Ken Curtis' blog Summer

Wed 15/07/09 01:21

So I feel so fortunate to have gone on the Masai Mara safari. I didn’t think that I’d get a chance to see any of the big parks while I was in Kenya, if only for the fact that I was pretty much on my own and all the parks charge admission by the vehicle… which means that it is cost prohibitive for an individual to go.

The ride to the park was almost as fun as getting there, stopping at several small towns or villages along the way.

We had two treks into the reserve and each time we saw lots of animals. In fact there was so much to see that I think I’ll let the pics do the talking. One thing that we saw was cheetahs hunting down a baby gazelle, and the migration of the wildebeests…

Mon 06/07/09 05:59

We arrived in Nairobi about 7 in the morning and although we’d just been deported we were in good spirits. While in the airport we were kind of held, I say kind of because our passports weren’t given back to us and we were told to wait, but we were in the middle of the airport so we could wander around. I guess we were under something like house arrest.

We finally got our passports back about 2 hours later and then we started to try to figure out what we were going to do. We had a few options available to us, the first was to just go back to Dubai, the second was we could wait for the group in Cameroon to do something there, and the last option, which we chose, was to do a little bit of all. Nothing really was working out though, we called the US Embassy but they didn’t call us back, we got a hold of Sareh and Jim, but there wasn’t much they could do, so we finally decided to get a hotel. Even though our bags weren’t expected to be back in Nairobi until the next day, I wanted to find some place just to relax, eat, and gather myself.

The hotel was in the center of Nairobi, and it was kind of a nice hotel, but the location was, for lack of a better word, dangerous. When I think about it, it was the major problem that I had with Nairobi, it seemed dangerous, and the key word is “seemed” because I’m not really sure if it was or wasn’t, but you just get the feeling that you are prey when you’re walking along the street. The huge walls, double-locked doors, and the warnings to not go out at night all reinforce the feeling. So after getting snacks and some toiletries we went back to play some backgammon and to watch a movie.

We headed back to the airport to pick up our bags in the morning after breakfast and after talking to the guys in Cameroon, we knew that we were going to have to just hang out another day at least before we found out if our visas would come through. So we got a room at a hostel called Karen Camp. Neither of the girls had ever stayed at a hostel, but they trusted me. I liked the place it had a “western” feeling to it, and more importantly, it felt safe. It turns out that this hostel is a stopping point for the overland tours through Kenya… which means that I may have stayed here if I hadn’t gone to Cameroon and did the Africa trip that I had originally planned.

We went to a croc farm on our way to the hostel. It was fun. It also turns out that Mona, a girl in the group still in Cameroon got robbed, and both her and Peter had to scare off pickpockets.

The next morning we had decided that we were going to do something instead of just waiting for visas that were probably were never going to arrive, so we booked a safari through the game preserve, Masai Mara.

I really can’t explain how cool Masai Mara is. The best explanation is it’s the Discovery Channel in real life… except everything is smaller. I think watching all the shows on migrating wildebeests and zebras had convinced me that they were large animals, but in reality they’re fairly small. I digress though, the mere fact that we were there and could see them migrating was so cool.

Fri 03/07/09 04:37

Deported on Arrival

If you’re reading this, try to remember that I’m writing this after the fact, I couldn’t find internet access anywhere in Kenya… that’s not exactly true, but to find it where I could post information was nearly impossible. I was also having some problems with my battery so I couldn’t write “on the go.”

Well, we head out for that night, all of us in good spirits, and although I can’t speak for anyone else in the group I think there was a mixture of pride and apprehension in what we were going to be doing.

It was a normal flight with all the great things like takeoffs and landings, and the annoying things like jostling with the person next to me for a small portion of the armrest. About half way through the flight I decided to find somewhere else to sit so I could have the armrest to myself… I know, it’s a petty thing but the woman next to me actually had her arm so far onto the rest, that her elbow was jabbing me in the ribs. No lie. For some reason though, it didn’t seem to matter to her. Anyway, I found a seat in an empty row at the back of the plane, grabbed a blanket and managed to sleep for a couple of hours.

We landed in Douala about 10 or so and stepped out of the plane into warm humid temperature, very much like Dubai, but not a warm. The place was dreary, and even through the darkness of night I could see buildings that were not kept up. We made our way to the passport control area. There was probably about a total of 20 people that were going through the line. When our group got to the start of the line, Jim went through, and I think Sareh, but then someone got hit with the news that no visa-no entry. That’s not what we were told by our contacts in Cameroon. Anyway, from that moment on things moved really fast, see, there was eight of us traveling, out of the eight three had letters of invitations, which we thought, or rather, we were told were sufficient to enter Cameroon. Unfortunately according to the rather rude guard dismissing our explanations, no visas are issued at the airport.

