The secret behind the strange Acacia "fruit"

Strange acacia fruit

Further North, beyond the shadow of Mount Kenya, towards Samburu, the land was drier and savannahs covered with elephant grass, giant ant hills and sparsely populated with Acacia trees.  Many of the funnel-like Acacias in Kenya had little bulbuous appendages hanging from their branches.  John, our guide, explained that the tidy, globe-like objects were not fruit but Weaver bird nests with just one entrance at the bottom and that it was the male bird that wove the tightly woven nests from grass to attract the female.  When finished, the female bird inspects the newly built nest and if unsatisfied with the quality, does not roost in it and both birds abandon the nest, never to be used again!

Giant ant hills

When we stopped for a comfort break near one of these acacia trees festooned with nests, all the nests looked to us as perfectly formed ornaments, however the female birds must have been very fussy at this tree to encourage such frantic productivity from the males. All the comfort breaks during our travel were at shops by the side of the road selling all types of local art and craft and also offered neccessary facilities for tourists in exchange for their visit to browse and buy their wares.


Tall Elephant grass

Fortunately none of the selling was pressured.  Some of the products were made at the back of the shop where craftsmen, wearing British football club T-shirts, toiled to create pieces to be sold in the shop.  Apparently canny British tourists barter the much sought after foot-ball club T-shirts and posters for art and craft pieces make by the poor workmen.

Along the road north past Mount Kenya

Scenes on Kenyan roads

Tarmac roads in Kenya are reasonably good however you need to clench your teeth over certain stretches to prevent chattering teeth in your vibrating jaws from biting off your tongue.  John, our safari guide and driver, said that the road building had in the past been given to a Korean company but had rapidly deteriorated due to poor workmanship and materials.  The latest road construction programme had been given to a number of foreign contractors.


Village scenes along Kenyan roads

As we passed construction sections, John reeled off the nationality of the contractor for each section, Italian, British, Austrian, Chinese...  At each section very little work seemed to be going on, either the earth moving equipment lay fallow, or a few local workers listlessly shuffled some rocks about, or the site lay ocmpletely deserted for miles and miles, until we came across one dusty section charged with vigorous activity.

Road-side scenes

Unlike other sites, where the supervisor seemed to have absconded to the nearest watering hole, at this particular site, hundreds of miles from the nearest human habitation, we found a solitary Chinese manager at the centre directing local workers and inspecting the works in the heat of the midday sun.  This image stayed with us as we pondered the increased Chinese productivity, wealth and influence in Africa and the rest of the world. 


Majestic Mount Kenya rising from the plains

As we receded further and further North on the A2 highway from modern Nairobi, the urban sprawl gave way to green farms, then on to large areas covered in framed plastic tents where Kenyan flower exports flourish at the foot of rolling hills and Mount Kenya rises majestically from the plains.  Seeing the clouds up on that rocky peak had my head resounding with that inspiring spiritual Up to the Mountain by Lexie Stobie.

As we swung around the wide base of Mount Kenya, the landscape gave way to arid and rocky expanses with a sparse population of acacia trees with strange fruit suspended from their branches.  We turned to John, our guide, as to the meaning of this and he revealed a most intriguing ritual that explained the strange fruit borne by the trees. 

Time travel, no worm holes or fast DeLoreans needed

With our driver at Kenyatta ICC

Modern Kenya is epitomised by the towering Kenyatta International Conference Centre that we visited on our last day in the city before striking out on our safari adventure.  The security man, an equally tall Masai in a smart black suit and Ray Bans, probably a extra from Men in Black, took our tickets and loftily scrutinised us in minute detail all the time during our visit to the top of the tallest building in the city.  The view from the roof of Nairobi was fabulous on a clear and sunny day with the bustling city with its melee of chaotic traffic far below us.  The majestic All Saints Cathedral, where my wife attended a magnificient five-hour installation service for the Archbishop of Kenya,  stood in minature in Uhuru Park at the bottom of the tower. 



