Our Kenya trip was quite a last-minute thing. We had an empty few weeks ahead of us, the wildebeest were a-migrating and I had been on a short hiatus from wildlife... yep, it was time to go to Africa. Some research, some emails and some furious web-surfing later, our trip was set. The only catch was that Serena Lodge, where we wanted to stay, was full, so we settled for Keekorok and Sarova Camp. All was looking good, but of course, being us, no trip to Africa is complete without pre-departure drama, and this time, it took the form of yellow fever inoculations.
I got to Kolkata & Pritha got to Mumbai, both from the Andamans, with a week in hand. In Kolkata,
there was no yellow fever vaccines to be had. In Mumbai there was no yellow fever vaccines to be had (apparently, there was a shortfall for the past 4 months). We were being told we needed to get vaccinated 10 days before departure in order to be allowed to depart and our trip was less than a week away. Slight problem. Ultimately, it all worked out (although Pritha had to fly to Delhi, get her shots and then fly back to Pune) and before long, we were sitting on a Kenya Airways flight, bound for Nairobi. The flight arrived on time, the luggage arrived on time and Christopher, the head of Woni Safaris in Nairobi, was there to pick us up and transfer us to the Nairobi Club where we were staying.
We had a free day the next day, which we spent wandering out downtown Nairobi (I picked up a couple of bird books on East Africa as well as a new mammal guide), eating Ethiopian food at Dass and meeting up with some acquaintances and finalizing some details with Christopher.
Next day, William, our guide, was promptly at our door at 6am and we were off. An uneventful drive - albeit dusty in bits - and we entered the Mara a little past 12. The plan was to drive straight to Keekorok, check in and have lunch and start proper game drives after lunch; however, as luck would have it, we saw a few lions resting under a tree right by the roadside. An auspicious start indeed.
The afternoon game drive started off slowly, but it didnt matter. Seeing the sweeping plains of the Mara, smelling the fresh rain on the dusty soil... aaah, this was Africa indeed and it was good to be back. The highlight of the day was coming across a pride - again by the roadside - with cubs. We sat with the cubs for almost 2 hours as they played with each other, with mum’s tail, with a branch and anything else they could find. This marked the most number of shots I have ever taken during a single game drive, incidentally.
As a perfect end to a great day, we came across a bat-eared fox - an animal that had eluded me so far in Africa - on the way back to the lodge! Perfect. We slept well that night!
The next day was allocated to trying to get the wildebeest crossing the river. After a short morning drive to get the sunrise, we returned for a quick breakfast and then we were off to cross the Mara river and get a crossing. We came across one large herd massing, but they were in a location that did not allow us a view, so we went onwards to another point also favored by wildebeest. The wildebeest would approach the river banks, snorting and braying loudly and one or two brave souls would even start to approach the water before one craven individual would lose it and run off.. and that would set the entire herd off in a panicked gallop away from the river. After several hours of seeing this, we were despairing of getting any shots that day but
ultimately our patience paid off - a small group of gnus jumped in and swam across. One was attached by a croc but managed to get free. All too soon, it was over; the rest of the gnus decided to wait for another day and ambled off. However, one young gnu decided it had to cross - alone, it leapt into the river and started making for the other shore. Two crocs, which had turned away, immediately started heading towards it. It was touch and go - the strong current of the river slowed down the crocs enough, and just as they got to the wildebeest, it clambered onto the shore on the other side and trotted off. A muted cheer went up among all the viewers on our side of the river - and I have to confess, a soft “Yessss!!!” escaped my lips as well. It was a heroic effort.
As the sun got lower and the rest of the wildebeest refused to cooperate, we too headed back, spotting a couple of male lions, one lying in the open and the other under an acacia tree en route. Oh, did I mention 2 bat-eared foxes in the morning? Yep, we were definitely on a roll here.
