African Tour:Going Home

Flying from Taipei to Johannesburg took 44 hours. There were long delays in Bangkok and Doha. Flying from Mombasa to Taipei took half the time. Every plane took off on time and there were only two to three hour waits in between flights.

Moi International Airport
Mombasa, Kenya

A hotel shuttle took me and a dozen other people the 40km north to Moi International Airport in Mombasa.

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
Nairobi, Kenya

Hamad International Airport
Doha, Qatar

Eight hours later, I was back in Doha. Every other time I have been to Hamad Airport, I had to wait for several hours in the early morning when the airport was mostly closed. This time, I only waited three hours in the early morning when the airport was mostly closed. For whatever reason, every flight I have ever taken to Doha gets in after midnight. I have never seen Hamad fully awake.

Suvarnabhumi Airport
Bangkok, Thailand

I was in Bangkok in time for lunch. Suvarnabhumi Airport is not the worst place to eat, and infinitely better than airplane food.

Taoyuan International Airport
Taipei, Taiwan

I landed in Taipei at night, but not too late to catch the gaotie back to Kaohsiung. For whatever reason, the last train out of Taipei is just before midnight. If your flight lands after that, you get to spend the night in Taipei. The buses do not run that late and no sane taxi driver would ever take you from Taipei to Kaohsiung.

I walked into my apartment about a half hour after midnight. It was the first time I felt like I was home in a while. I stayed in some nice hotels and even nicer apartments, but I always felt like a visitor. No matter how exotic or interesting any given location is, there truly is no place like home. Plus, my bed at home is outstanding.

African Tour:Diani Beach

Seronera Airstrip
Serengeti National Park
When my time at the Maasai Mara/Serengeti was up, Edgar drove me to the airport. Rather than drive me all the way back to Nairobi, he took me to the Seronera Airstrip, a patch of dirt inside the Serengeti National Park. That was where we parted ways. We only knew each other for two weeks, but he showed me the time of my life. While I will always remember our time together, he probably moved on to his next group right away and drove around the parks he has driven around a thousand times before.

Rather than board a Boeing 737 or Embraer 190 jet airliner, I got on a nine-passenger turboprop Cessna 208 Caravan. The flight to Mombasa was less than 90 minutes. The flight from Nairobi to Mombasa is only an hour, but driving from the Mara to Nairobi would have taken at least five hours. The hotel picked me up at Moi International Airport and drove me to Diani Beach.

I spent four nights at the Southern Palms Beach Resort on Diani Beach, just south of Mombasa. It could not have been more different from any of the national parks. My cabin at Amboseli was pretty nice as far as national parks go, but my room at the beach resort looked like a room at a four star beach resort. It might have been larger than all my rooms at the Mara, Amboseli, and Lake Nakuru combined. Maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but only barely.

Though not on an island, the resort was surrounded by water. It looked like all the buildings were designed around the swimming pools rather than the other way around. Just past the beach was the Indian Ocean.

The resort was in the town of Ukunda, which probably had something to offer. I never really saw much of it. There were no gate times and I could come and go as I pleased, but saw little reason to leave the resort and beach.

Diani Beach is supposed to be the most popular beach in all of Kenya. Fortunately, I was not there during the high season. There were always people on the beach, but it was never crowded. Sometimes there were enough people for the owners of the camels to offer rides. Having ridden a horse in Kommetjie, I thought about riding a camel on Diani Beach, but the horses looked more independent.

There was a coral reef just off the coast. It is one of the more popular tourist activities, other than riding camels on the beach. I prefer getting to know the culture rather than doing tourist crap anytime I go somewhere new, but I rarely get the chance to snorkel at a coral reef. So I joined a bunch of white foreigners and dove in. I could not identify 90% of the fish and coral I saw, but it was beautiful all the same. I can barely identify any flowers beyond the tulips at Keukenhof, but I love going there all the same.

Staying at a beach resort at the end of the safari was part of the package deal. I thought it was unnecessary at first. If I subtracted those days at the resort, I could spend more time in the parks. But I came to realize that a few days at a beach resort was an excellent way to end my time in Africa. The national parks are outstanding, but they require a lot of moving around and trying to get somewhere in time. A beach resort requires absolutely nothing of you. Do what you want, when you want. There was plenty of food, the Indian Ocean, and an excellent series of swimming pools. It was not a bad way to spend a long weekend.

African Tour:Maasai Mara National Reserve / Serengeti National Park

Wildebeest across the Serengeti
We drove 230km southwest from Lake Nakuru to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The Maasai Mara is on the southern border with Tanzania and sits right up against the Serengeti National Park. They are two separate parks in different countries, but are easy to treat as one, as long as you like driving. The Maasai Mara is four times larger than Amboseli. The Serengeti is ten times larger than the Maasai Mara. Conveniently, you can cross the border from Kenya to Tanzania without even realizing it. Rather than customs agents and checkpoints, there are stone markers, and a pretty enormous reason no barricades separate the two.

