Saturday 11 April
Up early, bags packed, breakfast at 6.30 and briefings before we leave. Very nice breakfast, we return here for more night on our way back.
Our guide Juma is very organised. We are handed out water bottles and safari hats, even though we were told to bring both!
We have three land cruises for the 16 of us. The “jeeps” are enclosed but the windows open easily and the roof can go back so we stand up when needed. The crew are allocated jeep 2 and our driver is Abdi, I am pretty sure he is Indian. There are a lot of Indians in Kenya as they were brought in by the British to build the railway lines.
We sit side by side behind the driver with an aisle down the middle. There is not a lot of leg room but it is comfortable.
Nairobi has 5 million population and even though it is Saturday traffic is bad to very bad. At least we are heading against it. Road rules seem to be get your nose in front and you have right of way. It takes nearly an hour to leave the urban area behind. There are a lot of areas we would call slums along the sides of the highway but they have a thriving population among them. People are selling everything along the highway. There is a lot of dodgem cars happening as lane swapping with or without indicators is compulsory.
As we get out a bit further farms and plantations appear, from a huge pineapple plantation to avocados, mangos and even eucalypt trees.
We now start to hit rumble strips and speed humps and these appear nearly every 2 kms! At these areas there are sellers standing on the sides and in the middle holding bags of fruit to sell. It would have to be a quick transaction.
We have a rest stop after about 2 hours around 10.15.
As we continue we pass through small towns that are trading areas for people around the area. There are shops, stores etc on both sides of the highway and houses/shacks built beyond in dirt tracks running off the highway. We finally get to our destination Maisha Sweetwaters Camp at 12.30. The last 10 kms were over unmade roads and we were back to African massage. The whole drive was challenging, cars changing lanes, overtaking when we reached the single lane was diving with death. Our driver was fine, it was all the other cars who trusted they could get back in when overtaking blind.
The food for lunch buffet was amazing. There was Indian, Vegetarian, lamb, fish and Turkey stir fry plus a variety of sweets.
Head off on our first game drive after lunch and rain is threatening. We have a shower but it quickly clears up.
Ticked off another of the big five - Cape Buffalo and Rhinoceros. In addition we saw the usual impala, zebras and elephants. Also ticked off were white and black rhinoceros as well as elands, antelope, warthog, African hare, Hartebeest, fish eagle, hammerkop, ibis, guinea fowl, water buck.
We also visited the Jane Goodall chimpanzee sanctuary and Ann fed Baraka the blind 30 year old rhinoceros at the rhinoceros sanctuary. As we left to go back to camp the rains started but before it got too heavy we went to the equator meridian!
Despite travelling for the last two and a half days, it has finished well.
Sweet water Tent!
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