As you may have guessed right now, I was one of the three members of the group that had the Letter of Invitation instead of the visa. ☹

So the rude guard that I was talking about earlier asks for my visa and my letter and asks me to step to the side, when he was sure that there were only three, and we are separated from the others he asks us to follow him. That’s when Jim and Sareh went into action. Jim first tried to reason with the guy, and then headed to find our contact that was meeting us in Cameroon, and Sareh tried to explain the situation to the guard. Now you have to imagine this place, it’s old, it’s dirty and to top things off, it’s very dark. That kind of dark that feels like the lone light bulb hanging by it’s cord in the middle of a large room. So we follow him, kind of laughing as we go, I think partly because of nervousness, but it was also kind of fun. I had no worries that anything would happen to us, and I was convinced that we would get our visas. I thought that we may have to pay a fine/bribe or something, but we would get them.

We end up at the detention center of the airport. I keep wishing that I had taken a photo of it, because I don’t think there is anyway that I can explain the place. It was something straight out of the hell (almost). There were a few people around, some that left an office and some that were doing other things. At one corner was some decorative concrete or metal bars, that created a cell that held I believe one person… but as I write this I think I remember there were more people sitting on a bench inside the jail. Right below this guy was two people sitting on benches that rested against the wall of the jail, and not far away was a desk manned by a female guard/officer, who for some reason didn’t seem to mind that this one guy/prisoner/detainee was visibly trying to get his body outside of the bars and doing a pretty good job at it. There was a couple of motorcycles in the room which to me was confusing, I guess they were shipped or something, but we were like in a room inside the airport, it just didn’t make sense that there would be motorcycles there. The guard that we had followed to this area told us stay at the one spot and proceed to enter the office to talk to a commissioner, he comes out a few minutes later and then Sareh starts going at him again. I look over at the jail and the detainee that has managed to get his chest outside the bars signals me to get the attention of the two girls that I’m with… yeah, like I going to suggest they go talk to the guy. The guard at the desk is just staring straight ahead… not even at anything, just peering off into the distance. I’m telling you it was like this totally surreal event.

Christian shows up with another guy, both are our contacts while we were in Daoula and were the ones that were responsible for us during our stay in Cameroon. They had been waiting for us to arrive and when they heard from Jim what had happened they came up. It was pretty much “fun” for me up until that moment, like I said I thought everything would be straightened out and the two girls and myself would be on our way. That was until the customs guy barked an order at Christian and I saw the fear in his eyes. It was then that I started to think there may be more to this that I thought. I can honestly say that I didn’t really do too much studying up on Cameroon. I read most of the Lonely Planet stuff, and the Wikipedia entries, but I didn’t really know anything about the government or political environment.

Maybe 10 minutes have gone by since we’ve been waiting in the detention center when a official shows up, he’s not in a uniform, but everyone is giving him respect. He’s got our passports and paperwork with him and he tells us to follow him… or someone tells us to follow him, I can’t remember. We are winding our way along the corridors through the airport until we’re back outside next to the plane that we had just arrived on. The plane is full, there are flight attendants, guards, officials, and other assorted individuals all waiting for us. Meanwhile Sareh is not stopping, she’s fighting everyway that she can to convince the official to rethink his decision. He’s not budging, but she won’t give in and I have to say it was remarkable how she kept trying. Eventually though we stepped onto the plane and made the long walk down the aisle past all the staring passengers to empty seats in the back of the plane.

Fri 03/07/09 03:38

one that I never expected.

I got up at 4 to be to the airport in time for my flight to Cameroon. Did everything that I needed to do and went out in the “parking area” to wait for my taxi. I waited for about ten minutes and then asked the night clerk to call him, then waited another twenty minutes until he showed. The taxi was John, the guy that drove me around while I was here so no hard feelings, I just seem to stress when I know I have to be at the airport at a certain time. It’s all good though, he’s shown up and I’m on my way to check in for my flight that is in two hours… so no worries, I’ve got lots of time.

I go to check in and the girl behind the counter tells me that my flight has been cancelled, and not only was it cancelled, but it was cancelled about a month ago and I was put on the flight later in the night. They’re cool about it, and the rest of the group is going to be showing up from Dubai at about 7, so I decide that it is a good thing. I will miss this flight, but will travel with the rest of the Cameroon trip to Douala in the evening.