Cool shades looking down on All Saints Cathedral

In the distance beyond the green neigbourhood of Karen where we were staying, the wide plains, hills, valleys and mountains beckoned us towards Kenya's living past that is inextricably woven into story of the birth of mankind as discovered and researched by the Leakeys.

Our interest grew as that evening the safari tour representative came to introduce the adventure that lay before us over the next week as we travelled the across this wonderful continent.



Tour guide John and his trusty Nissan Safari Van

The next morning we met our tour guide, John who brought along the converted and sturdy Nissan van, in which we could literally raise the roof, that would be our transport.  We were immensely grateful that the two chain-smoking couples with tattoos over their arms were in a different van and the four of us had John all to our selves.  And so we started off and our chats with John during the journey revealed that, despite never being educated beyond school, he had a vast knowledge of the fauna, flora, animals and generally about his country. 
 

Happy waving children all along the way

He kept 3 large volumes of encyclopedias in the van and could recite the Latin names of every species of plant, bird and animal that we encountered.  Not only was he fluent in English but also in Spanish and his gentle humour kept us entertained thoughout our travels as we discussed Kenyan society, culture, food, history and families.

As we drove northwards to our first destination past villages and numerous happy children, who never failed to wave to us, the tarmac gave way to dusty roads and eventually tracks and the time seem to peel back thousands of years to when man was just an insignificant creature in this magnificient landscape.

A farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills



Karen Blixen's home and museum

No visit to Karen could be complete without a visit to the home of Karen Blixen of "Out of Africa" fame, that used to be in the middle of the failed coffee plantation she started, and is now a well maintained national museum that attacts a constant stream of visitors. The museum guide took us around the rooms, furniture and artifacts that belonged to her (or was used in the Meryl Streep and Robert Redford film) and have now been collected together in the house.  It is not the house but her gardens and view outside that give a clue to why she fell in love with this part of Kenya and left her chilly and comparatively sterile homeland of Denmark.


Gardens around Karen Blixen's home

The beautiful manicured lawns, flower bushes and extraordinary trees with views of the Ngong hills as a background is also a home to numerous butterflies and birds.  In the garden there are a number of tall extraordinary trees that are half cactus and half tree; the trunk is like a tree but the branches and leaves are like a cactus.  Eunice, the lady that works in the garden there, said that it is not related to the cactus family but is a species in its own right, "candelabria euphorbia" as we found out.

Eunice and coffee extraction machine

Eunice was eager and happy to show us around the garden and enthusiastically plucked a green coffee bean from the plant and offered it to us to taste.  We were reluctant at first but she put a few in her mouth and said it was fine so we tentatively tried the little beans and sure enough the unmistakable taste was evident.  Proudly she even took us through the bushes to the back of the garden where she wanted to show us a forgotten part where we came across the rusting and dilapidated mechanical coffee-extraction apparatus that was used in Karen Blixen's days.

As evening fell we headed back to our guest house to find that a large group of youngsters, travelling overland across Africa, had arrived and were having a loud and boisterous party.  We left the youngsters to join the rowdy goings on while my wife and I decided to go for a walk along the quiet lanes of Karen instead, past beautiful houses and gardens hidden by tall hedges and patrolled by private security guards who inspected us carefully.  We did get the overwhelming impression that evening walks in the neighbourhood was not a familiar pastime in this part of the world but as we walked hand-in-hand in this lovely neighbourhood we realised why Your Love is King.

Small and beautiful "kazuri" and other such wonders

Shop at Kazuri Bead Factory in Karen

Rarely do you get something free and uplifting but as we explored the tall bougainvillea hedge-lined back lanes in the beautiful and old colonial neighbourhood of Karen, on the outskirts of Nairobi, we came across a corner house that runs free tours of its little workshop that makes colourful little glazed beads for necklaces, bracelets, earings and such like.  The Kazuri Bead factory is run entirely by, and for, disadvantaged single mothers around the area, giving them a livelihood that they can be proud of.  Started by an English lady this fashionable brand is now marketed and sold around the world.

