The Rough Guide to Kenya

Nanyuki hotel warning - theft from room

2012-01-21T18:18:00.000Z

Despite terrorism warnings and the decision of government travel advisories to advise against visiting the Lamu archipelago, it is ordinary low-grade crime that is the usual problem for tourists and occasionally ruins a holiday. This December 2011 email from a Belgian reader is typical - though it's only fair to say I don't get this kind of news very often:

Hello, Recently my girlfriend and I went to Kenya for a 3 weeks holiday. We used the Rough guide edition May 2010.

I would like to inform you that on page 167 the Lions Court Lodge is mentioned as an accommodation in Nanyuki. Please be informed or warned that this is an unsafe place to stay although it is a lodge with security guard. We booked a new cottage for 2 nights, but unfortunately we have been robbed and a lot of values have been stolen during dinner while away from our room. We suspect that there was some help from inside the hotel because our door was opened with the master-key because we couldn't find any scratch. After the robbery the door was closed again. When we declared the theft at the reception desk we were very disappointed that we got no support or help from the staff or management. Even the Police was not called.

Although this lodge is situated on the way to Sweetwaters I suggest to remove this lodge from a future release. After insistence to the management, the only thing they did was returning my money I paid for our 2 days stay. Unfortunately our vacation was disturbed very much.

I already visited many countries in Africa but never had problems like these in the past. I'm aware that staying in hotels or lodges in Africa is not always safe but I think it might be a good idea to mention this incident on your Kenya blog to avoid that other tourist may have the same problem.

King regards,

Dany Cuyt

Belgium

FCO travel advisory imminent terrorism warning for Kenya

2012-01-08T19:53:00.004Z

Hard to know what to make of Saturday morning's tweaked travel advice on Kenya. Was it a response to the sudden successes of the Kenyan armed forces in southern Somali against Al-Shabaab and the fear of imminent retaliation? Reportedly, fifty militants were killed in an assault on Friday. Or was it a diplomatic message to Kenya after a Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism team returned from advising their Kenyan counterparts at the beginning of the month and probably found huge gaps in competence and intelligence.

The new advice is a paragraph inserted into the advice page, and the overall level of advice hasn't changed:

The Kenyan authorities have alerted the public to a heightened threat from terrorist attacks in Nairobi. We believe that terrorists may be in the final stages of planning attacks. Attacks could be indiscriminate and target Kenyan institutions as well as places where expatriates and foreign travellers gather, such as hotels, shopping centres and beaches. We strongly advise British Nationals to exercise extra vigilance and caution in public places and at public events.

Meanwhile, travel companies and airlines are continuing operations normally, the Americans haven't altered their advice since 4th November, the Kenyan media has made no mention of an imminent attack in Nairobi or anywhere else**, and the Nairobi police chief has claimed there is in fact "no new, specific threat against Nairobi". Last week on Nairobi's Capital Radio, the talk about tourism was all about how bad the service was for local tourists over the Christmas holiday period compared with the way foreign tourists are treated. That's an interesting and worrying subject on its own, but set in a context that many visitors will be familiar with - increased security due to a genuine threat of terrorism, comparable with the mood in Britain after the 7/7 bombings or at the height of the IRA's mainland campaign.

Kenyans, like Brits and Americans and many other nationalities, have bitter experiences of terrorism and in one sense the threat, while having many sources, is a general global one. Of course the decision to go or not has to be a personal one, at least as long as the country's "traffic light" travel advisory*, currently orange, doesn't turn red. Travelling into areas where the FCO says "we advise against all travel" or "we advise against all but essential travel" can mean insurance cover is hard to obtain.

The question that needs to be put to the FCO travel advice unit is how far can they advise caution and extra vigilance without saying "we advise against all travel". At the moment the red warning, advising against "all travel", doesn't apply to any part of Kenya, not even the Lamu archipelago or the Somali borderlands, let alone to the whole country.

For now, the mood on the ground in Kenya is not one of fear and panic but of concern and mild exasperation at the time it takes to get into a hotel or a shopping mall, with the quite elaborate security procedures that are widely in place and invariably conducted with very good humour.

* According the British FCO Travel Advice page.

** The Nation finally covered the story of the enhanced travel advisory on Sunday evening. What took them so long

Current train timetable Nairobi Mombasa

2011-11-15T13:00:00.000Z

I photographed this at Nairobi station on 31 October 2011. I can't make any claims for its accuracy - and the landline numbers 2044476 and 2044479 appear to be two digits too short (they are probably actually 020/44476xx and 020/44479xx but almost certainly not working anyway) - but it's all the information that's available. The twice weekly Nairobi Mombasa Nairobi service is definitely running at present, with these prices.

2nd class: Ksh1150
1st class: Ksh2170
Bedding: Ksh320 (automatically included with ticket, not sure if you can avoid paying)
Breakfast: Ksh470 (optional)
Dinner: Ksh700 (optional)

Incidentally, the Nairobi Kisumu Nairobi service is currently suspended once again (they told me on 31 October that the last train from Kisumu was departing that evening).

FCO "trouble abroad" figures: previously unpublished country-by-country details

2011-08-28T17:55:00.000+01:00

On my blog for another book, The Rough Guide to First-Time Africa, I've been posting the results of my chasing up the press office of the UK foreign affairs department (the Foreign & Commonwealth Office or FCO) for further information about their recently published "British Behaviour Abroad" report.

The report, covering March 2010 to March 2011, was published at the beginning of August, and contains broad-brush information about the numbers of Britons around the world requiring consular assistance. The numbers run into tens of thousands and include drug arrests, deaths, assaults and stolen passports. Apart from the busiest countries, however, the report does not go into any detail. Kenya isn't mentioned.

I wanted more information, not just about Kenya, but about the other countries I'm particularly interested in in Africa. The results are posted on the First-Time Africa blog, here, and in subsequent posts as I've gleaned more information.

It's worth noting here that between March 2010 and March 2011 not a single Briton was murdered in Kenya. Two people died accidentally, and ten of "unknown causes" - which will likely turn out to mean "formally unknown at the time they were repatriated to the UK" but not in any way suspicious.

The figures do raise some questions, to which I hope I can get answers in the near future.

Letter to the Daily Nation: letter-writer Robert Wainyoke sums it up

2011-08-19T12:30:00.001+01:00

Letters page, Daily Nation, 19th August 2011

The Lamu Port Corridor: Fantasy or Fraud?

2011-07-27T13:07:00.006+01:00

Kenya’s Lamu Port Corridor proposal, part of "Vision 2030", would be Kenya’s biggest ever civil engineering project. It would build a pipeline to deliver oil from South Sudan to a new refinery near Lamu on the coast, build facilities to ship the oil from a giant tanker terminal, lay more than 1700km of new highways and railways to South Sudan and Ethiopia, and build three new airports and tourist resorts in Lamu, Isiolo and at Lake Turkana.

The consultancy project alone – with Japan Port Consultants – will cost the Kenya treasury more than $20 million. The padding out of the price tag with unnecessary and highly paid staff has been the subject of an investigation by Jaindi Kisero at the Daily Nation. As Jaindi points out, there is no mention of the Lamu Port Corridor consultancy on Japan Port Consultants’ website, though JPC does profile their agreement on a Mombasa port consultancy (use the Google Chrome browser for in-page translation). It's also curious that consultancy work on a massive road, rail, airport and hotel-building project has been commissioned to a consultancy specialising in harbours and shipping.

Map © Daily Nation, July 23, 2011

To me, the Lamu Port Corridor plans look like pure fantasy. This “construction time-line” from the Ministry of Transport, with the building of facilities stretching ahead for decades, is a meaningless graphic, and doesn’t even include the transport and resort infrastructure.

Peter Moore of Wanderlust Magazine recently interviewed me about the project for Wanderlust's Endangered Destinations 2011:

What are the proposed benefits of the Lamu Port Corridor?

The main benefits would be the economic development of northern Coast Province and the districts of northern Kenya through which the pipeline and railway route would pass. A secondary benefit would be to create a strategic communications route through north-east Kenya, a region currently exposed to the dangers of Somalia’s ongoing disintegration and lawlessness.

What impact would it have on Lamu?

Most dramatically, there would be a huge influx of migrant labourers from other parts of Kenya.

Lamu town would become a service and transport hub. A bridge to the mainland and a fast highway to Malindi would be likely to follow, which would bring roads, vehicles and building development onto Lamu. This level of infrastructure development is incompatible with Lamu’s status as a Unesco World Heritage site. The town is the best existing example of a Swahili city and preserves a mass of features, through which its origins can be traced to the 14th century or earlier.

Would locals benefit from the development of a port?

In many cases there would be financial benefits in terms of jobs for school-leavers and bigger markets for local businesses. Some locals might also consider closer physical links with the rest of Kenya to be an advantage, emphasising national unity.

What would be the disadvantages as locals might see them?

Rapid, economic development parachuted onto the district would be socially disruptive. Much of the social fabric in Lamu is held together by tradition and family connections and those would be severely challenged by new opportunities and inward migration. Lamu’s attraction as a destination for low-key, getaway cultural tourism would face equally severe challenges which would likely see it morph into a northern version of the international-style hotel development common near Mombasa.

Can the development be stopped or changed?

The consultancy process alone has already cost the Kenya treasury more than Ksh1 billion ($11 million). The normal tender process wasn’t used before the Japanese consultancy was recruited, and massive corruption is being investigated by the media. The treasury has now obtained a 35% discount on the consultancy fees, and payments are currently on hold. Building the facilities and the railway links to South Sudan and Ethiopia would be extremely costly and the project would carry some security risk from local banditry and even Somali jihadists. Even if construction starts, it is quite likely that Ethiopia and South Sudan will have made other export arrangements long before it is completed.

Is a more sustainable, less intrusive option available?

Yes, the full development of Mombasa port and a high-speed rail link to Nairobi and Uganda would be much more cost-effective and would sit on or alongside existing infrastructure. In terms of distance, the Lamu plan has no tangible benefits to exporters based in Juba, Addis Ababa or northern Kenya over this alternative. A new oil pipeline from South Sudan could be routed to Mombasa just as easily as to Lamu.

Who is pushing this through?

Japanese consultants, Chinese and local contractors, and local vested interests. It is said to be “close to President Kibaki’s heart” – or just where his wallet resides, as many Kenyans would say.

How likely is it that the project will go ahead?

The Lamu Port Corridor consultancy is the most expensive feasibility study ever undertaken by the Kenya government. The whole project may yet turn out to have been, either deliberately or through mismanagement, a massive white elephant consultancy project intended to offer the biggest possible private benefit to every party involved without, in the end, delivering a feasible programme for actually carrying out the work.

KCB Rally 2011 – Nairobi to Namanga

2011-06-17T13:35:00.000+01:00

The KCB Safari Rally happens this weekend and will basically clog up much of the route between Nairobi and Namanga in Kenya– ie the northern part of the road between Nairobi and Arusha in Tanzania.

If you're heading for Amboseli, take the new road, which entails carrying on down the Mombasa highway to Emali and then turning south to Oloitokitok.

If you're going by public transport (ie one of the big "shuttle" buses/coaches) from Nairobi to Arusha this weekend, or from Arusha to Nairobi, then check that your bus company has made provision for the various possible road blocks and delays that may occur en route.

If you're doing any of these trips under your own steam, three words: set off early!

Safari njema!

Route maps © Nation newspapers 17 June 2011

Guest post: "Research that paints a gloomy picture of the Mara"

2011-06-13T11:59:00.001+01:00

Guest post from Dr Joseph Ogutu of the Bioinformatics Unit at Hohenheim University.

Richard, thanks for highlighting this issue and trying to be as objective as possible. Here are facts you did not consider or did not know about that support the BBC report and paint a gloomy picture of the Mara unless something is urgently done.

The aerial survey data are very variable because they are a small sample of the entire population due to financial constraints. However, they do reveal the correct trends as several independent analyses have shown. We acknowledge this variability by averaging counts over several years in the 1970s and 2000s in calculating the declines in wildlife numbers to minimize the influence of random errors. We actually say so in our paper. The data gaps are due to financial constraints and this will continue to be a limitation even in the future. Several studies have tested the reliability of this method and showed it to be reliable.

At least six other peer-reviewed and independent scientific publications, by very different authors, listed below, have reported extreme wildlife declines in the Mara region of Kenya since 1977. So, it is not true that “finding other research studies to corroborate ours will have been hard”. I have included abstracts from these papers, which speak for themselves, so I need not add anything more. Another paper that is preparation shows that buffalo numbers in the Mara Reserve dropped by 76% during the drought of 1993. They were about 13000 in 1993 but by 1994 their number had declined to under 3000. This is reported in the paper by Joseph Ogutu and others published in the Journal of Zoology in 2009 and by Ottichilo and others in 2000, details of their publication are given below. The buffalo decline is based on an independent biannual aerial surveys conducted by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) from 1984 to 1995 and continued by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) thereafter. The numbers in the Reserve have not increased to more than 4500 since. Buffalo were virtually wiped out of the Mara ranches during that drought and they have all but disappeared there. Yet, in Serengeti where the same drought killed about 40% of the buffaloes, numbers have been increasing rapidly (See K. L. Metzger, ARE. Sinclair, Ray Hilborn, J Grant C. Hopcraft and Simon AR Mduma. Biodiversity Conservation (2010) 19:3431–3444. DOI 10.1007/s10531-010-9904-z). So, why is this? So, it is not generally correct to assert that crashes occurred only in the 1980s when numbers continue to decline dramatically even today. Regarding the wildebeest migration, 12 monthly surveys conducted from December 1978 to November 1979 found an average of 800000 wildebeest in the Mara Region (see below).

Unfortunately, there are no counts of wildlife numbers in the Mara conservancies, other than the ones we used, which show declines. So, there would be no factual basis to assert that wildlife are not declining, are level or growing sustainably in the conservancies. That is what we would wish to be the case but at present, most of the wildlife in the conservancies may have just moved from other areas in the ecosystem where the situation is worse or is getting worse. Thus, even though I fully support the conservancies, they would need to monitor their wildlife first before we can make definitive assessments.

Also, the oldest conservancy in the Mara ranches, in the sense the word is being used today in the Mara, has been in existence since about 2005/2006, which is not enough to assess changes in numbers of long-lived species. This is not to say that wildlife are finding the much needed refuge in these conservancies.

The wild dogs became extinct in the Mara in the mid 1990s and the new ones seen there are just sporadic visitors from the Serengeti or Loliondo in Tanzania, or wherever else, without which there would still be no wild dog in the Mara, so the BBC report is accurate. The roan antelope also became extinct in the Mara in the late 1970s, but unlike wild dogs, none has come from outside the Mara region ever since. The conservancies hold the promise to improve the future of wildlife in the Mara and should be supported. I also agree that some are doing a lot to improve management and conservation of wildlife. The Mara Conservancy deserve special mention in this regard, especially for fighting poaching hard in the last decade and for publishing their work online. We all need to support the conservancies to save the wildlife and improve local livelihoods but require them to, at the very least, monitor wildlife and regularly report their counts in publicly accessible websites, so we all can see and be convinced that they are having a positive impact. At present this is not the case. The Mara region is perhaps one of the very few such complex ecosystems in the world that is being “managed” without a management plan. There is a need to act now and not to live in perpetual denial that the situation is dire. With all these warnings from all scientists that have worked on this issue, what else would we nee to decide it is time to act?

