Safari at Sweetwaters

       We were ready for a three days trip outside the city visiting some solar projects and working.  At the last moment, on Thursday night, our contact person for visiting the sites told us that we couldn’t go.  So, we decided to visit more of the country and travel anyway.  The next morning, we woke up and spent some time deciding what to do.  Finally, we decided to go to Nanyuki and go on Safari.  I was super excited.  I didn’t imagine I would have the opportunity to do it. So we boarded a bus to the city centre and there we would find a matatu that would take us to Nanyuki. 

   A matatu is a small bus, a minivan of approximately 12 seats that makes long trips to different cities inside the country.  They are all parked in a spot in the city center, waiting to be filled.  You have to try to find a matatu that is almost full, because otherwise you will wait like 4 hours until it is full and departs.  When we arrived in the city center, we came down the bus and we just saw many people walking towards us, covering their faces. We didn’t pay attention and keep on walking, when suddenly a horrible smell, like if someone was frying onions came to us.  That’s when we realize that we were walking in tear gas.  Apparently the police wanted to move some vendors from the street and they use the teargas to move them.  We took another route and reach the matatu station. There were a lot of matatus, and a lot of people asking us where we were going and trying to make us chose their matatu, but we wanted and almost full one. Finally, we found one and started our journey to Nanyuki. 

     It took us like 6 hours to get to Nanyuki, it was a small city with mall in the middle. We found something to eat and then we looked for a hostel. At night we went to the supermarket and in the surroundings we found an English man that start talking to us and end up helping us to find a car and a guide for the Safari. The next morning, at 6 am, we were ready for Safari. But, our Kenyan driver wasn’t there.  We were worried, because they say that you can spot more animals in the morning that is when they go for food, at midday they try to hide from the sun. Our driver arrived 30 minutes late and we started our trip. 

    We arrived at Sweet waters park at 7 am and start our Safari.

  The first animal we say where zebras, apparently they are very common and you see them everywhere. Then we saw some Baboons, they were so nice passing in front of our car.  I loved to see the moms carrying the small babies on their backs.   Impalas are also very common and we saw a lot of them.  But we were looking for the “big five”.  The “big five” are animals that are rare and Kenyan people were always trying to find and hunt since they are very precious and they are very difficult to spot on foot.  

     We kept on driving and we saw some giraffes, I was so excited, since I like them a lot. Sadly, we just saw them from far. But, suddenly, we saw our first one of the “big five”: a buffalo.  

     We saw it from far, they are huge animals and very dangerous, so we tried to stay far. We went to a Chimpanzee rescue center.  Chimpanzees are not original from Kenya, but they have been brought here, since in their native countries they are captivated and sold. So in this place, they try to simulate their normal environment and keep them safe.  Chimpanzees are the most similar animals to humans, our DNA is 98% the same, so it was very interesting to see them.  We heard many sad stories of how they were treated before they got there; some of them cannot even stand properly since they had been for years inside in small cages.   

      After the rescue center we saw our second one of the “big five”: an elephant. This was an interesting elephant, since they are usually in group, and this one was alone.  They say he was expelled from the group and since then they always see him alone. Elephants are very territorial, and while we were taking pictures of it, unexpectedly we saw it coming towards us. It was quite scary to see such a huge animal walking towards us.  So we just moved from its territory and it calm down. 

     We saw another one of the “big five” on a protected site, the rhino. Rhinos are now endangered, so they are in special areas, with many guards taking care of them. Since their horns are very well pay, many villagers try to catch the rhinos and kill them to get their horns. This rhino was called Baraka and was half blind, that’s why it was very calmed and we could even fed him.                       We also saw some cheetahs playing among them and resting.  It was interesting how the Safari works, when one of the drivers sees one of the “big five” or other rare animal, he calls his friends, so in some minutes there are a lot of cars with people taking pictures. This was a little disappointing for me, because it kills the excitement of going in the wild and finding animals or tracing them. So, when we were looking at the cheetahs, our driver got a call announcing that there was a lion close by. So immediately we went to try to look for it. Sadly we didn’t. On the way we think we saw a leopard, three of us saw a shadow in the woods and told the driver, so we drove towards it.  Apparently it was really a leopard, since there were a lot of baboons nearby and all of them seem alert as is a predator was close.  We stay there for some more minutes, waiting for the leopard but we never saw it again.  At the end, we saw, for sure three of the “big five”, we think we saw four, and for sure we miss one: the lion.

