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| Khadi, Andrew, Bruno |
Six days in Kenya, 5 of them working hard - and a couple of afternoons exploring.
You don't even have to go to an 'attraction', just walking around is interesting. But I was lucky to have three companions: Andrew (UK), Bruno (Cote d'Ivoire) and Khadi (Senegal). Our taxi driver, Jack, overcame our skepticism and convinced us that the Giraffe sanctuary and the Wildlife Park were good destinations. We had some doubts as we sat in traffic for the best part of an hour (you do that going anywhere in Nairobi), but even sitting there we had fun, squashed into the back seat of his car eating our picnic lunch from the hotel.
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| Dr Karim, witch doctor, sorts it all out |
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| Bruno feeding giraffe |
Picnic box contents: water, juice, yoghurt, orange, pineapple, sandwich, piping hot roast chicken leg dripping in delicious gravy, bun, cheese, crackers.. and probably other things I've forgotten.
Jack regaled us with stories of his long-distance lorry driving across East and Central Africa - Somalia, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan... in South Sudan he was taken hostage for 2 months by kidnappers extorting money from his boss. There were about 8 trucks and drivers taken - they didn't bother to lock them up, just didn't give them much food, and kept them in the middle of nowhere. His boss finally paid a ransom to free them (and the trucks, obviously).
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| Tree top walkway |
We talked about Khadi's time in Paris, about Bruno growing up in a village hunting wild pig and trapping small animals with his father, and Andrew's experiences at Kings (Cambridge) and as an activist. We fed pellets to the giraffes, saw strange birds, felt sorry for a captive rhino, laughed at the ostrich, and wandered along a deserted tree-top walkway looking for lions and cheetahs hidden in the underbrush below us.
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| Leopard |
As it grew dark we were propositioned by a park ranger who suggested he could let us into the cheetah cage, but we decided against that, and headed back to the traffic jams and, in my case, a long evening at the airport.
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| Girls' school bus in a jam - motto "Yes we can!" on the back |
Jack regaled us with stories of his long-distance lorry driving across East and Central Africa - Somalia, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan... in South Sudan he was taken hostage for 2 months by kidnappers extorting money from his boss. There were about 8 trucks and drivers taken - they didn't bother to lock them up, just didn't give them much food, and kept them in the middle of nowhere. His boss finally paid a ransom to free them (and the trucks, obviously).
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