Recently, Mombasa has been in the news because of the pirated ship, Alabama. The Alabama entered Mombasa Harbor 90 minutes after we left on Saturday evening (minus its Captain who was still being held hostage) and our Captain let us know that he had the ship on his radar as we were leaving. Our trip from the Seychelles was eventful in that the Captain had to make substantial course changes due to the 5 hijackings that took place on our way into Mombasa. Holland America flew in their head of security from Holland to meet the ship in Mombasa. The U.S. Navy agreed to keep us within their radar range until we reached the coast of Mozambique, which is south of the pirates operating area.
Tsavo National park is a 2 ½ hour drive about halfway between Mombasa and the capitol Nairobi. Tsavo is a massive plain which allows the animals to migrate between Tsavo, Masai Mara Park and the Serengeti Plain on the Tanzania border. I’ve included some pictures of our beautiful lodge inside Tsavo (more about this in the next paragraph). Over the two days we had 4 game drives with each being in a different area of the park which covers 10,000 square miles. We only saw one quarter of it. During each drive we were able to view many different types of animals including Lion, Cheetah (eating a fresh kill), Elephant herds, Giraffes, Zebras, Cape Buffalo’s (bad boys), Jackals, Baboons, Monkeys, Impalas, Gazelles, Mongoose, Hartebeast, Hippos, Crocodiles and dozens of birds (some as large as a small child). Speaking in Swahili, the guides were able to let each other know when they found a group of animals. The weather was hot and humid, as expected. Despite the heat we had to wear long pants, long sleeve shirts and lots of Insect repellent to protect us from the Malaria carrying mosquitos. The CDC informed us that this was a high Malaria risk area and although we had brought Malaria Medication with us, we were told that the side affects of the medicine were worse than the disease, so we did not take it.
OK, the lodge. As the pictures show it was in a beautiful location. However, because it is in the middle of the country the only power available is by generator. Kenya is a 3rd world country and not a whole lot goes as planned. The power was only turned on from 5 PM to midnight and then its blackout time. There was basically one light bulb in the room which meant we took a shower in the dark. Dinner was a buffet which was good despite the fact that they did it with only a couple of lights to work with. The local Beer (Tusker) was good and almost cold. Back in the room, naturally there was no air conditioning and we had to sleep under a mosquito net, which cut off any air that might have circulated through the windows. However, we were asked to keep the windows closed because the Baboons tend to break in, steal everything and make a mess of the room. No problem with me—I don’t relish having a Baboon in the room with me. In fact, at dinner (on an outside porch) one guy at our table left to get some butter for his bread and a Baboon jumped onto his chair and stole his roll. He didn’t need the butter after all. After Marie and I got used to the rock hard beds, the mosquito nets on our nose and began drifting off to sleep, the Lions moved in to the watering hole about 400 yards below our room. We did have one heavy grid protected window open and when the Lions began to growl I almost fell off the bed. It’s hard to explain how loud that sound is in a darkened lodge in Africa in the middle of the night. This lasted for about 30 minutes which gave me time to think about what they might be interested in for dinner. My guess is that we both got 4 hours of sleep before our wakeup at 6:00 AM for the morning game drive.
We’ve included pictures of the people, Kenya countryside and Mombasa old town. Kenya is a republic, and the predominant tribe in Mombasa is the Maasai. Today the country is struggling with its government and less than a year ago Mombasa was the scene of near civil war with thousands killed in the streets. It’s a very poor country with a questionable government leading it. However, in addition to Tsavo, we enjoyed meeting the people, walking the Old Town of Mombasa(which hasn’t changed much since the 19th century), visiting some of the local markets and walking the Bamburi Nature reserve trails. It was a terrific 3 days and without further rhetoric I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
The People
Mombasa environs and Old Town
No comments:
Post a Comment