Amazing plaited hairstyle

Its shop is chockfull of colourful stock that you can wander around with no abolutely no pressure to buy anything.  The charming shop assistant we met there explained how long it took her to make up the most striking plaited hair style that we had ever seen.

Also near Karen, closer to the Ngong hills, is a well laid out and equisite collection of arts and crafts from all over Kenya housed at Utamaduni.  The rooms here are full of beautiful, but more expensive, selections of wood carvings, masks, Masai necklaces and bracelets, leather shields, jewellry, flamboyant cotton prints, wall hangings and furniture all arranged neatly in rooms both downstairs and upstairs.  We got so engrossed in examining and caressing the beautiful carvings and other artifacts that we missed out having coffee in the little cafe next to it before it closed for the evening.



Furniture, art and crafts at Utamuduni

The overwhelming, universal and inherent drive for mankind to spend time and resources to produce beautiful artifacts for others to admire and desire never fails to amaze me.  Kenyan art and handicrafts definitely does not fail to attract the art lover or just souvenir hunter with its ingenuity, variety, skill, technique and uniqueness.

Karen's Colonial Shops

One last stop of ours was the old colonial shops at Karen where the original English settlers set up shop.  These faded reminders with wooden facades and peeling paint still cater for the European expatriates in Karen and you can still buy Marmite and Roses Lime Marmelade there.  The shop owners however now are Indian expatriates who keep the shops well stocked with products that you would find in any English high street. The cashiers sit protected behind iron-barred security and count their wads of well worn Kenyan Shillings.  The expatriates still breeze in and out for their familiar provisions and chin wag with other expatriates while their local Kenyan house-help subserviently scurry back and forth to chauferred cars and four-by-fours with baskets full of shopping.

Guilty pleasures that must be indulged



Diabolical roasting pit at the Carnivore restaurant

It does not seem the politically correct thing to do in a country that has so many beautiful safari parks and a variety of wild life, but there is a guilty pleasure in eating at the smart, famous and expensive Carnivore  restaurant in Langata, a suburb of Nairobi, where the waiters invade your table with wave after wave of a bewildering variety of spit-roasted meats until you literally surrender by raising a white flag at your table.  Almost the Sweetest Taboo.

Alligator & ostrich on the menu

We went for lunch on a week day and the car park was filled with smart cars and the dining area packed by businessmen with their customers.  The fishy crocodile and gamey ostrich were definitely acquired tastes so we stuck to the safety of lamb, chicken and beef.  Although the service and ambiance was interesting, it did not warrant spending an entire afternoon at the establishment.

In fact, due to its historic inheritance, there is a variety of cuisine in Nairobi ranging from expensive English cuisine to the exotic Indian extravagance of the reasonably priced Haandi, in the Westlands shopping mall in central Nairobi, where the Illiad-sized menu will keep you undecided until the exciting aroma and your hunger gets the better of you.  If mixing smart shopping and cuisine is on your list of things to do, then one of the nicest places to escape to is the Village Market on Limuru Road a few miles from downtown Nairobi.
 

Ro Ro Chinese dining at Village Market

Here the wives and children of Nairobi's expatriate community while away their day in smart cafes and food malls around pleasant, artificial waterfalls and lazy courtyards.  We found the wife of the Chinese owner of the Ro Ro Chinese restaurant owned restaurants in a number of countries in Africa.

We rounded off a busy day with tea and English tea cakes in the open air patio at the Karen Blixen Coffee Garden and Restaurant overlooking lush green gardens and lawns.  As we discussed the sights seen and people we had met during the day, a bustle of very officious and well-dressed men and women suddenly gathered around the entrance to the main restaurant and luxurious wooden bar.  We were told that the Kenyan vice president was visiting. 

Bird table in Karen Blixen Coffee Garden

The crowd soon disappeared as a monsoon-like shower had everyone scurrying off with their umbrellas to their cars and calm and tranquility returned once more to the gardens that now glistened in the refreshing rain.  The low and whispered conversations continued, at the tables under the covered verandah that surround the elegant house, well into the cool evening as dusk fell and we planned what we were going to do in the days that followed.

