As I sit on the little patio in front of my tent overlooking the river flowing below My first impressions of being on Safari is it’s a lot like camping in your backyard. When I was growing up my first experience with camping was on a swinging hammock in our backard. My parents would tuck me in around 9:00pm and by 10:00 I was at the back door begging to be let in. Being on a safari is a lot like that. Except here the strange noises don’t belong to dogs, cats are backfiring motorcycles. They belong to Lions, Hyenas, jackals, and baboons. And it’s not a garder snake you have to worry about stepping on but things like Green Mambos, pythons and cobras. Other than that it’s more or less the same. The hammock has been replace with a luxrious “tent”. It’s really more like a cabin, but the walls are only canvas, and every tent is attached directly to it’s own full bathroom
But I get ahead of myself. The trip began about a week ago but here in Mombassa is the first opportunity I’ve had to access the Internet. I left Toronto last Monday for Nairobi in Kenya. The flight from Toronto to Nairobi was fairly uneventful, but LONG with the four hour layover in London just under 20 hours.
As promised Darlene, a representative was there to meet me and the Jacaranda hotel was very nice - for the few hours I was there. I spent the night in a very nice hotel in Nairobi and in the morning put on my safari clothes for the trip inland to Fig Tree Camp in Masa Mari National park. My outfit consists of matching Khaki jeans and a long sleeve cotton shirt with epaulets. The fun really began when I had to take the small charter flight to Mara Masi National park. It meant taking a small commuter plain to a grass field near the lodge.
There is a legend that there is a secret place in Africa where elephants go to die. I don’t know if the legend is true, but I’ve found the place where old airplanes go to die. It’s called Wilson Airport The fun began when I boarded the commuter plane that was to take me half way to my lodge. It was a Kenya Airways Dash 6. Now you got a realize that most airlines are now using the Dash 8, so that tells you how OLD this plane was. And the scary thing was it wasn’t the oldest plane I saw flying that day. I saw several DC3’s that were older than me flying out of that airport. The other scary thing was that as I was boarding I saw them bringing in a crashed helicopter to scavenge parts off of for the two beat up helicopters on the edge of the runway. At the end of the runway were several derelict commuter planes left to rot and ser
ve as a warning to the flying relics what would happen to them if they gave up the coast.
The plane was fully booked with a mixture of missionaries, consultants, government workers and a few tourist. It’s a four engine plane unfortunately they could only start three of the engines. We were asked to deplane and a few minutes later we were told that things were fixed and to get back on the plane. The pilot calmly told us they scavenged a few parts off another old plane and he was reasonably certain that it was fixed and not to be too concerned if the engine suddenly changed pitch a few times during our trip. He was just testing it. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t want to test it like ON THE GROUND when we weren’t in it, but no one else seemed concerned so I shut up.
The plane taxied out to the runway, actually taxi is too nice a word, it staggered out on the runway like a Safeway cart with a bad wheel. Again no one said anything so I shut up. And by some miracle we managed to take off. The first stop, an unpaved gravel runway, I was transferred to a small Twin Otter. Pretty beat-up, but since it was made in Canada I felt honor bound to sing it’s praises and shut up.
Along with a few other guests I was met at a grass strip by representatives from Fig Tree Camp. I
nitially there was some confusion as they thought I was the septic tank specialist they were expecting. It was understanding since he also wears a Khaki coloured outfit. I resolved to change my outfit as soon as we arrived at camp. We started the half hour trip to the camp. Along the way I saw hundreds of animals. Zebras, wildebeests, warthogs, antelope.
Fig Tree Camp is really a find. Its beautiful. I’m in a “tent” It really is nice. The tent is actually in a shelter with a roof and balcony and adjoins a beautiful washroom, and yes there is electricity - most of the time.
My tent overlooks a dry gully (more on that later).
I tried out my Swahili and to my surprise, the staff was utterly charmed. It appears nobody takes the effort. It really is unnecessary as they all learn English from day one in school, but take a great pride in their own language.
