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I have a radical conservation idea to fix the elephant poaching problem in Kenya. I think Kenyan govt rangers should hunt and dart the mothers and saw off their tusks, very publically, to eliminate any motive for the poachers to kill them. Then at least the mums would be alive to raise and feed their young.
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My on-the-ground team at Pollman's, (hired by my excellent travel lady Helen in Cape Town who arranged our Zimbabwe/Kruger adventure two years ago) worked like clockwork. I was a bit wary of what i would find in post USA-embassy-bombing Nairobi, but it was like flying into Alice Springs. no worries, mate. I was cashed up like Leytton Hewitt and had arranged a day tour in less than five minutes, and my driver whisked me onto the highway.
I was not prepared for how gentle and helpful East Africans would be. what a lovely place. my hotel is strictly super high security upper class, but i have rarely seen a white person. it's great to see black marketing that is in no way marginalized, but conservative and stylish. it's really not about white folks at all. whitey has been building dreadful cookie cutter mcmansions all along southern Nairobi.
the other thing that struck me about Nairobi is: where is the poverty and strife? we did drive 90 min across town, and it seemed like yangoon, burma: traffic and people with giant bags walking down busy narrow roads and vendors on the street, but not poverty like india. apparently, there are some Bad parts of town to which one does not go.
Day one was simply enjoying my posh business hotel, mostly catering to Africans, holed up away from any concerns of crime or danger, except through my binoculars over a stiff vodka tonic. my first day was swimming and getting tech to work, blowing up a cord, having nerdy maintanence guys come to not only fix the power, but to attach a new plug to my laptop cord! a swim, some drinks, and a lovely elegant dinner in the warm night with frogs croaking in the pond. I give myself a big break on day one in a new region.
Wachuiri and Me
Day two was military. I had put myself to bed at 9pm to get up at 6am to handle home world issues, and get to the gym by 8am, right on schedule, in time for brekkie and a 945am tour. It was easily the nicest hotel gym I have ever seen. A few things from Titan Coogee where missing, but i got through Claire's program adapated by Siobhan, and the resident trainer insisted on perusing my workout book. I was the only guest there. I can tell I am going to be sore in two days! DOMS!
I stopped at the 7th floor lounge to view vast Nairobi Natl Park, but it was barren, and I saw no animals. Locals tell me there is no migration through the park and it is rare to see animals. great idea, but urbanization won.
i met my excellent driver for the day, a contract taxi driver, Gachuiri (Ben in English) whom i found to actually be much better than the company guys, genuine, interested, flexible, and with me as his number one priority.
Our first stop was the david sheldrick elephant sanctuary. David was a naturalist who left a large trust to care for native animals. (Mine will be to take care of smart entreprenuers to drive the USA and world economy.) They tout themselves as saving orphan elephants whose mothers are poached, but of course, since i do this professionally, too, in front of the awful but at least present gawking crowd of whiteys in shorts and thongs, I questioned the head keeper during his presso.
whiteys stand about
elephants stand about
In fact, based on my questions, of course, they only save baby elephants who get separated from the herd, falling down wells or getting swept down rivers. Adult African elephant cows develop tusks like males, unlike our Asians, and thus are a target for poachers, who kill them and saw off the tusks, leaving the corpse to rot. But the presenter told me that a big difference in maternal behavior of Africans is that the cows do not nurse others' calves, so they become malnourished if mum is killed. really?
The young Africans were tiny compared to Tukta, our youngest at Taronga, who is about one year old. But they grow larger than Asians in their 18-year lifespan. I was surprised at the freaky circus.
An hour of elephants paraded about was enough. The park saves endangered black rhino young, too, but sadly we saw none. I did bring my binoculars and got to peer across a hundred km circle of the barren adjacent Nairobi national park. The only life I saw was camping primates, ye olde humans. Thank Buddha I didn't waste my one day in Nairobi trying to chase phantom game!
Next conservation stop was a giraffe center for the endangered of the three giraffe species: Rothschild giraffes, of which there are only several hundred. These giraffes have no markings in their legs and are shorter than taronga's reticulated giraffes.
I fed them, with their long black tongues, and I could pet them, though they were a bit jumpy about being touched. i found them to be spoiled and arrogant.
Third stop was the Karen Blixen "out of Africa" homestead, which was an interesting glimpse of how humanitarian westerners helped Kenya into the modern age of medicine, industry, commerce, and super posh living. The house is small and quaint on gorgeous manicured grounds, with the interior that looked and smelled like my grandparent's old house in Jekyll island, Georgia, USA, inlcuding the gardens.
In gracious Kenyan fashion, a fashion-modelesque guide sat with me on a chair on the vast lawn in front of the homestead and in a soft barely intelligible voice recited a tirade of specific dates and unimportant facts about Karen's life. Karen was a real adventurer ex pat, who gave up her civilized life in Denmark for a new life in a wild new environment. Hmm, who does that sound like? I tried to explain how I was like Karen in this way, and how I can relate to much of her story personally, but that was not in my ebony fashonistas script, so my lovely guide just shook her pretty head and kept droning on and on about dusty books and hollywood movies.
I was also struck by Karen's extra-marital affair and her syphlis she picked up from her philandering husband. I told my guide, "see what happens to bad girls", and she was not amused at all. I know, being a bad girl myself, though I was completely faithful to my last philandering husband, the son of a bitch.
I had a great idea to start growing coffee like Karen (though she had 1000 acres and her brother built a coffee processing plant) but I saw the giant machinery for the process and maybe it's just too hard to turn the coffee fruit into a drink. Karen lost it all when Masai brush-clearing burned her factory down, she went bankrupt, and she had to leave her beloved adopted country in disgrace. I don't need that trouble, so shall probably stick to citrus and herbs, but i'll maybe get my bee hives when I return to Australia.
My final bonus stop, which my kikuyu driver wachuiri (ben) loved, was the Bomas, a traditional Kenyan tribal center. Some bank bigwigs had taken over and totally trashed the grounds, but the dancing show was held in an alternate big boma like auditorium: two or three guys with native drums and triangles and one shamisen like guitar, with costumed dancers. Every ten minutes a different tribal dance and different costumes. In a room built for 300 guests, there were 10 euro, African, and Asian guests, but wachuiri said it is full on weekends. I really got into it and filmed on my amazing useful iPhone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZo68y1yaZ8&feature=em-upload_owner
Then the piece de resistance, we had a traditional lunch- they would never serve at my hotel- of mashed potato, corn, and greens and a native pan-fried tilapia. So delicious, with a real sugar coke that reminds me why people used to love coke so much.
the drive home was terrifying. there are no traffic controls, explicit or implied, at intersections. that does NOT work at rush hour!
bringin' home some sticks
my animals were converted to islam in my careless absence
gorgeous hotel's gorgeous flowers
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