Nairobi Wildlife

We are sitting here replete having had a yummy dinner of beef stew and wonderful mashed potato (heaven after the ubiquitous ugali), listening to Band Aid 84 – Feed the World with Carine the Congolese, squishing mosquitoes and enjoying the sheer, wondrous incongruity of it all.

Here in Karen the wildlife on offer is guard dogs (which keep us up in the evening), and birds (which wake us up in the morning). Admittedly, there was a snake which leapt out at Joanna from the washing bag (the house manager was still chuckling about it when I met her hours later). But all in all, we found ourselves craving giraffes, hippos, lions and stuff, so this morning found us piling into a land rover with the family May (9 in all) to go to the Nairobi National Park, all of 5 miles down the road.

Minutes later we were in the park, looking at different types of antelope (horny), zebras (which grumpy father May said were only stripy donkeys), crocodiles (Swahili Mumba), birds with a death wish (the crocodile only had to move its head for a feathery snack), giraffes (spotty), rhinos (big but static) and all the other assorted miscellany of Africa (no cats though, therefore they are boring).

I should mention at this time a small note on the organisation of the park. There are around 6 roads in all, with numbered junctions, marked clearly on both the map, and on the junction itself, better signposted than even Palmers Green. Very easy, and practically impossible to get lost. Only, we managed! After a few minutes of pootling along we, in true cheesy BBC documentary style, had a disaster.

Driving along a dubious looking track, the Landrover got stuck in mud, and started to sink. Fortunately, still in cheesy documentary land, a bunch of cheery locals appeared as if from no-where, shook their heads at the stupidity of these Muzungos, and proceeded to dig us out. Meanwhile, having been unloaded from the car, the kids produced a pile of bones from nowhere. The rescuers then suggested that we take a different way (which looked twice as lethal as that already failed), so we turned tail and fled back the way we had come.

We picnicked at a leopard viewpoint, in the blazing sun, with amazing burning benches (I had a sore bum by the end of lunch by any rate). Sadly we saw no leopards and before long were on our way.

You will recall me mentioning that Kenya has been in the middle of a drought, well the animals in the park were on the whole sleek and fat, especially the bloody zebra, which were everywhere. We have also had lots of recent rain, which has led to green shoots showing on the vegetation (let’s pray that we do have enough rain…). However, the evidence of the drought was all around in the cows carcasses which were our ever present companions, they are obviously not as hardy as their wild cousins.

Our final treat for the day was saved for the nature trail on which we met our first hippos, and a kingfisher.

Then it was a rather bumpy ride (especially for Jo in the boot) back to the compound, for a game of cops and robbers, before tea, and now… bed.