A Kenyan Christmas (Part 1)

The December holiday at our new school is even longer than it was in our last school at a mouth watering 3 and a half weeks. Here we are in Africa with our dream of going on safari ahead of us but the only problem was cost. It turns out that you can’t actually afford to go on safari for three odd weeks, it’s just too expensive.

That being said we wanted to maximise our holiday time.  Look no further than the ingenious planning skills of Lindsey who came up with the brilliant idea of booking an AirBnB for the first 5 nights of our trip so we could settle in to the holiday before going on ‘proper’ safari.

Nairobi is a surprisingly long flight from Ghana, at least to my mind which is an illustration of just how big Africa is. That being said, the airline was fine, if not brilliant, and the 5 hours went pretty quickly. Kenya is a three hour time difference from Ghana too so we arrived quite late. One of the first things we noticed was a heightened level of security. Everywhere you go from malls to hotels seems to have a protracted security check before you get in. We were met at the airport by a driver arranged by the tour company which turned out to be excellent and took us to a nearby hotel where we stayed for one night. We went to a nearby mall for dinner in a pretty basic outside canteen like area and already started noticing that Kenya is also cheaper than Ghana. Ghana has experienced a recent loss of value in its currency that might be something to do with it but whatever the reason we were pleasantly surprised.

The next morning we checked out of our hotel and waited for our rental car to show up. The place we had booked was about 2 hours north of Nairobi and so we had planned the car to arrive at around 10:00 am to give us plenty of time to get there for lunch. In true ‘Africa time’ style, the car was a staggering 1.5 hours late which drove Lindsey into paroxysms of rage. She was actually convinced that despite the fact that both the driver and rental company office were messaging us that the whole thing was a scam and the car would never actually arrive – spoiler alert, it did. The reviews of this particular rental company had been pretty good unlike the major rental companies you’ve heard of which all faired pretty badly in the local reviews. The car we ordered was a small SUV and we got a Toyota Rav which definitely meets that description in my view. The problem was that not only was it a complete wreck, it was also filthy both inside and out. This was the first time we’ve ever rented a wreck and not knowing that that’s what you are doing was all the more surprising. The good news was that it was perfectly functional and unlike other rentals we’ve had, we weren’t at all bothered about the condition we returned it in. There’s no way you’d be able to distinguish a scratch we had contributed over the many other scratches it already had and you’d have to clean it first!

The drive to Naivasha was pretty uneventful. Kenyan roads are definitely better than Ghanaian roads but still not great. In addition, our route was also a major truck route with often only one lane so it could be slow going. The highlight was driving alongside the Rift Valley. This was quite mind-blowing for me as I’d only ever imagined such a place as featuring in a David Attenborough documentary. I couldn’t quite get my head around the fact that we were actually driving through it and in fact going to be staying there.

That day we were treated to lots of birds in the garden but the real magic began the following morning.  I had gotten up to turn the coffee machine on and when I arrived in the kitchen I could see several zebras in the garden from the kitchen window.  In my disbelief and excitement I accidentally told Lindsey that what we had were giraffes and not zebras in the garden but was able to correct my mistake before we ran back into the kitchen.  The zebras calmly wondered into our garden right in front of the patio area and weren’t at all bothered when we went outside to watch them.  We literally couldn’t believe it.

Later that day we went on an excursion to Crescent Island which is an island quite nearby. On the way, we saw actual giraffes and were able to get out of the car to have a good look at them. My mother would have definitely tried them out on some ginger snap biscuits but unfortunately, we didn’t have any.

Before getting to the island we went on a boat ride on Lake Naivasha where there were loads of great birds. At one point our boat driver, Kennedy, stopped and bought some fish from a fisherman whose boat consisted of two oil drums lashed together. He then proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs to call in an African Fish Eagle. He would then throw the fish a little distance away from the boat and we could watch and photograph the eagle coming in to grab the fish – totally brilliant.

Crescent Island was slowly landlocked by the rising lake waters so some of the animals were basically trapped there although I think most of them can swim. There are no vehicles on the island so you just walk around on vague paths right where the animals might be. There were a few giraffes, zebras and other antelopes but the best part for me were the wildebeests who at one point started having a bit of a mad run around at an alarmingly close distance to us. They were pretty cool but there were also hippos just sun bathing on the lake edge. No fences or anything, just us and the animals – all super cool.

Other highlights while we were in Naivasha were a guided bird walk by a local guide who also worked at raptor rehab centre which was next door to our place. He gave us a guided tour of the place which involved us both carrying a large baseball bat type stick. It turned out that these were useful in keeping the vultures at bay when you went into their enclosure. One had a thing for grabbing laces and one was quite friendly and liked a stroke. The only problem was that this made one of the other vultures jealous who would then lunge at you – hence the stick. I got caught out and was bitten by the vulture but it fortunately didn’t draw blood as this would have been a whole other story!!

Each night we had a charcoal barbecue as well as a proper bonfire made by the security guard. The security guard would wonder around vaguely shining his torch around for a bit. At one point he stunningly pointed out that there were actual hippos just next to our garden. They had probably walked within 30 ft of the barbecue.

Before settling down to our evening routine we usually sat at a little table and bench overlooking the lake having some wine. Two of the evenings we were there we were visited by a hyena who just nonchalantly sauntered by – again, totally unbelievable.

When it came to finally leave we were pretty gutted to be leaving such an amazing place but people were parking up as we were getting into the car so there was no other option to leave and start our proper safari. At that point it was difficult to believe it was going to get better…