Here are a few photos and thoughts from my recent, too-short visit to Kenya, to get me started and help push me to complete a trip report, which is underway, but not going anywhere fast! We spent five nights at Ol Pejeta Conservancy and then 4 nights at Olare Orok Conservancy, from October 1-10. The sightings this time were very high on quantity and not bad on quality too. Lots of youngsters - in fact I have never seen so many, with the notable absnce being very young cheetahs. Olare Orok was very good again, while our single day in the Mara was probably our most remarkable day on safari ever. The surprise was Ol Pejeta, which exceeded expectations and is highly recommended, with a couple of small caveats that I will mention as I go. Laikipia appears to be getting more and more successful and there were quite a number of first-timers at our camp, which is gret as every night there probably contributes $100+ to the conservancy. Kicheche Laikipia is doing very well indeed, and I beleive the Porini camp is too. The third camp I don't know about. Unfortunately we did not see young Safaritalk.
Most importantly for some, we saw very limited numbers of vehicles everywhere except at the wildebeest crossing opposite the Mara and around the star leopard, Olive. Most interestingly for me, there were almost no minibuses in teh Mara, but I can say this in itself improves little. As always when there are a lot of vehicles there was cutting in front, getting too close and blocking an animal's path. However, it did seem slightly better than in the past, with guides and clients both seeming less tolerant of others' bad behaviour - just an impression. There was a lot more patrolling by rangers than there used to be too, and I saw people moved on twice, including away from the expected exit point for the wildebeest at a crossing.
But that's to give a negative impression. As soon as it is time for people to go back for breakfast you have large parts of the Mara to yourself, and we did. We were with a couple visiting Kenya for the first time and they were blown away with the beauty of the place, and looking down from Olare Orok it is magical with the view all the way to Tanzania, as the elephants and giraffe move slowly across the plains and the concentrations of "spots" gradually move left or right to reveal themselves as wildebeest.
All in all in was a really enjoyable trip, and a bit uneventful really. My wife saw that as a good thing, although I like a little bit of uncertainty and a few surprises (my wife being charged by a lion, albeit in the Landcruiser, was a surprise, but I mean in terms of the travel). It was almost an off-the-shelf safari you could buy in the travel agents in a small English town. I definitely need to add some complications to our next trip before my wife realises that all you need to do to have a completely hassle-free (bland I say) safari is to stay at a limited number of tented camps during good weather and fly between them. It may be too late!
Question: There are three leopard (mother, fully grown son and 3/4 grown daughter) and a carcass about two meters up in a tree. Whatis the wise thing to do? (i) wait with 15 other vehicles each with a bazooka poking out from the side or roof, near the carcass, waiting for others to leave so as to get a good position (ii) go to have breakfast (iii) Ask the guy with the biggest bazooka to move because he's been there an hour already. Answer later.
IMPRESSIONS FROM OL PEJETA CONSERVANCY
One of the best things about Ol Pejeta is the foggy, misty mornings. As the fog dispersing before 7, it reveals mist in the valleys below and it is all mysterious and wonderful. Some days the sun blasts everything in 30 minutes and some days it is barely light until nearly 8. The recommended starting time at Kicheche is 6 am (love that as it mens even the most stubborn vehicle-mates are feeling guilty if they keep you waiting until 6.15) both to catch this change and to catch the animals getting active as the sun warms them up. It is often 8C or below in the early morning and so a bit bracing driving along with the windows open (Kicheche have some vehicles with ordinary windows as it gets very cold here sometimes and many people prefer to keep the windows up until 7.30 or so and use the open roof for viewing, but there is plenty of space to get shots out of those windows and you can use the open tops for birds in flight, so it's not so bad and to be honest some evenings and when we visited the busier Sweetwaters portion of the Conservancy it was good to be able to roll up the windows against the chilling breeze/dust from passing conservancy vehicles - we rarely saw other tourist vehicles except when we called in a sighting like the wild dogs).
Another of the best things is having Mount Kenya right there across the valley - a massive, alien block of cold blue contrasting wildly with the generally green conservancy (rainfall is good here), mostly with its peaks hidden behind cloud, but occasionally revealed in full. It is a strange experience to see the snow on its peaks while watching cheetahs hunt, or elephants dusting themselves. We've had views of Mount Kenya before - from the Aberdares and from Serena Mountain Lodge, and even from Sweetwaters back in 2006, although it was cloudy then - but I think from the plateau up here, alone, is the best so far by some way.
Some photos
