Kenya-Jacaranda-Ringo

After a hard summer, my girlfriend Maria and I decided to fly to Kenya to spend 2 dream weeks... We chose the Jacaranda village, a very well-kept Italian-run property located a stone's throw from the legendary Sardegna 2, a strip of white sand that at low tide reveals the endless colours of the ocean and the creatures that live there!! I won't dwell on the village and the sea... just know that they deserve top marks!!! And the entertainers are fantastic, decent people, never pushy and always available! For the excursions we turned, with immense satisfaction, to Ringo (frankmwangudza@yahoo.co.uk), a golden guy, truly a one-off... I can tell you he gave us unique emotions and today he remains a great friend!!! We contacted Ringo from Italy and he was punctual on our arrival, right on the village beach...

he welcomed us like old friends and offered us a 2-day safari and the blue safari for 200€, whereas the village was offering the same things for over 350€. We had a fantastic experience with a couple of friends, Anna and Stefano, and with Annamaria and her 2 children... Punctual as Swiss clocks, Ringo and a driver were waiting in front of the village and off we went towards the SAVANNAH!!! The trip started badly: the cash machine swallowed our credit card!! But Ringo promptly phoned the Bank and got our credit card back... Bear in mind that this bad luck struck again at 3 in the morning during the 2nd safari and we set off confident that Ringo would help us again!! But let's get back to the first safari, Tsavo East... immense, bright and with unique colours.. we saw every animal except the Rhinoceros (very few are left now) — at our entrance to the park a young lion...

then Elephants, dozens of elephants, zebras, gazelles, antelopes, buffalo, lionesses etc.. In short, the morning safari was fruitful!! in the afternoon, after a hearty lunch at the VOI VILLAGE, a splendid 5-star resort in the middle of the savannah with a waterhole always full of animals, we resumed the search... and again so many animals waiting for us!! The second day we were very lucky to see the Cheetahs hunting...4 beautiful specimens that kept us company for 1 hour... truly fantastic.. We came back with adrenaline at 1000. After a day of rest at the Jacaranda we went on the blue safari... a dive among the fish topped off by a lunch of lobster, prawns and barracuda out at sea... On the way back we took a tour of Watamu and the orphanage...

TEARS galore!!!! One piece of advice, if you want to do your bit, help the children in the street — they have no one! Take them pens, notebooks and clothes... avoid sweets, they have no dentists!!! Before you leave, give them medicines and various soaps and they'll be eternally grateful... a single smile will make you a fulfilled person for the rest of your life! Help them!!!! Given the fantastic treatment Ringo and Plastica reserved for us, we decided to do more excursions, the golden beach and the town of Gedi....2 more thrilling adventures... At the golden beach we saw hippos swimming at the mouth of the river and among the waves of the sea....incredible...there were also lots of flamingos. The ruins of Gedi are a splendid place in the middle of the bush dominated by enormous baobabs, the kingdom of the monkeys... by now so used to humans that you can feed them bananas.

After the many excursions we devoted ourselves to relaxation... and then we had to say goodbye to our travelling companions, who only stayed a week. The second week needed shaking up, so I suggested to Ringo that we do a new safari, TSAVO WEST, 2 days!!! Well, what can I say, totally different and new! The habitat was different: the immense savannah plains had become cliffs dominated by lions and the other big cats, smaller than in Tsavo East, and for this reason the contact with the animals is close, very close.. we had to close the windows because a "docile" Leopard passed under our windows, incredible! The contact with nature here is very close: our tent was a target for the elephants...

and the sounds of the savannah "lulled" us all night long! One piece of advice: if you want to see the real savannah, Tsavo West is indisputably more beautiful, rich in big cats, and then you'll be very close to them... unique emotions! Once the holiday was over we returned home with a bad case of AFRICA SICKNESS but with many more friends, and one special one whom we'll never tire of thanking: RINGO!! If you go to WATAMU, contact us for all the info and then to send small parcels to our friends! Thanks and JAMBO JAMBO!!! Stefano and Maria