THE ULTIMATE ULTIMATE SAFARI

KENYA

The crash in the nearby bush was loud and close; it was immediate. “It’s a lion,” yelled Iain. “Run for the mess tent.” We had just sat down by the fire for our after-dinner drinks and discussions, which Iain initiated by pointing out that a campfire offered no protection from wild animals. We were in the midst of a four-day stay just outside Kenya’s Masai Mara game reserve that would complete our two-week tenting safari with this spinner of tall tales, and by now we were more than a little skeptical of the ghost stories that flowed so freely from his inventive and retentive mind. Still the roar of lions had surrounded our camp every night, and sometimes I held my own breath fully expecting the next one I sensed to be that of a nearby lion.

Our dinners were typically preceded by beer(or gin and tonic for the more discerning of us(accompanied by wine, usually South African, and this late in the fortnight followed by some Johnny Walker Red that young Alistair had brought from his and Iain’s native Scotland to help him through emergencies. He was seventeen, skinny, and pale, and Mum thought, correctly I would say, that on the eve of his admission to university to read applied chemistry and then hopefully go on to Sandhurst to begin a military career, he could use a little toughening up under the kindly eye of Uncle Iain. Meat, potatoes, and porridge, not to mention puddings, and nothing else went down very well when he arrived, but little by little we induced him to attempt first some fruit and finally even some vegetables. He was still skinny at trip’s end, but well-tanned and a whole lot more experienced.

I can’t claim to have run at full speed across the few meters to the tent, but I did at least trot, expecting each second to feel the mass of a huge beast falling on my shoulders and pinning me to earth for the last time. At least lions kill you right away, unlike leopards who, in catlike fashion, play with you for a while first, or cheetahs, who drag you home alive so the kids can practice. But with all the game around and the huge herds of Maasai cattle as well, surely there are no man-eaters here, as there still are in the Tsavo, and as was that leopard that bedeviled Iain and his two clients on the slopes of Kilimanjaro all those many years ago. I was glad to have my misconceptions of that affair corrected. The three of them were in a tent, and each time the leopard approached, they scared it off with their yells; no campfire was involved as I had previously been told. When they started up the mountain the next morning and saw the leopard poised on a rock above them, they abandoned the climb for good. Those two have never returned to Kenya, but Iain still corresponds with them.

Rob insists he was the last one to the tent, and although I doubt he could be as slow as I, we certainly agree that his father got there first, knocking down a couple of tent poles on the way. Iain stood in place long enough to see the lion go past the fire on the side away from our chairs and disappear in the gully behind Alistair’s tent. After verifying that he still had all his clients, he fired up the Land Cruiser and used its spotlight to search for the intruder. The first discovery was our two Maasai guards high up in a tree from which they refused to descend; the lion had been running straight toward them, they insisted, and they were certain it was still nearby. That convinced me; it had really happened. And we drove only a short distance from camp before finding not one, but two lionesses standing disgustedly in the tall grass wondering why these noisy Wazungu with their fires and bright lights had to get in the way of their evening meal.

So we retreated to the security of our individual tents, after being reassured that predators never enter closed tents, unless they are man-eaters of course. Alistair was still a bit shaken and readily accepted Doug’s offer to share his tent. The next afternoon when the Maasai discovered a hippo in another ditch, also near his tent, his only comment was, “Oh, shit.” The affair also affected certain of the nocturnal habits of this all-male group. Those of us with Himalayan experience, where such excursions require donning frozen footwear and walking out onto crunchy snow in the frigid air, had learned to make it through the night, but the others must have provided a surprising lion’s-eye view: sprays of yellow fluid emanating pathetically from minuscule holes in the sides of their tents. But as a driver-guide in Arusha once told me, this one an Englishman, “Until a lion has peed on your tent at night, you haven’t been in the Serengeti.”

Ever since the trek around Annapurna during which two quarrelsome old women almost destroyed my love of walking, I’ve wondered how it would be to set off with only men along. This first time in such a situation, except when I walked alone to Rara Lake with Richard Irvin and about fifteen Sherpas, worked out beautifully for me, and it probably gave Iain added stimulus, not that he really needed any, to talk about his wife, “the woman named Lou,” and his three children. His stories added immensely to my enjoyment of the trip. African camp staff, male only in my experience, refuse to wash the underclothing of females because of their traditional tribal taboos, and so in a modest gesture toward sexual parity, Iain decreed sometime ago that they would not wash those of males either. With no females around this seemed rather a pointless rule to me, so I simply added mine to the rest of my dirty clothes, and of course they were washed without protest.

One is probably foolish to write off a good hotel or restaurant(or wine or woman or...(for one mistake, no matter how egregious, but I was sorely tempted not to return after a recent stay at Nairobi’s Norfolk Hotel. The front desk simply refused to honor my reservation beyond the first night no matter how I fumed and raged; what hurt most was that nobody there even pretended to be sorry. All manner of staff from the various dining areas came to my aid, but their pleas were equally futile. I moved elsewhere the following day but continued to take my main meals at the Norfolk. On my last morning in town I was just wandering around the hotel grounds when one of the headwaiters saw me and asked if I had ever eaten at the dining area beside the recently refurbished and enlarged swimming pool and the associated fitness center. It was Richard, who had recently left the Hotel’s Ibis Grill to manage this essentially new facility.

