JAMBO [1]

If you thought I'd been quiet it's because Jane and I took a last minute
holiday in Kenya. By booking, paying and leaving in three days we got a
66%+ discount.

Four safari drives on the Maasi near Kilimanjaro and I dived three
different reefs off of Kilifi.

Absolutely ****ing great!

[1] Jambo = Hello

 

Nice one.

One of our bike club members is currently living and working in Nairobi.
A bunch of members went out last year for a week or so.

He sorted out accommodation and got in touch with some local firms for
the safaris and other travel inside Kenya

The end result was a price about one-third what the package operators
charge (or about what you paid!) which makes one wonder whether tourism
really benefits Arican nations at all, or whether (as I strongly
suspect) those "on the ground" in Kenya etc get paid 10% of sod all and
the rel money is pocketed at this end.

If you got some decent wildlife pix, any chance of putting them up on a
site for us to have a look at?

 

Ah Nair-robber nice place if you are street wise.

Nice one!

To get to the Maasi we had to get an internal flight which was expensive
although the safaris were good value. We got "attached" to a party of
tour operators who were being "sucked up to" and one guy who was out for
an interview as a resort manager. It made the whole thing very
interesting.

The average waiter gets 30 to 60 UK£ a month with the local sourced
managers 60 to 100 UK£ a month. Tip the waiters 100ksh (=70p) or 200ksh
(=£1.40) each time and they think you are God.

Waiting for the photos to get back. I have to admit there are a lot of
the tourist classics "An animal plus a tree in front of Mount
Kilimanjaro".To stand on the savannah and looking though a zoom lens at a families of
elephants coming out of the bush towards you is awesome. Especially when
as you zoom back and realise there are 40 of them from hoooge to babies
and they all walk past within 20 feet of you. No walls, no cages,
nothing between you and them.

 

"What about the smell?"

"Oh, the elephants didn't mind...."