Both the Maasai Mara and the Serengeti are famous for “The Great Migration”. About two million wildebeest, almost 500,000 gazelles, more than 200,000 zebras, and a few thousand other herbivores leave the southern Serengeti and head north to the Maasai Mara. Then they turn around and head back south again, though they take a different path. Rather than one trail north and south, they move in a large circle. There are specific times to watch them cross the Mara River and get eaten by crocodiles, but you can see the Migration at almost any time, as long as you go to the right spot.

Since the animals are free to roam from one park to the other, both are great spots to see everything. Most of the larger national parks have the Big Five. The Maasai Mara and Serengeti have the Big Nine: elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, lion, leopard, cheetah, giraffe, zebra, and hippopotamus. Realistically, that is little more than marketing. Kruger had all nine, but only advertised the Big Five. Every park I went to had giraffes and zebras. Both animals are so common, they lose their lustre pretty quickly. Spotting zebras in Kenya is as rare as seeing a pigeon in New York. What the Maasai Mara/Serengeti have over other Kenyan parks is the Mara River. It provides a home for hippos and crocodiles that are not at Amboseli or Lake Nakuru and gives everyone somewhere to drink.

Mara Serena Safari Lodge
I spent eight nights at the Mara Serena Safari Lodge, which is one of only two or three places you can sleep inside the Mara Triangle. There are plenty of lodges and camp sights throughout the Maasai Mara, and even more outside the reserve's gates, but the Mara Triangle is the best place to be, according to the people at the Mara Serena Safari Lodge. More importantly, Edgar thought it was a good location. I thought I should spend a few nights in the Maasai Mara and a few in the Serengeti, but Edgar explained why it was easier, cheaper, and better to have a single base camp. There was also a little bit of national pride at stake. Edgar was from Kenya and wanted me to spend more money in his country than in Tanzania, especially since Tanzania had just defeated Kenya in some big football game.

This was my smallest room in all of Kenya, so naturally I spent more time at the Mara Serena Safari Lodge than anywhere else. But it was big enough for one person, and I spent more time away from the lodge than in it. My tiny hut was crammed next to my neighbor's tiny hut. I never had that feeling of living in a house with my own yard that I had at Ol Tukai. My front yard was everyone else's front yard. But the entire lodge was on a hill, so our backyard was a view of the Mara as far as the eye could see. Each hut had a tiny balcony where you could sit with a drink and stare at the world in front of you.

As with everywhere else, Edgar picked me up before sunrise and we drove around all day. I looked around the property a bit, but never really did anything besides eat and sleep. The exception was the night of the big lightning storm. There were several points in the lodge where people could sit or stand on an outdoor terrace and gaze at the endless Mara. One night, there was a lightning storm that lasted several hours. There was no rain, and no lightning ever came close to the lodge, so everyone felt safe to stand outdoors and watch the storm in the distance. It was pretty spectacular. Like a lot of people, I had a camera, but lightning is notoriously difficult to photograph. There were enough strikes to guarantee getting a shot, but I did not have enough expertise to guarantee quality.

The Great Migration was in the Serengeti at the time, so Edgar gave me a choice. We could drive down to see them right away or check out the Mara Triangle first and make our way south later. Either way, he promised I would see more animals than I ever did at Amboseli, though not more elephants. The Maasai Mara and Serengeti had plenty, but no place could compare with Amboseli when it came to elephants.

Having said that, my most interesting elephant story happened at the Maasai Mara. We were sitting in the van and looking around while a small group of female elephants walked toward us. We were not directly in their path, and unlike the male elephant at Amboseli, they were not trying to show us who was in charge. We could sit there and watch them walk past, so we did. They were walking slowly, as elephants do. You do not need to hurry when you are the largest land animal in the world. Their complete lack of urgency makes elephants some of the easiest animals to watch, as long as you are not in their path.

As soon as Edgar pointed out the baby elephant, everything changed. It was as if the elephants could hear him. Or maybe they instinctively knew that humans are trouble. In the blink of an eye, all the adults surrounded the baby. They were moving slowly, but at the same time, they all changed positions in the group as if they had choreographed the routine a million times. I was a little jealous. I wanted my dance company to be that precise.

We could barely see the baby. She was behind a wall of thick elephant legs. We were no threat to them, and our van could never survive a direct charge from a single adult elephant. As a group, they could kill us without breaking a sweat. But other than protecting their young, the group did not acknowledge our existence. They kept walking on whatever path they were taking at their same leisurely pace. They simply made sure the baby was safe.

My most interesting cheetah encounter was a little different. Edgar spotted a mother cheetah with two juveniles on the remains of an old termite mound. As we drove closer, I could see them. The mother was standing tall on the mound, staring in the distance. Her cubs were sitting at her side, not at all interested in the distance. Technically, they were not cubs. They were almost as big as she was.

The closer we got, I wondered how close we were going to get. Edgar usually gave the animals more than enough room to get away from us, if they so chose. The mother cheetah not only chose to stay put, she chose to completely ignore us. She was looking for food, according to Edgar, and since we were neither food nor danger, she was not at all interested. When we were what I thought was entirely too close, Edgar slowly inched the van forward. By the time we stopped, we were close enough that I could stretch out of the window and pet the mother cheetah. Edgar suggested I not do that, and I was not about to. Cheetah almost never attack humans, but any mother with her offspring should be considered dangerous.