Since I had not, I accepted his invitation to stop by for a look, which I did later in the day, and was sufficiently taken with the new arrangement and his enthusiasm to sit down for a delightful meal, prepared in the area’s own kitchen, that more than filled the need for both lunch and dinner. The entrecote steak there is deservedly popular, and the chef well knows the meaning of “rare.” When Richard learned I planned to stay elsewhere on my next trip to Nairobi, he wouldn’t hear of it and insisted on making a return reservation for me himself. Very appreciative of his help, I nonetheless decided quietly just to wait and see; there would always be the Hilton, and it offers very low rates to PCVs.

My next visit was on the weekend before flying to Spain, and this time I was greeted by name and with many smiles. More impressively my room contained a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a huge basket of fresh, ripe tropical fruit, whose centerpiece was a pineapple. The latter’s top and bottom had been cut off, the fruit removed from the shell and sliced, and then the pieces reassembled into a complete pineapple again. My appreciation was not diminished by the accompanying card addressed “Dear Mr. & Mrs. Johanssons”; she was more than welcome to stay. I dined twice at Richard’s place that visit, first to verify that the steak was as good as I remembered(it was(and second to sample its cheeseburger; it too was excellent, but be forewarned, “rare” really does mean rare to this chef. Before I departed, Richard presented me with two bags of freshly roasted Kenyan coffee beans, each bag imprinted “With our compliments, Norfolk Hotel,” and insisted again on making my return reservation. This time I neither protested nor thought of the Hilton.

The respiratory malaise that seems to afflict me every few months in Africa struck again the evening before my departure from Madrid to begin Mt. Travel/Sobek’s “Rambles in Southern Spain.” At first it was a light case, so its main effect was making it easy to sleep at night, but it seemed unusually long lasting, perhaps because of the cold wet hours spent in Seville’s bullring; my mother, for one, would certainly subscribe to that theory. I was disappointingly weary and more than a little uncomfortable on leaving Seville aboard a modern semi-fast train for Madrid that stopped only once en route, at Cordoba; the ride itself was totally enjoyable, but the man behind me, apparently trying to impress his young-lady companion, droned on in a loud, harsh monotone that would have driven a deaf person crazy.

The Madrid terminal looked very interesting, and had I felt better and been carrying lighter bags, I would have tarried for a longer look. As it was I joined the taxi queue, made the ride to the Tryp Fenix in good time, and after not too many minutes was rejoined by the suitcase I’d left at the hotel a fortnight earlier. The bellman located an unoccupied alcove in the hotel’s decidedly luxurious waiting room cum bar, and I discreetly shifted items among my three bags without exposing anything untidy to public view. The taxi ride to the airport was fast and inexpensive compared to its earlier counterpart, and soon I was in the quiet, relaxing atmosphere of one of the terminal’s lounges whether or not I belonged there. In the business class section on an Air Seychelles 757, in this case operated in cooperation with Iberia Air, three rows of space contain only two rows of seats, so the passenger has a fantastic amount of room. And after the crew, who seemed more West Indian than African in their movements, demeanor, and the tunes they hummed, has been seated for takeoff, who cares what the local equivalent of the Federal Aviation Administration may think about my reclining the seat back, opening the leg rest, and enjoying my third glass, and I do mean glass, of the Veuve’s gold label? I dreamed, half seriously, of refusing to disembark in Nairobi and continuing on to the islands.

Next morning at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for the thirteenth and quite likely penultimate time, I was still weary and uncomfortable, but I did learn one thing, maybe: the difference between a ten-dollar and a five-dollar visa is whether one gives “tourism” or “transit” as the reason to visit; at least that’s my current theory. The Norfolk staff was more than ready for me: “Good morning, Mr. Johnson. How was your flight?” “Just fine, thank you, but what I need now is a little sleep.” “Fine, sir,” said my favorite receptionist, “just sign the registration card, and I’ll complete the rest.” “Lala salama,” they chorused, and off I went to do just that.

It was a Wednesday, the day that the Delamere restaurant serves traditional Kenyan foods, and I had told Richard on my previous visit that I would make that my meal for this day. I checked with him at poolside before going to eat, and he was very solicitous about my room. After assuring him that everything was fine, I went off to the dining room to discover that he had also reserved an outside table for me. The food was similar to what I’d tasted several times in Tanzania, including at the home where I first stayed, but here I could sample dishes in whatever order and at whatever pace I wished; here also there were people, both waiters and cooks, to answer questions. The meal began with a “clear broth flavored with dhania and chilies,” hardly an “authentic Kenyan dish,” as Richard laughingly confirmed later, but one has to start someplace; the flavor was definitely cilantro, and I distinctly recall equating dhania to cilantro at some previous meal.

