I’m off on safari for a few days, and will be in the bush on Christmas Day. I’m interested to find out what will be provided for us of a festive nature – taking some crackers, Christmas music and cookies just in case!

Monkey Capers

Yesterday morning, I was sitting down to breakfast when I heard a commotion outside. On investigating, I was first just aware of a silhouetted largish figure sitting on the trellis at the side of my balcony. This turned out to be a vervet monkey demolishing a peanut bird feeder that I’d had hanging there for months, and helping itself to the goodies within. He was clearly unperturbed by my presence at the window (and occasional opening and closing of the balcony door to try to scare it off), as on finishing the peanuts (there weren’t that many left), it moved on to the dish of millet and sunflower seeds. All the while this was taking place, two pied crows were making quite a ruckus. They clearly weren’t at all impressed by this behavior (or perhaps just his presence), and made that even more clear by effectively dive-bombing the monkey. Between the flash on my camera and the crows, the monkey realized that this wasn't perhaps such a good place to be after all (or maybe he preferred a quieter breakfast environment?), and eventually leapt off the balcony into the tree. Not that the crows gave him any respite there. He eventually leapt on to the apartment roof. Needless to say, I’ve now removed all bird food from the balcony for the time being at least. There’s a big deal made in the UK (where I bought the peanut bird feeder) about bird feeders being squirrel-proof, but I've not seen one yet that makes any mention of monkeys!!!!

A Juxtaposition of Cultures

The aim of the walk with the dung beetle episode was to get to the main lake from our separate small lake. We’d gone that way before, so knew the way, although in the interim various fences seemed to have been put up. Anyway, we made it and found a scene very different to the one 18 months ago. Then, the water was a long way from where we were. This time, we happened upon a water bird paradise, with a swampy section, papyrus, water hyacinth, and a host of birds (as well as some fishermen). After a while of taking in the scene, the peace was broken by the jangling of bells as a flock of about 200 goats came hurtling down to the water’s edge, some of them leaping into the water. They were evidently quite excited to be there. Behind them came a young boy, with a very long stick – the goatherd. He was very interested in my camera and binoculars. Evidently he’d come across such things before as he had an inkling of what they did, though using them proved rather tricky. It struck me as being a real juxtaposition: His usual life is probably a world away from the modern life that we know in Nairobi (and the West), and yet here he was with a decent digital camera in hand, trying to use technology. He reminded me a bit of my nephew when he was three, pressing every single button in sight! I have to confess that I was a little anxious that he’d inadvertently delete all the photos on my memory card! The fruit of his efforts weren’t that great – photos of grass when the subjects were a dog, a man on a motorbike and the lake!!! However, it’d give him a few stories to tell when he’d finished his work with the goats that day.

Along for the Ride

A few weekends ago, I was near Lake Naivasha with some friends, staying in one of my favourite spots. Wildlife abounds there, and this time as well as the usual giraffe, zebra, gazelle and hippo, we saw buffalo and jackal down at the lake front. I wasn’t so keen on the buffalo sighting when on foot, though they were a fair way off at least. On a walk on the Sunday, Jill and I came across a round piece of dung being moved along the path by 2 quite large dung beetles. There was no other dung in sight, so goodness knows how far these rather determined beetles had come already. We weren’t sure if it was our presence that did it, but the beetles’ course changed on getting closer to us, and they veered off the path onto the grass. This must have been much harder for them, as they were now having to get the ball over stems of grass and hummocks. It was then we noticed that it was actually just one of them doing all the work, planting its back legs on the ball, and using its front legs to push it along, while all the time, its companion was sitting on top of the ball, and seemed to just be along for the ride! According to Wikipedia, this is normal: “The "rollers" roll and bury a dung ball either for food storage or for making a brooding ball. In the latter case, two beetles, one male and one female, will be seen around the dung ball during the rolling process. Usually it is the male that rolls the ball, with the female hitch-hiking or simply following behind. In some cases the male and the female roll together. When a spot with soft soil is found, they stop and bury the dung ball. They will then mate underground. After the mating, both or one of them will prepare the brooding ball. When the ball is finished, the female lays eggs inside it.” It seems that once the larvae hatch, they make use of this food source at hand, and feed on the dung, Very clever, and wonderful to have witnessed part of the journey – but I can't say that I’d fancy starting life that way!