An hour after I arrived was the first game drive. I also met my guide and drive. My driver is a Masai native. He stands about 8 feet tall and weighs in about 40 pounds, including all the jeweler he wears on his neck, ears and legs - enough to make Mr. T jealous - but more on him later.
It also was the exact time that the rain came, and came and came and came. Everybody comes to see the “big five” I have no idea what they are but people are big on them. In between torrential showers I saw Rhinoceros, Giraffes and more zebras and antelope. “George of the Jungle” would stop for a few minutes for the group to take pictures, and then I would shout “Moja Kwa Moja” which means go straight ahead, and off we’d go. Soon my phrase was picked up by everyone and all of us were shouting, “Moja Kwa Moja” and it seems to be a phrase that I will be leaving as my legacy to Fig Tree Camp.
Despite wearing heavy long pants, a heavy long sleeve cotton shirt, heavy vest, and rain coat I was freezing my ass off! It’s late afternoon, I’m in Africa, I’m ON the equator, and I kept wishing I’d brought my long underwear and ski clothes, and now what passes for roads are rapidly becoming impassable! We became stuck several times and had to get pushed out by other landrovers. Our group of merry travelers arrived back at the lodge around 8pm to be met at the bar by our waiters who had lit caldrons of burning briquettes to help us warm up.
My waiter asked if I’d like a rum and coke, I told him the only way I’d drink rum was if he brought it in a hot buttered rum. Not even my Swahili could make him understand that. I’d already had one of the ten plagues with water, and other with beasts, and guess what came next folks. Right on Cue - Locusts -
in a matter of seconds the entire bar and dining room were filled with Catacids I type of flying locusts. And I mean filled - thousands of them. In your food, in your hair, and worse of all - in your beer! I just kept picking them out and drinking! In about 20 minutes or so they disappeared as fast as they came. The food was served buffet style -and putting aside the unannounced plague was very good, and through it all it rained and rained and rained.
I retired around 9. The staff had pulled the mosquito netting around my bed and closed the front flaps of my tent. I slept pretty sound until about 3:30am when I suffered what the camp is now calling Jeff’s leach episode:. I woke up and felts something biting my calf. I reach down in the dark and felt this worm like thing attached to my calf. Needless to say I was a bit noisy about it, which woke up the tents on either side of me which were filled with Japanese girls (at least I think they were Japanese, but I’m notoriously bad on separating out different Asian Nationalities. My screams woke them and they joined in. There were lots of lights going on and when the staff arrived and we looked at my leach we found that it was price tag that had
somehow got rolled up and stuck itself to my calf. We didn’t need to burn it off, but some of my neighbours suggested keeping the “leach” and burning me off of it.
The camp calmed down for a few hours till 5:00am when I heard a lot gurgling -like water running down a pipe. It got louder and louder till it was a roar. I got out my flashlight and went out on my balcony to see what was happening. My dry gulch was now replaced with a roaring river about 30 feet wide!!!!
About half an hour later I was awoken again and told I had 15 minutes to get ready for the morning game drive! The rain had almost stopped at this time, but what passed for roads in the park were now trails of deep greasy mud.
So the routine was drive a mile or two, see some animals and then get stuck in the mud for half an hour. “George of the Jungle” could use some lessons driving in Canadian snow. The drive was quite spectacular. We saw over 19 lions up close, and when I say up close I mean UP CLOSE Maybe only ten or fifteen feet away. We always stayed in the land rover and lions seemed used to them.
While the Lions seemed pretty benign, there were other animals we saw that weren‘t quite as welcoming. We came across a carcass that a leopard had just put in a tree for safe keeping. What we didn’t know was that he was close by and burst out of the woods roaring and made a feint like he was going to jump into the vehicle before veering off. It worked on me. I’d rather swim with the sharks then deal with angry leopards. Then it was off to get stuck in the mud once again.