The vegetable dishes listed on the menu were sukuma wiki with ugali, baked arrowroot, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, minced green bananas (matoke), and pigeon peas with coconut and mandazi. The first named is a green leaf, tasting somewhat like mchicha, but milder–both remind me of spinach, but they are more bitter and astringent–it was a good foil for the bland ugali, the traditional maize mush taken in the hand to sop up other foods. This was my first experience eating arrowroot, and I found it bland and mealy. Sweet potatoes here are white and have the familiar flavor, but they seem milder and sweeter. Maize is always too tough in East Africa to be good, even when grown by PCV’s from American hybrid sweet corn seed. Ndizi (green banana) in each of several forms has always disappointed me with its tastelessness; this time the dish was a bit more flavorful, however. The pigeon peas were too unimpressive, evidently, to reach my notes, but my favorite vegetable dish was a combination of potato, maize, and mchicha, neither on the menu nor named at the steam table, that Joseph, my waiter, said was called irio. Richard later verified that irio was a name given to many different vegetable combinations, and both men said that it, arrowroot, sweet potatoes, and of course ugali, had been staples of their boyhood diets; Richard seemed particularly excited to recall the irio his mother made.

Tilapia, the mild-flavored and moist local fresh-water fish, was served two ways: baked whole in the style of the Kisumu region, and as pan-fried fillets in coconut. The latter was particularly good, as was the chicken casserole flavored with coconut milk. Coconut is used exquisitely in East African dishes, although the process of preparing it is tedious, at least it was the time I tried to do it. The opened coconut is shaved quite fine on a knife mounted on a wooden stool on which the worker sits(the stool, not the knife(this device is called mbuzi, the Kiswahili word for goat. The shavings are then moistened, put into a clean towel, and the flavoring liquid squeezed out.

The lamb biriyani had a nice spicy taste, which may have resided in the accompanying rice. Beef ribs were appropriately not listed on the menu but were nonetheless quite good. Lentil curry with chapatis was quite an okay dish, although I saved some of the latter component to eat with the lamb. Neither the chapatis nor the ugali approached the quality of those made by my Arusha hostess, however; to be good, they must be eaten soon after preparation. Afterward I skipped the “selection of mousses and desserts from the cold table” just as beforehand I had the “selection of cold meat and fish dishes served with various salads and dressings.” I finished off the meal with some “Kenyan farmhouse cheese and biscuits,” in particular their versions of Brie and Camembert; as usual the former was a bit young and the latter, superb. The meal was good, but Richard assured me the Utalii Hotel serves even better on Tuesday noons; I hope to verify that on another visit.

While I was busy enjoying this traditional lunch, the staff was equally busy making up the room after my midmorning nap and once again bringing in the elegant flower basket and fresh tropical fruit; this time the welcoming card was addressed to Mr. Johnson. Richard acknowledged putting my name on the VIP list: “You come all the time; you deserve it.” Who am I to argue? He checks a few days ahead and again on my arrival date to make certain everything is ready. Now the Windsor Country Club is a fine resort if you want and can afford that kind of facility, and the Hilton is a Hilton, but at a very good price, comparatively speaking, for me(and I’ll never forget that piano player from my first visit. The Intercontinental is quite new and looks like an Intercontinental, while the New Stanley is quite old and is said not to be much good anymore. I once stayed at the Seronera when it was quite new, and it showed potential, but the staff was as green as spring pastures and as naive as a newly inaugurated US president. The Nairobi Country Club is right in town, overly expensive, and offers little better than a transitory glimpse of the exotic costumes, particularly the headpieces, worn by Gulf Air hostesses. There are other possibilities, including a new hotel Richard thinks I should try, but for all us old Africa hands(and believe me, two years on foot out here is a very long walk(there is simply no substitute for the Norfolk.

To begin this ultimate Kenya safari, quite possibly my last adventure in East Africa, I had naturally come back to the Norfolk, where once again Richard had made certain that I received the now customary VIP service, although the realization that this was my antepenultimate(one of the best reasons for writing, as Garrison Keillor once put it, is that writers get to use obscure words like this once in a while(visit, at least before leaving for home, made me a little sad. I thoroughly enjoyed two of my favorite dishes during dinner at the Grill and was pleased to see its wine-specialist waiter on duty; it had been many months since one of my visits had coincided with his work schedule. Their Burgundy negociant is a bit stodgy in my judgment, but my friend recommended the Pommard, which turned out to be more than adequate. I was particularly pleased to find some XO Cognac back on the after-dinner drinks cart, but I would have turned down a cigar even if they had had one from Cuba; the respiratory malaise had returned suddenly and with surprising intensity, making me wonder once again if tsetse fly bites might be other than totally harmless. Tonight’s piano player was pretty good, however, and he stayed on until eleven o’clock, as did I.

Half of the fruit tray in my room plus coffee and croissants at the Terrace next morning carried me through a spirited round of business downtown despite my continued distress and the advances of two, at different times, unusually professional and accomplished panhandlers. After a brief chat with Richard at poolside, I went to the Grill, entering from the garden side, for what developed into a most enjoyable luncheon: fish soup accompanied by the typical assortment of some eight or ten breads, a lovely beef stroganoff based on three colors of homemade noodles(yellow, red, and green(and a waiter-selected sampling of desserts from the trolley. The meal had begun with Champagne, continued, after dessert, with more XO, and concluded with a glorious thunderstorm that exposed more than just loose seams in the vine-covered glass ceiling of the verandah dining area; all in all, it was a memorable afternoon.