Day three was another full day by the river. We had an early breakfast and departed directly for the Mara. It was amazing crossing the Mara river on the low bridge and seeing the number of carcasses washed up against the shore - a feast that attracted several hundred vultures as well as a few Marabou storks. We drove up to the crossing point near the Serena, and again the same drama with the hesitant wildebeest (yes, yes, yes... NOOOO) played itself. Our good luck continued and we saw another group of 30-40 individuals crossing the river. 2 more croc attacks - one got away, the other, a juvenile, was taken under and drowned. Then disaster struck - on the drive back that I found that the mount of my 100-400 had come loose and it was not focusing. That left me stuck with manual focus on my most-used lens. Not fun.
The morning drive of day four produced great session with another pride of lions - including a very tender moment between an pride male and a cub, as well as lots more shots of cubs playing. Then back to Keekorok for breakfast, a quick checkout and we were off to the Sarova Lodge. The next couple of days were spent looking for cheetah - no luck with this cat, but some really exceptional lion encounters, including a pride male who mated right in the open in front of us and then apparently had a tiff with the missus, cos she went off into the bushes and appearing on the other side, took off in one direction and he, after looking in vain for her, marched off in an opposite direction... and kept going for almost an hour, much to the chagrin of the herbivores in the area. We also came across some amazingly large herds of wildebeest - literally spanning the entire horizon as far as we could see. Cameras could not do the scene justice, so we often would just stop the vehicle and look in awe and wonder at the amazing sight that stretched out before us. Truly, this is something everyone who loves nature has to see atleast once!
It was at this point that we decided to extend our stay (we had originally planned a week-long trip but it was going to be too short, given the photo ops we were getting), and so after our 2 nights at the Sarova, we tacked on 3 additional nights at the Sopa Lodge (Serena being still unavailable).
This turned out to be very productive as well - twice, we came across a pride of lions with a kill in the open; several large herds of buffalo and elephants, regular hyena and jackal sightings and some very nice landscapes. We did try our luck with the river crossing again, hoping to see a large crossing involving hundreds of wildebeest, but that eluded us. We did have a very interesting sighting - a large martial eagle sitting on top of a struggling Egyptian goose. The eagle keep the goose in its claws for almost 10 minutes while trying to figure out what to do next - finally, it gave up and flew off to a nearby tree. A very dishevelled goose, in the meantime, started going about its regular business, right under the very tree where its erstwhile attacker was sitting. Amazing!
Cheetah and leopard still eluded us, although we saw something even rarer in the Mara on our last
day: black rhino. This magnificent, long-horned prehistoric creature rumbled around in the open grasslands for over half an hour, affording us magnificent views. And then, as is always the case with Africa, all too soon it was time to leave.
By evening, we were ensconed in our hotel in Nairobi again. The rest of the trip was unplanned but by the time we had got to Nairobi, we had decided on the next destination: Baringo.
The next day, we rented a Toyota RAV4 from Adventure Upgrade Safaris, who gave us an excellent rate and also brought the car to our hotel. Following the advice from our Nairobi-based friends, we decided to engage the services of a driver as well, and Woni Safaris came through for us again. By 10:30am, we were off to Baringo, getting in the afternoon and checking into Roberts Camp. I met up with Moses Kandie, who is a Birdforum member and also president of the Baringo Birding Club and chalked out a plan for a few days of birding.
The next two days were fairly quiet - I did a couple of morning birding walks as well as an afternoon one. Not being a twitcher, I care about is getting good looks at birds rather than a large species list, and despite my slow pace, we were still able to clock up over a 100 species in a day: that is 100 species seen properly, through the scope. If I were to count the half-look, calls and BVDs, that count would probably be twice that. We also visited Lake Bogoria one afternoon - it was quite nice, but frankly, from a photographers point of view, a little underwhelming. The last morning was spent on a boat, trying to photograph African fish eagles hunting for fish thrown to them: a very interesting, if a little contrived, experience.
Overall, Baringo was great. Roberts Camp has
some excellent cottages at a very good price and offer quite good food as well. We had a very relaxing 4 days there but it was now time to go. The big question was - where? I wanted to visit Samburu but for atleast 3-4 days, which we did not have. We were going to do Nakuru for a day anyway, but that left us with 2 extra days. We decided to hit Nakuru and take it from there, but as we were en route, a last minute change of plan had us heading to Kakamega.