Here are two recent such empirical tests of the reliability of the Aerial survey methodology used to count wildlife by the Department of Resource Surveys and Remote Sensing of Kenya (DRSRS).

1. Ottichilo WK. African Journal of Ecology 1999, Vol. 37, pages 435-438 (DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2028.1999.00199.x). Comparison of sample and total counts of elephant and buffalo in Masai Mara, Kenya

Abstract. Both aerial transect sample counts and total counts of elephant and buffalo were conducted in the study area during the wet season. The results from the two counting methods were tested for significant difference. The test showed that the results were not significantly different for both the elephant (P > 0.05) and buffalo (P > 0.05).

2. Wilber K. Ottichilo, Wilson M. Khaemba. African Journal of Ecology 2001, Vol. 39, pages 45-50 (DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2028.2001.00268.x). Validation of observer and aircraft calibration for aerial surveys of animals

Abstract. Calibration procedures to determine strip widths for use by the Department of Resource Surveys and Remote Sensing (DRSRS) in its aerial surveys are validated by statistical analysis. Tests were made for differences in observer, aircraft and between using photography (camera) and direct observation (naked eye) in the determination of strip widths on the ground. The relationship between strip widths measured on the ground and in the air was determined using regression analysis. Tests were also made for differences between population estimates reported by DRSRS and those recalculated using reported strip widths for elephant, kongoni, wildebeest and cattle. There appears to be no significant differences between observer performance and between reported and recalculated population estimates for all species except cattle. A significant difference was found between strip widths obtained by photography and those through direct observation, with photography values being 14% higher at ground level. Strip widths measured while the aircraft was in the air were highly correlated to those measured while on the ground (r = 0.97). Overall, it can be concluded that the DRSRS standardization of observers, calibration of the aircraft and calculation of population estimates were carried out correctly. Finally, it is recommended that the difference in strip widths determined from photography and through direct observation needs to be considered in the final calculation of population estimates.

Here are the six publications providing additional scientific evidence of extreme wildlife declines in the Mara region of Kenya since 1977 that preceded the two recent papers by Joseph Ogutu et al. But first, the wildlife numbers in the Mara region of Kenya in 1978-79 based on 12 monthly surveys.

John G Stelfox, Donald G. Peden, Helmut Epp, Robert J Hudson, Susan W Mbugwa,
Jasphat L Agatsiva, Charles L Amunyunzu. Journal of Wildlife Management, vol 50, pages 339-347. Herbivore dynamics in Southern Narok, Kenya.

Abstract. Monthly counts of large herbivores on the rangelands of southern Narok District were conducted by the Kenya Rangeland Ecological Monitoring Unit (KREMU) from December 1978 to November 1979. At that time these rangelands supported year-long herbivore populations of 132/km2 representing a biomass of 160 kg/ha. The Mara Plains, particularly the area protected as the Masai-Mara National Reserve, served as a critical dry season range. During the peak of the dry season (Jul), the resident population of 100,000 blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) was supplemented with large migratory herds from the Serengeti which increased total numbers to >800,000. Burchell's zebras (Equus burchelli) and Thomson's gazelles (Gazella thomsoni) were less migratory but moved seasonally through the Mara, Siana, and Loita range units.

1. Wilber K. Ottichilo, Jan De Leeuw, Andrew K. Skidmore, Herbert H. T. Prins.
African Journal of Ecology 2000, vol. 38, pages 202-216 (DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2028.2000.00242.x). Population trends of large non-migratory wild herbivores and livestock in the Masai Mara ecosystem, Kenya, between 1977 and 1997.

Abstract. The total of all non-migratory wildlife species in the Masai Mara ecosystem has declined by 58% in the last 20 years. This decline ranges from 49% in small brown antelopes to 72% in medium brown antelopes. In individual wildlife species, the decline ranges from 52% in Grant's gazelle to 88% in the warthog. Declines of over 70% have been recorded in buffalo, giraffe, eland and waterbuck. Only elephant, impala and ostrich have not shown any significant decline or increase. Overall, there has not been any significant difference in decline of all wildlife population sizes inside and outside the reserve, except for Thomson's gazelle and warthog. Livestock have not significantly declined over the entire analysis period. However, livestock and cattle populations significantly declined during the 1983–88 period. Donkey declined by 67%, while shoats (goats and sheep) remained stable. In the case of wildlife, land use and vegetation changes, drought effects and poaching are considered to be among the potential factors that may have been responsible for the decline; the decline in livestock during the 1983–84 period was probably due to drought effects.

2. Wilber K. Ottichilo, Jan de Leeuw, and Herbert H.T. Prins. Biological Conservation
Volume 97, Issue 3, February 2001, Pages 271-282 (Doi:10.1016/S0006-3207(00)00090-2|). Population trends of resident wildebeest [Connochaetes taurinus hecki (Neumann)] and factors influencing them in the Masai Mara ecosystem, Kenya.

Abstract. Population trends of resident wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus hecki (Neumann)) and factors influencing them in Masai Mara ecosystem between 1977 and 1997 were investigated. Population trends were analyzed using aerial census data collected through systematic reconnaissance flights. Aerial censuses pertaining to resident wildebeest populations (non-migratory) were identified from migratory populations through spatial analysis. Regression analysis was used for population trend analysis. The impact of land use changes on wildebeest population was analyzed by comparing changes in wildebeest densities in cropped and non-cropped areas. Relationship between population size and rainfall fluctuations was used to assess the influence of rainfall on trends. Comparison of cattle densities in cropped and non-cropped areas was used to get an insight into possible competition between cattle and wildebeest for food. The results show that resident wildebeest population in the Masai Mara ecosystem has declined from about 119,000 in 1977 to about 22,000 in 1997, an 81% decline. The decline is mainly attributed to loss of former resident wildebeest wet season grazing, calving and breeding ranges to agriculture. Rainfall fluctuations and possible competition between wildebeest and cattle during periods of limited food resources may have further contributed to the decline.

3. K. Homewood, E. F. Lambin, E. Coast, A. Kariuki, I. Kikula, J. Kivelia, M. Said, S. Serneels, and M. Thompson. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of America, October 23, 2001 vol. 98 no. 22 12544-12549 (doi: 10.1073/pnas.221053998). Long-term changes in Serengeti-Mara wildebeest and land cover: Pastoralism, population, or policies?

Abstract. Declines in habitat and wildlife in semiarid African savannas are widely reported and commonly attributed to agropastoral population growth, livestock impacts, and subsistence cultivation. However, extreme annual and shorter-term variability of rainfall, primary production, vegetation, and populations of grazers make directional trends and causal chains hard to establish in these ecosystems. Here two decades of changes in land cover and wildebeest in the Serengeti-Mara region of East Africa are analyzed in terms of potential drivers (rainfall, human and livestock population growth, socio-economic trends, land tenure, agricultural policies, and markets). The natural experiment research design controls for confounding variables, and our conceptual model and statistical approach integrate natural and social sciences data. The Kenyan part of the ecosystem shows rapid land-cover change and drastic decline for a wide range of wildlife species, but these changes are absent on the Tanzanian side. Temporal climate trends, human population density and growth rates, uptake of small-holder agriculture, and livestock population trends do not differ between the Kenyan and Tanzanian parts of the ecosystem and cannot account for observed changes. Differences in private versus state/communal land tenure, agricultural policy, and market conditions suggest, and spatial correlations confirm, that the major changes in land cover and dominant grazer species numbers are driven primarily by private landowners responding to market opportunities for mechanized agriculture, less by agropastoral population growth, cattle numbers, or small-holder land use.

4. Suzanne Serneels and Eric F Lambin. Journal of Biogeography, vol. 28, pages 391-407.
Impact of land-use changes on the wildebeest migration in the northern part of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem

Abstract. Aim. The study tests the hypothesis that land-use changes in Narok District have had an impact on the wildebeest population [Connochaetes taurinus mearnsi (Burchell)] in the northern part of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. Location The Serengeti-Mara ecosystem is a vast area of rangelands, straddling the Tanzanian-Kenyan border in East Africa. The area is home to some 1.3 million wildebeest, of which some 30,000 animals currently reside in the Kenyan part of the ecosystem. Methods We analysed the temporal changes in the wildebeest population in the Kenyan part of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem and their relationship with possible driving forces of change, such as rainfall, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), livestock numbers and land-cover changes. Changes in the spatial distribution of wildebeest for three periods were compared with spatial changes in livestock distribution and land cover. The analyses were repeated for the Tanzanian part of the ecosystem and results compared. We thus tested the relative importance of land-use changes among the different potential driving forces of change in the wildebeest populations. Results The wildebeest population in the Kenyan part of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem declined drastically over the past 20 years and is currently fluctuating around an estimated population of 31,300 animals, which is about 25% of the population size at the end of the 1970s. The wildebeest population in the Kenyan part of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem has, over the last decades, been controlled by food supply during the dry and the wet seasons. Expansion of large-scale mechanized wheat farming in the Loita Plains since the early 1980s has drastically reduced the wildebeest wet season range, forcing the wildebeest population to use the dryer rangelands in the south-eastern part of the Loita eco-unit, or to move to the Mara eco-unit, where competition with cattle is higher. The expansion of the farming area has not influenced the size of the total cattle population in the Kenyan part of the study area, nor its spatial distribution. The much larger migratory wildebeest population of the Serengeti, in Tanzania, has not been affected by a downward trend from the late 1970s and is regulated by food supply in the dry season (Mduma et al., 1999). Around the Serengeti, in Tanzania, land-use changes are much less widespread, occur at a lower rate and affect a much smaller area compared with the Kenyan part of the ecosystem. Moreover, land-use changes around the Serengeti have taken place away from the main migration routes of wildebeest. Conclusions Over the last decades, the decline in the Kenyan wildebeest population did not seem to affect the much larger Serengeti wildebeest population. However, if more land were to be converted to large scale farming closer to the Masai Mara National Reserve, the dry season range for both the Kenyan and the Serengeti population would be reduced. This might have serious consequences for both populations and therefore for the entire Serengeti-Mara ecosystem.

5. Mike Norton-Griffiths. WORLD ECONOMICS • Vol. 8 • No. 2 • April–June 2007.
How Many Wildebeest do You Need?
A paragraph from the paper, since I could not find the abstract.

Bad news from the rangelands
1977 was an important year for conservation in Kenya for it was then that
sport hunting and all other consumptive uses of wildlife and attendant
value added activities were banned. It was also the year when the Kenya
Rangeland Ecological Monitoring Unit (KREMU) began to monitor the
numbers and distribution of livestock and wildlife throughout the 500,000
km2 of Kenya’s arid and semi-arid rangelands.

So, perhaps uniquely, a major change in conservation policy—a ban on
all consumptive utilisation of wildlife—coincided with a new capacity to
monitor its effect and impact.

The monitoring results have been deeply disturbing, and by the mid-
1990s a number of warnings were issued about a major decline in wildlife
right across Kenya’s rangelands, even in the most heavily used tourist
areas. The only good news was that loss rates seemed significantly less
inside the Protected Areas than outside where some 70% of all Kenya’s
wildlife are to be found. More recent analyses eliminate even this ray of
hope—rates of wildlife loss continue unchecked, and are now the same
both inside and outside the Protected Areas. Since 1977, Kenya has lost
60%–70% of all its large wildlife.

While losses of such magnitude indicate a major institutional failure to
protect wildlife, the pernicious spread of agriculture throughout the rangelands,
even around important conservation and tourism areas like the Mara
area of Narok and the Amboseli area in Kajiado, give clear signals of a policy
failure. Indeed, the entire economic system of rangeland production in
Kenya has undergone a radical transformation since the mid-1970s
(Figure 2): the human population is growing at >3% per annum; cultivation
is growing at >8% per annum; while livestock numbers remain stable,
offtake is growing at >4% per annum; and wildlife is decreasing by >3%
per annum.

From the perspective of the individual pastoral landowner, at the
macro-economic scale domestic and international markets are expanding
and there are real gains in producer prices. At the micro-economic scale,
the pastoral landowner sees improved market and transport networks,
improved market information networks (mobile telephone coverage is
expanding across the rangelands), improved access to financial services,
ever-increasing opportunities for off-farm jobs and investment,1 and a
wider availability and choice of goods and services.

6. Western D, Russell S, Cuthill I (2009). PLoS ONE 4(7): e6140. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006140. The Status of Wildlife in Protected Areas Compared to Non-Protected Areas of Kenya.

Abstract
We compile over 270 wildlife counts of Kenya's wildlife populations conducted over the last 30 years to compare trends in national parks and reserves with adjacent ecosystems and country-wide trends. The study shows the importance of discriminating human-induced changes from natural population oscillations related to rainfall and ecological factors. National park and reserve populations have declined sharply over the last 30 years, at a rate similar to non-protected areas and country-wide trends. The protected area losses reflect in part their poor coverage of seasonal ungulate migrations. The losses vary among parks. The largest parks, Tsavo East, Tsavo West and Meru, account for a disproportionate share of the losses due to habitat change and the difficulty of protecting large remote parks. The losses in Kenya's parks add to growing evidence for wildlife declines inside as well as outside African parks. The losses point to the need to quantify the performance of conservation policies and promote integrated landscape practices that combine parks with private and community-based measures.

The Mara wildlife "crash" - how real is it?

2011-06-09T17:59:00.005+01:00

The BBC's 2 June 2011 story about a “crash” in wildlife numbers in the Maasai Mara region has been widely picked up, in most cases without further comment. The research was first reported in 2009 and has now been published in the Journal of Zoology. In African conservation, news is rarely wonderful, but is the BBC story a case of hyping broad-brush data into a shock-horror news report?

The sense of impending disaster is certainly not what you get from visiting the Mara and staying in touch with travellers, conservationists and operators on the ground, so this post is my short – and doubtless flawed – investigation into the data behind the story.

The research is based on 49 aerial surveys conducted between 1977 and 2009, visually counting various species – buffalo, eland, elephant, giraffe, Grant’s gazelle, impala, kongoni, ostrich, Thomson’s gazelle, topi, warthog, waterbuck, wildebeest and zebra – as well as domestic livestock, across calibrated areas. Observers sat in the back of a light plane flying 100m above the ground and making sound recordings as they counted the animals they could see between two marker rods projecting from the plane. Groups of ten or more animals were photographed to be counted later. Digital photography must make that a lot easier, but even so it sounds very imprecise.

The paper was published on 20 May 2011 in the Journal of Zoology and I’ve been looking at the raw data available for free download as "supporting info" at the journal website, at as well as at the paper itself.

Swings and slides

One would expect to see a decline. We know there’s been a decline, as wildlife habitats have been hammered by human population pressure and livestock herds. The so-called “dispersal area” around the unfenced reserve has become a much more heavily populated region, with tracks, fences and settlements all inhibiting wildlife behaviour and free movement.