Although we had met only once before, at his Nairobi home for Christmas dinner nearly eight years earlier, I easily recognized Iain Allan the instant he entered the Norfolk lobby later that afternoon. His attire was most notable for its gaudy pair of walking shorts and a broad-brimmed hat(his wardrobe includes a substantial assortment of each, but no socks; he avoids the last because of their attractiveness to ticks, burrs, and all sorts of additional prickly items thriving in the bush. His typical footwear is a pair of sandals, and when he switches to anything more substantial, a major outing is to be expected. With those defining characteristics in mind, anyone might well recognize him at first sight, but it would take a few days for my four traveling companions and me to complete these observations. Robert, for many years a law professor at the University of North Carolina and now completing his career there as an administrator, and his twenty-six-year-old son, Rob, just returned from work in Hong Kong and travel in many parts of the world and about to enter the Columbia University Law School, were also present in the lobby for introductions and a short briefing. The rest of the fruit tray sufficed for my dinner that night. At pickup time the next morning we met Alistair, who is actually Iain’s second cousin, and about an hour later, Doug, a retired businessman living in the San Francisco Bay area, arrived at JKIA to complete our group.

The weather was too cloudy to permit any views of the mountains, but it was still exciting to be driving once again through that beautiful country north of the city. At noon we detoured a mile or two to the Kentrout Inn for a lovely trout dinner(Alistair had meat, of course(soon after which we reached Lewa Downs, in the semi-desert between the mountain and the desert of the Samburu, for a three-night stay. Among its many features were the campfires, which blazed cheerfully morning and evening; nights are chilly in the hills of Kenya, particularly at this time of year. Iain used this venue to great advantage in spinning out his yarns of adventures past and suggesting to the unwary what fates might befall them from the animals lurking about their tents that night. He is extremely well-read, particularly on East African affairs, knows more about movies, old and new, than anyone I’ve ever met before, and is one of Kenya’s two premier mountaineers. He also drives his Toyota Land Cruiser with total authority and control.

Since Lewa Downs is privately owned, it can and does allow nighttime game drives, a dubious practice in my judgment, and also sets out bait to attract leopards, which I think has even less merit. Despite these misgivings I went along that first night to see the three chunks of zebra meat hanging from a tree branch, but no leopard, and when we saw the next afternoon that one chunk of meat was gone, I went back the second night as well. I actually saw the leopard first; my position in the rear of the van was just perfect to pick up the spotted coat the instant our spotlight fell on its reclining owner. It seemed a bit darker than others I’ve observed, and when it arose, stretched, and moved a few meters before lying down again, we realized what a large, magnificent creature it was, weighing perhaps two hundred pounds. After about ten more minutes, it arose again, and without even bothering to look back at us, unhurriedly strolled off into the obscurity of the dark forest.

“Leo,” said John, the leader of our two armed Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) scouts the next morning, as he looked down at the scat beside the trail. We already knew that we were following the spoor of one or more of the twelve black rhinoceroses inhabiting this part of the Lewa Downs game reserve, but I was surprised at his dating. “Today? Really?” I asked somewhat incredulously. “Last night,” Iain replied quietly and held up a broken biscuit for us to examine; it smelled very much like horse droppings. A little farther on we encountered a spot where one of the herd had kicked dirt over its droppings; “scrolling” is the word I understood Iain to use for this technique. After a few more steps we encountered signs of rhino feeding on a bush beside the trail. Iain chose this point to tell us, “A pride of lions has taken up residence in the valley behind us,” as he pointed down the trail, “and they’re very unpopular now because they recently killed six cattle.” The Craig family, owners of Lewa Downs, is attempting, apparently with success, to combine cattle ranching and managing of a game reserve. Only two Nairobi companies, Tropical Ice, which is owned by Iain, and Ker-Downey, which is tremendously pricey, have camping rights here, and the only other way to visit is to use the lodge provided by the Craigs, at $350 per day per person, which includes full board, game drives, and other services, but not transportation to and from Nairobi. “It’s very nice,” said Iain, “but our food and wines are better.” From my experiences in this part of the world, I know he’s right.

Our attention was diverted momentarily by some birds near the stream we were to cross, but once on the other side, John pointed out that a little valley on the hill below which we had just walked was the home of a leopard who loved to prey on the baboons, a favorite morsel for that predator, that came down the hill to feed and drink. So there we were, rhinos in front of us, lions behind us, a leopard beside us, and we were walking through bush infested with ticks, not only the familiar looking ones, but a special variety of minuscule, highly gregarious, so-called pepper ticks, red in color, that fell on our clothes by the thousands. Fortunately, neither type carried any serious disease, and both could be removed very easily.

This second of our two daily hikes was easily the more interesting one, although we saw a lot of game at eye level both days. A little before we discovered the fresh rhino spoor, Iain stopped us with an announcement in tones of hushed excitement: “Our guides think they have spotted an animal I’ve seen only once before in East Africa, the greater kudu.” During the next thirty minutes or so we all observed three of these magnificent antelopes in addition to the buffaloes, giraffes, Grant’s gazelles, and impalas on the ridge across the valley from us, and the Gevry’s and Burchell’s zebras and reticulated giraffes just behind us. Inaccessible by vehicle, this was my favorite spot in the reserve. We made it back to camp without incident and were rewarded with another of Hassan’s fabulous feasts; Tropical Ice continues to set the standard against which all camp cuisine is measured. I rather think that Hassan was also the chef on my first Kenya safari in 1986.

