Today was one of the most epic days of my life. Literally, I lived a daydream that I have had since I was a small child, made all the better because I never truly expected to ever actually do it. I’ll start from the beginning.
The reforestation project that I am slated to work on is located in the Gwasi Hills region of Kenya, in Western Province. Pat, Leah and I, along with Dr. Ongugo (our boss), are to journey by truck to the project site, with a stop at Nakuru along the way. KEFRI is performing some analysis on reforestation in the Aberderes, the mountain range north of Nairobi. We were to spend Tuesday with the project team while they merged data to write a report.
I left work on Monday at around 3 p.m., expecting to arrive in Nakuru around 6 p.m. that night. As usual, no one had accounted for Africa-time, so after a bunch of random errands, some grocery shopping and then a return trip to the KEFRI compound because someone had forgotten a computer, we finally got out of town around 5:30 p.m. So much for meeting the rest of the group for dinner (Pat and Leah had gone in a separate car).
Though we left town late, that meant that we were headed into the Rift Valley at sunset. As I have mentioned before, Nairobi is high - here at KEFRI the elevation is over 2500 meters. The Rift Valley is west of the highlands upon which Nairobi sits, and extends west for a couple hundred kilometers or so, before encountering a similar set of highlands and Lake Victoria. The Valley begins in the northern reaches of Kenya and extends to the southern border of Tanzania and into Mozambique. Uganda, Malawi, Burundi and Congo make the up the western border of the Valley. As I am fact checking while writing this entry, the deepest point of the Rift Valley is actually just north of Nairobi.
The evening was hazy and chilly as the small Toyota truck crammed with five men, luggage and a PC finally set out from Nairobi. Traffic was not terribly heavy as we exited the city, headed northwest towards the Aberderes. All along the way were signs for KEFRI and KFS (Kenya Forest Service) announcing the presence of various project sites. The Aberderes region of Kenya is what is considered one of five “water towers”, including Mount Kenya, Mount Elgon in the west, the Mau Forest and Cherengani Hills. A water tower is a region where rainwater falls and collects, providing sources for rivers, streams and even groundwater. The system of water catchment is complex and the presence of trees is of particular importance as their presence slows runoff and allows water to collect, not to mention that transpiration from forests is a source for generating the rainclouds themselves. The Aberderes region is one of the most fertile in Kenya, and though it is an important source of water, it has been the victim of heavy deforestation since independence. Aside from the frequent stands of cedar and eucalyptus planted by KEFRI and KFS, the road twists and turns through acres and acres of small farms of maize and occasionally sorghum. The landscape is a series of gently rolling hills, everything cultivated, and it reminded me of how I had always imagined the Shire to look; small cottages, neat fields and well kept gardens.
Suddenly, we rounded a corner and emerged onto the face of the Great Escarpment with the whole of Rift Valley Province spread before us, 3000 meters down. It was breathtaking. The cliffs waste no time in falling down to the floor of the Valley, which from the top of the Escarpment, looks like a giant patchwork quilt rolling away for miles before fading into the evening haze. Single peaks loomed up in the distance, one of which is called Mount Longonot, a dormant volcano. I could clearly descry the interior of the partially deteriorated crater as we passed.
The road, Nakuru-Naivasha highway in fact, turned north and west following the rim of the Escarpment, and slowly wound down to the valley floor and the city of Naivasha, clustered about the shores of a lake by the same name. This part of the world is dotted with a series of large lakes, born of the same geologic forces that formed the Rift Valley. Lake Victoria, Lake Turkana and Lake Malawi are all examples. To satisfy my own curiosity, the Great Rift Valley is still in the process of being formed. A portion of the African Plate is splitting into two smaller tectonic plates, the Nubian and Somalian Plates. This splitting and separating action created (is creating) the Great Rift Valley.
As we passed through Naivasha, the sun set for good and it started to rain. I’ve discovered that the key to driving in Kenya is to have nerves of steel. You’ve got to be aggressive or you won’t get anywhere, the traffic is simply too bad. On the highway, this means that you’ve got to be able to pass in any situation, even if it means scaring the pants off of your American passengers in the back seat. If you aren’t in complete control of all your faculties, you are dead in the water. Little did I know that the friendly driver with whom I had been joking earlier was terribly near-sighted. Big problem. Any time a pair of headlights would approach, he would slow to a crawl, and huge trucks and buses would blow past us in the other lane. Worse, he could not see to pass anyone, so we were stuck behind an eighteen-wheeler for almost the entire second half of the journey. Even rust-bucket matatus adorned with black lights were barreling around us in gusts of gospel music! When we finally got to Nakuru, I felt like falling to my knees and kissing the ground.
We were staying at a church retreat center of some sort, which was exceptionally clean but with no hard alcohol to help me take the edge off the harrowing escape I had just made. I settled for a tough piece of stewed chicken (kuku) and rice. The chickens here are not a product of Tyson. Rather, they run around in the yard until someone wrings their neck and throws them in the fryer. They taste amazing, but tend to be a bit chewier than what you would buy at the supermarket back home. I had to get out my pocketknife to cut this particular bird into manageable pieces.