What surprised me, other than how insanely close we got, was how the juvenile cheetahs ignored us as much as the mother. I thought they would be more curious. Edgar said they followed their mother's lead. She saw us as nothing more than a nuisance, so they did the same.

After two days of driving around the Maasai Mara, Edgar took me to the Serengeti. Since the border is an arbitrary line on a map, there was no difference between the two. Except the Serengeti was much larger. Edgar could have told me it was all the Maasai Mara and I never would have known. Instead, he pointed out the stone marker that told everyone which side was which.

The Serengeti had all the same animals as the Maasai Mara, so we headed straight for the stars of the show. I cannot say that I saw two million wildebeest, but there were a lot. We did not reach them while crossing the Mara River, so it was nothing dramatic. They were all simply standing around. Even doing nothing, it was pretty impressive. I have never seen so many huge mammals all gathered together in one place. Except maybe Las Vegas.

Though based in the Mara Triangle, we spent more time in the Serengeti. Edgar had our daily route mapped out, but he was more than willing to improvise at the drop of a hat. When he heard about a leopard sighting on the other side of a small creek, we changed course. Unfortunately, the tiny creek was flooded. That made some of the nearby ground wetter than usual. The dirt trail we were on became a mud trail. The Toyota Hi Ace van is not four wheel drive. It was good on paved roads and hard dirt trails, not so great in the mud. The irony is that Edgar knew the road was no good. Before heading into the mud, he told me there was a chance we might get stuck and asked if I wanted to go a different way. I assumed he knew what was best and told him to go for it. He did know best and most likely wanted to go a different way, but also wanted to keep his customer happy.

When Edgar got out of the van to push, I got out as well. He never asked me to help, but I was not about to sit in the van and add extra weight. He pointed out that we were in a part of the park where everyone is supposed to stay in their vehicles at all times. He also pointed out that if we just waited for help, we could be stuck in the mud for days.

Fortunately, there was more traffic than Edgar expected. Probably other people looking for that leopard. A jeep with two guides pulled up to us and helped with the pushing. Why they never tried to winch the van out, I have no idea. Maybe they did not have the proper equipment. Not that it mattered. Four people pushing should have been enough.

But it was not. That van was really in there.

When a jeep of tourists pulled up, a flock of humans got out and started wandering around. A few of them helped push the van. Most of them took pictures of our surroundings. Some of them took pictures of the small group pushing the van out of the mud. I am probably on someone's Facebook page with a little story about how the person who took the picture helped out a fellow traveler on their African journey, even though the person taking the picture did absolutely nothing to help.

It took longer than I expected, but we eventually got the van onto solid ground. Edgar thanked everyone and the three vehicles drove off in three different directions. Much to no one's surprise, the leopard was long gone.

In the middle of my time at the Maasai Mara, I took a ride in a hot air balloon. That was not at all part of my safari package deal. It was most definitely a separate charge, and far more expensive than it really needed to be. I figured I had to take advantage of the opportunity when it came up. A lot of things might sound like a once in a lifetime experience. Riding in a hot air balloon over the Maasai Mara truly is. I suppose it is theoretically possible that I will do it again some day, but I doubt it.

Balloon rides over the Maasai Mara require waking up exceptionally early, even by my standards. Since the balloon takes off before sunrise, you have to be there even earlier. It was so early in the morning that someone from the balloon company picked me up instead of Edgar.

At the launch site, about a dozen people got the balloon ready while seven other passengers drank coffee and tea. After the crew inflated the balloon with a large fan, the passengers were all invited to walk around inside it. I have no idea why this is even an option, but it gives you a good sense of just how enormous these balloons are.

Once everyone was out of the balloon, they filled it with hot air and we all watched the balloon slowly rise like an old man reminiscing about Charlie's Angels. When the balloon was fully erect, the pilot climbed into the basket and moved levers and flipped switches. When the balloon was ready, eight passengers climbed into the basket. It was a snug fit with no room to move around, but we all had an unobstructed view from our own little corner.

Take off was smoother than I expected. There was no jolt or bump of any kind. We simply started levitating. Rather than go straight up, the pilot moved forward like an airplane. For safety, we were all asked to sit down during take off. The pilot told us we could stand once we were a few feet off the ground.

We rose above the savannah with the sun. They timed it perfectly. I have seen a million sunrises, but never over an African savannah and never while I was floating upward at the same time. It was one of those experiences that I will never be able to fully put into words. Pictures look nice, but they can never tell you how it felt.

With 12 years experience flying over the Maasai Mara, the pilot knew where to go. He knew when to fly high and give us a bird's eye view and when to take us down to get a closer look at everything. He knew which animals we could get relatively close to and which would be scared away. Elephants and lions mostly did not care about us flying above them. Giraffes and gazelles ran as soon as they spotted the balloon.

Even though the Maasai Mara and Serengeti feel like the same place, they are legally in different countries. You can drive between the two, but hot air balloons cannot cross the border. Since the Great Migration was in the Serengeti at the time, we were all warned in advance that we would not see it on the balloon ride. Taking a balloon over the Great Migration must be an amazing way to see just how large it is, but you also have to go at a specific time that probably has to be booked months in advance.