To Linnaeus in 1758 a giraffe was a giraffe was a Giraffa camelopardalis, just as in East Africa it’s been called a twiga ever since the development of Kiswahili I suppose, but to operators of safari tours it’s the mainly superficial differences among the eight races or subspecies of these animals, claimed by one field guide to be “the biggest ruminant and tallest mammal” on earth, rather than their similarities that receive emphasis. In my limited experience there is no more exciting transition between animal types than that experienced in passing from the grasslands of Tanzania and southern Kenya, where the blotchy-skinned Maasai giraffe, ssp tippelkirschi, also known as the Kenyan giraffe, is present, to the deserts of northern Kenya, where the much more elegantly robed reticulated giraffe, ssp reticulata, endures the dryness that its southern neighbor cannot. It is quite possible that the white-legged Rothschild’s giraffe, ssp rothschildi, sometimes designated as the Baringo or Uganda giraffe, that I have seen only rather in between the two zones, is the most interesting of all. My recollections of the southern giraffe, ssp giraffa, are that it’s quite similar in appearance to the Maasai giraffe. The other four subspecies presumably live north and west of my traditional hunting grounds, but no matter, for most of us a giraffe is a giraffe is a giraffe, really.

Many other animals thrive only in this arid country. These include that loveliest of antelopes, the slender long-necked gerenuk; the Beisa oryx, with its horselike body and straight horns that can reach four feet in length–the south African subspecies of this animal is called the gemsbok–and the Grevy’s zebra, which, with its narrower pattern of stripes, is far more entertaining to observe than the much commoner Burchell’s zebra–the two are often seen together in the desert. Of course many other old friends from damper climes are present here as well. The bird population naturally changes, and no transition is more obvious than that in the largest of living birds, the ostrich. Here in the desert the ungainly Maasai ostrich, with its pink neck and thighs, is supplanted by the slightly less ungainly, at least it seems so to me, Somali race, with its much more attractive blue neck and thighs. Life forms in the desert are sparse but extremely interesting. Someday I hope to return to observe birds even farther to the north and possibly to sneak into the Congo basin for a chance to glimpse that other member of family Giraffidae, the rare okapi.

In a sense this last of my East African adventures had begun with another visit to Tarangire, this one falling on the middle weekend of Mary’s two-week teacher training seminar, part of which I attended as an observer. Her facilitators were an interesting group from the American Northwest who furnished me much information and entertainment. The big event came near the end of Saturday’s pre-breakfast game drive when we made a short detour to ascertain why so many vultures had congregated in the nearby acacia trees. We found the answer at the foot of a baobab, one of those huge, bulky trees whose appearance fully supports the Maasai legend that God, in a fit of anger one day, pulled up all the world’s trees and then stuck them back in the earth upside down. Particularly silhouetted against the sky, they look like upside down dead hulks; at this time of year, many are well-leafed out, however, giving evidence of life and vitality and debunking the legend a bit.

Something, perhaps an aardvark, had torn open a termite mound, or maybe it was just the normal way for such events to take place, but termites in their flying phase were rising from the ground to take wing in quest of their destiny, at least some of them. A tawny eagle, occasionally replaced by one of several colleagues perched on tree branches awaiting their turns, three hooded vultures, and a somewhat intimidated marabou stork, were catching and eating quite a few right at the exit tunnel. And many of those that did take off were soon plucked from the air by a host of birds of all sizes and varieties; most of the latter were wattleless wattled starlings, I think, their breeding season now being over, again I think. Even my colleagues, who tolerate my bird-watching activities with only infrequent derogatory comments, found this spectacle totally fascinating. I continually point out to frustrated game viewers how exciting it can be to view the bird life they habitually ignore.

In the even drier desert region on the plain below Lewa Downs and stretching on for many kilometers to the north lies the country of the Samburu, near kin of the Maasai, and like them speakers of the Maa language. Our camp for two nights was in the Buffalo Springs Reserve, on a private spot Iain also shares with Ker-Downey. This reserve plus those called Sheba and Samburu comprise what one thinks of as the Samburu National Park, but in fact each region is controlled by its own district council, thus multiplying the opportunities for the corruption that is certainly Kenya’s main economic activity and quite likely its national policy as well. We had barely entered Buffalo Springs when a pride of nine lions was spotted; Doug was quickly acquiring Iain’s visual acuity in seeing game. We stayed only a short while because Ker-Downey, or some other group, soon brought in a convoy of vehicles that demonstrated the concept of a one-to-one correspondence with the lions. As we approached camp for lunch, Iain took great pleasure in warning us of the dire danger we would face from all the lone rogue elephants that would surround us. In fact the worst threat to our peace of mind was the noise from the thousands of white-browed sparrow-weavers busily nesting in the trees above our tents as they burst into song shortly before dawn each day. But the sunrises were so spectacular we all enjoyed these early awakenings.