     Other interesting fact of this park is that it is extended over the equator, so you cross the equator many times, to the north and to the south hemisphere while you are driving around.

    I liked the experience a lot. Nevertheless, I was expecting something wilder. I don’t know if it still exists on Earth a virgin place, where these wild animals have never had contact with human beings. The animals in this reserve seem very used to people, with turns it into a show more than a real experience.  

Kenya Experience. First week.

     And back to Africa! After some refreshing holidays in France, is time to go back to work. Now the project is totally different and with different people. This is not about delivering a technical solution but more of a field study. The rest of the team: Till and Judith from Germany, Iliana from Greece and Simone from Italy, came to Nairobi ten days ago, and they have been having different meetings with people from NGO’s and Kenya Power.

     I came on Friday, Till and Iliana went to pick me up at the airport. This is very similar to Dakar, but at the same time very different. It is also kind of dry, the city doesn’t have much infrastructure, there are traffic jams everywhere, and the weather is warm. Nevertheless, here there are no donkeys on the streets and, since Kenya was an English colony, everybody speaks English which makes communication and human relations easier for me. It took us almost 2 hours to get from the airport to our place, what usually takes 15 minutes; the traffic jams are astonishing! I got to the house and I was a little impressed. I’ve been in Senegal in the countryside, so I wasn’t expecting nice houses; but here, we were in the city and we were paying quite some money for this house and it is spacious, but is empty and bad maintained. We stayed there the whole afternoon, I was trying to answer emails and enjoy communication to the world again.

     We live in a so-called Estate, these are groups of houses that look the same, are enclosed and have a group of security people at the entrance. In Guatemala, we called them “Residenciales”, and the fact of being enclosed and having the same house as everybody, impressed my European friends. In front of our Estate there is a market. One of the tailors of the market, Zircali, is our friend; so he called us in the night to go out for a beer. We went to a bar near the market, very small and it looked like the bars in the countryside in Senegal, with wooden and plastic chairs. The music reminded me that I was back to Africa. Zircali calls himself “The government” and tells everybody to call him this way; he knows a lot of people, all of them say that they have a lot of money, show off their cell phones and brag about their houses. After sometimes, the girls and I went to sleep and the boys keep on partying with Zircali and his friends.

     The next day I decided to stay in home and to keep catching up with my work. The girls went hiking and the boys slept until late.  I did my laundry, by hand again; this time I was expecting to have a laundry machine, but no, so it was very disappointing. Then, when I tried to work, there was no internet, so I couldn’t work the whole day. In the afternoon, we went with the boys to look for a swimming pool. The only one we found was in the golf club, but we needed to be members, so we came back. The day went by without internet and not many news; and during the night we had to pack our things, since Till, Judith and me were coming to Lodwar. 

     We had to wake up very early on Sunday to take our plane to Lodwar. I couldn’t sleep very well since our landowner was moving out and went away until 2 am. This time it took us just 15 minutes to reach the airport, so we got earlier than we expected. At the desk of Fly 540, the ladies told us that since we had come early, we could take the first airplane that was supposed to leave at 7 am (by that time it was already 730 am).

 So we were happy, maybe we could gain some time. We were in the waiting room and a girl approached to all the people that were supposed to take our flight and told us that the plane was already there, but it was getting fuel. One hour after, we started boarding. So at the end, the first plane that was supposed to be 2 hours before ours, took off just at the time we were supposed to take off: 9 am. It was a scary flight, a small plane that shook a lot.  From the sky we could see how we were approaching the deserted north of Kenya.