Beauty in Diversity, Bomas of Kenya



Crazy, incomprehensible Matatu drivers in Nairobi

If city traffic kept you on the edge in Rome, Calcutta, Los Angeles or Bangkok, the pure adrenaline rush of traffic in Nairobi will even beat a Formula 1 grid start.  Public transport has been completely replaced by private operators who use their extravagantly and incomprehensibly decorated mini-buses (Matatus) to get their wildly gyrating passengers from A to B in record time as they weave left and right, both on-road and mostly off-road, past  traffic jams.  



Dances at Bomas of Kenya

After passing some evidence of over-enthusiatic Matatu drivers, overturned on the dusty road side, we visited the Bomas of Kenya that showcases the rich diversity of different tribes with their distinct appearance, dances, music, homesteads and colourful regional dress.  We would have been completely oblivious to this diversity had we not visited Kenya, seen and discussed this with the Kenyans we met.  Kenyans could easily recognise a person from a Kikuyu tribe or Meru tribe.  The lanky Masai with their lilting gait were however distinctive even to the uninitiated.



The afternoon of rhythmic percussion, chants and exhuberant dances enthralled us as each tribe exhibited pride in their traditional culture.

 

Children in need of love and life

Mothers Mercy Home in Limuru near Nairobi

You could not meet happier children than those at the Mothers Mercy Home and it was a real joyous occasion to spend a week with them at Limuru just outside Nairobi in Kenya. Those smiles hide sad stories of how the kids came to be at the home which is supported by our church through Bishop Ranji.  They offered my wife a ride down a small hill on an old bike they shared and much to their amusement and to squeals of laughter, my wife only discovered that it had no brakes at the bottom of the hill! 

Feeding time at David Sheldrick centre

Another glorious and happy place is the David Sheldrick centre during feeding time for orphaned elephants and other endagered species.  The minature wonders had a rollicking time in the chocolatey, muddy pool before taking huge gulps from giant milk bottles.  This was eagerly followed by complete abandonment of any dignity by slopping over each other in the glorious mud that keeps their delicate skin from getting burnt in the relentless late morning sun.

Hearts were however stolen by the little plump sausage of a rare, baby black rhino, that had been found near it's mother killed by poachers, who bounded in after the elephants had left.  It proceeded to test its newly found head butting skills by playfully charging down the ranks of tourists who kept well out the way of its muddy snout.

So after the time spent enjoying the unfettered joy and energy of the young of all life on earth, one's heart was filled with hope that these beautiful progeny will mould the future in their image.  Here's a really cute song to celebrate this feeling from Sade, Babyfather.

Kissing long-legged Laura in Langata, Nairobi, Kenya

Long-legged Laura, a Rothschild giraffe

Kissing long-legged Laura with her slow, seductive, swaying gait, flashing eyelashes and doleful eyes was definitely top of my agenda as soon as I saw her, so I tried very hard to convince myself that she was not solely enticed by the biscuit between my teeth, but she was so very elegant and ladylike to minimise contact as she extracted it delicately from my mouth using her long black tongue at the Giraffe Centre at Langata, a suburb of Nairobi in Kenya!

Beautiful bouncy baby

My wife, in a fit of jealousy, immediately  reacted by grabbing and heartily hugging a beautiful Kenyan baby who she deftly extracted from its mother's arms much to the wide-eyed surprise of the youngster and consternation of the willing mother.

Meanwhile my sons were completely enthralled by the dappled patterns on Laura's elongated flanks that she blatantly flaunted in front of all the visitors in order to attract hoardes of willing suitors to offer her a never-ending supply of tasty morsels.



Dappled flanks of Laura

As the paparazzi clicked away incessantly, she suddenly went shy when a camera's flash went off startling her to retreat demurely towards the elegant Victorian Scottish Giraffe Manor in the background.  We had to presume this imposing residence was her own nightly abode because no one else could afford the exhorbitant rates extracted by this establishment from human visitors who were tempted to spend the night there.