The visit to Sheba was unusual and exciting. Mohammed, our KWS guide, carried a G3 semiautomatic machine gun that impressed us more than it did Iain; he feels a heavier caliber rifle is more likely to stop a charging buffalo. Our walk was a rock scramble along a muddy river that on some days, but not this one, shows off its hippo population; we did see a croc and a very nice goliath heron, however. In spots it was a bit much for my limp legs and indecisive balance, so I readily accepted a proffered arm or shoulder from Iain, and occasionally went overland under Mohammed’s guidance; the latter maneuver often required staring into the G3 barrel at a range of about three inches, which was not all that reassuring either. But it was all quite exhilarating, particularly in hindsight

We only passed through the Samburu segment on the morning of our exit, but that was the park I had explored with Peter, my Arusha friend and guide, some eighteen months before. It seemed to be the greenest of the three, but we were headed north to enter the dry country where the Samburu remain less affected by tourism. We were not far beyond the park boundaries when Iain stopped to negotiate photographic rights with two teen-aged boys. “Take your pictures quickly,” admonished Iain, “before they change their minds.” And sure enough, when Robert initiated discussions to purchase one of their spears, a denying hand was raised, Tussah” (enough) was enunciated, and all further activity concerned purchase of the spear.

Compared to the Maasai, the Samburu seem a little smaller, much finer featured, and considerably darker skinned. Their clothing emphasizes more red, and particularly the young men sport a much wider range of clothing style, headwear, and ornaments; red dirt or clay is commonly rubbed into their hair. Iain could tell from their garb how many years before or after the circumcision ceremony they were. Agreements between the Samburu and tourists are difficult to achieve because of the cultural differences, and spears have been thrown at vehicles more than once because of the resulting misunderstandings. We were much more careful with our cameras here, generally just hiding them, than we ever were in Maasai-land.

Wamba, the main Samburu town through which we passed, is essentially three blocks long with the usual assortment of shops on each side. One bar, the Inane, in the first building on the right as one enters town and where we stopped for sodas, has wall paintings of considerable imagination depicting local game and the war on poaching conducted by Richard Leakey, now out of office and official favor, through the KWS that he established. Wamba also has a Catholic mission and school, which likely explains the presence of many young men in western clothes who speak very good English.

But our objective was a permanent tented camp in the Kitich Reserve of the Mathews Range, which we reached on a track I would have thought totally impassable. Iain demonstrated again not only his superb driving skill and confidence but also the superiority of his Toyota over even the legendary Land Rover. Getting there took enough of the day, particularly after negotiating a modest lunch from a staff that didn’t know it would have about fifteen overnight guests and hadn’t been resupplied in some two weeks, that we managed only a very short walk. Iain imagined that he had spotted a Hartlaub’s turaco on a distant tree, but I was equally convinced that it was only a dove. Fortunately he did find one in a tree back at camp, so the debate was rendered moot.

Kitich Camp has a good game-viewing clearing in some adjacent marshy ground that is illuminated at night. They also bait for leopards with suspended goat meat, but the main visitors we saw, both nights, were a genet and, surprisingly, two resident fish eagles. There was great excitement at the dinner table next to us the first night when that group’s guide thought he saw a leopard on the limb of the baited tree. How he could make such a mistake is beyond me; I had been watching for some minutes before him and could see clearly that it was only an owl. The next night they tried a freshly killed goat(I’m not too sorry to have missed the sacrifice(but it didn’t even draw a return visit from the owl.

The next day’s hike was a bit demanding, “moderately strenuous” according to the trip brochure, but I went along and was not sorry. We were accompanied by two KWS rangers with rifles and Matthew, dressed in traditional Samburu garb and armed with knife, spear, and a rungu, the last looking somewhat like a large nut-bolt combination. There was something reassuring about the latter’s demeanor, all the more so after Iain recounted a recent incident in which a forest elephant suddenly charged a group of hikers, and Matthew threw his rungu and created enough disturbance to drive it off before the men with rifles, not necessarily these two, could get organized. The ancient cycads we passed were fascinating, and there were also many colorful flowers to enjoy. As we walked through the forest on the way back, Iain stopped us to announce that the guides had detected an elephant nearby and we should walk quickly, quietly, and as a group. It was actually a bit tense, and we were quite relieved when we heard the elephant trumpeting, a bit angrily I thought, well behind us. A bit later we got a view of several elephants across the clearing just a short distance from camp, where the staff had somehow gotten supplies enough to produce a very decent dinner that helped us finish the first half of our four-day deprivation of Hassan’s artistry.

Subsequent one-night stands at the Maralal Safari Lodge and the Lake Baringo Island Camp were interesting but a bit too European after our stay among the Samburu. We had an interesting early morning bird walk with Sampson before leaving the lake, but our later drive around Lake Nakuru, during which we saw two Chanler’s mountain reedbucks and had great views of several Rothschild’s giraffes, was even more exciting. And then it was on to Hell’s Gate Gorge, where we had access to our own camp again and best of all, Hassan’s cooking. The gorge takes its name from some geysers that are now used as a power source; they spout outside the park boundaries. The rock walls inside the park are a mecca for local climbers, offering hundreds of routes; they also provide nesting sites for thousands of nyanza swifts and, allegedly, the much larger mottled swifts. There are also several interesting rock towers in the park. On our second evening there, Iain demonstrated his skill for us by scaling the class 5.5, 150-foot, Fischer Tower, in about five minutes while wearing borrowed shoes several sizes too small. Of course he was free climbing, that is without aids or a safety rope. After descending about half-way he decided to rappel instead, so the lender of the shoes climbed high enough to toss him a rope, with which Iain climbed back to the top and then rappelled down. Climbers are indeed a special breed.