What is surprising, however, is how enormously variable the figures are, with estimates of the population of the various species swinging up and down wildly, sometimes by several hundred percent in the space of a month. For example:

Koiyaki

Buffalo: biggest swing from 40,553 in Jul 1979 to 9131 in Aug 1979 to 39,835 in Sep 1979

Elephant: biggest swing from 125 in Mar 1979 to 2407 in Apr 1979

Giraffe: biggest upswing from 1766 in Nov 1986 to 3771 in April 1987; biggest downswing from 3568 in Dec 1983 to 2704 in Jan 1984

Topi: biggest downswing from 16,178 in May 1997 to 5641 in Nov 2000; biggest upswing from 7498 in Sep 2005 to 17,004 in May 2007

Waterbuck: biggest swing from 1188 in May 1986 to 0 in Aug 1986 to 856 in Nov 1986

Oloololo escarpment

These huge swings must indicate serious flaws in the estimation system, or a remarkable ability of species to bounce back in a short space of time or the possibility of major wildlife movements in and out of the areas being surveyed. The relative ease of counting different species depending on their numbers, size and habits, must also be a factor: bush-loving waterbuck are likely to be harder to count than large elephant and giraffe.

Whatever the causes, the huge swings are not discussed in the paper.

The researchers say the populations of many species have declined to “a third or less of their former abundance”. The BBC went further, reporting “During the wet season, when there is no migration, resident wildebeest in the reserve have all but disappeared, falling by 97%”. In fact, the researchers only undertook two wet season surveys in the last fourteen years (May 2005 and May 2007) and wet season surveys in April 1979 and May 1982 also recorded zeros for wildebeest inside the reserve.

Data gaps

The problem is we’re not comparing like with like: the results of surveys every month throughout 1979 and every few months from 1983–86, are being compared with a few scattered snapshots taken since the late 1990s. Only two counts were conducted between the counts of May 1997 and May 2005, both in November (2000 and 2002) and since then there have only been four counts – September 2005, May 2007, November 2008 and October 2009. In recent years, there have been no counts in the peak migration months of July (the last and only one was in 1979) and August (counts took place in 1979, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1996).

The problem with the figures is that they are so hard to interpret. Even the researchers acknowledge that while “the basic cause of the wildlife population declines seems to be the expanding human population in the ranches along with livestock influences spreading into the nominally protected area. . . the Mara ranches now support higher densities of some wildlife species than the protected area.”

The BBC story refers to a “wildlife crash”. If this happened, it took place in the 1980s, judging by the research charts, with only a gradual decline since then, or even an increase in some cases. Where the BBC’s story captions a photo of a buffalo with the words “African buffalo are all but gone”, that is not what the research shows. Instead it indicates a buffalo population in the reserve, based on the seven surveys undertaken in the last decade, of between 5000 and 13,000 animals, which doesn’t sound a bad number for an area of 1530 square kilometres.

The Migration

And what about the Great Migration? The BBC reports “huge numbers of wildebeest no longer pass through the region on their epic migration”. Well maybe not as huge, but the awe-inspiring migration of hundreds of thousands of wildebeest still takes place every year. We just cannot be sure what the numbers are because the researchers haven’t conducted enough surveys, “owing to financial constraints” as they admit. Only two surveys have been conducted in the dry season since 1996 (one in September 2005 and one in October 2009).

The last time the researchers conducted a survey in July or August – peak wildebeest migration months – was August 1996, when there were 334,488 wildebeest in the Mara region by their estimate. Previous figures show migration numbers can go up as well as down (Aug 1992 494,027; Aug 1991 278,986; Aug 1990 262,947; Aug 1986 228,723; Aug 1984 216,918; Aug 1983 491,882, August 1979 520,456). We have only one July survey in the whole study, from July 1979 (1,171,684).

There’s some complicated statistical analysis in the paper about B-splines and automatic smoothers, which I don’t begin to understand, but the fact that the study is unable to compare like with like by producing estimated populations from the same months over a number of years, rather than a cluster of surveys from the 1977 to 1987 and then occasional counts up until 2009, is surely a serious shortcoming. There were thirty counts in the first 10 years (1977–87), and only six in the last ten (1999–2009), a period which has also included serious droughts in 2005–6 and 2008–9.

Without the missing population estimates, in a constantly shifting eco-system like the Mara, we’re looking at the equivalent of a redacted intelligence report, with huge gaps of blacked-out data.

I’m guessing many statisticians would look at the way the data has been analysed and agree that it passes the reliability tests. I’m sure the paper has had the usual peer reviews and its mathematical models have been well tested elsewhere. On the other hand, the Mara eco-system is virtually unique, so finding other research studies to corroborate this one will have been hard. And indeed most of the references are from the Mara-Serengeti region.

I am certainly not advocating complacency, but the sheer paucity of data over the last decade, especially an absence of surveys conducted during the peak migration season, makes me wonder if there’s not something more nuanced going on here than the headlines are reporting.

Community eco-tourism

The current lower numbers are still huge by comparison with most other wildlife areas in Africa, but the larger numbers of wildlife from the early decades after independence have gone forever, as Kenya’s population has quadrupled. With the land in the Mara region sub-divided and sold off and human population still growing, the old eco-system, in which the Maasai and the herds mingled with the wildlife, is beyond being challenged. Local people no longer tolerate lions and hyenas near their homes, or buffalo where their children are walking to school or elephants raiding their corn. The answer, in an imperfect world, is wildlife conservancies for the wildlife and ranching and settlement areas for people.

Ol Kinyei Conservancy

The theory being enthusiastically endorsed – and it seems confirmed – by conservationists and eco-tourism champions, is that wildlife populations in the twenty-first century can be sustained by changing land use, involving local communities leasing their lands to wildlife conservation managers and established eco-tourism operators that limit visitors to one bed per 700 acres (three beds per square kilometre) and no more than 12 tents in a camp.

An earlier BBC report on the Mara, filmed in 2009 (below), starts with a set of alarming figures and quotes Joesph Ogutu, the paper’s chief researcher, warning about extinction, but then goes on to reach more positive conclusions about the future of the community conservancies. These now occupy much of the area that the research paper describes as “ranches”. Here, wildlife numbers, far from being in precipitate decline, are level or growing sustainably. If you’re planning a visit, think of going to a small camp in one of these well-managed sanctuaries, rather than to the National Reserve.

The current status of the Mara

In 2011, highly endangered wild dogs are back (not mentioned by the research paper, but described as “all but disappeared” by the BBC), both in the reserve itself and the neighbouring conservancies. The future for predators is always uncertain, but it would be good to have regular estimates of their populations: the Mara region has substantial numbers of lion, leopard and cheetah, but their numbers are small compared with the grazers.

It’s the Narok council-run Maasai Mara National Reserve, entered via Talek, Sekenani or Ololaimutiek gates, that has the biggest problems with human incursion, cattle and goat grazing, and poaching. By contrast, the private conservancies are policed by their community members and shareholders who have everything to gain by keeping their herds to other areas. The Mara Triangle (aka Mara Conservancy) in particular, has been highly successful in keeping poaching to a minimum, working in partnership with its neighbours across the border in Serengeti.

The future might not look rosy, but it's not the bleak and desperate pictured painted by the BBC report, either. As long as the conservancies thrive and the reserve management is kept under scrutiny, the reduced wildlife populations will thrive, the visitors will come and local communities will increasingly adjust to a future with better prospects and fewer cattle.

I'd be really interested to get feedback on these issues from specialists and visitors alike. Please comment below or email me - see my profile.

Trouble on the Moyale road

2011-06-01T14:14:00.000+01:00

Following clashes between the Borana and Burji around Moyale and Turbo last month, the Kenya-Ethiopia border was closed for several days and then reopened. I thought the trouble had blown over, at least as far as foreign travellers were concerned (which is not to dismiss the ongoing inter-ethnic violence in the region). I've just caught up with last week's Kenyan news, however, and it seems a French tourist was shot in the arm last Wednesday (27 May 2011) during a spate of roadside robberies near Laisamis (half way between Archer's Post and Marsabit). He was driving north, on his own, but was part of a convoy. The same gang also stopped and robbed three goods lorries in the same convoy, and an hour later a Kenya Telcom vehicle.

The story made p.34 of the Nation, last Friday. Not exactly headlines in Kenyan terms, sadly.

Live music at the Carnivore this weekend

2011-05-26T18:55:00.000+01:00

This sounds fun - two evenings of live music in Nairobi for Ksh1500. Sawa Sawa 2011 runs over Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th May. Next Wednesday, June 1st, is Madaraka Day, commemorating Jomo Kenyatta becoming the country's first prime minister. Madaraka Day is a public holiday and a lot of people will no doubt be taking off the last two days of May – Monday 30th and Tuesday 31st – as well.

The theme for this year's Sawa Sawa, the fifth festival, celebrates the Power and Beauty of Women with a largely female line-up – and there are workshops and other activities and a family-friendly, "safe and secure" environment.

Sounds like an early Womad - read more at Siteiya.com:

"Defecating with the locals" – was Comic Relief's Kibera documentary a cross-cultural blunder?

2011-03-25T14:06:00.009Z

Comic Relief’s Famous, Rich and in the Slums two-part documentary has generated some controversy and confusion in the Kenyan press. Taking its inspiration from the BBC’s Famous, Rich and Homeless in 2009, in which famous volunteers were exposed to the plight of Britain’s homeless by being dropped into London’s streets with nothing but a sleeping bag, the charity fund-raising show pitches comedian Lenny Henry, actor Samantha Womack, and presenters Reggie Yates and Angela Rippon into a week’s survival training in Nairobi’s notorious Kibera slum. In this format, the attention on the celebrities is unavoidable – that’s how you pull in the viewers.

Although the avowed intention was to expose the criminally negligent way that Kenya’s government* and local authorities have ignored the needs of Kibera’s 200,000-plus** people, raising money from the public by text-donation, this was always going to look to Kiberans on the ground like slum tourism. And that’s exactly how some of the Kenyan press – and readers, to judge by their comments – have viewed the exercise, calling it “poverty as entertainment". "The film shows the celebrities mingling, sleeping, eating and defecating with the locals.”

Another opinion piece goes further, though, suggesting a cynical effort to rubbish Kenya’s carefully rebuilt brand in the wake of the post-election violence. This piece, by Kenya’s Director of Information and Public Communications, tells readers that Kenya’s biggest comedy star would be prevented by Equity rules from doing the same in Britain, much as it might be amusing, for TV standup Churchill to be filmed trying to keep warm with Britain’s winter hypothermia victims.

What a good idea – and why not? – so long as it’s only wealthy Kenyans who are encouraged to dig into their deep pockets to help Britain’s poor.

Seriously though, the problem with Famous, Rich and in the Slums is that Comic Relief and the films’ independent producers, Love Productions, didn’t consider their impact on a much bigger, global audience, especially in this case those watching in Kenya, or seeing the films on YouTube years hence. Assimilating their meaning, especially out of any cultural context, is presumably as hard for some viewers in Kenya as is a session of Churchill for non-speakers of Swahili slang.

There's plenty of other criticism of this kind of crisis TV – the sentimentalisation of poverty, the focus on instant relief rather than long-term development and in this case the sharply one-sided impression that naïve viewers might form of Nairobi – but those aren’t the objections that the Kenyan press has majored on.

Comic Relief raised more than £70M this year, and once again showed millions of viewers aspects of life on Earth that they wouldn’t normally think about – or want to think about. And that’s got to be a good thing.

Judge for yourself when the films are repeated at 23.25 on 29th and 23.15 on 30th March.

*The MP for Kibera (and also the plush suburb of Langata) is Kenya’s Prime Minister, Raila Odinga
** The much quoted figure of one million inhabitants, making Kibera “the biggest slum in Africa” turned out to be a huge overestimate when the 2009 census gave a population of 170,000 – though under-reporting (many Kiberans are technically illegal squatters) may have produced a lower than true result.

African Safari Club has finally ceased trading

2011-03-17T12:18:00.001Z

A holiday company has gone under and, just for a change, that's good news. The following is all that's left on African Safari Club's website:

A company that brought nothing to Kenya but dissatisfied customers who vowed they would never return, and left nothing in Kenya after extracting its profits but exploited and often unpaid staff, is finally no more.

You have to feel sorry for people whose holidays have been ruined, or are now not going to happen, but this demise has been a very long time in the making, as any glance at the Trip Advisor Kenya forum would show. Caveat emptor indeed.

Even more deserving of sympathy are ASC's miserable hotel employees in Kenya who were always left dangling from a string of empty promises and who only stayed in work because they could at least expect some tips from sympathetic guests.

What's good about this news is the benefit to Kenya's tourist industry, which has been cursed for years by an organisation that seemed almost intent on maximising the stink of negative PR about Kenya that blew off every disappointing holiday it sold like an unemptied dustbin.

It's not as if every other company in Kenya tourism is a paragon of virtue – there's plenty of room for improvement – but this one really stood out as one to avoid, and one that was damaging Kenya's image.

Good riddance.

New year, new fees: Kenya visa charges and national park entry fee rises

2011-01-13T13:12:00.022Z

Kenya single-entry visa fees have returned to the US$50 rate (see "Comments": the increase was finally enacted on 1 July 2011). The fee was reduced to $25 (and under 16s were exempt – all passport-holders now pay the same fee) after the post-election violence early in 2008, in order to “stimulate visitor numbers”. With numbers duly stimulated, the government is now cashing in again, all of which leads to a level of hassle and disruption to every visit that has a generally negative PR effect and surely offsets the value of the fees, especially once processing costs – and inevitable leakage – have been accounted for.

You can apply in advance at your local embassy or high commission (which requires two photos and extra fees for mailing) or get the visa on arrival, whether you’re flying into Kenya or arriving overland. There’s no advantage whatsoever in applying in advance, apart from going through formalities on arrival slightly more quickly. Such is the lack of a queueing system at Nairobi and Mombasa, however, that even that advantage is often negligible.

If you’re getting your visa on arrival, to save time at the visa desk, you should print out the visa form and fill it in in advance. You won’t need photos if you’re applying on arrival, just the completed form and the exact sum in cash only – either US$50, €40 or £30 per person – for all the members of your party.

The single-entry visa actually allows you to leave Kenya for any of the other East African Community countries – Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi – and return to Kenya on the same visa (you’ll still need visas for the other countries). So for a trip that starts and finishes in Kenya (and includes only two stays in Kenya), you won’t need a multiple-entry visa. For a multiple-entry visa, which is valid for a year, you now pay US$100, €80 or £60.

It’s worth noting that South Africans and New Zealanders staying less than thirty days in Kenya don’t require visas. Most other nationalities do. Commonwealth passport-holders are generally exempt, except for Antigua & Barbuda, Australia, Canada, Guyana, India, Malaysia (more than 30 days), New Zealand (more than 30 days) Nigeria, South Africa (more than 30 days), Sri Lanka, St Christopher & Nevis, and the UK. The thirty-day exemption isn’t that widely understood at immigration desks, so you may have to argue the case.