After supper, I retreated to my room (which was named after a bishop), washed my face and passed out. Africa-time is no joke. It takes forever to get anywhere!!
Tuesday, I woke up with my arms pinned to my sides by tangled blankets, but I was free of bedbug bites and ravenous. After a typical Kenyan breakfast of fried eggs, toast, mystery sausage and chai, I hung out till Leah, Pat and Dr. Ongugo showed up. The project team set up computer equipment in a conference room and started getting down to the business of combining their tree data. Having looked at many spreadsheets, and having had absolutely nothing to do with what was being discussed, I bored of the discussion rather quickly. Leah, Pat and I surfed the Internet and compared photos of the previous evening’s epic sunset until Dr. Ongugo thankfully sent us away with the blind driver to Lake Nakuru National Park.
Lake Nakuru is not a large park, and though it is readily accessible from Nakuru-town, it is home to a wide variety of wildlife. It is an alkaline lake, and is best known for the concentrations of flamingos and other birdlife that it attracts. You can hire a guide to take you through the park, or simply drive through on your own – just take care not to get out of your vehicle!
We navigated through town and started down the long gravel road lined with acacias that leads to the main gates. This area is apparently a favorite picnic spot for townspeople. Couples had spread blankets up and down the grassy shoulders and were enjoying lunch or cuddling. The interesting thing about it was the troop of baboons hanging around in the trees or prowling between the blankets. As I mentioned several posts back, baboons are intimidating animals up close, and all they really want to do is to eat your sandwich. I am relatively sure that I could think of a better spot to take a date than on a picnic where you may or may not have your face ripped off over a plate of finger sandwiches. I do not trust those monkeys.
We rounded a last corner of the road, and pulled up to the front gates, from which I could just glimpse the marshy lakeshore, where the black shapes of waterbuck and cape buffalo could be seen calmly grazing. We couldn’t pay the $60 fee quickly enough to get out there! We piled back into the truck and prepared to pass through the Jurassic Park-esque gates, when our driver inexplicably (we thought) started chatting with the gate staff. The tirade of Swahili was getting quite lengthy, and we were all starting to get impatient with him, when I heard the word ‘simba’ mentioned several times in quick succession. With no explanation given though, a guy standing outside of the gate suddenly opened my door and hopped in the backseat with Leah and I. He grinned, shook our hands and said, “I’ll take you to see the lions.”
We made a u-turn out of the gate and headed away from the park back towards town. Before we reached the picnickers, we turned onto a small gravel track and headed up towards a series of rocky hills. We had not gone more than 400 yards from the main park entrance when we topped a rise and saw a lioness and half-grown cub lying in the shade of a lone acacia. Ahead, stretched across the road and twisted at an odd angle, were the black head and neck of a female cape buffalo. The rest of the carcass lay in the tall grass of the roadside. A pool of black liquid gathered under the head. The smell from the kill was a physical force – as soon as we crested the rise, and even as we saw it there in the road, the stench of decaying meat and eviscerated organs filled the inside of the cab. You could taste the decay. Just to the side of carcass was an old culvert. We could see the shoulders and tail of a third lion inside the structure drinking. The truck pulled to a stop just as the big male emerged from drinking its fill. It was maneless, a transplant from Tsavo, and huge. He gave the truck one desultory glance, switched his tail and lay down in the grass. His belly was distended from gorging on the buffalo. As we snapped picture after picture, he suddenly arose and approached the kill. Though he did not appear to be particularly hungry anymore, he latched onto what remained of a haunch and reached one massive paw up to the ribs to steady himself as he started tearing out chunks of meat. As the paw settled onto the top of the carcass, the claws extended – curved talons as long as your little finger. As soon as he touched the buffalo, CLOUDS of blowflies arose into the air, even coming through the cracks in our windows and into the cab. Trust me, there is a big difference between seeing these creatures sleeping in their pit at the zoo, and looking one in the eye without the benefit of a fence or concrete wall.
Our impromptu guide urged the driver closer, and we now stopped the truck within touching distance of the lion, violently tugging the rear of the buffalo this way and that. We were so close I could hear him breathing. At one point, he paused ever so slightly and glanced up at us in the truck. At that slight move, the guide started slapping the driver on the shoulder exclaiming, “Back up, back up, back up!”
We watched Simba worry the kill for a while longer, snapping our fill of pictures and video before slowly backing away and heading back to the main park. I for one, was not expecting to see any lions on this trip so immediately being led to a kill, and on the road-side no less, was incredibly lucky. I had read about lion kills, but the experience was much more visceral than I had imagined. Seeing that sort of behavior in the flesh is just incredibly raw.