Iain’s stories about the children were interesting and entertaining, and the two I’ll certainly never forget involved life-threatening circumstances. He was at a landing strip in the Masai Mara, awaiting his daughter, the oldest of the three, on a flight from Nairobi, and was horrified to watch the plane crash land, its wheels not having come down properly. He ran frantically down the runway after the skidding craft and on reaching it grabbed the child from the opened door and ran, sobbing with relief, no doubt, back to his vehicle. His description of the other incident was, if possible, even more shaking. A houseguest, still a close family friend, inadvertently left a bottle of pills within reach of the older of their two boys, who swallowed them all and fell unconscious. It was only Lou’s skills as a physician and her knowledge of Nairobi’s emergency procedures–she is from Australia and met Iain while on a Tropical Ice safari–that got him to a hospital still alive. His heart stopped for what seemed an impossibly long time to me, but today he is an extremely bright and energetic young lad with a passion for John Wayne movies and a penchant for directing the Duke’s more infamous slurs at his unsuspecting targets. Trauma in East Africa is not limited to the wilds.

Throughout these two weeks Lou herself came in for a lot of good-natured absentee kidding, but Iain, in atypical conjugal fairness, did tell at least one good one on himself. He and a friend were chatting amiably in the living room one evening while she was in the kitchen fixing dinner. For some reason she joined them for a while and ultimately got into an argument with Iain. Although admitting to us that he was almost always bettered in such debates, he believed that this time his clever and thoughtful rejoinders had carried the day; she apparently agreed and stormed back to the kitchen. Turning triumphantly toward his friend, he asked, expectantly, “Well, what do you think of that?” From a smiling face came the quiet and unanticipated reply, “Oh, it’s tough when they’re smarter than you.”

Iain’s interest in movies is not restricted to viewing them; he also has assisted in their making, both by provisioning the professionals and acting as a double in the more difficult climbing scenes. His last such movie was shot on the slopes of Mt. Kenya and was based on a story that came out of the Second World War when some Italian prisoners of war were being detained here. Two of them, experienced mountaineers, managed to fashion some primitive equipment, sneaked away one evening, and made an unsuccessful attempt on the summit. Evidently the prison commander was sufficiently impressed with their daring and resourcefulness that they were not significantly punished on being recaptured. That was the original story, which the movie distorted so badly that Iain urged us not to see it; I will, however, if it comes to town, if only to watch climbers in action on that glorious mountain. Near the conclusion of its filming, Iain was approached by a different producer, who asked if he was interested in providing similar assistance in the shooting of another film. He was expressing great enthusiasm for this idea when two fists began pounding into the small of his back, and he heard a soft but very firm voice announcing, “If you do, I’ll divorce you; if you do, I’ll divorce you.” He believed what he heard and gave up moviemaking.

The lammergeyer is claimed by many guidebooks to nest on these same cliffs and towers, but I have yet to see one other than in Nepal. Truly awesome birds, they typically produce a clutch of two eggs, and the first hatchling immediately practices siblingicide(writers also get to invent ridiculous words in an effort to reduce sexual bias(on the remaining egg. This ornithological tidbit was volunteered by a passing Mzungu scientist, who, with his daughter or overly young(underly old?(wife, was searching for the nests of lanners and black eagles, I think, in addition to those of the elusive bearded ones. According to him the last breeding of these vultures occurred here in 1979, and the birds were last seen in 1984(so much for the timeliness of guidebooks. Teresa, our KWS guide during the morning’s hike, blamed the vulture’s disappearance here on British artillery practice in the area, but the expert said it was because climbers stood right on the nests! Despite the obvious potential for conflict, Iain graciously agreed to do what he could to keep climbers from using sensitive routes and also to help the ornithologist, obviously not himself a climber, reach these precarious nesting sites to collect eggs. Interestingly enough, the exchange took place at the base of the tower Iain was about to climb; the expert didn’t stay to watch.

Our walk that morning had been long, interesting, and directed toward two distinct objectives. First Teresa took us through a light forest along the base of a cliff where she found a small herd of klipspringers. We watched with admiration and pleasure as these small creatures bounded up nearly vertical cliffs out of harm’s way. Several more sightings were made as we turned in the opposite direction toward our second goal, a stream leading to a hot spring on the other side of the park. Descending along its rocky bed required quite a bit more scrambling, as did ascending the rock wall on our return, but, by taking advice on hand and footholds and using a friendly shoulder for support two or three times, I had a very pleasant walk. Perhaps a little more experience will dispel a bit of cowardice.

The drive to a seldom-visited side of the Mara was along another tortuous route, not so bad as that to Kittich, but a challenge nonetheless. We passengers were relieved to learn that only Iain would return by that route; we would fly back to Nairobi from the airstrip hard by Governor’s Camp, just as I had on that Christmas morning eight years before. We didn’t get near our campsite until evening, and although heavy rain appeared imminent, we still stopped for a short while to watch a mother cheetah and her three youngsters. A dash to the camp brought us there just as the storm broke. Fortunately the staff had arrived early enough to erect the mess tent, the very same into which we ran for our lives the next night, and our individual tents were ready surprisingly quickly, the only casualties being a few wet mattresses; our intrepid leaders, Iain, Alistair, and Reno, slept without support that night.

