The Key to a Great Safari: A Great Safari Guide [9 March 2023]

Paul Mbugua

I wanted to avoid an organised safari. You know the sort of thing - the luxury experience plucked from a glossy brochure where you’re dropped into a fabulous safari resort from a shiny light aircraft and you float over Samburu in a balloon, and, ‘here’s your agenda – it’s eight o’clock – let’s go and see the lions. Oh. And here’s the bill. You’re going to need a mortgage.’

But what’s the alternative? Safaris are expensive. They’re complicated. They don’t always go to plan.

Well I thought I knew the alternative. We were travelling with friends and that would spread the costs. I would plan our safari myself. It would be way cheaper. I knew Kenya. I knew where I wanted to go. So I googled safari lodges, and I read online reviews, and I worked out an itinerary that would suit us. We’d do Nairobi National Park and the elephant orphanage. We’d visit Lake Naivasha, and Crescent Island, and Hell’s Gate. We’d stay at Lake Nakuru for the flamingos. We’d go on to the Masai Mara and we’d spend time in the conservancies as well as the Mara Triangle. It would be awesome.

And so I booked it. Six hotels/lodges. Twelve days.  I flirted briefly with the idea of self-drive but quickly abandoned it. I contacted Rhino Safaris because I trust them. I wrote to Lacty, the owner, at info.nbo@rhinosafaris.net . And I told him I needed a good safari land-cruiser and a first class guide for ten days.

Readers – that is what we got. And it reminded me how essential a great guide is for a good safari. Paul Mbugua was more than a first class guide and an excellent driver – he was a splendid travelling companion too. His knowledge of Kenyan wildlife and geology is astonishing. And considering he was ferrying two smart-ass zoologists, and a geologist, including one who felt he knew it all already (that would be me) he still had a whole lot to teach us. Crucially he had enthusiasm. In spades. He would urge us to set off early and return home late and it always paid off. Once we did two back-to-back nine hour days and he never tried to rush us, or to set off before we had seen what we wanted to see. He persuaded us several times to change our agenda. Once was to break with the plan and visit Lake Elementeita. What a good decision that was. Another time we swapped days around because he’d picked up rumours of a leopard. Another good decision. His knowledge of every park was amazing. And the only time we flummoxed him was when we told him we wanted to visit Mount Suswa for the caves on the way back to Nairobi. Well, he’d never done that trip before. So he hired a guide too. This time a Masai guide called Kiano (kianosempui2018@gmail.com ) And what a trip that was.

Would I recommend a self-booked safari? Absolutely I would. It will be half the cost. And you stay in control.  I suggest you call Lacty. And make sure you ask for Paul. (Paul's whatsapp is +254 723 266 401). And for Suswa drop a mail to Kiano. And make sure you send me some photos.  Here are some of mine. 

Please check out my website for more information on my books. https://www.johnironmonger.com 

Kiano Sempui

Lake Elementeita

Nairobi: Was it right to go back? [3 March 2023]

At Kenton ...

The Stanley

Nairobi

Back in January I shared, on this blog, my anxieties about going back to Nairobi. ‘Never Go Back,’ was the advice so many people gave me. I grew up in Nairobi you see. I once knew every city street, and shop, and market stall. I was comfortable prattling in Swahili. I felt as if this city was part of my identity; somehow encoded into my very DNA. But fifty years have passed. I’ve lived in England since 1971. It’s a different time now. Hugely different. Someone warned me that the Nairobi I left was a city of half a million people; the Nairobi I was set to visit had five million. ‘Don’t go back was his advice.’

So did I do the right thing?

Memories are curious things aren’t they? If you live in a place all your life, your recollections of that place evolve along with the landscape as the years pass. But if instead, one day, you simply get up and leave, your memories become frozen in time. Going back is like owning a precious vase, but alas, the paintings on the vase are fading. Someone offers you a brand-new vase with bright new paintwork. But if you accept it, you have to smash the old one. What should you do?

Well of course, I went back. I smashed the old vase. (We took a safari holiday with friends. I will blog about that sometime soon.) And guess what? I didn’t regret a moment. Yes, it was strange. Embakazi Airport (Now Jomo Kenyatta International) once the size of a high-school science block and comfortably out of town, is now a huge complex bristling with dozens of airplanes and now it is buried in a suburb of high-rise buildings, and the roads into town are giant freeways and the traffic is terrible. But I found this exciting. Not depressing. I knew the moment I stepped out of the plane I was going to love this place. It was still Nairobi. (Perhaps that was the biggest surprise.) Lots of the city is still absolutely recognisable. But even if it wasn’t, there is something ineffable about this city, something I can’t quite describe or explain, that stamps this place and its people with its mark and makes it simply the best and most exciting city in the world. It’s a noisy, chaotic, colourful, amazing place. Still. Thank goodness.

We stayed the first three nights at Masai Lodge – a safari lodge in the National Park (a lovely place about an hour out of town. I’d recommend it. Say hi to Cedric on the reception desk for me if you go there.) And we stayed the last few nights at The Stanley. Good choices both. I’ve wanted to stay at the Stanley all my life and it didn’t disappoint. And I visited my old school (Kenton College) and had a very warm welcome there. It was emotional. I watched a mixed-sex and multi-race group of kids doing football practice on the very field where I once played (in an exclusively-white-male school), and it brought a lump to my throat. I used my fifty year old memory to navigate through the streets past the market and the University and the Norfolk Hotel to the snake park (beware there is a new highway in the way) – and hey presto the snake park itself is unchanged in almost every way. Even the black mambas are in the same tank.