After one and a half hours, we arrived in Lodwar. Henry, the manager of the off-grid stations of Kenya Power had arranged our stay, so a Taxi driver went to pick us up and left us in our hotel or, as they call it, guest house. Lodwar is a city, that as Till says, can be much nicer if it was paved. So, it is very dry, dusty and warm. Is like we are in the middle of nowhere. There are just some business, like grocery stores, restaurants, cell phone services and other guest houses. 

There is no much to see or do here, but is interesting to see how other people live. We can see that they eat a lot of meat, especially goat. And they have a lot of food very similar to Guatemalan food: Chapati, that seems a tortilla, Ugali, that is like tamal and they also eat a lot of beans. I enjoy a lot the food here! =)

     On Monday, we decided to go to Elisey Springs, near Turkana Lake.  According to our tourist guide book, there was nothing very interesting to do, but it was a nice place to see.  Our driver picked us up at 8 and we drove for 2 hours. The way was very interesting, just after we left the “city center”, there was nothing, but some trees and dust. Once in a while, we came to see small huts and then everything was a big savanna, just like in The Lion King movie.  We also saw a lot of goats and some people walking. These people were Turkanas, they are the tribu that lives near Turkana Lake, they wear just a piece of cloth to cover their main body and the ladies wear many necklaces that stretch their necks. According to our guidebook, they don’t like to be photographed, so that’s why I don’t have nice pictures of them, even I met some of them. I met a lady, called Maria, she was very nice to me. Most of these people speak English, but is very difficult to understand them, and I think for them is very difficult to understand me, because sometimes they answer something different to what I’m asking. 

     At some point of our trip we found camels! That was amazing, it was the first time in my  life that I saw a camel! And in wildlife! Our driver told us that mainly they exchange them for women. =/

After 2 hours, we got to the place. It was beautiful, it was a lake, but since it was windy it had small waves. Beautiful!

     Even it was a nice beach; we couldn’t got in the water: the guidebook said there are crocodiles. I don’t know if reading that guidebook was a good idea, it made me afraid of doing a lot of things that maybe could have been fun.

I decided to go for a walk. I saw a lot of beautiful birds, but every time I approached to take a picture, they flew away. I met a fisherman that was very nice to me, and told me to not be afraid of the crocodiles, since they just went out during the night. On my way I also met Maria, the Turkana lady and some kids that were asking me to take them some pictures. I really don’t understand if they wanted money for them after that, since just one of them spoke English and not very well. Anyway, I didn’t have money with me, but they didn’t get mad. 

      Then we had swam in a small swimming pool of the resort, had lunch and came back home. The driver was hurry or something, and for a moment I thought we were going to crash. The road is awful, sandy at the beginning and then is full of holes. First, we got stuck in the sand, and then we got a flat tire. The driver changed the tire fast and we continued our way. We got back to Lodwar and Henry came to pick us up to go to the first generation plant I was going to visit. It was a hybrid solar and diesel off-grid power plant that was serving the habitants of Lodwar. We visited the plant, got the specifications of it. It was very interesting that they had tracking and no-tracking systems; they are actually testing them to see what is more cost effective to implement it in their next project, which is way bigger. It is interesting to see that some houses near the power plant are not connected to the grid. Henry said that it was because they can’t afford the connection fee or because they are afraid of having electricity because they thing their huts are going to burn.  It is interesting to see these huts, as the ones we saw in our way to Turkana. The question is: do these people really want electricity? 

They look so peaceful, and like they don’t need anything. Henry says that for these cases, they mostly want to provide lighting; the use of other home appliances is not urgency.  I wonder if not giving them electricity is hinder their development and prevent them from the “luxury” of it, or is just ruining their peace. After my month in Senegal, I realize that being without electricity can be quite fun and you enjoy many things of nature that you are not used to: like the stars.  It can be messy, you are fixing a problem, but maybe you are bringing others. I agree that electricity is needed for development, but in this extreme cases, of these people living so far from this material world, why dragging them? It gave me something to think of.