Instead, we flew over the Mara, crossed the Mara River, and saw a lot of animals, just not millions at a time. When our time was up, we made an incredibly soft landing and everyone climbed out of the big basket. A long, decorated table was waiting nearby for all of the passengers to have a champagne breakfast in an open field. Someone asked if it was safe to be there, but I think most of us just assumed the balloon company would not serve their customers breakfast in the middle of a lion pride's feeding ground.

The biggest tourist trap in the Maasai Mara was the visit to a Maasai village. It was a real village where people lived their lives, but some of them also put on a show for the tourists that they would have never done if we had not been there. It was interesting, and a bit like a Disney show at the same time.

A small corner of Lake Victoria
Near the end of my time at the Maasai Mara, we were driving around the western edge of the Serengeti when Edgar said he had a surprise for me. We drove out of the Ndabaka Gate and kept heading west. Before I knew it, there was a large body of water in front of us. We were at the southeastern foot of Lake Victoria, on the Tanzania side.

Lake Victoria was on my original list of places I want to go. Most people reach the lake from Kampala or Entebbe on the Uganda side or Mwanza or Bukoba on the Tanzania side. We were at least 100km east of Mwanza, where pretty much no one goes. I could tell it was not one of the more popular parts of the lake since Edgar and I were the only people there. While the view was limited and 90% of the lake was around the corner, it was nice not to share it with a thousand tourists.

One of the great benefits to sleeping in the parks was that I could start my day as early as Edgar was willing and I did not have to leave before the gates closed. Sunrise and sunset are when most of the animals are most active. Kruger was great, and large enough to see something new every day, but the gate times were extremely limiting. Spending the night inside the Mara/Amboseli/Lake Nakuru meant watching brilliant sunrises and sunsets over the savannah/mountain/lake instead of over R40 back to Hazyview.

I am glad my last national park was the Maasai Mara/Serengeti. I liked Amboseli a great deal, but the Mara/Serengeti was more magical. It was easily one of the best places I have ever experienced anywhere in the world.

But I never spotted a leopard.

The Serengeti

African Tour:Lake Nakuru National Park

From Amboseli, Edgar drove me north to Lake Nakuru National Park. This was our single longest drive together outside of any park. The distance between the two is over 350km. It took a little over six hours. For the first half of the drive, I stretched out in the back of the van. During the second half, I stuck my head out the roof. This was also the closest I came to the equator. Lake Nakuru is just over 30km from the equator. Everything else in Kenya was at least 150km south of Lake Nakuru, and South Africa is nowhere near the equator.

The Great Rift Valley cuts all the way through Kenya. At Amboseli, and even Nairobi, the roads are more or less flat. The highest peak in Amboseli is 30 meters, which is a little ironic when you consider that most people associate the park with Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. If you drive west of Nairobi, you hit the Great Rift Valley and the scenery gets a lot more interesting.

During the drive, we took a break on the side of a cliff. Edgar said it was so I could admire the scenery. I think he just needed a break from driving. We sat on rocks in silence while I stared at the valley with an ice cold Pepsi. It was a short break and nothing happened, but it was one of those nice little moments in life.

Lake Nakuru National Park was the smallest park I went to, maybe even the smallest national park in Kenya. While every other park or reserve was out in the wilderness, Lake Nakuru is practically a suburb of Nairobi, completely surrounded by civilization. If it were not a protected national park, all the animals would be gone and the lake would probably be dry by now. The lake itself is about the same size as Pelican Lake in Northern Minnesota. The park is a small ring around the lake. Since no rivers touch the lake, its size depends on how much rain it gets.

The main attraction at Lake Nakuru are the million flamingos that migrate for the algae. It is also one of the easiest places to spot rhinos. Lake Nakuru has 70 white and 25 black rhinos. Kruger has larger numbers, but they are spread out over a much larger area. Lake Nakuru's rhinos graze out in the open. If you drive around the lake, you are going to see rhinos.

I spent two nights at Lake Nakuru Lodge. That did not sound like enough time to me at first, but Lake Nakuru is pretty small. You can easily drive around the entire park in a day. An extra day is good to make more stops, and when you include the beginning of the day before you arrive and the end of the day after you leave, one day would not be enough.

Lake Nakuru Lodge was more or less the same as Ol Tukai, only much smaller and cheaper looking. The main building, lobby, and restaurant were smaller, though the gift shop was larger. It was harder to tell where most of the guest rooms were, but I really did not care. Once again, I was in a small cottage away from the main building. Instead of a front patio, these cottages had tiny balconies in the back. The views were not as good, but at least they faced the park. The Ol Tukai cottage was larger and nicer, but I spent most of my time awake and out of the room anyway. The one thing the Lake Nakuru Lodge had over Ol Tukai was the swimming pool. Lake Nakuru Lodge's swimming pool was bigger and better. More importantly, it has a jacuzzi. Relaxing in bubbling water is always a good idea after a long day of driving around, no matter where in the world you are.