Meanwhile, the Kenya Wildlife Service, who run the National Parks (not the national reserves), have announced new fees for 2011, including seasons for the busiest of the parks, Amboseli, Lake Nakuru, Tsavo East, Tsavo West and Meru.

It's worth emphasising that the fees schedule doesn't include Kenya's national reserves which come under the authority of local county councils rather than the Kenya Wildlife Service. That includes the Maasai Mara National Reserve and the combined Samburu-Bufffalo Springs-Shaba National Reserves.

Currently, the Maasai Mara fees for tourists quoted on the Narok County Council website are $60 for adults and $30 for children. However, the site is often down. Samburu-Bufffalo Springs-Shaba fees as quoted on Samburu County Council's site are here

Narok have recently announced changes to the entry fees to Maasai Mara National Reserve in the Kenyan press. Their fee of $70 per 24 hours puts them roughly in line with the KWS fees for Amboseli and Lake Nakuru ($75 in high season). However the inclusion of an $80 fee for being “outside” the reserve, is ambiguous, as the community ranches and private conservancies all have their own access fees. It’s hard to see what Narok County Council have to do with it.

Samburu County Council are likely to put their charges up soon. At least that payment covers 24-hour entry to all three reserves in the area – Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba.

And how long is a safari?

If you’re booking a safari, it’s essential to check your operator has included the fees in the price. And you should also check how many days they've included, as all fees are based on a 24-hour period. It’s not uncommon at the very competitive budget end of the market, and especially where the lodge or camp being used is outside the fee-paying area, for a safari to arrive in the park/reserve area towards the end of day 1, but not enter the fee area until the beginning of day 2 and then leave again shortly after the expiration of the 24-hour ticket on day 3 (ticket rangers at the park and reserve gates usually allow an hour’s extension). This means that a “three-day safari” might start with a pre-breakfast game drive on day 2, entering the park at, say 6.30am, and finish with an early breakfast and game drive out of the park on day 3, exiting at 7.30 or 8am.

And that’s how budget operators make a one-day entry fee stretch to a three day safari.

Majestic Kenya. . .In Proposal Territory with Will & Kate

2010-11-20T16:18:00.006Z

My piece in today's Daily Express on a trip to the captivating and unforgettable Il Ngwesi Lodge was commissioned last Tuesday, within minutes of the announcement of Prince William and Kate Middleton's engagement. Most of the piece, covering Kenya holiday advice, has been published in the paper almost exactly as I filed it, with the exception of the headings.

One significant difference, however, is the section at the end, headed "The Knowledge" which has replaced the information I provided. So. . . if you're interested in going on safari in the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, family home of Jecca Craig, to stay at any of their five lodges and houses, or making the exciting journey up to Il Ngwesi Lodge or even at the remote Lake Rutundu cabins where the whole kneeling down/champagne/hot water bottle business happened, then do visit the Kenya Tourist Board and check out the following excellent Kenyan operators:

Gamewatchers: superb safari camp operator and agent, leading the way in responsible tourism in Kenya with its Porini eco-camps.
Cheli & Peacock: owner and manager of some of Kenya's most beautifully constructed and sensitively managed camps and lodges.
Let's Go Travel: all-round brilliant people who can book just about anything in Kenya and also run well-organised budget safaris.
The Safari & Conservation Company: Boutique camps and lodges – including Rutundu Log Cabins – in some of Kenya's most beautiful places.

Photo: Il Ngwesi staff say farewell

Recent articles: Samburu, Nairobi National Park, Best beaches in Kenya

2010-11-14T17:01:00.016Z

Some recent Kenya articles, containing Kenya holiday advice: my story in yesterday's Independent about the rebirth of Samburu National Reserve, my piece in Qatar Airways' inflight magazine Oryx on Nairobi National Park, and my roundup of the best beaches on the Kenya coast for Virgin Atlantic's Vtravelled website.

Photos: Elephant Watch Camp (Samburu National Reserve) and camp manager Sevenoy Letoiye, teenage elephants.

Camel trekking

2010-06-24T13:36:00.007+01:00

This seems like such a great adventure, and so affordable, that I thought I'd post it just as received. I don't know Amanda and John personally, but Bobong Campsite on their Ol Maisor Ranch (north of Rumuruti) has a very good reputation and it's refreshing to find a place in Laikipia that is aimed at travellers on a budget. As well as the camel safaris, you can camp at Bobong for Ksh500 or have a banda for Ksh4000.

Dear all,
I'm not sure how many of you received this before. If you have its just a
reminder as the time comes closer. If not its just to let you know about
this opportunity if anyone is interested in this or has any friends looking for something special to do.

If anyone would like further information please get back to us for more details.

We have camels heading north and are looking for groups to help cover the
costs of getting them to their destinations.

Departure dates and points, and the route taken, can be flexible with in
reason but otherwise will be as follows:

Depart Bobong heading to either Karpedo in the Suguta valley, or Akoret on
the east side of Tiati Range, arriving at the destination not later than 17
August, therefore departing from Bobong not later than 7 August. Can be
earlier depending on departure point and walking speed.

The camels will be at the North end of Lake Baringo or at Roberts camp on 27
August ready to depart for Bobong, 29th or 30th August. The return route to
Bobong, and timing, is flexible.

Cost: 2000/- per person per day. Max number of people is 10.

This does not include: food or drinks, tents or bedding, equipment, camp
fees where necessary, Reserve fees if in Bogoria, personal effects, Flying
Doctor Insurance cover. You get the use of 16/18 camels and their handler guides.

You do not have to feed the guides.

Kind regards

John and Amanda Perrett,
Bobong & Ol Maisor Camels,
P.O. Box 5,
Rumuruti 20321,
Kenya.

Email: olmaisor@africaonline.co.ke

Tel: +254(0)62-2032718,
Mobile (SMS only): +254(0)735-243075/
+254 (0)722 936177

Info about Ol Maisor from Laikipia Tourism

New edition of The Rough Guide to Kenya

2010-05-04T19:17:00.005+01:00

The 9th edition of the Rough Guide to Kenya is now in the shops. This was a very comprehensive update, so I hope it works for people. I'll post a summary of the significant changes and expanded coverage in the next few days. Meanwhile, anyone who has a copy already, your comments are really welcome. Click "coomments" below, and don't hold back.

The visa fee is staying put at $25

2010-03-16T12:26:00.003Z

Good news if you're planning ahead, the visa fee that was cut by 50% in April 2009 is set to stay at its reduced level indefinitely. If you're getting a visa in advance, it will cost $25 plus any passport mail/handling charges (or £20 or €20 if you're getting it in the UK or in the Euro zone). If you wait to get your visa on arrival, the price is $25, usually in US dollars cash only. Under 16s are exempt. There's no real disadvantage to waiting to get your visa until arrival, especially if you download your form from an embassy or high commission website in advance – for example in London – and fill it in in before you join the queue at Nairobi or Mombasa. Visas on arrival don't require photos, either.

Kenya High Commission, London

Kenyan Embassy, Washington DC

Have any Maasai Mara camps or lodges closed yet?

2010-03-15T22:48:00.005Z

Monday 15th March was supposed to be the first day of a "crackdown" on unlicensed camps and lodges in the Mara, as the Nation reminded readers the following day. The offensive, first announced in mid-February, is supposedly being led by the tourism minister Najib Balala, but he has very vocal support from Hassan ole Kamwaro, the former chairman of Narok County Council (who presumably knows a thing or two about how to license Mara properties properly). Kamwaro, who happens to own the formerly wooded site inside the reserve where Somak's controversial new Ashnil Mara lodge has either just opened or remains un-opened (confirmation welcome, whichever it is) asserts:

"Most of the unlicensed lodges and camps belong to foreigners whose aim is to make money without paying revenue to the government. They also pollute the reserve eco-system posing a threat to the bio-diversity in the area.”

If he's basing his views on the so-called "inter-ministerial audit", then his own interest is safe, since the rambling spreadsheet I've seen looks to be about a year out of date, and is contradictory and only partly complete. Somak's new lodge isn't even included.

Anyone who cares about responsible tourism, community development and environmental stewardship would welcome a new era of CSR in Kenya's safari parks. But we'll only get that from impartial judgements given by a credible regulatory body. And one thing is certain: closing a lodge or camp while tourists were staying would be a BA-strike-sized disaster for Kenyan tourism.

Good news for fans of Kenyan music

2010-03-15T11:01:00.005Z

A new Kenyan music download site, Pewahewa, has just launched. If you have a mobile payment account with Safaricom (M-Pesa) or Zain (Zap), it seems easy to use (I haven't tried it), but for potential users outside Kenya, the only credit card payment system offered is through 2checkout, which I haven't heard of before. It's still not possible to use PayPal for making payments to Kenya.

Meanwhile, a site called KenTanzaVinyl has quietly appeared offering a 7-inch take on East African music - everything from way back when to the arrival of cassettes and CDs. Although it's not a place to buy music, this is a true aficionado's site, with track listings and background on more than 2500 singles, A-Zs of bands and labels, and excellent links.

Seven taxi drivers shot dead by police in Nairobi

2010-03-15T10:21:00.002Z

"Integrity and justice", the motto of Kenya's administration police, doesn't sit comfortably with the killing on Wednesday night of seven unarmed taxi drivers. According to one driver who escaped, far from threatening the police, the drivers were ordered to lie down and executed in cold blood. The true details of what happened may never come out. There are reports that a feud between taxi drivers and boda-boda operators (motorcycle taxi drivers) turned violent. Matatu (shared taxi) drivers in Nairobi are often accused by the police of being controlled by the outlawed Mungiki gang. The local response on Thursday morning was street protests, and there has been an unusual amount of press coverage (newspaper reports that police have shot "suspected gangsters" are usually dealt with in one small paragraph, as if they were covering a domestic tragedy). The letter I sent to the Nation was printed, albeit somewhat mangled by a copyeditor. My point was not that Kenya's violent reputation might deter "hundreds" of tourists from visiting, but "hundreds of thousands". And in any case, what needs emphasising is that extra-judicial killings like these take place on a daily basis and go barely investigated. The undermining of Kenya's tourist industry, bad as that is, is a secondary issue.

Samburu floods

2010-03-05T13:21:00.004Z

Although there are mercifully no reports of any deaths or serious injuries, it looks like the Ewaso Nyiro floods of March 4th have completely swamped all the riverbank lodges and camps in Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba National Reserves, leaving just Samburu Sopa and Saruni to the north of the river, the new Buffalo Springs Simba Lodge on its slightly higher ground and Joy's Camp way over in the southeast in Shaba. I wouldn't forsee any of the following re-opening before the middle of the year, and some may wait to reopen until the next high season, giving them time to make significant repairs and upgrades:

Ashnil Samburu
Elephant Bedroom Camp (Atua Enkop)
Elephant Watch Camp
Larsen's
Samburu Intrepids
Samburu Game Lodge
Samburu Serena

Some may have to relocate - I doubt many owners would want to risk a repeat of these floods, which are the highest ever recorded.

It's good to see the government being more proactive than usual and they say they're going to post further updates here.

"Unlicensed" Maasai Mara lodges to be closed

2010-03-04T08:54:00.006Z

Kenya's tourism minister Najib Balala has promised a "crackdown" on dodgy lodges in and around the Maasai Mara National Reserve, starting on March 15th. This follows the international furore over Somak's almost finished lodge inside the reserve, in an area of prime, wooded black rhino habitat. Following a petition, signed by conservationists, including Jonathan Scott and Simon King, Somak have stopped selling stays at the lodge (Ashnil Mara Lodge), which was due to have opened about now, and the future of the buildings is uncertain.

A so-called "inter-ministerial audit" (a huge Excel spreadsheet), covering everything from whether the property is licensed to what its buildings are constructed of, where it gets its water and how it genrates its electricity, indicates that of more than 100 lodges and camps in the Mara region, only a small percentage are fully compliant with legal requirements, with all their boxes literally ticked. The problem with the document is the high volume of inconsistencies, contradictions and missing information, so that highly regarded camps with impeccable credentials appear tarred with the same brush as badly managed properties for which "environmental responsibility" means sweeping rubbish into a heap before burning it.

Crucially, what is missing from the document is how many staff are qualified guides, certified by the Kenya Professional Safari Guide Association. That's the sort of information on which to judge where to spend your money if you're a first-time visitor to the Mara. But that data is missing.

Balala's decision to go public on the issue of irregular camps and lodges is encouraging. But the Ministry of Tourism needs to double-check their information with property owners, rather than moving in waving the audit in one hand and closure orders in the other. March 15th is a convenient date, though, as many camps and lodges have an annual low season closure for a month or two during the long rainy season in March/April/May.

Fly540 opens a UK sales office

2010-02-24T13:56:00.006Z

Good news if you're in the UK and looking to do some domestic flights in Kenya: Fly540, the newest airline in East Africa (since November 2006), has just announced its first UK reservations number, 0871 644 3365 (daily 8am–8pm) as part of its appointment of Flight Directors in Horley, Surrey, as its general sales agent in the UK. Previously, you could only book Fly540 online, or through their East African offices. Presumably, for travellers outside Britain, the new UK res number is also another option.

The Kenyan hub of Fly540, which aims to become Africa's first no-frills airline, is JKI Airport in Nairobi. Its Kenyan network consists of: Mombasa, Maasai Mara, Malindi, Lamu, Eldoret, Kitale, Kisumu and Lodwar.

Other airlines are available: I like Safarilink (based at Wilson Airport in Nairobi) and Mombasa Air Safaris (based at Moi, Mombasa).

Fly540 also has an active regional network – and about to expand in Tanzania.

The Endorois have won their case

2010-02-10T11:09:00.008Z

Tourists welcome, no Endorois: the slightly grubby swimming pool and warm spring complex at Lake Bogoria Spa Resort, with its usual 0% occupancy.

It's a small victory for human rights in Kenya, but gives hope to dozens of other communities. The Endorois are a small tribe of Kalenjin pastoralists, closely related to the Tugen. They used to range over a large area around Lake Bogoria, but were evicted from the narrow shores of the lake when the reserve was created in 1974. Although they lost little of their traditional grazing lands within the reserve’s narrow confines, what they did lose was precious and fertile, along the wooded southern shore, where several streams provided valuable fresh water, and at Loboi in the north, where the ill-conceived spa-hotel owned by the family of former president Daniel Arap Moi expropriated the warm springs. They also lost valuable honey and sources of herbal medicine. Like every one of Kenya’s indigenous groups, they have valid claims, and their four percent share of the gate receipts is pitifully low – especially since Bogoria rarely figures on safari itineraries. Inspired community leadership has seen them pursue restitution of their lands and compensation as far as the African Union’s Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. And finally last May's judgement has been made public. Now they will want to see action on the ground – that should be interesting.

Why Kenya Railways are still a joke

2010-01-26T12:52:00.007Z

Q: What goes three times a week and is usually late? A: The train from Nairobi to Mombasa.

I don't know who comes out looking worse in this investigation in today's Nation by Jaindi Kisero. Is it this crook Roy Puffet (great name for a railway robber baron. . .) or the shambling Kenyan "technocrats" and World Bank "advisors" who fell for his nonsense? Jaw-dropping. . .