It was wonderful. It was cathartic. I left my fellow travellers at the pool on our final afternoon and I took a walk around the city centre on my own, and soaked up the magic and replayed my memories, and relished all that was new and all that was unchanged. So yes – the old vase is smashed; but I love the new one too. And my advice if you, like me, have been away for too long, is very very simple. Go back. It’s wonderful.  

Please check out my website for more information on my books. https://www.johnironmonger.com 

Unchanged - The Snake Park

Nairobi

Nairobi

Never go Back. Should I revisit Nairobi? Or not? [13 Jan 2023]

 Never go back. I’ve been given that piece of advice plenty of  times, by lots of different people, but always with reference to one particular place. Nairobi. The city where I was born. Where I went to primary school. Where I went to prep school. Where I lived until I was seventeen.

Never go back.

I get it. I do. I understand why you should never go back. Memories are fragile enough as it is, why spoil them? Everything will have changed. I left Nairobi in 1971, and when I did, I felt as if I knew every street corner, every shop and bar and café and market stall. I knew the bus routes, and the clubs, and the museum, and the National Park. I was a regular at the Impala Club, and at Dam Busters, and the Snake Park, and the animal orphanage. I knew my way unaided around the city maze. I used to sit at a table in the Thorn Tree Café at the New Stanley Hotel and spot celebrities with my big sister. I was on first name terms with the man who ran Top Ten Records on Kimathi Street, and with the Sikh who ran the camera shop next to the market, and with several owners of second-hand bookstores all along Bazaar Street. I knew the best stall to buy mealies and the best place to get cut pineapple.  My little brother Paul and I used to take the lift to the top of the highest building (then the Hilton Hotel) and climb the service staircase to the roof and we’d sit there watching the whole city at our feet. It was our city. That was how it felt.

Me at Kenton College in around 1966. I'm the miserable looking one - second to the right on the front row. 

There is still a city called Nairobi, and it still stands in the same place - midway between Mombasa and Kisumu on the great railroad - but it isn’t the same city. I understand that. I look at the city on Google Streetview and nowhere is recognisable. I try to find the several old colonial bungalows where we lived at various times between 1958 and 1971, and I can’t find them. The houses all have high walls now. Nothing looks familiar.

Never go back.

But should I? Won’t I get a frisson of pleasure from recognising the occasional place? Surely my old school won’t have changed very much. Surely the Impala Club is still there. And the hippo pool in the National Park. And the museum. And the Stanley Hotel …

Well it’s a moot question. I’m going back. Next month. With Sue and with our good friends Graham and Jenny.  Feel free to send me your advice. Places to see. Places to avoid. I will blog about the trip and let you know how it was. But I can tell you this already. Four weeks to go and I’m already ridiculously excited.

Please check out my website for more information on my books. https://www.johnironmonger.com 

My Map Pins (2) Tsavo East National Park, Kenya (Posted February 2021)

 

I was sixteen when I first went to Tsavo East.  I went as a hanger-on/assistant to a zoologist from the University of Nairobi, and what we were supposed to be doing there was helping to measure the elephant population. How is that for a holiday job? From my memory, I can tell you there were an estimated 30,000 elephants in Tsavo at the time, but someone had apparently decided that a more accurate count was needed.  The plan was for light aircraft to ‘bomb’ groups of elephant with white-wash and then for spotters in Landrovers (us) to criss-cross the park trying to spot and count those elephants with white spots. We stayed at the Tsavo Research Station and we spent every day in the park counting elephants. Tsavo East is larger than Yorkshire. We covered a lot of miles and counted a lot of elephants. One night we were invited to dinner with the park director – an ancient colonial character who shared stories of exploring Kenya on foot as a young man, and who told us of his encounters with the Ghost and the Darkness, the man-eating lions of Tsavo. Dinner concluded with a huge stilton cheese hollowed out and filled with port. Could you get more colonial than that?  This was when I decided I wanted to be a zoologist.

I've been back to Tsavo with Sue. These pictures are from our visit in 2008.   

what3words /// The simplest way to talk about location

What3Words: bookmaking.noted.fumbles

My Map Pins (1) Nairobi, Kenya (Posted February 2021)

 

I haven't been to Nairobi since I was seventeen. That was in 1971. So the photograph here (not my picture by the way) is from around that time, This is Nairobi bus station as I remember it. When I went into town (which I did a lot), this is where I would often go to catch the bus home.

I've been doing that thing on Google Maps where you create a map of your life; you drop a pin into all the places you've been, and before long you have a world map dotted with your memories. No use to anyone of course, except as a rather fun exercise; but I had this idea to turn a few of my pins into blog posts. After all, I have been a rubbish blogger, and it is time I posted some more. So here we are, and I'm starting with Nairobi. This is where I was born - at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital (now the Kenyatta National Hospital). My dad was a civil servant, and we moved around a lot, but the house I remember most was the one Dad built - the home I grew up in. The address used to be Westfield Close, Lavington which is a terribly British address. Today it is Naushad Merali Drive. (See the What3Words link below). I used to know every inch of this neighbourhood. I explored it on my bike, and on foot with my best friend Bruce Bulley. In those days it was on the very edge of town, and you could set off on the Kikuyu paths into wild Kenya - watching out for snakes - and we regularly did. In my novel, 'The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder', this is where the early chapters are set. Adam Last, the voice of the book, lives conveniently in the very house where I did, and he explores the same paths.

I still miss Nairobi. To me it still feels like home. I still hope, one day, to go back

what3words /// The simplest way to talk about location

What3words: dusters.pitch.cowboy