Kenya safari diary: 23 days from Nairobi to Lake Victoria

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25.11.2013 Nakuru (Kenya)

[Stefy]: “Two hours later we're in the air again, this time bound for Nairobi. We land in the dead of night, around three, and after clearing the various customs formalities we take possession of our 4x4 truck and stock up at Nakumatt, Nairobi's big supermarket, on everything we'll need for these 23 days of safari!”

Nairobi greets us with its chaos, its big buildings, the disorder typical of great African cities and its marabou storks that dominate its polluted sky and crowd the skeletal trees like big fruits.

The transfer towards Nakuru National Park already lets us breathe a bit of real Africa. We stand stunned before the vastness of the Rift Valley… We drive along a grey strip of asphalt, now and then meeting families of baboons sitting on the red earth, watching the traffic indifferently.

We climb up to 2,500 metres to reach our first camp: Kembu Campsite.

The sun shines high even though it's a bit chilly, and we soon pitch our tents, forming our first camp!

26.11.2013 Nakuru (Kenya)

The equipped truck is an excellent way to approach the animals with respect and admire them up close. Here come the first baboons, then the wildebeest, the buffalo, the gazelles… it's a crescendo of exceptional encounters and emotions. In the distance a leopard elegantly climbs down from a tree, a small group of young lions relax under an acacia, zebras trot along calmly, wildebeest graze the sparse grass together with clumsy warthogs, some Thomson's gazelles watch us curiously, buffalo wander wearily without a destination, an impala runs off frightened: we're timidly entering their world!

27.11.2013 Masai Mara (Kenya)

We set off early towards Narok. We enter the kingdom of the Maasai. We get ourselves into an arduous undertaking when we decide to buy a piece of ice for our cool box… We follow Hernest and Alì through a thousand narrow, crowded alleys of the local little market; we often come across old Maasai whom we admire with a kind of reverential awe; they wear bright red costumes, many decorations made of multicoloured beads at their necks, wrists, ankles and ears stretched into big holes, plus the inevitable multi-purpose stick in their hands.

[Stefy]: “Shortly before entering the national park we stop to visit, after negotiating with the tribal chief, a Maasai village. They welcome us with a series of dances and songs up to the classic jumping dance. They tell us about their life as nomads, they show us their daily life, their straw huts, and they explain how they light a fire using only little pieces of wood.”

28.11.2013 Masai Mara (Kenya)

At dawn we pass through the gate of the national park. Another thrilling safari begins!

We meet many animals and each time we're spellbound watching them, imagining their wild life, analysing and studying every single detail; we lose ourselves following with our eyes the black stripes of the zebras, all different, or the yellow-brown patches of the placid, funny giraffes. Herds of elephants stroll about bored, others graze, sometimes tearing whole bushes with their strong trunks, while a little one trotted along trying to understand how to use its small protuberance… Some ostriches stretch their long, bare necks to watch you; a bored hyena stretches in the shade of a big bush, up to the majestic leopard who, after resting on an acacia branch, climbs imperiously down from the tree, arousing our admiration. Dozens of carcasses or old skeletons of wildebeest scattered here and there reminded us that this was an area of great hunting and menacing predators… the chain of life!

29.11.2013 Kisumu (Kenya)

We travel almost all day to reach the town of Kisumu on Lake Victoria. Along the way we begin to get a first sense of everyday Kenyan life. We pass through numerous villages of straw and mud huts; women and children queuing at the water well with big yellow jerrycans in their hands or perfectly balanced on their heads. Curious, we stop to visit a couple of local little markets, we wander among sellers of all kinds of goods, especially shoes and second-hand clothes imported from the consumerist West.

We arrive in Kisumu when it's already dark. Kisumu seems to be a fairly big town and is marked by the usual neglect typical of these places where the survival of its people takes precedence over urban aesthetics.

We stop at the Kisumu Beach Resort, a squalid place full of mosquitoes — after all, we're right on the shores of Lake Victoria… “but the mosquitoes aren't malarial” — as one of the guys who runs it tries to reassure us.

It's hard to pitch the tents after 12 hours of truck, tired, sweaty, hungry, in the dark and on rough, hard ground while insects of every kind buzz around you.

Only the dinner prepared by Alì — penne with tomato sauce and tuna — manages to give us a bit of energy!

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