The end of malaria tablets?

2010-01-26T10:06:00.004Z

Bill Gates is saying we might have the first, partiallly effective but workable malaria vaccine by 2013, and a full, 100% vaccine by 2020. No more doxycycline, malarone or lariam. That would be a huge breakthrough for travellers in Kenya and throughout Africa. Not to mention for local people, who have to put up with this disease all their lives. Currently, across Africa 3000 children a day die of malaria.

The BBC story is here.

Reader recommendation: Oloshaiki camp in the Mara

2010-01-25T17:40:00.003Z

I thought I'd pass this straight on, as Amayllis posted it as a comment to an unrelated post. I haven't visited, and obviously can't verify the information. The opinions here are not mine. The camp is on the Talek, which is quite a busy area, and the website doesn't include the camp's rates, which I think they really should.

Hi Richard,
To stay in the Maasai Mara I recommend Camp Oloshaiki. It's located just a few kilometers outside Talek gate on the bank of Talek river. Small camp with only 7 spacious tents, each with it's own veranda overlooking Talek river. They used local material, all is handcrafted and despite of the luxury which seems to be inescapable in kenyan safari accomodation, you still feel very close to the gorgeous nature around. I liked very much that it's definetely not that "Out of Africa" style many other camps create for their guests. Very good food, beverage at reasonable prices, inside and outside dining areas, a bonfire after dinner, good showers + beds (the latter of course with mosquito nets). At Oloshaiki you are surrounded by very friendly, attentive Maasai and if you show real interest, you will benefit - especially on game drives or bush walks - from their enourmous knowledge about animals, plants, and people. I loved to be there and hope to return very soon.
Their website: http://camp-oloshaiki-kenya.com/

Greetings, Amaryllis

Eclipse in Kenya 15 January 2010

2010-01-07T14:52:00.004Z

I've just heard about this bonus for anyone in Kenya on 15th January 2010 - an annular eclipse of the sun in which the moon will be in front of the sun, but appearing smaller than the sun, with a ring of sun all round it, so not as intense as a total eclipse.

The timer in Wikipedia's nifty graphic from NASA shows GMT, so it will be three hours later in Kenya.

I'm not sure how spectacular it will be. An operator called Astronomy Tours will be at Lake Nakuru, which I think is currently very rainy/cloudy, but there'll be a partial eclipse throughout Kenya, and anyone in Lamu will also get the full annular effect for 5 minutes.

I thought this was rather exciting - feedback welcome.

Up the creek: Google Map Directions in Kenya

2009-12-14T17:56:00.021Z

Google is huge and rapacious. Of course. But I often love what they do. Google Earth is a fabulous tool and Google Maps and Street View astonishing. But when launching the new Google Maps Directions service for Kenya, perhaps they forgot about the Likoni "ferry" – the roll-on, roll-off lumps of rotting iron that link Mombasa Island with Kenya's south coast, and Tanzania.

If you use Google Map Directions to find a route from Bamburi (North Coast) to Diani Beach (South Coast), Google suggests you drive off into the bush, via Kinango and Kwale. This takes you round the back of the maze of creeks behind Mombasa island. Picturesque in parts, but very, very rough. Google says "about 2 hours 13 mins". I'd say "allow a day". And then curiously, the directions give up, just minutes from Diani Beach, as if exhausted, leaving you driving back up the hill again towards Kwale. The proper route goes straight across Mombasa Island, over the ferry, and down the coast highway. When the traffic is quiet, early in the morning (and if you're lucky with the ferry timings), you can get from Bamburi to Diani Beach in just over an hour.

Mad directions like these are teething troubles: give this two or three years to bed down and most of Kenya will be very navigable on Google Maps. Already the level of detail is impressive.

I'm wondering about Google Street View in Kenya, though. Is that going to work?

Richard Leakey interview

2009-12-13T15:41:00.006Z

I've just been tweeted this superb interview by the always stimulating Paula Kahumbu (@paulakahumbu), CEO of Wildlife Direct, and now I see it's two years old. But it's so well crafted and delivered, and such a compelling and fascinating piece, that it's highly recommended viewing. Leakey's theory of the empathetic biped (Homo sapiens), that he expounds in the clip on p.5, is one I've never heard before. I find the idea that humans became human because one leg out of action means the whole creature is out of action – and therefore has to be looked after – just wonderful. As a thinker and a deliverer, Leakey is in a class of his own.

He makes great wine, too. And like so much else in his life, they said it couldn't be done.

"Racist" hotel chain that turns locals away has changed its mind

2009-09-16T15:36:00.004+01:00

African Safari Club, the downmarket hotel chain and tour operator, long associated with bad labour relations and terrible customer satisfaction, has finally caved in to shareholder pressure and opened the doors of its all-inclusives to locals. Previously, local people were not only not encouraged to visit ASC hotels in Kenya, but sometimes actively ejected from them. And guests were all but barred physically from leaving the hotel compounds to spend some money in the local community. For every satisfied ASC guest, there seems to have been at least one who as a result of his or her experience would never go to Kenya again.

Marketing the group to locals now is an insult to the host community.

If African Safari Club wanted to demonstrate its interest in the local market, it would:

1) start treating its local staff and suppliers according to international minimum standards. (If the company operated like it does in Kenya in the UK, it would be permanently fighting court orders and legal challenges by suppliers and staff.)

2) Then, it might want to plough some of its profits into a marketing campaign for a relaunched African Safari Club dedicated to fair trade and responsible tourism.

If it doesn't do that, the corrrosive effects of the negative PR from thousands of aggrieved customers, staff and suppliers is sure to ultimately bring the company down.

Photos: African Safari Club's deserted Crocodile Camp, outside Sala Gate, Tsavo East National Park Dec 2008 © Richard Trillo

Revisioning Kenya with words

2009-09-16T14:45:00.006+01:00

A powerful piece of performance poetry from a student journalist, Ahmed Kassim Abdi, is reported in the East African, in an eloquent piece by Shalini Gidoomal (14 Sept 2009), attending Revisioning Kenya, a forum looking at how Kenya can "rise from the ashes". They almost tried to take the mic away after he spoke the first line:

"I hear voices in my head.

It's like a multiple personality disorder...where there is nothing but confusion; mixed sounds...all these many, many, many different voices...

Mixed up voices.....

All confused. In my head......

Just like those of our Grand Coalition, who's muddled noise has become a sickness, whose voices disturbs the nation's heart.

I'm a pastoralist, not a terrorist,

Optimist, never pessimist

Creative and innovative, camel and cows my provision,

I'm now in a disorganised house like the tower of Babel, multiple personality, another sad story

I hear desperate multiple voices, I know not why

Abdi! Kenya is burning

Abdi! Nakumatt is burning

Abdi! extra judicial killings

Abdi! I'm starving

I slept, still multiple voices insist!

Abdi! again!"

Reading this, I can hear that "pin-drop silence" that Gidoomal refers to after the audience heard Abdi's first line.

The weather in Kenya

2009-09-08T18:32:00.002+01:00

People regularly ask about the weather in Kenya, and webcams seem a pretty good way of seeing what it's like. There's one in the Ngong Hills, just outside Nairobi that refreshes every ten minutes: But Pinewood Village, down on Diani Beach, has a very lively webcam, basically a jolty live video feed. It's been very sunny most of the day. Does anyone know of any others?

Tsavo West's drought

2009-08-27T08:17:00.003+01:00

As seen in the BBC Wildest Dreams prgramme recently, Tsavo West National Park is in the grip of a crippling drought, as is much of Kenya at the moment. Kenya's bloated government doesn't have a lot of spare change for people (several cases of starvation have been reported in Rift Valley), let alone animals, so it looks like the Kenya Wildlife Service's hay-feeding programme has stopped. And there's probably another six weeks to wait before Tsavo gets any rain.

Some hotels are more. . . customer-facing than others

2009-06-30T23:55:00.007+01:00

Oloitokitok, 25 Feb 2009

Superb bargain at Meru National Park

2009-06-29T21:48:00.012+01:00

The Kinna bandas at Meru National Park are gems in the wilderness. Not only do they have incongruously large rooms, decent beds with bedding, new nets, and clean showers and toilets, but the site has its own, pristine swimming pool. In the middle of Meru National Park, which, ten years ago, was all but abandoned, this was a sight to behold. The bandas are looked after by Jackson, who also cares for Ndusi, the orphaned giraffe. Watch out for her feet - one step to the right or left and yours would be mincemeat. A fantastic place – I wish I could have stayed here longer. The bandas cost $70 a night each, or $80 in the high season.

Diamond Beach Village, Manda Island

2009-06-28T17:39:00.011+01:00

If you want to be in the Lamu area, but not in Lamu town, nor in the increasingly over-developed and over-the-top atmosphere of Shela, then staying just across the creek, in this rustic little beach resort, is an affordable way to do it. Diamond Beach is on the southern arm of Manda island (the island where Lamu's airstrip is located), and it's the nicest of several small property developments. Tuned into the local mood and utterly relaxing – all sandy toes, wooden boards and horizontal living – it has simple self-contained bandas with good nets and decent bathrooms, and a delightfully wacky treehouse in a baobab. Ecological principles and a superb beachfront location, just 10 minutes in their boat from Lamu town, or for that matter from Peponi, add up to a very fine place to stay. They have evening electricity and pride themselves on really good food. It's £60 ($100) per night for two, including breakfast, which in this location, with this level of comfort, convenience and general blissfulness, is a snip.

Camp Carnelly's at Lake Naivasha

2009-06-26T17:31:00.010+01:00

I thought this place was delightful. It's got a fresh, bright feel about it, which is slightly lacking at the neighbouring Fisherman's Camp (though Fisherman's does have the form, and great shade from its big fever trees – the photo of the lakeshore was taken from there). Carnelly's is a breakaway republic really, after a family feud. Long may both camps prosper. They're certainly both a good deal nicer than Crayfish Camp and more relaxing than Fish Eagle Inn.

Camp Carnelly’s (tel 0722/260749 or 0722/329465). Funky offshoot of Fisherman’s Camp, with 4-person, en-suite bandas for Ksh5000, twin rooms Ksh1600, dorm bunks Ksh600 per person and camping Ksh400 per person. The welcoming and convivial ambiance here, with a relaxing bar-dining area decked in cushions, is serious competition for Fisherman’s Camp next door among the independent and overland crowd. The bar-restaurant does slightly unusual things like smoothies, Camembert samosas and beef wraps.

Naiberi River Campsite

2009-06-25T16:14:00.011+01:00

The owner of this unusual campsite and cabins is Raj Shah - a really congenial host who works in Eldoret (family run the Ken-Knit factory in town), but who likes nothing better than chilling by his bar, in his restaurant, with his guests. It's a lovely place, highly recommended. Try to spend a couple of nights here.

This is from Chapter 4, Western Kenya:
If you arrived in Eldoret early enough in the day, there’s a very worthwhile base outside town, Naiberi River Campsite & Resort (Tel 053/2062916 or 0722/686512; lifts available from town if you call ahead), a very popular stop for independent overlanders and tour trucks heading for Uganda. This has a fine scenic location above the small Naiberi River, with comfortable, en-suite cabin-style rooms (Ksh3600 for two, B&B), as well as dorm accommodation (Ksh1000 per person with good, shared showers and toilets) and camping (Ksh400 per person). The centrepiece is a sprawling and enjoyable pub-restaurant built into the hillside, incorporating streams and waterfalls, a central fireplace and the remains of what are said to be Sirikwa holes. The Nepali chef cooks up excellent, sizzling, hot-plate dishes and a variety of other meals, and there’s a congenial bar with DSTV. It’s a delightfully relaxing place to hang out for a day or two, the hilly grounds leading down to the river, and a sparkling (if chilly) swimming pool making it hard to tear yourself away. Facilities include slightly pricey Internet access (Ksh10/min). If you drive here, take the turning (east, on the B54 towards Kaptagat), at the Petro gas station 3km southeast of Eldoret town centre on the Nairobi road. From the Petro junction, drive 15.3km and Naiberi is on your left.

Castle Forest Lodge

2009-06-24T17:21:00.019+01:00

I thought I'd start posting up some favourite places from recent travels. We really loved Castle Forest Lodge. It's exactly what you hope it will be. It's been in the Rough Guide for a while but I'd hadn't personally visited before - it was included by my Central Highlands researchers on the last three editions, since 1999. Here's the proposed text for the forthcoming 9th edition of the Rough Guide:

A private home built for British royalty before World War I, Castle Forest Lodge nestles in a fragrantly piney forest clearing at 2100m on the southern slopes of the Mount Kenya. Remotely sited, personally managed by its Dutch leaseholder, far from the main road and overlooking a waterhole regularly visited by most of the usual suspects, this is what Treetops might aspire to be if the famous tree-hotel hadn’t already destroyed its environment. Even if you’re simply passing by, there are few nicer ways to spend an afternoon than sitting on the veranda with tea and homemade cakes.

The old house has several modest, comfortable rooms (“King’s Room”, “Queen’s Room”. . .) with camphor-wood floors. In the grounds there are three bungalows each sleeping four, an arc of stylish, individually decorated double and twin cottages with fireplaces, and also the option of DIY camping (Tel: 0721/422908 or 0722/314918 website; $88BB for two, camping $8 per person). They use solar panels for electricity, but most lighting is by kerosene lamp. Good-value meals are available to order and there’s a well-stocked bar. In between sleeping and eating, you can walk in the woods, sit by the waterfalls of the Karute stream (a short walk from the house through beautiful thick forest), fish the stream for trout or take a horse out for a ride.
If you’re keen to try an unusual approach to the summit of Mount Kenya, the seldom-used Kamweti route begins at the road-head, a steep 8km north of Castle Forest. This southern part of the mountain shelters the last remaining wild bongos on Mount Kenya, as researchers’ night-surveillance cameras proved in 2008. The lodge can arrange a hiking trip for you for $120 a day all-inclusive, regardless of the size of the party, via Mackinder’s Camp and Point Lenana, terminating either in Naro Moru (4–6 days) or Chogoria (6–9 days).

Castle Forest Lodge is 40km from Sagana via Kagio. Take the C73, direction Embu. After 18km, reaching Kutus, continue east on the C73 for 400m, then turn left on the tarmac D458 signposted “Castle Forest Lodge 22km”. After 2km, turn left onto an excellent road which eventually becomes a forest track in reasonable condition. En route, 5km before the lodge, you pass the moribund Thiba Fishing Camp.

Lions in Nairobi!

2009-06-18T22:57:00.004+01:00

Wonderful news, amid all the crap politics and meanness, Lions (and a leopard) have actually been prowling the streets of Nairobi.

This city can still surprise you!

British Airways staff's least favourite boss

2009-06-18T15:07:00.005+01:00

Almost unbelievable suggestion from British Airways' boss Willie Walsh that rather than reducing the payroll by sacking staff, they should take a month's unpaid leave. He can afford to. In the good times, did BA share its profits with staff? So why change the rules when they're making a loss? Why should staff share in that?

