Kenya: Peter Elliott
In Kenya, well-known NZ actor Peter Elliott comes face to face with orphaned elephants, black-maned lions, and grinding destitution and poverty.
Day
One: Nairobi
It's very polluted, crowded too, and every car, van and truck
belches noxious diesel fumes in phenomenal amounts. I hoped for an
African smell but it's just dust and diesel smoke. I forgot to pack
shampoo - hair filthy - not happy. My pack stinks of cat's pee,
Robyn Malcolm?s fault and she remains unforgiven. The plan is to
view the slum area. My 1970s taxi breaks down, with only one wheel
steering properly, hanks of wire pulling windows up and door
handles that would have defied Houdini. I had to get out and push
it over a speed hump. After admonitions to stay in the cab, this
seemed foolhardy but was seen with tremendous amusement by those
around me. Kibera slum is what Elizabethan England must have been
like. Gorges of effluent run from every shack, shelter and lean-to
-- hundreds and thousands of them. A man with blood red eyes asked
if I could help as he'd just been in a house fire and his family
and been burnt to death last night. Someone whisked me off saying
he?d set it himself, mad on drugs. Raised with racial expectations
and no ability to process what is happening, I fully expect they
will just rob me and kill me for my watch and camera. The hardest
thing is trying to understand why they do not. I meet with humour,
smiles, warmth and healthy interest in my doings. Panic slowly
subsides and I meet Anne and her five children. She makes me
welcome, shares her home and her daughters sing me a song.
Emotionally and physically, I cannot imagine life like this.
Day
Two: Nairobi
Start with a trip to Giraffe Manor where I feed and pat some
enormous Rothschild's giraffes then spend some wonderful hours at
the David Sheldrick Trust with baby elephants (
www.daphnesheldrick.com). One loved me up in most
charming way, blowing draughts of hot moist elephant breath into my
right ear. They played and cavorted and rushed back to their
companion-keepers as needy as toddlers and twice as cute. I am told
that Toma will remember me in 20 years time after smelling me and
playing with me just the once. Amazing.
Day
Three: Safari in Amboseli
I'm off on safari and it's not before time. I am ready for a bit of
countryside and beauty. Stopping at the last town before the park
the touts and hawkers descend on me in force and I manage to handle
them without giving in to outrageous prices. I see Thompson's and
Grant's gazelle, wildebeest, zebras, giraffes, elephants... An
exceptional travel day with many new sights and sounds and some
goodly hills and possible paragliding sites.
Day
Four: Amboseli
What a night. At midnight I awake to the sound of scrabbling,
scratching and sniffing at the flap of the tent. I am instantly
very awake but not for that reason. It is apparent that my bowel
has turned into a curling serpent and is having death throes,
everything I ever ate is coming down the track and it is not
stopping for wildlife. I lie there anticipating being torn limb
from limb lying in a sleeping bag full of steaming excrement.
Grabbing my torch and unzipping the tent, there is nothing there.
Nowhere. Camp is silent. I dash across dust and brush to the
world's most heinous toilet, squat amongst the detritus of bad
Western aim and let the world fall out of my bottom. Eleven more
times I make this trip. I take everything medical in my pack. Do a
game drive nervous as hell as in the reserves you are not allowed
off the truck and there is no toilet aboard. A Maasai warrior helps
me erect my tent and then requires 350 shillings for the privilege.
I thought he just wanted to help a sick man!
Day
Five: Namanga
A full night's sleep. Bliss. I have some reserves of resistance
again. Attempt tiny bits of food. Morning of game viewing and in
the early afternoon arrive at the Maasai tribal village just
outside of Namanga. Set up campsite and wait for the evening
performance by the young Maasai warriors. It is dark and a solid
campfire is roaring when, out of the dark, a low flickering light
approaches accompanied by some murmured chanting and the boys or
warriors slowly appear in the firelight. They jump and sing and
tell tales of their ancestry. Unfortunately at the end I am bought
forward as the ritual f**kwit and made to jump and sing and join in
with them. I did my best and have to keep at it until nearly dying
of exhaustion. I am damn pleased to be able to retain bowel control
through these exertions.
Day
Six: Mt Kenya
Driving through the Mt Kenya highlands, coffee-growing areas, I see
bush, wetlands and lush tropical-looking foliage. Crossing the
Great Rift Valley, I really began to get a grasp of the sheer
enormity of Africa. The campsite has grass and trees and could be
any old camping ground in the South Island. Hot water for the first
time in a week but best of all -- sit-down toilets! They have a
lake and I ask if I can fish. I sit on the jetty and catch eight
glorious inches of wiggling lake carp. Crap fish but at least I got
one.
Day
Seven: Samburu
At every town the level of plastic pollution markedly increases.
The sides of the roads and nearby paddocks are littered with the
detritus of a million shredded plastic shopping bags that flap from
wire, press against walls, windows, rocks and trees. At Samburu, we
drive straight into a magnificent herds of elephants, so close we
can smell their breath and skin. One huge bull elephant is
intrigued by us and turns towards the truck, the sides of which are
open, and slowly moves forward. He keeps coming to within eight or
ten feet when Nebert, the truck driver, realises what is happening,
slams the truck into gear, thrashing the diesel into life. He
explains the elephant can just reach in and take someone out of the
truck with his trunk and there is no way to stop it happening. The
warnings continue: don't leave the campsite alone or at night,
don't go near the river bank, do not sit alone under the trees...