Everyone goes to Lake Nakuru for the flamingos, and there are plenty of them. The lake also attracts thousands of pelicans, storks, and other birds. As the only real source of water in the park, all the animals go to the lake. Compared to other national parks and reserves in Kenya, Lake Nakuru is a little unimpressive. But it is the easiest place to see a wide variety of animals all gathered together in one place. Everyone spreads out in the larger parks. At Lake Nakuru, they are all at the same lake.

The most unusual thing that happened at Lake Nakuru was when a cop asked us for a bribe. We were driving away from the lake when a park ranger stopped us. The ranger got out of his jeep, came up to the van, and looked at me for a while. He never asked me for ID or even spoke to me at all. He wrote something in his notepad and told Edgar to get out of the van. It was almost like a traffic stop, except we were driving slowly on a dirt road in the middle of a national park with absolutely no traffic whatsoever.

Edgar and the ranger had a conversation well out of my earshot. Not that I would have understood their language anyway. When Edgar came back to the van, we drove away as if nothing had happened. When I asked him what that was all about, he calmly told me that the ranger wanted a bribe. The way he said it was more than a little sad. It was just another day at the office to Edgar. I wondered if Edgar's company budgeted for such things or if he had to pay out of his own pocket. I also wondered if such a thing was as common as I suspected. I never asked Edgar about it because I did not want to embarrass him. This was his country and these were his people. I also know that my country is a glass house, so maybe I should not throw any stones.

Lake Nakuru is worth a visit, but it really is more of a bird lover's paradise than anything else. I have nothing against birds, but I am not especially interested in them either. Phil and Margi, the owners of the Blue Jay Lodge in Hazyview were big bird fans. Maybe not Big Bird fans, but bird enthusiasts. They were always trying to tell us the best places to spot this or that bird. I think they would love Lake Nakuru.

African Tour:Amboseli National Park

Four hours south of Nairobi, our first stop was Amboseli National Park. About the size of Denver, Amboseli is pretty small compared to other national parks. Kruger National Park is more than fifty times larger. But Amboseli has something Kruger and Denver never will. Not only is it one of the best places in the world to see a couple thousand elephants in the wild, it also has the best views of Mount Kilimanjaro. The mountain is in Kilimanjaro National Park in Tanzania, but the view from that side looks nothing like the famous view from Amboseli.

Since Mount Kilimanjaro is a volcano, it is flanked by volcanic rock that has been feeding the ample vegetation that feeds all the animals in the area. The ice cap also provides an almost endless supply of fresh water. Lake Amboseli only has water during the rainy season, but the entire park is pretty much a swamp. Animals need not gather at one place to drink, which is much safer for most of them.

I spent four nights at the Ol Tukai Lodge. The main building had a lobby, gift shop, and a large two story restaurant with scenic views from any seat around the outer edge. There were some standard hotel rooms near the main building. I stayed in one of the small cottages on the outskirts of the property. From the cottage patio, I could sit and watch the elephants walk along the fence line. There was an electric fence around the perimeter of the lodge that, while practically invisible, kept out the elephants and most mammals. Except baboons. They do whatever they want to do. The lodge also had a swimming pool that was not all that impressive. I never really had time for a swim anyway. The lodge was not exactly in the middle of the park, but Amboseli was small enough that driving from one end to the other did not take long.

My first day at Amboseli was short since we had to drive in from Nairobi. Edgar drove me to the lodge and helped me check in, which was unnecessary. Everyone who worked at Ol Tukai spoke English. Then he disappeared for a while so I could settle in and have lunch. I never asked him where he went when he was gone. That was none of my business. Right on time, he picked me up and we went out for an afternoon drive.

Like most game parks, mornings and evenings were the best times at Amboseli. Afternoons were best spent taking a break at the lodge. But I had only just arrived. I wanted to experience this new environment. Edgar seemed just as excited to show me everything as I was to see it. Up to this point, I only knew him as a driver. He wanted to show off his animal tracking skills.

Since Amboseli is the premier site to see elephants, it was only appropriate that my first dramatic animal encounter was with an elephant. We were in the van watching a group of gazelles when Edgar noticed two rather large male elephants walking toward our general direction. They were more than a few yards away and we were not directly in their path, but Edgar decided to back the van up a little just to give them plenty of space. As soon as we moved, the elephant in the front turned so that we would be directly in their path. He was not moving quickly or displaying any aggression, but he clearly altered his path on purpose. When Edgar backed up even further, the elephant changed course again. Edgar thought he wanted to show us who was boss. What the elephant never knew was that we had no intention of challenging him. Edgar was prepared to back that van up as far as it took. Wherever we were, that was where he wanted to be. When the giant elephant got close enough to charge us, Edgar simply drove away. As long as we were parked, we would always be in his way. By leaving, we let him know he won.

Finding elephants was easy. They were everywhere. I could look out the window of my cottage and sooner or later a group of elephants would walk past. I wanted to see a leopard. I have no particular interest in leopards, but I saw the rest of the Big Five at Kruger. Edgar's mission was to find me a leopard, though he warned me that afternoon was the worst possible time. We would be more likely to see one the next morning or maybe later that evening.