A lot of businesses in Kenya struggling to survive last year after the double whammy of the post-election clashes plus the credit crunch bearing down on them, just sacked staff wholesale, or simply closed down or went dormant. The good ones tried alternative solutions. I was really impressed with the Pinewood, on Diani Beach. The manager there, Alnoor Kanji, told me it had been so quiet there was nothing for many staff to do, so he gave some of them extended leave on full pay, with the understanding (contractually or not, I don't know) that they would have to pay back the unworked days at some point in the future. Well, labour relations are altogether less formal and structured in Kenya and most of Kanji's staff on leave would have been looking after their shambas or doing some small trade (which would make working the days off in the future less onerous). It would be good to see businesses in the rich economies being equally creative. As you sow. . .etc.

Mobile blogging

2009-02-22T05:10:00.002Z

Well, so much for thinking I'd be posting every day while in Kenya. I bought a Safaricom Mobile Office HSDPA USB Modem for my Apple MacBookPro as soon as I arrived last December (Ksh9,999, or a bit less than £100) and it does work, most of the time. You can find reception in the most unlikely places (Maasai Mara?!). But the speeds are cripplingly slow. You pay a minimum of Ksh1000 per month for 300mb of usage. This may not sound much, but it's plenty. Because much of the time I'm struggling to download or send emails at speeds of less 1 kb/sec (ie less than 1mb per 15 mins). Occasionally, as now, the blue light is on and I'm reading a top rate of 50.7kb/sec. But the lovely folks at Safaricom service centres (and they are, universally, extremely smart and helpful) just say that the software isn't fully matched to Macs, so gives unreliable info. So I don't reallly know. I'd be interested to hear of other people's experiences.

Stephen Fry in Kenya

2008-10-28T10:57:00.003Z

Stephen Fry is in east Africa filming a follow-up to Last Chance to See, the excellent 1980s book (and radio series I think?) that was presented by Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy author, the late, great Douglas Adams, about endangered species. His blog is worth following and he recently posted this camcorder clip about ivory and rhino horn.

Obama-Muslim-conspiracy theorist kicked out of Kenya

2008-10-08T09:52:00.006+01:00

Kenya's record on freedom of speech is improving, so some might see the expulsion from Kenya of American anti-Democrat Jerome Corsi for trying to promote his conspiracy-theory book about Barack Obama's imagined links with Islam, terrorism, Raila Odinga and all things ungodly as a step in the wrong direction. But it looks like Obama's presence on the world stage (assuming he wins) might actually be a force for good, bringing the US some long-overdue respect and credibility and even putting a soft-focus spotlight on Kenya for the duration of his time in office. I haven't read Corsi's book, but I'm instinctively glad he's not being given the chance to talk rubbish in a fragile democracy like Kenya. It's bad enough when the likes of Sarah Palin do it in the US. Yes, I know: what about freedom of speech? Well sometimes (and this time, clearly) saying whatever you like, voicing an opinion, or making things up, serve to act against freedom from mobs, hunger, disease and death. I think the Kenyan authorities made the right call.

Watching the migration in the Maasai Mara

2008-09-02T14:58:00.005+01:00

It's hard to tell from the President Kibaki story how much he really saw of the drama of the migration itself. Kicheche Camp's always readable Spot of the Week this week reminded us what a truly sobering, numbing experience it can be to witness one of the river crossings, where dozens of animals die in a natural, chaotic, cacophonous event - while you watch. You almost want to go down there and shoo them back. Watching the deer in Richmond Park it ain't. . .

"Despite their determination to cross, the logistics of getting 20,000 animals across a raging river, each animal seemingly intent on taking the same route as the animal in front of it, means a large amount of patience will be required from those wildebeest bringing up the rear. Patience is a virtue wildebeest have in only limited amounts and once the first animal launches into the muddy depths of the Mara the word soon gets back to 19,999 and 20,000 in the queue and then the push is really on! The first 200 wildebeest perish immediately. Choosing a fatal course across the river they fall victim to the awesome power of the Mara's current and are drowned downstream. The leader of the next throng chooses more carefully but just when it seems his inbuilt radar has found a safe passage, the Mara river deals another killer blow, this time in the form of its most brutal resident - the crocodile. Seeing a kill is brutal regardless of which predator is doing the killing. With big cats there can be moments of finesse and majesty leading up to the gore of the kill itself. However with crocodiles the unadulterated brute force on display possesses a malevolence that is blood chilling. The vehicle is silent except for the occasional whir of the shutter release."

"Tourist Number One" (President Kibaki) gets down with the crowds

2008-09-02T14:12:00.005+01:00

The annual wildebeest migration through the Maasai Mara National Reserve has had more than its usual publicity this year. President Mwai Kibaki made an unusually informal publicity trip, which can only have done his image good.

Nairobi blogs

2008-08-29T12:28:00.002+01:00

Photo: Carnivore
Most visitors think of getting out of Nairobi as fast as possible, or enduring the city if they're based there, and making frequent forays to the parks or down to the coast. A couple of excellent blogs, written by Nairobians, help to humanise and promote the city in a really constructive and appealing way. (I accept, by the way, whatever I may have said in the first edition of the Rough Guide, more than 20 years ago, that the term "Nairobian" is in use, and means something these days.) They'll make you see the city in a different light.

Chick about Town, run by a sassy hedonist nicknamed Biche, concentrates on products and services, ranging from the best auto repair shop to her favourite contaceptives, and from the rise of the Nu Metro cinema chain to her favourite (and not-so-favourite) restaurants and clubs. All her posts are delivered in a gloriously enthusiastic, upfront and refreshingly detailed style.

Nairobi Now is a collaborative blog, doing for Nairobi's arts and culture scene what Biche does for the equally important business of having fun – though both blogs happily overlap. Live music and club nights, new theatre, fashion shows, book launches, gallery events and new movies are all flagged up. Fancy attending (or performing?) at an open mic poetry session at Club Soundd? Or retreating from the city with some Liszt and Schubert at the Italian Cultural Institute. It's all here.

Scrap the lunatic line - here's another of those visions

2008-05-29T14:13:00.007+01:00

Now this is exciting, if it ever happens: Mombasa to Kampala in ten hours. It's part of Kenya Railways Vision 2050 (funny how the target year keeps receding). Wider track and bigger trains would be more likely to be useful in the 22nd century, never mind the 21st - and an average speed of 110kph (68mph) isn't exactly high-speed.

But it's the right idea, isn't it? Get people moving, working, trading, with low-carbon emissions, and bring tourists through one of the world's most fabled landscapes in comfort, maybe calling at a new Maneater's Hotel in Tsavo. I hope I'm still around to see it.

But first Kenya, Uganda and South Africa have to sort out this mess.

Restaurant prices in Kenya

2008-05-29T13:44:00.003+01:00

Kenya is experiencing the same price rises in fuel and commodities that are hitting all the world's poorest economies hardest – Restaurant prices in Kenya are notably higher than in the current edition of the guide. Still good value – tourists won't find them unaffordable – but more than ever out of reach of 95% of Kenyans.

Photo: "Carnivore", Langata, Nairobi

Slum TV in Mathare, Nairobi

2008-05-29T13:38:00.001+01:00

Interesting recent audio report from the BBC World Service about a new TV station in Nairobi's Mathare slum: SlumTV

Roots of the Rift Valley violence - Kalenjin and Kikuyu

2008-05-29T13:26:00.000+01:00

Land and water rights in the Rift Valley lie at the heart of the post-election violence. But there's something deeper and less material going on as well, according to this detailed and thoroughly researched article by Horace Njuguna Gisemba. It implies that something in the "soul" (?) of some young Kalenjin men has made them bloodthirsty attackers of non-Kalenjin, and particularly of Kikuyu. Certainly, the Kalenjin were brutally treated by the British a century ago. Punitive expeditions massacred about 1000 Kalenjin warriors at the end of the nineteenth century, and the account by Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen (who murdered the Nandi leader during a meeting) makes chilling reading (Kenya Diary). But Gisemba implies there was organization behind the anti-Kikuyu violence and says we'll have to wait for the findings of the proposed Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission. That could take years: I'd like to hear from an alternative viewpoint.

Barack Obama slurred by link with Odinga slurred by link with Obama

2008-05-29T13:25:00.003+01:00

It's dig-the-dirt time again in American politics and Barack Obama, part Luo like Raila Odinga (but not Odinga's cousin in the American sense of the term "cousin") is accused of very close ties with the ODM leader (they're part of some "socialist/Sharia law" conspiracy). Who in turn is accused of accepting an unfeasibly large donation from the Democratic contender. It's all some sort of desperate Republican smear.

And it seems to have backfired quite spectacularly on the Republicans with the disclosure that one of Republican nominee John McCain's senior advisors, Charles Black, was a lobbyist for the Daniel arap Moi government in the late 1980s and early 90s when the former Kenyan dictator was in power.

To draw the conspiracies out to their illogical conclusion, it's important to recall that Moi's greatest support came from the same powerbase in the Rift Valley and Western Kenya as Raila Odinga's.

Sustainable Mara

2008-05-23T13:12:00.005+01:00

It's all happening. . .

An excellent initiative in the Maasai Mara:

"The Mara Conservancy, a not-for-profit conservation management company based in the Masai Mara, has launched a new Responsible Wildlife Tourism Award, aimed at encouraging tourism best-practice in Kenya. Sponsored by international wildlife charity and long-time friend of Kenya, the Born Free Foundation, the award is aimed at protecting Kenya’s wildlife from the potential negative impacts of increasing visitor numbers in the region. . ."

Read the full story here, at TravelMole.com.

The award is being judged by Cheryl Mvula, who featured in the Observer recently, in a piece about the Maasai benefitting properly from tourism.

Photo: Mara Wildebeest © Irv Weissbart

Return of tourism also benefits agricultural exporters

2008-05-22T16:24:00.003+01:00

It's not just the tourist industry that will benefit from the return of charter flights. Lake Victoria's Luo fishing communities depend partly on tourist charter flights for their livelihood. Local food exporters have been hit very hard by the cancellation of the tourist flights in whose holds they normally ship fruit, vegetables and fish to Europe.

Mike Wooldridge on the future for Kenya

2008-05-22T16:19:00.004+01:00

Mike Wooldridge's thoughtful, if disturbing two-part series for Radio 4
is being repeated on the BBC World Service. Or is it the other way round?

Anyway. Listen out for the crystal tones of Nairobi Kiss FM's Caroline Mutogo - breath of fresh air: "Every cabinet minister's on a million shillings. . .[but] I am optimistic, not about the politicians, but the Kenyans. . .What's slowly becoming clear to us as a people [is] don't ever put all your eggs in one basket and let that basket be Mister Member of Parliament. Ever."

Virgin kicks off the return to Kenya

2008-05-22T13:38:00.007+01:00

Good to see Virgin Atlantic airlines helping to revive the Kenya tourist industry with a big UK press and underground poster campaign featuring the wildebeest migration. Richard Branson was in the Maasai Mara at Sekenani village near Sarova Mara camp at the weekend, where Virgin made a £60,000 donation to Sekenani village school.

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown has apparently invited Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga to talks in London. Is that good? Let's hope they meet David Miliband.

"Behind the Smile: the Tsunami of Tourism"

2008-05-19T21:53:00.005+01:00

Tourism Concern's brilliant photo essay, "Behind the Smile: the Tsunami of Tourism", is back on the Tourism Concern site once again, having been inaccessible for some time. The photos by John Wright, part of an exhibition originally shown at London's Oxo Gallery in early 2006 (which also included photos by Jenny Matthews from tsunami-affected areas of Thailand), are a stark indictment of the rotten end of Kenya's tourist industry: untenably low wages, callous disregard for human dignity and scant concern for maintaining a sustainable hospitality culture. John Wright's explanation of the "quote cards" held by the subject of each photo is eloquent. Kenya desperately needs its tourists back – tourists who are happy to tip, leave the hotel, bargain for souvenirs, jump on local excursions as well as pre-booked safaris, and generally get stuck into the country. People returning from visits say the parks are incredible with so few visitors, and the welcome as warm as you could imagine.

National Museum reopens in Nairobi

2008-05-15T15:39:00.002+01:00

Nairobi's national museum, the city's most important tourist attraction, and a good museum in its own right, has recently re-opened after more than two years' closure for refurbishment. Thanks to Mark Fairweather for the news - the National Museums of Kenya site is still saying it's going to reopen at the end of 2007. . .

This is rare. . .

2008-04-10T13:25:00.010+01:00

The trial has started of two policemen accused of murdering two demonstrators in Kisumu in January. It's rare that the police go on trial for human rights offences – and any observer of the Kenyan scene knows how brutal and undisciplined Kenya's police can be (there are many good police officers, but the bad ones are extraordinarily brazen) – so this trial, of a shooting that was witnessed by the world through KTN footage (relayed by the BBC) is very welcome.

Elgon – stay away

2008-04-09T23:23:00.005+01:00

One area of Kenya you don't want to be wandering around in at the moment is Mount Elgon. The Sabaot Land Defence Force are a particularly unpleasant gang of thugs – whose original grievances about land-grabbing and resettlement have been muddied by post-electoral reprisals and counter-reprisals – but the Kenyan military's clumsy intervention and clear evidence of abuses by legitimate government forces needs to be exposed. The Human Rights Watch report makes chilling reading: there's a sense that the armed forces think they'll get away with murder while the world is watching Kibaki and Odinga, and if anyone notices, the even worse atrocities committed by the SDLF will cover for them.

Castle Forest Lodge and Karen Blixen Camp

2008-04-09T23:13:00.012+01:00

Map detail from Rough Guide Kenya & Northern Tanzania map

Castle Forest Lodge up on the southern slopes of Mount Kenya (on p.179) is not very well known, though it gets a good write-up in the Rough Guide.

Meanwhile, yet another new lodge, the Karen Blixen Camp, has opened outside the Mara. Not good timing, perhaps, but by all accounts visitors to the area are sharing it with very few other tourists and getting unusually good service.

Kenya fuel price rises. . .

2008-04-02T23:27:00.003+01:00

. . .and inflation passes 20 percent and ranges up to 30 percent regionally.

If you're driving in Kenya, expect to be paying around Ksh100/litre in Nairobi and up to Ksh200 or more (€2) out in the sticks.

Kenyan authors and publishers losing out, and students losing out even more

2008-04-02T23:26:00.011+01:00

Book piracy is a worldwide problem, but particularly acute where there are hundreds of thousands of school students, most of whom don't have the money to pay for one $5 book, let alone two. So this story is bad news for Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and Ibsen's estate, but East African Educational Publishers should have been quicker off the mark if they wanted to sell The River Between and An Enemy of the People to 700,000 form 3 and 4 students. But rather than trying to compete conventionally with quick-witted (if evidently semi-literate) publishing pirates, with all the print bills, shipping costs and accounting that traditional publishing entails, they should look to install print-on-demand sites with low unit costs for schools. Students and teachers with extra cash could then buy more books, and everyone gets English literature – and more – without the pirates' typos. In less than a decade, the set-up costs would be repaying publishers (and country) with book-buying adults and a literate workforce.

Kenya gets live football on TV

2008-04-02T23:26:00.009+01:00

Live Kenyan football on TV? Is this going to come to Setanta? That would be fun. . . And wouldn't cost them an arm and a leg right now.

