Kenya: my first steps to the black beauty of Africa

A trip to Kenya was one of my wildest dreams since I was a child, actually since the time I was studying geography at school. I kept on dreaming about staring at the free wild animals in the exotic landscape of savanna and the stunning African sunsets….a dream living inside my mind for so many years. Unfortunately, this dream remained a dream, mainly due to safety reasons regarding terrorism and the civil wars of the recent years. Just until last summer that me and my co-traveler talked about it and decided within a few minutes: “let’s take this trip to Kenya!”. The air tickets were so easy to book, Munich-London and then directly to Nairobi by British Airways. A Greek friend of mine helped us finding a local guide for the game drives, as she had spent some years in Nairobi together with her family for business, so everything was set to start organizing this fabulous trip. A few days later and after a lot of discussions, we decided a program of about 7 days in the mainland for safari with our local guide and 5 days in the coast alone. 2 more domestic flights Nairobi – Mombasa – Nairobi and we are ready!!

No, we were not. We needed vaccination for yellow fever and other diseases, malaria pills, safari clothing, insect repellents, various medicines for gastroenteritis, protection from the strong sunburns of the equator, travel insurance, etc. Oh, such a challenging trip!! When we visited the doctor in Germany for the yellow fever vaccine, he asked me with a puzzled expression: “what are you going to do in Kenya?” – “Hmmm, safari, swimming in the Indian Ocean!” I replied smiling – “But, in Kenya? It is a very dangerous country, malaria is very common there, daily terror attacks, locals are very poor and wild, think again, this is not a country for holidays!”. In the end, we had the shots, we bought the pills for the malaria disease that kills people everyday in Africa and finally the departure date arrived.

We spent about 13 painful days in this dangerous country! We came back relieved from such an ugly place, with bad locals watching out to kill and steal us all day long, we caught yellow fever and the mosquitoes were biting us all the time, so the malaria pills were totally useless and we now suffer from lots of different diseases. We were bitten by the wild beasts, I almost drowned into the wild Indian ocean and finally, all those people who were trying to change our mind for not traveling to this infamous country called Kenya, were so right!!

So, check out my bad moments there, for yourselves:

Between the dozens of national parks and reserves in Kenya, we chose the 2 most important ones. Maasai Mara to watch the great migration from Tanzania and Amboseli, located at the border of Tanzania, for the magnificent views to the legendary Kilimanjaro mountain. To organize the whole game drive thing, I collaborated with a local guide, Wilsons Travels, a small travel agency based in Nairobi. Our tour leader Gerald, who knows everything about the parks, took great care of us just from the very first moment we landed in the airport and for the rest of the safari days, and together with our driver Francis we spent about 7 excellent days all of us together as friends.

We met almost every animal in the park, zebras, gnus, elephants, lions, giraffes, hyenas with babies, hippos and many other wild animals eating, sleeping and roaming free in their natural environment. Our safaris’ highlight was a beautiful cheetah in Maasai Mara that was ready to attack on a herd of zebras, but finally he got bored and left…apparently he wasn’t that hungry….

To tell you the truth, during our whole stay, we didn’t meet with the bad and dangerous local Kenyans, those who are lurking to mug and kill the wealthy white tourists. On the other hand, we didn’t walk around the towns alone. Kenya has many dangerous areas, indeed, that’s why we used a local guide for our transportation.

In Nairobi, we had no time left to visit the city center, or the notorious slum area of Kibara and we used a private car to go for dining. Additionally, inside the national parks, we interacted only with the lodges’ stuff and the traditional Maasai Mara tribe. Even then, their traditional village located inside the park is a tourist attraction, so there is no danger at all. On our way back from Amboseli though, we stopped at a local fruit street-market in Emali town and as we were the only white tourists there, we made an impression. However, even there we didn’t feel uncomfortable for a single minute, but of course being with our local guide all the time: we walked around taking photos, buying fruits and spending time with the merchants’ children and the orphan – beggar kids who live alone on the streets.

During the rest of our stay in the coast, we were totally alone, we were exploring the place on foot or by tuk-tuks during the daylight, we enjoyed our lunch in restaurants together with the locals and, in general, we didn’t encounter any danger, as we were using a taxi during the nighttime as well. The truth is that on our way to the Mombasa airport from Diani beach, people were more aggressive, particularly when we tried to take photos from inside our taxi or in the ferry, but even then we didn’t really have any bad experience. My overall impression from all those days is that Kenyan people are incredibly friendly and kind, and despite their poverty and difficult daily life, they always smile…. and that you always have to watch your back, as you can find “bad” people everywhere.

The south coast of Kenya, from Diani beach to the borders of Tanzania, is nothing more than just a dream….

Palm trees, fine white sand and turquoise waters!! The highlight of the beach is the local camels, which you can ride along the coast, or if you don’t want to trouble them, you can rent a traditional wooden boat, made of mango trees, and sail across the opposite sandbank in the middle of the ocean… a picture is worth a thousand words….