Return to Kenya

Karen's luxurious bougainvillea hedges with "Smiley"

The cloud of apprehension of returning to a changed Africa after 38 years away soon evaporated when we  arrived in Kenya as dawn broke over chaotic Nairobi International airport and were met by our chatty driver.  Introducing himself with profuse handshakes and an unpronounceable   Swahili name, he added ... "Everone calls me Smiley" with a huge, toothy, grin as he cheerfully and vigorously swerved around the early morning rush-hour traffic.


Guest house dogs and owner

Avoiding the bustling, expensive and reportedly unsafe central area, we chose to stay at the more sedate and old neighourhood of Karen with its old colonial houses with large gardens surrounded by kaleidoscopic bougainvillea hedges near Karen Blixen's "Out of Africa" old home and original coffee plantation.  We arrived as life lazily stirred at the Karen Camp guest house on early Sunday morning and the New Zealand owner's giant but friendly german shepherds curiously investigated all the new arrivals. Pongo, the largest one, hovered around us enjoying all the petting and attention lavished on him fully anticipating many a tit bit off our table when breakfast was served.

St. Francis Anglican church in Karen

After a hearty breakfast of spanish omlette, toast and tea we just had to stir out to explore the environs starting by joining the nearby well-attended, vibrant and exuberant youth Sunday service at the Anglican church of St. Francis.

The pastor said there were 3 services (2 in English and 1 in Swahili) on Sundays and all of them to a full church.  Judging by the numbers in the congregation and cars outside we did not doubt the popularity of this church.

The Countryside at Frensham Ponds, a Walk on the Wild Side

Following many a power walk along the genteel paths and parks of Sandhurst with my dear wife, during which she demonstrated her new found, diet-induced, superior, stamina by always striding at least ten steps ahead of me, I decided to regain the upper hand one sunny morning by innocently suggesting a more varied, relaxed and romantic walk in the countryside.

After rummaging intensely through the internet for a while, I found a detailed guide and hand-drawn, walkers’ map for a, not too challenging, six-mile walk at Frensham Ponds that is a short drive from home. As the map drawer, being old-fashioned, did not give the precise, pin-point, postal code location of the starting point, we ventured out in the car in the general direction without the aid of the brain-numbing satellite navigation contraption.



Frensham Ponds in Surrey

 A longish, short, drive later through convoluted, countryside lanes, led us eventually to the Frensham Pond visitor centre at the edge of a sandy beach around a shimmering lake bathed in warm sunshine. Confident scorn was poured on my efforts to get a better map from the visitor centre so we set out immediately, dithering briefly left and right, as I tried to match the hand-drawn map to the landscape. We strode, determined, along the sandy shore past triangular, white sailboats flitting backward and forward on the lake. Tripping along behind my resolute partner, my attempts to capture the idyllic scene with her on camera were summarily dismissed apart from a brief, forced, smile with no chance for a repeat in case of a blurred image.

Charging over a bridge and up a bank into the woods along a river, the path became muddier due to rains the night before. This, to my relief, slowed her down as she navigated around the brown, slurpy, sludge in her pristine, pink, Nike trainers. My romantic banter about the winding river and sun-dappled woods were completely ignored; however, I knew I was winning when she muttered that we should have stuck to the clean and ordered tarmac paths around Virginia Water, that we had visited the weekend before, on which we would have made great progress. As she stopped summarily to wipe the muck from her soles, I rested against a contorted, wizened, oak and pleaded with her to take a snap of me against this ancient living form, to which she reluctantly condescended. 



Wizened Oak

We raced past the regal, Tudor-fronted, Frensham Manor which attracted only a fleeting glance as she concentrated on dodging, at pace, around the infuriating puddles that were intent on sullying her neat, dainty footwear. Overtaking a leisurely young couple and child with the tersest of greetings, we swung around a ploughed field with a narrow muddy bridleway beside it, running along a bramble hedge. I confirmed, from the map, that this was indeed the correct heading on which to continue our walk. As we carefully tip-toed around the muddy path and horse droppings, my heart soared on anticipation of a slower pace as I saw her spirit sink at a sign that pointed to a public footpath that led over a stile in the hedge and across a freshly ploughed field. Over the thorny, clawing, hedge and stile we climbed and ventured bravely into the field towards the wooded hilltop joined by some locals who were familiar with the way.