Cradle of Man trail?

2008-04-02T23:24:00.004+01:00

An interesting editorial in Nairobi's Business Daily pushing the idea of tourism in the Lake Turkana region. It's true that it's a vast and under-visited region, with some interesting fossil sites and great camel-walking and people-to-people opportunities for determined operators and undaunted visitors. Happily, also, Loiyangalani – the microcosmic "town" of the lake's eastern shore that featured atmospherically in the misleading closing scenes of The Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles's adaptation of the John Le Carré thriller about Big Pharma) – is evidently peaceful and secure, having escaped any of the recent conflicts further south in the Rift Valley.

Go there, it's a fantastic region to explore.

Kikoi "brand" threatened by British company

2008-04-02T23:21:00.005+01:00

This is annoying: why would a British company happily trading with Kenya, importing the popular woven kikoi cloths (the sarong-style wraps favoured by the coastal Swahili people) seek to trademark the name kikoi for its own benefit to deprive small Kenyan exporters of access to the European market and squash the competition? It seems that the Swahili word for basket – kiondo – has already gone the same way (to Japan, in 2006). The Kikoy Company took an ad in the Rough Guide too. Perhaps there's an innocent, or reasonable, explanation (anyone?) but I expect they'll want to take their advertising elsewhere next time.

Chinese tourists come to Kenya

2008-04-01T10:56:00.003+01:00

An interesting report in Business Daily. With China's usual (outside Olympic years) censorship of the media, perhaps the market there is less sensitive to Kenya's turbulent reputation. They certainly can't be any more sensitive than Germany, also visited by the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife delegation.

Photo of Chinese tourists in Maasai Mara National Reserve © Business Daily

"Trees for Peace" - a letter from Petra Allmendinger, Mount Kenya

2008-03-18T17:37:00.008Z

Dear Environmental Friends,

This month's meeting will be coming up on Friday, the 28th of March.

We had already two previous meetings to this one. And of course there is no meeting any more where our current problem of Kenya is not in one or the other way discussed. In our last meeting we realized that there is a lot of hatred, jealousy and also remorse for what has happened most receently amongst Kenyan people.

A lot of our group members are accommodating displaced people. Members who are hard up and find it very difficult on top of the additonal economic disaster to feed, clothe and accommodate extra people. But they do it, because lots of people in this country are still suffering very much, as you know.

We decided that we try to join hands and do some fundraising in form of clothes, food and money to assist our friends who are displaced and the ones who help already so much. We will meet on Friday the 28th March in CCF Building, Naro Moru, and would like to apeal to anyone who is able to give something towards this project.

We are not so keen to take money, but have decided that we would use the money towards school uniforms for the Naro Moru Primary School. Most displaced people have no money to afford uniforms and the kids at school stick out at school just for that reason.

And of course for our treeplanting projects. What has this to do with the environment, you might ask? A lot. Peace in this country will be a long process, since peace has to enter the hearts of the people again. With what happened here, this is very difficult, especially when you are the one who has lost, witnessed and experienced all this misery that other people might just have seen on the news.

We would like to make a point from our side of the country and ask for a countrywide tree-planting action. We would like to plant trees for each other. We call our action "Trees for Peace". We would like to unite the people of Kenya through tree-planting. Maybe one small way to do something towards Kenya's peace process.

We are aiming to spread our plan over the next few years throughout Kenya and will plant wherever we can. In order to achieve all this we need some assistance. Please help us with a small donation. With 25 Euros (2500Ksh) for example we can plant at least a 100 trees. But also one tree counts, 25 Euro cents or 25Ksh.

On Friday 28th March we will plant a demo tree in Naro Moru and if you have time and are in the country, please come and join us. Otherwise you can make your donations to myself, Sarah or Ian. Thanks so much for your help!

Looking forward to see you at our next meeting

Time, 9.00 am, end 1 pm

Petra and Sarah

Upper Hill Campsite has moved

2008-03-13T10:05:00.003Z

Mark Fairweather emails news about Upper Hill Campsite (p.119):

"The campsite is closing on Saturday 1st March 2008 and re-locating to Othaya Road (up Argwings Kohdek Rd, buses 46 to Othaya Rd/Valley Arcade. Matatu 48 to Swedish Dental Clinic)"

Our review says:
A small, relaxed campsite, very popular with overlanders. There are dorms and double rooms, hot showers, a kitchen, a bar and a restaurant. Tent rental is inexpensive and security is good.

Kitui and Nzambani rock

2008-03-13T00:15:00.003Z

A nice email from Peace Corps volunteer Nick Demille, based in Kajiado in Maasai-land, about a recent trip in the Akamba country, east of Nairobi. His thoughtful blog Salamu Kenya! is well worth a visit.

"If you're looking for "deluxe accommodation" in Kitui, head for the Parkside Villa. You'll find sprawling grounds, several bars, a playground for the kids, a great sound system and Kitui's best nyama choma [roast meat]. The rooms are small but clean, and they have mosquito nets and hot showers when the electricity is up. A room for the night cost 700 shillings (£5/$10), but if you need a quiet break from the road, this is it. The grounds are on the north side of town past a school for the blind, but simply asking locals will get you there as it's tucked back on a side road. If you're feeling a bit more adventurous, and want to rub elbows with the local crowd, head down the hill from the end of the tarmac surface and across from the Pastoral Center to Kitui’s own Tourist Hotel. This is a clean and comfortable guest house where 400 shillings buys you a bed with a mosquito net and hot water for bathing. They also have a rather nice garden patio bar area where lively locals, Akamba music and a pool table can be found – as well as Kitui's coldest Tuskers. They also serve breakfast her, included in the rate, and the staff are friendly.

Approaching the Tourist Hotel, you can see an enormous, oddly sited boulder on the eastern horizon – Nzambani rock. This prized local attraction makes a great half-day excursion. If you have a few hours, head out onto the dusty Mombasa road, just down from the Kitui Medical College, and catch yourself a matatu headed east to Chuluni. On the way you pass through the town of Wikilili (several small stores, and some good places to catch a quick bite to eat – not gourmet cuisine, but cheap and with exceptionally friendly service). Once you're in Chuluni, ask the matatu tout to drop you at the road to Nzambani rock, where, you should be able to see the conspicuous landmark. From the road – a wide, dirt single track heading into the bush – you get the most stunning views. Once you get nearby, you see that you have to pay to climb the boulder, but but it's very much up for discussion – haggle like you would for anything, and don't pay more than Ksh200.

There's a final ¼ mile to walk to the base of a rickety metal staircase scaling the rock. The concrete and steel supports are loose and decaying, and the entire structure sways in the wind, so take care. Once on top, you can wander freely, soaking in the panoramic views across the district. To the west you look towards the hills of Machakos, and to the east is the South Kitui National Reserve. This is Wakambani at its best, scattered with small villages and chiefs' camps. The boulder isn't a must-see, perhaps, but it makes for an unforgettable little back roads adventure.

Local Akamba legend has it that if you run round the top of Nzambani seven times, you will change sex – fortunately, there's no danger of accidentally performing this unappealing feat. More prosaically, there's a small snackbar on the summit, but it doesn't offer much and is often closed. As well as bringing plenty of sunscreen, glasses and hats then (there's no shelter from the equatorial sun, and you will want to linger for photos), you'll want to bring snacks and drinks."

Photo © Nick Demille

Kenya: anyone got a vision?

2008-03-12T19:54:00.010Z

What a disaster. What a self-inflicted nightmare.

There's too much to say and too much backstory already for any sort of "commentary" here, now, but the former anti-corruption tsar, John Githongo, now based in Britain and apparently an angry and disgusted man, has written this succinct piece in this week's Time magazine. Who knew that Gordon Brown had been so active in helping to broker a compromise?

Photo: Mombasa highway, near Makindu

It's not the first time it's happened. Kenya has never been an "oasis of stability and peace" as the mainstream media kept reporting (there were few headlines when hundreds were killed by the police in a gang crackdown in Nairobi last summer). For forty years it's been a seething mess of contradictions, held together, and even made to prosper in parts, by some of the nicest, most forgiving, most patient people in the world. There was an explosion of ethnic tension in 1992 in the run-up to the first "democratic" elections, which Daniel Arap Moi managed to win. I remember driving one evening back across the Rift Valley, from Kakamega to Naivasha, and the fires of burning huts were clearly visible out on the plateau, especially south of Eldoret. I didn't feel personally threatened. There were no barricades - the violence was happening in the countryside, not in the towns. It's reckoned at least 3000 people were killed in ethnic clashes during the 1990s, and around 300,000 displaced. So the recent violence isn't quite so bad (though it happened very quickly, very brutally, and under a lot of media attention which wasn't there to the same degree in the 1990s), but the refugee problem is much greater this time – as many as half a million people – and the political/ethnic demarcations much more starkly mapped.

Meanwhile, although the country is suffering terribly because the tourist industry has collapsed, it's clear that tourists themselves are not in any danger, and I've not heard any reports of tourists physically harmed during the recent troubles. In fact, people who have been visiting, seem to report a better time than ever, with very quiet conditions. Have a look at this feedback from recent guests at one of my favourite camps, Kicheche in the Mara. If there was ever a time when a country needed you to visit on holiday, it's Kenya, in 2008. Now if the Foreign Office travel advisory would just catch up. . .

Photo: staff at Il Ngwesi lodge, Laikipia

If Time pull the article at some point, here's the text:
Kenya: From the Ground Up
March 17, 2008 By JOHN GITHONGO

The ethnic political violence that convulsed Kenya after disputed elections on Dec. 27 shattered the nation's image as an oasis of calm in a turbulent corner of Africa. Perhaps no one was more shocked — or had more to lose — than members of Kenya's middle class, who seemed comfortably ensconced in Westernized modernity after more than 40 years of economic growth without major political trauma. They watched as ethnic clashes left more than 1,000 Kenyans dead and hundreds of thousands displaced, and as those decades of hard-earned economic progress threatened to unravel. The violence had assumed an unsettling ethnic character that saw neighbor turn against neighbor with machetes and other crude weapons. As militia mobilized on both sides, Kenyans began to self-segregate along ethnic lines.

It took an unprecedented concert of international diplomatic pressure, united behind former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to force Kenya back from the precipice. In a power-sharing deal, opposition leader Raila Odinga will now serve as Prime Minister while the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki will remain in that post. All of Africa and Kenya's friends abroad breathed a sigh of relief when the deal was signed.

If the peace is to hold, however, it is important to understand the forces underlying it — to recognize that Kenya's near-death experience was caused not by ethnicity alone, but by its toxic mix with politics. Because Kenya's constitution vests disproportionate powers in the presidency, the ethnic group to which a President belongs — in Kibaki's case, the Kikuyu — has typically been seen as the beneficiary of unequal access to justice and economic opportunity. Combine this with a corrupt political élite given to extravagant displays of consumption, and it is no wonder that powerful resentments have built up in Kenyan society, not least among the Luo who backed Odinga. In this environment, even Kenya's booming economy — with growth surpassing 6% in 2007 — adds fuel to the fire. Many Kenyans felt that this prosperity was passing them by while others were getting more than their fair share. Ethnic inequality is a dangerous and highly effective tool for politicians keen to whip up resentment.

Annan's mediation process did two critical things: it temporarily stopped the violence and it created an opportunity to resolve some of Kenya's fundamental problems. We now have a coalition government that was forced on the Kenyan political élite by the international community. Had it not been for the vigorous intervention of Kenya's neighbors, and of the wider world — particularly Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who worked the phones ceaselessly — the belligerents would not have set aside their differences. The upside of this is that the Kenyan crisis has empowered the region and the African Union to intervene robustly when things go badly wrong in an important member country. The downside is that the giant sucking sound when the Annan deal was signed was Kenya's sovereignty being flushed into the global diplomatic ether. As a Kenyan, I worry that it could take a long time for us to regain our confidence in our ability to manage our own affairs without robbing ourselves silly, turning on each other along ethnic lines, and practicing a politics of brinkmanship. For our leaders, we can only hope that the humbling experience of international intervention will prove instructive as well.

In order to work, the new arrangement first has to remain in place — no mean feat given the pressures it is meant to dispel. A critical test will be what the coalition government does to facilitate the speedy return home of more than 300,000 displaced Kenyans from all ethnic groups — women and children in particular. The title deeds they hold to land now occupied by others must be honored; if they are not, the viability of the Kenyan state and the rule of law itself will be called into question.

The new situation carries with it risk and opportunity. Cynics can argue that the coalition government has pooled all of Kenya's rotten political eggs into one noxious basket, and is therefore bound to fail. On the other hand, Kenya stared into the abyss and was finally pulled back. That presents a chance to refashion the Kenyan state itself and to address the systemic issues — inequality, land rights, corruption and the constitution — that gave rise to the crisis in the first place.

John Githongo is Kenya's former anticorruption chief and a fellow at Oxford University
© Time magazine

Kenya Vision 2030

2007-09-22T10:11:00.004+01:00

Does Kenya need Vision 2030, its strategic plan for the next 23 years? Or would 2020 vision be more useful?

From Thursday's "Business Daily" in Nairobi. . . .
"Repositioning of the Coast Circuit, opening under-utilised parks and providing niche products have been unveiled as the key drivers towards the government achieving Vision 2030 through the tourism sector. The strategy aims at making Kenya one of the top 10 long haul tourist destinations, offering diverse and high end experiences by 2012 to a target five million tourists."

Five million tourists by 2012? That's some target, when just over a million visited in 2006. The article goes on to say that roads are a problem. And if their figures are right, they will continue to be, as the story quotes Ksh3million having been allocated to road repairs on access roads to tourist sites. That's a bit more than £20,000 ($40,000) which, even on Kenya's famously low wages (£1–2, or $2–4 a day is about the level manual workers and hotel staff can expect) won't go very far. As Tourism Concern's "Behind the Smile: The Tsunami of Tourism" showed, Kenya's success as a tourist economy depends on unsustainable levels of exploitation of some of the world's poorest people.

Maybe proper labour laws are a separate issue. A good start would be finishing the Nairobi to Mombasa highway (the photo here was taken by the front passenger while we were driving towards Nairobi. . .).

With Kenya's weather, and the sort of rains that are now common, roads are going to need repairing more and more frequently. So how about building a brand-new, high-speed, wide-gauge line linking Mombasa with Nairobi and Kampala – a futuristic railway running oversize rolling stock – from the Indian Ocean across the Rift Valley to central Africa, perhaps carrying 3000 passengers and freight. This could serve as a blueprint for the future of mass transportation in similarly suitable environments. Compared with building the same line in Europe, construction costs on much of the low-population-density route would be minimal; exports would boom; the tourists would come; the wildlife and the environment would be preserved; and Kenya would once again have an asset to be proud of, running alongside its famous, nineteenth-century “lunatic line”.

Just a thought.

Gallery's vigango no longer for sale?

2007-06-29T12:14:00.000+01:00

A sign of the times?