We got in late, had a pretty grim dinner at the rather ambitiously-named Savona Resort (although the Luia playing on TV made up for it), discovered that there was no running water in the resort (ouch) and went to sleep. Early morning, we drove to Kakamega, the “last surviving swath of the mighty Guyano-Congolese rain forests in East Africa”, as our guide book said. Right. Swath is the operative word here This is a very small park - about 400 square kilometers, if that, but houses a good number of primate species. We scored with the black and white colobus, the red monkey and the blue monkey, but struck out on the turacos and the trogons, the main reason we were there. Birding was very slow, with 3 hours of traipsing around only revealing 11 species that I was able to see well enough to ID myself (and another 7-8 species that the guide IDed but which I did not see well enough to mark off).
I had always wanted to go check out Lake Victoria, and more so as I was reading a Wilbur Smith novel set in the region, so we drove to Kisumu for lunch. It was a lively, relaxed, atmospheric town: we walked around a little after lunch, checking out a local market and I managed to find a couple of Ndombolo/Lingala CDs. By then, it was gettig late in the afternoon and so off to Nakuru we went. We arrived at Nakuru too late to enter the National Park, so decided to sleep at the Merica Hotel in town.
Early next morning, we were off for Nakuru NP. We did a short drive in the park on entry, and then checked into the Serena Nakuru Lodge, stuffed ourselves on their breakfast, gave Michael the rest of the day off and then went off for another drive. Not a whole lot around besides rhino and the flamingoes on the lakeshore on this drive, but the afternoon drive turned up 2 sets of lions, the latter on a kill, as well as some very good encounters with rhino, buffalo and the waders of the lake: great white pelicans, lesser flamingoes, a few sandpipers (yeah right, I am going to look at peeps when there is a rhino on the other side), yellow billed storks, marabous, black-winged stilts and a few more.
The next morning, I did a loop of the lake, hoping to get some nice light for sunrise - alas, it was
cloudy and by the time the sun made an appearance, it was too high up. I found another lion, a few more rhino, rediscovered 3 lions from the previous day, but the highlight of the day was watching a group of jackals playing by the side of the road, near their den - not far from a rather disinterested lioness. I barely made it back to the lodge for breakfast. Then we checked out, picked up Michael and left. I had already packed away my gear, which was a cardinal error because a few minutes after we left the lodge, we saw a vehicle parked by the side of the road. Following their gaze, I saw a tawny object sitting on a rock some distance away. Ho hum, yet another lion, I thought... but dutifully scanned it
with my binos. Whoah. A leopard. The beautiful cat sat in the open for a while, and then casually sauntered along the hillside, parallel to the road, giving us 20 minutes of great views, before disappearing behind some bushes. What a great way to finish the trip!
We had one last free day in Nairobi before we left, which we used to visit the David Sheldrick Foundation and see the baby elephants being fed (cute), the Nairobi National Park boardwalk (pleasant) and lunch at Carnivore (now we are talking!). The next day, an uneventful flight back to Mumbai and thus the curtain was drawn on another Africa trip... a very productive one from a photography point of view.
I have to thank Woni Safaris, a small family run safari operator in Nairobi, for organizing a superb trip, with an excellent guide, great service and exceeding our expectations in every regard - especially putting up with my demands and last-minute change of plans.
Another big thumbs-up goes to Adventure Upgrade Safaris Tours & Car Hire, for providing us with a very good condition vehicle at a price that was by far lower than what most other places offered. Both are highly recommended.
Kenyan parks are definitely quite commericalized
and cater heavily to the casual wildlife crowd - people for whom the swimming pool, quality of the buffet and luxuriousness of the room matters as much as the wildlife. For a truly wild experience, I still think a walking safari in the parks of Zimbabwe is hard to beat - but when it comes to wildlife photography, there are few parks in the world which are as productive as the Maasai Mara/Serengeti ecosystem when the wildebeest herds are in town.
I am planning a Photo Safari India photography tour for September 2009 for another shot at photographing the wildebeest migration into the Mara. Drop us an email if you would like to join the trip (limited to 12 people max).
A few more photos