Leaving the lions, we entered the park proper, and started a tour along the lakeshore. Lake Nakuru is beautiful. It lies at the feet of a series of small peaks and is surrounded on all sides by marsh and forest. Hulking cape buffalo and waterbuck waded in the reeds, grazing, along with ibis, storks and other wading birds. Huge rafts of pelicans stood about noisily on muddy banks and formed scattered pink and white phalanxes in the middle of the lake. Baboons and vervet monkeys gamboled about on the road and in the forest. Birds were everywhere.
We turned away from the lake and headed up towards the nearby grassland we could see through the trees. Herds of gazelle fed placidly through scattered acacia and thin, woody shrubs. Waterbuck had made their way from the lakeshore to feed on grass, and were often flanked by the huge buffalo. We passed a flock of helmeted guinea fowl, dusting and a little later, saw a pair of black-backed jackals trot out of the long grass.
Helmeted guinea fowl - they make a very distinctive sound.
Black-backed jackals. About the size of a coyote.
I have read way too many old hunting stories, and most of the classic writers regard cape buffalo as the most dangerous game animal, except for perhaps the elephant. Knowing this, I was still never that impressed when seeing buffalo on television – they just seem to come across like a big cow. Nothing could be further from the truth. A cape buffalo is a massive animal and when you see a bull standing in the open, they look like a giant hunk of rock. Their shoulders are massive, almost disproportionately large. It is easy to understand why hunters use such big bore guns for buffalo – you have to! We drove right up to a few small herds and solitary bulls – they weighed at least as much as our little truck, which was a strange feeling. The size of these animals says something about the strength of the animals that prey upon them, namely, the pride of lions just up the road.
As we were riding around, I realized that not only was our driver night-blind, but he had trouble seeing during the day as well. Plus, he was hard of hearing, which is not a good quality to have when you are driving very close to wild animals that could conceivably tip over the vehicle if you get too close. I wound up sitting half out the back window, and holding onto the roof bar so I could spot animals and then yell directions into the driver’s ear. Every time I climbed out the window, I would always check the surroundings to make sure nothing with teeth and claws would jump on me when my back was turned.
Driving through a herd of buffalo, I spotted a massive animal away up on a distant hill. After bumping our way over the plain, we were rewarded with one of the 70 or so white rhinos in the park. Kifaru was far bigger than our truck and gradually fed his way to within thirty yards or so of our waiting cameras. We watched him meander across the plain for a good half hour.
As the sun started to go down, we decided to head back to the lakeshore to see if we could get some photographs down by the water. We found a forest track leading to the water’s edge that with the help of my trusty binoculars, could be seen to lead to a distant mass of bright pink, which just had to be a flock of flamingos. Before we had gone too far though, a troop of baboons pitched out of the trees and started walking down the middle of the road ahead of us. Picture this: I’m sitting in the rear of the truck, directly behind the driver. He slows down next to a female baboon that is literally about three feet away from the cab. All of the windows are down. I look down and see what is happening, and start to slowly roll my window up. The driver stops, stares at the monkey and starts snapping his fingers at it. The baboon stares back at him (which in monkey language is a sign of aggression), then fakes like it is going to jump in the window! We are yelling at this guy to roll up his window, but he can’t hear us cause he’s deaf!
The forest road we were following emerged from the lengthening shadows of the trees onto a bare mudflat, marked with the prints of innumerable waterfowl and streaked white with their droppings, where we got out of the truck for the first time. The wind whipped down from the hills, gathered speed, and howled across the shore, pulling at our clothes and drowning out sound. Across the lake, storm clouds were passing, and a rainbow appeared above the distant ridges. Hundreds of pelicans had gathered on the edge of the flat in a giant rookery and roosted above our heads in the solitary acacias near the water’s edge. Egyptian geese and widgeon whistled past on the gale, while maribu storks stalked through the shallows with their strange pink necks. The clatter of bills, grunts, screeches and cries from the accumulated birdlife was deafening, even in the gale force wind. However, most clearly discernible in all the chaos was the clear, high piping of the flamingos standing just off shore. The birds are shades of the brightest pink and they move about so delicately it is surprising that they do not simply blow away. It was unbelievable to see them in their natural environment, framed in a fierce landscape and lit by the clear light of the African dusk. When the flock, hundreds strong, lifted briefly into the air to alight farther down the shore, the beating of the black tipped wings reminded me of a deck of cards being shuffled.
I know that I won’t be able to properly convey just how surreal this experience was for me. To stand out on the middle of an empty mudflat in the middle of Africa, when you cannot hear a thing for the rush of the wind and the cries of the birds, and you see cape buffalo grazing just beyond the vehicle, and even though you are there with a group of people, you feel alone, and the experience is still yours alone and then suddenly the world seems as big as when you were a kid. When the light had faded and we got back into the truck, none of the words we could think of to describe the experience really seemed to fit. As we drove back through the gates, the group was silent, as everyone retreated to the solitude of their own thoughts to muse on the birds and the wind.
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