It is hard to mention Reno without saying too much. A teacher from California’s Bay Area and organizer of an Outward Bound-type program for youngsters needing such assistance, he had arrived at Hell’s Gate with the staff. After four nights with us(he too experienced the lion attack(he was to fly back to Nairobi to meet a group, including both his wife and his girl friend, who had become aware of each other only hours before leaving the US, to lead a Kenya safari under aegis of Tropical Ice. I think the Holy Spirit visited Alistair in a dream and asked him to bring that whisky for Reno. In addition to his obvious talents, he is also a consummate teller of tall tales, so good in fact that Iain left the most outlandish of his ghost stories for Reno to pass on to us: like the one where seven young lions attacked a buffalo, started chewing off all its vital(but no, I can’t tell you that. Reno’s language is colorful and includes a lot of four-letter words; once heard that way, a story can’t be retold in bland, neutral language. But maybe some day I can retell Iain’s story about the movie, Mokambo I think he called it, that Ava Gardner and Clark Gable made out here in 1953.

On the morning of that fateful day we first drove past an old male lion and then relocated the same cheetah foursome; Iain estimated the youngsters to be about three-fourths grown. Mama was apparently trying to teach them to hunt, but they were too playful and happy in each other’s company to pay her much mind; like any indulgent mother, she seemed to tolerate that easily. As this group advanced, a pair of ostriches retreated nervously in front of it. Suddenly one of the youngsters made a mock charge, but at that range it could not have overtaken anything faster than an overweight tourist. Once we thought she was serious about stalking a group of impalas, but when a nearby herd of Maasai cattle spooked that potential prey, it was time for us to move on. We had been all alone for maybe an hour watching this family as the sun played hide and seek with the clouds. Iain frequently repositioned the vehicle, so one or another of the cheetahs would come right past us. Nothing is such fun to watch as a mother cheetah with her young, of whatever age; nothing is so impressive as a leopard; and I’ve already expressed my opinion of lions, which is likely why they joined us for after-dinner discussions that night.

Bird watching had been good in camp that day, particularly in the big fig tree, which attracted among others two that I had not identified before: the doubled-toothed barbet and Bruce’s green parrot. But the real excitement was the afternoon, early evening really, walk. Not much was seen on the way out, including in the hippo pool that was our objective, but on the way back we found ourselves amidst a great herd of zebras, which, suddenly spooked by something, ran past us on both sides, effectively encircling us. Their movement created sufficient stir to attract several safari vehicles, whose occupants must have been quite disgusted to find only walking tourists instead of the hoped for lion kill. Two bat-eared foxes and several hyenas trotted out of our way as we approached camp. Before dinner we drove a short distance to watch a pair of mating lions, and in the distance, two more cheetahs. And then the evening festivities began. Our guards on that walk? The same pair who went tree climbing a few hours later.

The next morning’s drive turned up a pair each of cheetahs and bat-eared foxes, quite surprisingly no lions, and of course Reno’s departure. In the afternoon I remained in camp to bird-watch, make notes, shower, fill a half dozen or so abscesses with antibiotic cream, ponder my other irritations, and get an early start on the gin and tonic and whisky to ward off a possible repeat attack; it was, after all, my half birthday. Nothing unusual happened during the night of which I was aware, other than the roaring of nearby lions, and I slept well.

On our last full day of safari Iain decided we simply had to go to the Mara River to see if the wildebeest migration across it had started, as some reports claimed; it hadn’t, but just to see the huge crocs waiting languorously on its banks and to hear the hippos defecating thunderously into its depths made the drive very worthwhile. I fully expected a croc to crawl up the bank on one side and a hippo on the other to enclose us in a pincers movement, but it didn’t happen; Iain will doubtless arrange this for his next group, however. He did drive deliberately close enough to an already agitated lone bull elephant to draw a charge from it that missed by only a meter, and as he sped away, he commented, “That’s a good time not to kill the engine.” And the next morning, following much the same route, he managed to get stuck. But by unloading the luggage and applying his driving skill once again, he was just able to wriggle free.

Governor’s Camp looked familiar enough to bring back happy memories of that very first safari, but I chose to expend my energy searching for some turacos Iain had once seen in the camp. Happily I found not one but two new species, Ross’s and Schalow’s. Earlier, seated in the bar by the river, writing, not drinking, I had several long looks at close range at the lovely blue flycatcher. For me it was a most fitting conclusion to an exhilarating safari. But Tropical Ice leaves no day unfilled, and I still had a flight back to Nairobi, lunch with Martin, my closest PCV friend, at poolside(Richard was off this Saturday(a long-awaited soak in the big tub, cocktails at the Allan home, and dinner at the Tamarind, where I found the tiny local oysters almost a match for my state’s Olympias. Regrettably, the Norfolk’s XO was already finished, and the piano player was ill.

Well, as has often been said, travel is tough, but somebody has to do it.

W. Vance Johnson

14 Jul 94