A prominent Boston gallery has removed most indications that it's selling a collection of Vigango (Mijikenda memorial posts). The nine (out of an original twelve) posts were being sold for between $1000 and $4500 each. It will be interesting to see when the gallery judges the coast is clear once more to advertise them.

Meanwhile, it's down to Mijikenda communities themselves to decide whether they want to allow these objects to be sold out of their traditional context for a few hundred shillings, or maintained in situ for the benefit of the community. It might be a good idea to start carving and "aging" some replicas for sale as decorative items in Europe and the US. There's obviously a demand.

Mijikenda grave posts returned

2007-06-26T16:40:00.000+01:00

It's a tragedy how many of these vigango memorial posts have ended up in galleries and private collections in European and North American cities and a positive step that some are being returned.

Let's hope these posts were honestly acquired and properly paid for. The money involved isn't insignificant – the proceeds from any one of these sales would have a transformative impact on the future prospects of the Mijikenda family it came from. Unfortunately, without proper authentification and ownership papers, it's more likely that the original owners/guardians/relatives had nothing to do with the removal of what are the equivalent of cemetery headstones. Hard to believe owning one could bring anyone happiness. . .

Kenya's only gay-friendly tour operator?

2007-06-21T11:28:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Henry Kahuki from Magical Africa, who wrote to me recently, describing his company thus:

"Gay-friendly comprehensive ground safari operators based in Nairobi. 40% of our clients are from the gay community. We offer professional service from meet and greet at the airport and escorted tours and safaris. We have been in operation for 4 years with staff experience of over 15 years on tailor-made holiday packages."

They may not be the longest-established or most experienced outfit in the business, but not all of those are wonderful. Magical Africa appears to be a professional, conscientious outfit, and it's certainly the first company in Kenya to publicly call itself gay-friendly. Magical Africa also describes itself as eco-friendly, a label which doesn't raise as many heckles in consevative Kenya. Whether you're gay, straight, mixed or on the rocks, by all means check them out. And tell us what you thought.

Would you run here?

2007-06-15T23:17:00.000+01:00

We didn't run at Il Ngwesi, but we were quite happy to walk here, through the thick bush, with our American friends, and our six kids aged 10 to 18. We knew about the Wendy Martin attack, and we saw elephants. We did have two armed guards with us, but we never worried at all about any danger. And if an enraged elephant had suddenly appeared, I don't think any of us would expected our guards to offer an absolute guarantee of protection. They've been going out daily for years, the Wendy Martin incident was a 1 in 3000 chance. Bad things do happen. And actually, if there was no risk at all, if walking through the bush in Africa was no more dangerous than sitting in your front room watching David Attenborough on the flat screen, then part of the thrill and excitement would be missing. Knowing there's a tiny chance, albeit very remote, that something like this might happen is part of the experience.

And that seems to be the overwhelming – surprisingly overwhelming – opinion of Scotsman readers, too. Nearly all of them are I think going too far in the other direction. The fact is, walking around Il Ngwesi genuinely isn't as dangerous as people who haven't been there might think. Accidents like Wendy Martin's are incredibly rare. Like swimming, horse-riding or cycling, walking in the bush in Kenya just isn't risk-free. But, again, it would be a tragedy for thousands of local Maasai if this court case closed down Il Ngwesi.

Do the Maasai have insurance against elephant attack?

2007-06-15T22:51:00.000+01:00

It was a terrible accident and I hope Lewa and its supporters have the funds to meet their legal responsibilities. But even if the final settlement is much less than the £800,000 that the Mail speculates might be paid in compensation for the terrible injuries suffered by Wendy Martin, a tourist gored by an elephant while out running at Il Ngwesi lodge (with no armed guard to accompany her) seven years ago. . . Even if the final settlement is half that, it must risk jeopardising the future of one of Kenya's – probably the world's – best examples of community conservation and eco-tourism working harmoniously and bringing huge benefits to a community of traditional herders numbering more than 5000 people in one of the poorest parts of Africa. I think Wendy Martin has a case – she should have been more carefully protected – but it would be a tragedy if it brought renewed suffering to people who have had very rough ride from drought and livestock rustling over the last few decades. Needless to say, nobody ever offers compensation to the local Maasai when somebody from their community is injured by a wild animal.

This certainly does. . .

2007-06-11T13:50:00.000+01:00

It's hard to imagine today's explosion had any connection with Mungiki. Some Islamic extremist cell seems more likely. Either way, in terms of Kenya's reputation and any impact on tourism, this morning's bomb is likely to be far more damaging. As is tacitly acknowledged by the FCO who had advice up very quickly. Sensibly, they haven't changed their overall level of advice for Kenya. Nobody should be dissuaded from visiting by this random blast.

Does this have an impact on tourism?

2007-06-07T17:57:00.001+01:00

The Mungiki murders and police shootings will leave a lot of people outside Kenya confused – these events are hardly headline news in Europe or North America. Yet.

Unlike an accident involving visitors, or the rare murder of a tourist, there's seen to be little of news value in killings of Africans by Africans. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office travel advice pages have nothing to say.

President Kibaki's typically clumsy warning to Mungiki sect members – "We will get you" – smacks of desperation. It's resulted in a chaotic bloodbath and, from the POV of the news agenda, is only a couple of quiet-Iraq days away from setting Kenya's tourist industry back once again.

That would be a disaster. These events shouldn't have any impact on tourists visiting the country and visitors shouldn't feel threatened. But for people who are perhaps thinking of going to Kenya for the first time, well, it doesn't look good, does it?

What the hell is going on in Mathare?

2007-06-07T16:55:00.001+01:00

Yet again, Kenya's police bring shame and scorn on the country, with the mass shootings of more than thirty "suspected members of Mungiki" in the tight-knit slum community of Mathare Valley to the northeast of the city centre. Nairobi police have lost colleagues in recent days, savagely murdered by these protectionist racketeers. But now they have lost control: their response, as so often, is out of all proportion and has inevitably included individuals who were at most peripheral and at worst just unlucky bystanders.

Mungiki's violent coercion and ritualistic beheadings have caused widespread terror in some of the poorest communities in the Nairobi area: when the police wade in and outdo them, blood for blood, with no respect for human rights or the badges they wear, they lose all credibility.

Police commissioner Ali should call off his trigger-happy rabble and conduct an immediate enquiry.

Rough Guide to Kenya online

2007-05-09T10:50:00.000+01:00

You can check out the Rough Guide to Kenya online – there are large chunks of the content of the latest edition available online at the Rough Guides website. There are plenty of links here, too – very useful for making bookings. It's not the same as looking through the book, maybe a couple of hundred pages rather than 700. But it gives a good flavour of what the guide contains. Let me know what you think.

Lamu's safe

2007-02-13T13:29:00.001Z

For now. The oil exploration that's been going on near the archipelago for decades seems to have reached another
inconclusive end . But the drillers will probably be back as long as Kenya's fuel needs aren't being met by expensive imported crude or alternative technologies.

Meanwhile, Lamu faces a more imminent danger from being caught in the crossfire of the self-perpetuating war on terror. As British, US and Kenyan authorities cooperate to detain alleged supporters of Somali jihadists, who were caught fleeing from Somalia at Kiunga, just up the coast, the island is now clearly on radar screens that it would prefer not to be. Fortunately, Lamu's expression of Islam has always been one that welcomed foreigners, and with hundreds of tourists, including US Peace Corps volunteers, present at all times in the delightful warren of alleys that makes up Lamu town, there won't be any muttonheaded US aerial bombardments here – unlike on the Somali border where livestock and innocent people were killed as the Americans tried to nail the alleged perpetrators of the 1998 embassy bombings.

Inaccurate hotel descriptions. . . oops.

2007-01-11T15:28:00.000Z

Pierre Oberson of Kijani House Hotel in Shela, Lamu, has emailed to point out that the hotel isn't properly described in the new edition. Which is a pity as Pierre emailed with updates and Kijani was visited for this edition. But somehow in the conversion from research notes to edited text to laid out page. . .Well, mistakes happen and this blog is one way of correcting them. In fact, Pierre reminds me that he's Swiss, not French (!), that the standard rooms were improved several years ago and that the phrase "not as luxurious as you might imagine" is exactly how we described Kijani in the last edition, which does seem kind of casual . . Shela is so beautiful anyway, everything is a bit relative - it's certainly a delightful hotel, and I'm glad at least we mentioned the pools and garden. Also, they have a new website address, though the old one still works. The rather misty-looking Google Earth image shows the whole of Shela and Lamu beach stretching away to the west. I want to be there, now. . .

If anyone notes other inaccuracies in hotel listings, please do let me know.

Don't forget Laikipia

2006-12-07T15:26:00.000Z

Talk to a travel agent about Kenya and they'll all think of the Maasai Mara and Tsavo. Some may mention Samburu or Nakuru. But you'll be lucky to find one who's heard of Laikipia. Laikipia is the vast area of savannah and ridges north and northwest of Mount Kenya (the Google Earth view here shows Mount Kenya from the southeast, with Laikipia in the background). Ultimately it merges into the deserts of northern Kenya – the Northern Frontier District or NFD as some old timers still refer to it. Laikipia, roughly the size of Wales, has no towns, and few villages. In colonial times it was mostly ranches, owned by anglo-Kenyans. Local people – Samburu, Laikipiak Maasai, Kalenjin and Kikuyu – worked on the ranches or eked out a living between them.

Today, many of the ranches include wildlife conservation areas and encourage sustainable tourism. Local people are increasingly involved in their management and share in the revenues – though still not enough – and a body called the Laikipia Wildlife Forum coordinates land policy, marketing and conservation.

It's a wonderful part of the country, with plentiful opportunities for more unusual kinds of safari, such as walking and camel safaris, and fantastic wildlife viewing opportunities (that's a Von der Decken's hornbill – a pair of them came and perched outside our room for about 5 minutes – a lot of fun for a keen photographer). Elephants tramped by every day, along the valley in front of where the kids are standing. The six enormous rooms, completely open to the view and the elements, are ranged either side of the pool.

These photos were taken in and around Il Ngwesi, one of Laikipia's foremost eco-lodges. A large proportion of the places to stay in Laikipia make efforts to limit their environmental footprint and Il Ngwesi – owned and run by the Il Ngwesi Maasai (top right picture) on behalf of their 6000-strong community – has helped lead the way in what tourists want and what works in local conditions. They're okay with the infinity pool (recenty de-infinitized by the kids in this shot) so long as their own herds have enough to drink. And the $250 per person per night rate helps too.

Latest fees in the Maasai Mara area

2006-11-26T15:22:00.000Z

Maasai Mara fees also went up, but in a somewhat confusing and complicated way. The reserve itself, south of the Talek and east of the Mara River, and the group ranch area to the north of the Talek, are still charging $30 per day per person. There is, however, no free movement betwen the two, as there has been for years. Now, you have to pay again! The Mara Conservancy, the triangle formed by the Mara river, the escarpment and the Tanzanian border, is charging $40. This information comes from Kicheche camp. They told me "Not sure how this will pan out in 2007 as there is a lot of politics ongoing. We have to play it by ear." Politics in the Mara? That's putting it mildly from what I've heard. But that'll have to wait for another post.

Bad news for your budget

2006-11-25T15:23:00.000Z

National Park fees increased across the board last summer – frustratingly just after the latest edition of the Rough Guide went to the printers. But heh, that's what blogs are for, right?

The main parks raised their daily entrance fees from, in most cases, $30 to $40 for non-residents of Kenya, with other parks somewhat cheaper. Click on the table to view it more legibly (click "refresh" if you get gibberish).

And visit the Kenya Wildlife Services' very useful website for further details of camping fees and accommodation.

Good news on Mount Elgon

2006-11-19T15:22:00.000Z

Lillian Nsubuga, writing in The East African (Nairobi) says Uganda and Kenya have recently allowed visitors to Mt Elgon National Park to cross the mountain's common border. Tourists visiting the park will now be allowed to climb Mt Elgon from either side. She goes on to say that more than 100 visitors have already made the crossing which previously involved making arrangements in advance with the park authorities. She reports the chief warden of the park as saying tourism authorities in the two countries had improved security to stop illegal immigrants from abusing the cross-border tourism facility.

The image from Google Earth shows Mount Elgon - a real giant in overall area, though not as high as Mount Kenya at 4231m, and below the snowline – viewed from a little west of Kitale on the Kenyan side. The white stuff? Clouds.

From the Rough Guide coverage of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant and rhino orphanage

2006-11-12T15:21:00.000Z

After many years of trial and error, David Sheldrick's widow, Dame Daphne Sheldrick, and her staff, have become the world’s experts on hand-rearing baby elephants, sometimes from birth, using a specially devised milk formula for the youngest infants and assigning keepers to individual 24-hour physical guardian-ship of their charges, a responsibility that includes sleeping with them in their stables. Without the love of a surrogate family and plenty of playtime and stimulation, orphaned baby elephants fail to thrive: they can succumb to fatal infections when teething, and, if they physically survive, can grow up unhappy and badly prepared for reintroduction to the wild. At the time of writing, there were nine baby elephants at the orphanage and two partly rehabilitated young rhinos who make occasional and brief visits.

Rough Guide Map of Kenya & Northern Tanzania

2006-10-09T15:20:00.000+01:00

It's worth looking out for the new Rough Guide map of Kenya (1:950,000) which is printed on rip-proof, waterproof plastic paper and is (hopefully) very accurate. The map has just been reprinted with this new-style cover and incorporates many changes and updates on the original printing of October 2004. For example, the B3 trans-Mara highway which connects Narok and Bomet and allows much easier access to the western end of the Maasai Mara is included. We've also improved the accuracy of the roads in the Mount Kenya area. Throughout the map, isolated lodge and hotel details have been updated and information on Laikipia is much improved. Let me know what you think.

Maasai Mara

2006-10-08T15:19:00.000+01:00

This cheetah was well outside the reserve boundary, in the vicinity of Kicheche Mara Camp. As seen in the BBC's Big Cat Week, there's still a lot of off-track driving going on in the reserve, and especially outside it, where many camp operators seem to think the issues of plant damage and soil erosion aren't significant enough to worry their drivers and clients about them. It's true that if you don't drive off-track, and never forge your own way off the beaten path, you will see fewer animals, at least close up. But it's best to avoid all off-track driving, especially if it's simply to explore the bush, rather than for a specific photo opp.

Google Earth in Kenya

2006-09-28T15:11:00.000+01:00

If you haven't looked at Google Earth for a while, you'll find the Kenya coverage has improved somewhat, with hi-res coverage of greater Nairobi and good stretches of the coast, including Diani, Malindi and Lamu town, but not Mombasa yet. The sheer number of vehicles in Nairobi is astonishing, and all of them, it seems, white. While the relentless development of Diani is plain to see, you also get a clear view of which areas of Diani forest remain largely untouched — not many, but at least we can all see where they are now. Anyway, Google Earth is certain to become an essential resource for travellers scoping out their destinations, not least to check whether you're sharing the beach with just the other guests in your hotel, or half a dozen other establishments jostling for the same strip. The image here is of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant and rhino orphanage in Nairobi National Park. The satellite picture must have been captured between 11am and noon – the only time you can visit.