While we saw no leopards that afternoon, we came across a few prides of lions, a gang of buffalo, a cackle of hyenas, a confusion of wildebeest, a couple coalitions of cheetahs, a few herds of impalas, several towers of giraffes, multiple zeals of zebras, and more elephants than I could count. The predators were mostly napping, so the herbivores used the afternoon lull to go about their business.

Near the beginning of my leopard quest, we were driving around the savannah when Edgar said he might have spotted a leopard lying in the tall grass under a tree on the ridge over in the distance. He pointed and I could barely see the tree. I thought he was just trying to make himself look good. There was no way he could see anything that far away. We drove to the ridge and the tree became more obvious. It was still impossible to see if anything was in the grass. He slowed down when we got close and told me that the leopard must have run away. Yeah, right. The camouflaged leopard that he magically saw lying down just happened to leave right before we got there. Then he pointed out how the grass under the tree was flattened, as if something had been lying there. He also showed me the fresh claw marks on the tree. I got less skeptical pretty quickly. Obviously, something had been there. Maybe not a leopard, but whatever it was, Edgar saw it from a respectable distance.

In addition to his excellent eyesight, Edgar used his phone to keep in contact with other guides throughout the park. They all let each other know where to find something interesting, right after they showed their customers first.

One of the benefits to sleeping in the park was that I could be there before the gates opened in the morning and after they closed at night. We would take full advantage of that on other days, but Edgar thought we should take it easy on the first day. I had flown in from Dar es Salaam, which is not all that far, and we had driven from Nairobi. It was a bit of a long day. He was also mindful of how much and how often my people like to eat. I tried to explain that I do not need three jumbo meals each day, but he knew that I was American. He wanted to make sure I was back at the lodge before they stopped serving dinner.

The Ol Tukai Lodge was also used to dealing with western foreigners. There was always more than enough food for everyone. Though in the heart of East Africa, the menu was more intercontinental than anything else, with nothing too unfamiliar to North Americans and Western Europeans. They had a wide array of alcohol available at the small bar that could be taken or delivered anywhere on the property, and more than a few signs warning guests not to feed the monkeys.

That first night at Amboseli was the first time I really noticed the night sky. I had been in the Southern Hemisphere ever since we landed in Johannesburg, but most of that time was spent in cities. Even at Kruger, we were generally indoors and asleep by the time it got truly dark. After dinner at Amboseli, I sat with a drink on my cottage patio and looked up at the stars. There was little point in looking out to the savannah since it was pitch dark. There were elephants out there. I could hear them. But I could not even see the fence line, let alone all the animals on the other side, The sky was the only thing visible beyond the lodge lights. I have never been much of an expert when it comes to astronomy, but I could always find the Big Dipper. Until this night. There was also no North Star, though the Southern Cross was clear as day. Or night. It occurred to me that I did not even know the names of any Southern Hemisphere constellations. Everything I have ever heard about the constellations has always been about what is visible from the Northern Hemisphere.

Our first full day at Amboseli started early in the morning. That was fine with me. Edgar seemed to be as much of a morning person as I was. Or at least he faked it well when he was on the clock. While driving around, he got a call from one of his guide friends that some lions were hunting a wildebeest. This was exactly the sort of thing you could only see in the early morning and evening hours, and what most visitors wanted to see. I never really understood that part. I was there to see the animals as much as the next person, but I had no particular interest in watching them eat each other. Lions frolicking in nature were always more interesting to me than lions gorging on breakfast.

Edgar rushed us to the hunt site. By the time we got there, the money shot was over. I saw a pride of lions feast on a wildebeest carcass. Edgar was a little confused when I did not take any pictures. Next to a dramatic kill shot, this was what the tourists wanted to see. I told him that I wanted to experience the environment, not any specific event. He suddenly realized that his job just got a lot easier. If only he could find a leopard.

By lunchtime, we were nowhere near the lodge. Edgar gave me two options. He could drive me back to the lodge for lunch, where I could take a break from the afternoon heat, or we could have a bit of a picnic and make it a full day. I was out and about and saw no reason to stop, so we ate lunch under an acacia tree. He kept a cooler in the van, from which we ate yogurt and cheese. He also had a bag of bread and other snacks. The highlight of lunch was an ice cold Pepsi. He had Pepsi in the cooler because I bought myself one when we stopped at a local grocery store on the drive from Nairobi to Amboseli. I am not a big Pepsi fan, but the store's selection was limited. They only had a few drinks and even fewer were chilled. I wanted a cold drink. A bottle of Pepsi was the easiest option. From that moment on, Edgar made sure to keep ice cold Pepsi on hand.

The ice cold part is important. It got a little warm on the savannah in the middle of the day. Several people warned me that it would be hot at Amboseli and all the other game parks during the rainy season. Since it was the rainy season, it might also be a little humid, though it was never going to rain every day. But I live in Taiwan. Kenya humidity is nothing by comparison, and the temperature never went above 30 degrees. The biggest adjustment was how much it dropped at night. In Taiwan, hot days lead to warm nights. In Kenya, cold nights were more than possible.