Inspired by the country-squire clothing of the lanky, local ladies who joined us with their knee-high green Wellington boots, waxed green jackets, caps, hoity-toity accents and pack of eager beagles on leash, I started planning my future country-walk attire as my white sneakers were beginning to get smeared ankle high with manure-like goo. Slowed to a more leisurely pace we stopped at the edge of the field to wipe our muddied ankles and dignity in the long wet grass and let the high-brow ladies of equine heritage confidently gallop away towards the gorse beyond the edge of the field.


Glorious Views of the English Countryside

The path soon gave way to a hilltop copse in the middle of grassy pastures with stunning, panoramic views of the rolling green English countryside beyond with neat hedgerows, interspersed with cottages, farms and country houses. Local farmers, who probably detest country-side walkers using the public footpaths across their land, confined us to a narrow and messy trail interspersed with electric fences and signs with threats of prosecution. Vowing not to let her slender ankles wander into the mire again, my partner ignored the low electric fences and crossed over them into the grassy field, claiming such fences were only for dull, intelligence-challenged sheep. I was not entirely sure she was limiting her reference specifically to the unfortunate woolly creatures dotted on the hilltop munching on the luxurious pasture. I meekly followed to avoid such aspersions being cast in my direction only to be startled by numerous shotgun blasts in the fields below where a farmer had possibly ended the life of a transgressing walker. Cautiously we sidled back onto the slimy, single-lane path at the boundary of the field and woods.


Sun Dappled Crocuses

As we rushed through the woods we suddenly stumbled across a mauve carpet of fresh crocuses basking in a secret sunlit corner. The sight of such delicate beauty stopped us dead in our tracks and we paused to gaze at the sheer magnificence of such a spectacle. Of course the flowers, resplendent in their fresh spring clothing, were completely oblivious to the admiration of passers by. By this hour we were nearing lunchtime and my well-thumbed and crumpled map indicated we were near a family “Real-Ale Pub”, The Hollybush, which was not entirely unplanned. Offering greetings to the locals, who were taken completely by surprise to see such a couple stumble out of the woods and head straight for the “loos”, which was entirely appropriate given the length of time we had taken from the start to reach this habitation.

Since the menu was enticing and the afternoon so balmy, I rang my elder son who was studying at home, to join us for lunch giving him the precise, pin-point, postal code location printed on the pub’s menu. He was down like a shot given the offer of a free lunch and beer. While my dear wife nibbled her diet-conscious salad, I had my steak-and-ale pie and my son tucked into fish-and-chips, all downed with a pint of warm Abbot’s ale, the premier product of the Greene King brewery in Kent.

After lunch, my son left us to complete our walk back to Frensham Ponds. Despite my protestations, the strife of my life headed off at great speed down the tarmac road outside the pub, exasperated with the slowness of the unkempt cross- country footpaths. Soon we reached an old church yard indicated on the map and re-joined the country path only see a couple from the pub approaching us the other way, so we turned back up the path, heading correctly this time to Frensham Ponds. We reached the Visitor Centre just as the evening sun was dipping into the lake and fortunately the tea shop was still serving up a last treat for us of rum-and-raisin ice cream cones which we slurped sitting on the beach, watching the sun go down as parents with their children reveled in digging holes and making castles in the sand.



Let Nature be Your Teacher

I think I achieved a small victory when it was admitted to me, with a wry smile, that she might have enjoyed parts of the walk and I dared to entertain the thought that these might have been the times when we held hands for a while and sauntered carefree through the wild English countryside enjoying what nature has provided us walkers around Frensham Ponds.

I want to Runaway with you by the Corrs.

http://www.frensham-pc.gov.uk/common/