Crocodiles will probably come into the campsite at night -- zip up
the tents! Leopards will cough and may check out the camp too.
Elephants will pass to drink at the river but not to worry, they
think the tents are rocks and won't trample them! I wonder
absently, just before I go to sleep - why are the guides sleeping
in the truck, with doors and roll-down windows and a roof, while
I'm at ground level under filmy negligee nylon?!
Day
Eight: Samburu
One of our first big game occasions occurs with the sighting of a
leopard stalking a bird about 150 metres from our campsite. He
misses and sits there, looking exactly like a house-cat -- slightly
sheepish that he had missed the target -- and then slinks off into
the underbrush beside the camp. Retire to Samburu Lodge where I
swim, do furtive clothes washing and snaffle a brief lie-down on
the loungers.
Day
Nine: Lake Nakuru
Arrive at Nakuru, Kenya's fourth largest city, about the size
of Hamilton, and witness a prison truck go past a roundabout where
we had stopped. Like a scene from Auschwitz, there must have been
200 men packed into that crate with mesh sides. Their faces pressed
against the wire with the sheer crush, many bleeding and others
clearly collapsed and unconscious. I think to be at the centre of
that crush of men would have been a death sentence. Appalling.
Day
Ten: Lake Nakuru
Breathtakingly beautiful. Bright warm, golden morning sun on
iridescent green trees, framed against a glinting blue lake,
fringe-rimmed by a million and a half pink flamingos. Busy with
morning wildlife -- monkeys, gazelle and elephants. I spend a good
80 minutes in the company of a huge black-maned lion and his
retinue of three lionesses and their cubs. They are about 50 or 60
metres distant at the start but they take no notice of vehicles at
all. As the boy moves over to be with his family, we are not 20
feet away. Drive home elated through Euphorbia forest and watch as
pelicans and vultures do takeoffs and landings in military
phalanxes overhead. Enchanted by the day but missing the family
dreadfully tonight. Show all who can be got at the photo of family
to appropriate oohs and ahhs.
Day
Eleven: Lake Bogoria
A trip to Lake Bogoria - the scenic geyser land. Bored, not
much to recommend it. Feeling very tired and very heartsick for
family. I have an early night.
Day
Twelve: Naivasha
Really beautiful -- the lake is very large and looks full of
fish. Naivasha is home to a vast business empire, feeding primarily
off the water source of the lake. Thousands of acres of hothouse
sheds raise roes for the Dutch markets in Amsterdam, they send
planeloads fresh each day for the Europeans, but the industry is
using so much water that the lake levels are dropping constantly.
It is here that I see prosperity amongst the local populace for the
first time -- schools, cars, shops and supermarkets that stock
brand-name products.
Day
Thirteen: Naivasha
Going out to cavort amongst the hippos on a small wooden punt seems
less than clearly thought through. The dear old boatsman suggests
that if we get too close the hippos will charge us, which they duly
do. Like enormous underwater sofas, they swoosh up to the surface,
propelled off the bottom with their trunk-like legs churning faster
than our outboard. Spend a thoroughly charming afternoon at the
Elsamere Conservation Centre, Joy Adamson's home for many years.
They lay on the most gorgeous afternoon tea spread I have ever seen
(
www.elsatrust.org
).
Cakes and loaves and biscuits and cheesecakes and iced treats and
lashings of real cream. Fabulous. The Colobus monkeys are terrific
fun to watch until they decide they want your plate of goodies.
Day
Fourteen: Masai Mara
It's the largest park in Africa and we drive nearly all day to
get there. The big new fear in this part of Africa? Tsetse flies.
If they land on you and bite you: sleeping sickness! Got some good
worrying going in the Landrover as I flick and watch hawkishly for
fly movements.
Day
Fifteen: Masai Mara
Go on an all-day hunt for cheetahs to no avail, but do see
where, in two day's time, the great wildebeest migration will take
place. One and a half million Wildebeest cross where I stand and
the river is full of predators, like taxi drivers at an airport,
ranks and ranks of crocodiles waiting. It has been two weeks and I
feel I have barely scratched the surface of Africa and yet it has
scratched beneath mine very successfully. The dichotomies bewilder
me and defy my attempts to rationalise them and find a way for them
to sit with me -- the sheer profusion, colour and vibrancy of life,
alongside the same death. The pollution and beauty, the care and
hatred, the wealth and sheer grinding destitution, the staggering
array of diseases. And everywhere the numbers of people needing and
wanting hope, possibility, a future.
Day
Sixteen: Masai Mara and Nairobi
Up at 5am to go ballooning over the Mara with Transworld
Balloon Safaris. The huge burners start pre-dawn and the beast
begins inflating. The flames flare and I think my hair is on fire
it is so hot, but slowly we ascend into a glorious gold and purple
sunrise. We get caught in down draughts and updraughts and
crosswinds and turbulence and I know exactly what each thing is as
it happens. I also know instinctively what to do to fix it and how
long it will take. My paragliding training comes into it's own and
I have the most fantastic flight even though I see almost nothing
in the way of game. The Landrover that has bourne me over 2,000
kilometres of the worst road known to man finally says get f**ked
and plays dead for a few hours with a shagged and seized bearing,
but it finally gets me back to Nairobi's Hotel Boulevard to a happy
night of bathing and eating well.