Photograph by Diana Robinson
As much as I liked Kruger, Amboseli quickly became my favorite national park. Having a professional guide made all the difference, as did sleeping inside the park. After the gates closed, we could still drive around. Spotting animals is far more difficult at night, but the park itself is beautiful during and right after the sun sets. After Edgar went home for the day, the lodge was large enough for a nighttime walk. I have no idea what Kruger sounds like in the middle of the night, but I can tell you that the animals of Amboseli never close. It was almost like camping, only with elephants and lions instead of crickets and owls.

African Tour:Nairobi Again

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
Nairobi, Kenya
Dar es Salaam was the final leg of our big African Tour. Once finished, we all flew back to Nairobi. From Nairobi, everyone else flew out of Africa and slowly made their way east. I had other plans.

Kruger National Park was great, but it felt unfinished. Driving around on our own, we only saw bits and pieces. I knew right away that a trained professional could have shown us far more. Under most circumstances, I will always choose to go exploring rather than to take a guided tour. Where I live, tour guides spend more time at the gift shops than at whatever everyone is there to see. Most sights will never give a tour guide a percentage of sales. Plenty of nearby shops will.

Kenya has more than its fair share of national parks. It also has hundreds of registered companies that can show you around. Finding the right one probably takes a great deal of research. Unless you meet someone in Cape Town whose cousin is a safari guide licensed by the Kenya Wildlife Service. It only took one phone call for me to know this was the right guy. He knew what he was talking about and did not hesitate to tell me when my plans were unrealistic.

I had a list of places I wanted to see, including the Serengeti, the Maasai Mara, Tsavo East National Park, Amboseli National Park, Mount Kenya, and Lake Victoria. Edgar pointed out that seeing all of those places in one trip would take considerably more time than I had. He explained the travel times, how long I should stay at each place, and what I would see where.

We created a more realistic itinerary: Amboseli, Lake Nakuru, the Massai Mara, and Serengeti. From Nairobi, Amboseli is south, Lake Nakuru is north, the Massai Mara is west, and the Serengeti is southwest. The most logical course would be to drive in a big circle, but you have to take into consideration the best times to visit each park and how crowded they are going to be. Looking at a map, I would say it makes sense to go clockwise from Nairobi. That would make Lake Nakuru the last stop. Wisely, Edgar wanted the Serengeti to be the last park I saw. I also realized after the fact that making Amboseli the first stop was a brilliant move.

Edgar picked me up at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport just after five in the morning. My flight got in extra early because everyone else was taking another flight to Doha. He did not seem to mind the early hour. In fact, most of our time together would be spent earlier in the day rather than later. We were going to national parks. Just like Kruger, they all opened their gates around sunrise and closed at sunset. The difference this time was that I would be sleeping inside the parks. Edgar picked me up in the morning, drove me around all day, and dropped me off in the evening.

When we loaded my bags into his van, I wondered where everyone else was. In general, safari companies like to cram in as many people as possible, unless you pay extra for a private tour. I did not. But I got one anyway. That was my bonus for knowing his cousin. I loved the idea of not being in a crowd, but wondered if this was the kind of thing I should be doing alone. More often than not, I prefer to share life's more interesting experiences with other people. On the other hand, my travel companions at Kruger were kind of a pain in the ass. There are advantages to not wasting time doing something someone else wants to do or following their bathroom schedule. Since this turned out to be a private safari, I could do whatever I wanted, pending Edgar's advice.

I also wondered why we were in a van. I was expecting a jeep. Whenever you see pictures of people on safari, they are in a big, open jeep. Edgar took me everywhere in a white Toyota Hi Ace van. That turned out to be pretty convenient. It had a roof that popped up like a camper van, without the tent, so I could stand and get unobstructed views of everything. I could also stand and sing “Born To Be Wild” while driving through the savannah. Some of the drives between parks were a little long, but as the only passenger in a nine seat van, I had plenty of room to stretch out. The van also had more room than a jeep for my luggage. Unlike most people that Edgar picked up from the airport in Nairobi, I had just come from several other cities in Kenya and South Africa. I left as much of my luggage with the company as I could, but I still had more than I needed.

African Tour:Dar es Salaam

Julius Nyerere International Airport
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Before we got to know Mombasa, it was time to leave the country. We were scheduled to perform in Dar es Salaam, which is only 500km down the coast. For whatever reason, there are no flights from Mombasa to Dar es Salaam. We had to fly an hour northwest back to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi and catch a 90 minute flight southeast to Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam. It was a lot of effort for very little reward.

We all stayed at the Johari Rotana Hotel in the Kivukoni district near the city center. Normally, I would have been disappointed in a generic business hotel, but this was the end of the tour and we had experienced plenty of local flavor. I kind of liked the predictability. The hotel had a small outdoor swimming pool that I never used. One of the room's better features was the floor to ceiling window with sea views. If only my room was facing the Indian Ocean instead of the industrial harbor. It was still a better view than looking at the building next door. Just like today's Chinese hotels, my room had large bathroom windows so people in the bedroom could watch their roommates in the bathroom. I have no idea why anyone wants this. Maybe the designers think it romantic to watch someone take a shower, but people do a lot more in bathrooms than lather up. Luckily, we all had ample experience with Chinese hotels, so we knew how to work around it. Easily the best feature of the room was the jazuzzi bathtub. It was not especially large, but it had eight jets coming out from all directions. If I did not have a roommate, I would have spent far more time in that tub.