I knew that the group would have a 12 hour layover so they could see some of the sights in Nairobi, and I thought it would be fun to travel around with them for the day.

I finally met up with everyone about 810 in the morning, the plane was late and then they had to get their visas, but they did show up and it was great to see them.

Jim had preplanned a few things to see for the day, some of which I had seen and some that I hadn’t. The one thing that they had scheduled that I didn’t get to see was the safari part of the Nairobi National Park, where the orphanage was located. I’ve got to say it was a great day. For the most part I like traveling by myself, but Kenya really seems like a dangerous place, maybe because of the stories, or maybe for other reasons I felt uncomfortable walking around on my own so now that I was with the group I was having more fun.

We went to the giraffe center, and then to get some lunch and then on to the safari. The safari was fun, but it really lacked any sense of realism. We didn’t see anything dangerous, just some monkeys, and game animals. I’m not complaining, but it wasn’t like you’d expect if you were going on safari in Africa.

Fri 03/07/09 02:23

I went to the National Wildlife Safari today and wandered around a bit. I started at a an animal orphanage which I think was the best idea. When I went through the gate, there a guy comes up to me and tells me that he’s my guide. I think, okay, so everyone gets a guide here. I think he was just being sly, but with his help, I was allowed into the cage with the cheetahs to get some shots of me petting them. It was funny too the way he approached me about it, he’s like, “pssst… you wanna pet a cheetah?” I’m kind of thinking okay, so what’s the catch? The guide acted like it wasn’t really permissible but if I wanted to he’d let me. The same thing happened with some baby cheetahs that had just been brought to the orphanage a couple of days earlier. The let me hold them and get some pics. So cool… I mean really it was something that I don’t think I would have gotten the chance in my normal travels.

As I walked around the area there was one pen/cage with about 5 monkeys just hanging out doing “monkey stuff” and a baby monkey saw me and my guide an came out of the pen through a bent portion of the wire. I’ve got to say that that was another really cool moment. The monkey just seemed so curious about everything, about me, my backpack, my clothing, and almost everything else.

Fri 03/07/09 02:20

It’s my second day in Nairobi and I’m sitting in my room right now. It appears that I won’t be able to add to my blog until I get somewhere else that has internet access. When I first got here the power was out so no internet, then today when I connected my computer to the net it wouldn’t work. It’s a usb modem, so that’s probably the reason that I couldn’t just connect. Anyway, I’m sitting in my room in hopes that I’ll be able to put the entries online sometime soon.

So yesterday I had a pretty full day seeing many of the sights in Nairobi. I first went to a sanctuary for elephants and rhinoceros, which was pretty cool. One of the more interesting aspects of going to the sanctuary was getting there, it was fun just cruising around the city. At one part there was a baboon that was trying to cross the street. My driver just pointed at it and said “monkey” about four times.

After seeing the elephants I went to a giraffe center. Very similar to the other place but instead it was giraffes that I got to feed. Then I went to Karen Bliss’s house… she wrote Out of Africa. It was interesting, but to be honest I could have skipped it and not wondered if I had even missed anything. And then finally I went to the National Museum. Lots of dead birds and paintings, and overall interesting.

My thoughts about Nairobi so far are mixed. The people are friendly and seem to be genuine in all regards, which was a nice surprise. I think I believed all the hype about robbery and stuff that I had heard. I want to make sure that anyone reading this knows that I know, that one day in a city doesn’t mean anything. So if I get robbed today I don’t want to hear anyone say “I told you so.” There is the fact too that there are security fences everywhere, and the front door to the hostel is armored in a way that a bank safe is armored… no lie, it is solid with pins going through the door to the jamb about every 8 inches. My driver yesterday told me that at night there are gangs of people walking around looking for people to rob… It kind of takes the fun out of just walking around like I enjoy doing.

On a side note, I’ve been having really strong cravings for a cigarette since yesterday. I almost broke down last night and bought a pack, I didn’t, but today I’ve been wanting one too. These cravings are worse than any I’ve had since I quit a month ago. Hopefully I’ll be able to ride them out until I don’t have them anymore.

I don’t know what I’m going to do today, but I leave for the airport tomorrow morning at 430 for the airport so whatever I do I’m going to have to be in bed early. I think I’m the only guest in the hostel right now so if I do go anywhere it will be by myself. I want to go to the park today, but I’m not sure how to catch a taxi. The hostel is like in a neighborhood.

My name is Ken

Category Archives: Summer – 2009

Masai Mara

Back to Nairobi

The Flight to Cameroon

The Start of an Adventure

National Wildlife Safari

Day Two in Nairobi