Makumbusho Village
The Makumbusho Village Museum in Kinondoni is a recreation of traditional villages from several different indigenous tribes. Though it looked nothing like any specific village, the houses were supposed to be authentic representations of each tribe. It all seemed a little too fake to me. There are probably genuine villages people can visit away from the city. The Ngoma dancers were pretty good, though. I did not mind how much that was staged for the tourists since rehearsed dance performances were our reason to be on the continent in the first place.

Kariakoo Market
The Kariakoo Market in Ilala is the outdoor market in Dar es Salaam. Like Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem or Albert Cuypmarkt in Amsterdam, everyone seems to go there. While I can say nothing for the food, the textile shops on the south end of Jamhuri Street were useful. I know of no better place to buy kangas. The crowds made some of my colleagues a little nervous, which I found interesting, considering where they were from. The most uncomfortably crowded outdoor market I have ever been to anywhere in the world was the Fengshan night market in Kaohsiung on Christmas Day, which is not even a holiday in Taiwan. Kariakoo felt as empty as the Carrboro Farmer's Market in North Carolina by comparison.

Mlimani City in Ubongo is the largest shopping mall in Tanzania. Unfortunately, it looks like any urban shopping mall. I cannot even be bothered to find a picture of it. Some of my colleagues wanted to shop at the Game Supermarket because it was owned by Walmart. We have no Walmarts in Taiwan, so they were curious. I pointed out that the absence of Walmart is one of the best things about Taiwan. Not that it really mattered. While Walmart is a majority stakeholder in the company, Game is run by a South African grocery store chain. It was like any large South African grocery store and had no hillbillies shopping in questionable attire.

The most interesting part about our Mlimani City outing was that the South African company closed down its only Game outlet in Dar es Salaam right after we went and completely pulled out of Tanzania just after that. Had we gone any later, my colleagues would have never experienced a Walmart that was nothing like Walmart.

Zuane, near the US embassy in Kinondoni, is arguably the most authentic looking Italian restaurant in Dar es Salaam. At least that was what a lot of people said. I only went to one Italian restaurant in Dar es Salaam, so what do I know. Their pizzas looked pretty good and the mozzarella was obviously fresh. The person I went with said the ravioli was excellent. Taiwanese people are not the most discriminating connoisseurs when it comes to pasta, but ravioli is essentially dumplings. She knows Chinese dumplings, so who's to say she is not a good judge of Italian ravioli from Tanzania.

Hong Kong Tai Yong Sun Restaurant in Ilala is either the most authentic Cantonese cuisine in all of Dar es Salaam or all of Tanzania, depending who you ask. Oddly, no one said it was the most authentic in all of Africa. My colleagues, some of whom are originally from Guangdong, all of whom are intimately familiar with Cantonese food, were unimpressed.

Azania Front Lutheran Church
A few blocks from our hotel was the Azania Front Lutheran Church. There was nothing particularly special about the building or its history, but I often find myself near Lutheran churches in the least Christian places.

Our time in Nairobi and Mombasa felt entirely too short to me. As soon as we got used to waking up in strange beds, we were off to the next city. In Dar es Salaam, we did not even get a chance to get used to anything. We flew in Wednesday morning, checked in, went to work, spent two whole nights, and left Friday morning. And one of our days in Dar es Salaam was mostly spent in Zanzibar.

On our last full day, we all caught the morning ferry to Zanzibar, did a show in Stone Town, and caught an evening ferry back to Dar es Salaam. The ferry ride was uneventful, except that everyone needed passports and went through immigration and customs. Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam are both in Tanzania, but Zanzibar has its own separate border control. It was almost like crossing the border from Shenzhen into Hong Kong, only with a lot of people speaking in unfamiliar languages. Going through immigration made the trip take a little longer since everyone was a foreigner, no matter which direction they were going.

Zanzibar is a pretty small island. Maybe half the size of Bali. It would have been nice to see more of it. After less than a full day on the island, and most of that time spent at work, I am not exactly the world's foremost authority on Zanzibar. I would not mind staying at one of the beach resorts one day. There are far fewer locals at the resorts, so it cannot possibly be as interesting, but some of the hotels look pretty nice.

Though Mombasa and Zanzibar are both mostly Afro-Arab and/or Muslim with large populations living below the poverty line on the shores of the Indian Ocean, they could not have felt more different. There was a good deal of tension in Mombasa's air. The locals tolerated the mzungu, though my impression was that they merely tolerated our money. It was similar to the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City. Anyone who calls you “my friend” is trying to sell you something. Zanzibar was more relaxed. People seemed more genuinely friendly, regardless of how much money we might spend. It probably helps that Zanzibar is made up of several tropical islands with some beautiful beaches. I doubt I will ever go back to Mombasa, though I'm glad I went once. I will be disappointed if I never make it back to Zanzibar some day.

Since the preceding paragraph might come off as negative toward Muslims, I will point out that Zanzibar, the place I liked and want to go back to, has a much larger Muslim population than Mombasa.