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Trip Report - Kenya & Zanzibar 7-27 October 1999 Part 1

My annual holiday this year was to be in Australia but the friends we were going with couldn't make it so my wife, Lillian, and I decided to go to Kenya. From the UK one of the most economical ways to visit Africa is to go by overland truck. This means that you follow a preset itinerary and that you have to camp but we had a good time last year on our trip to Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. We eventually chose a tour called "Faces of Kenya" with Guerba Expeditions and arranged our flights around the tour dates. We flew KLM uk from Edinburgh to Amsterdam Schipol and then by Kenya Airways to Nairobi.

My resources for the trip were the new "Helm Field Guides Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania" by Zimmerman, Turner and Pearson, The Lonely Planet Guide to East Africa and Nigel Wheatley's "Where to Watch Birds in Africa". All of my previous African birding trips were in Southern Africa and common names differ between the two areas, bird names in this report will follow those in Zimmerman, Turner and Pearson.

East Africa is more expensive than southern Africa. The exchange rate when were there was 120 Kenya Shillings to the pound (c. 75 KSh to the US$). A bottle of local Tusker lager varied between 60 KSh at the bottle store and 220KSh at the Hotel Boulevard's garden bar. We paid 1750KSh each for the trip kitty to cover all our expenses. Curio sellers abound and the prices are high compared to Zimbabwe, which put us off buying souvenirs until we got to Nairobi Airport where we found prices lower than in the curio markets.

My impressions of Nairobi were that this is a modern city but it has more visible poverty than the other African cities I have visited. It felt like a poorer and shabbier version of Harare but with more cars and worse drivers. It is nicknamed Nairobbery but the only problem I encountered was a poor attempt at a scam about sponsoring "sick students" at Nairobi University.

In towns the hassle factor is high, especially Namanga where the truck was surrounded by hawkers. The best tactic to deal with them is to ignore them, as soon as you acknowledge them they suck you into a dialogue as they will not take no for an answer. This may seem rude and unfriendly but all they are after is your money.

On the whole Kenyans are friendly and outgoing people with more confidence in dealing with "westerners" than their southern African counterparts. Away from Nairobi you are always greeted, usually with the KiSwahili "Jambo!" and kids wave at any passing Europeans. This confidence may be due to having been independent for twice as long so that the memories of colonial injustices are in the more distant past. Take plenty of cheap biro pens as kids will ask you for these and sometimes you will get a discount on a curio if you throw in a pen.

7/10 - 9/10 99 Nairobi

Our first two nights were spent in the Hotel Boulevard in central Nairobi. Our trip would be leaving from this hotel. The hotel was set in gardens and over the fence at the bottom was the Nairobi River and the well wooded grounds of the National Museum of Kenya. On the first afternoon I birded in the hotel gardens and got my first lifers. In the trees overhanging the river there was a colony of Baglafecht Weavers, mixed with Holub's Golden Weavers. The skies above were full of Yellow-billed Kites and Pied Crows and the small birds in the garden consisted of Streaky Seedeater, Bronze Mannikins, Common Bulbuls, Olive Thrush and Variable Sunbird. That evening there was a roost of Sacred and Hadada Ibises in the tall trees while on the river I saw Pied Kingfisher, Mountain Wagtail and African Pied Wagtail. Sallying forth from the tall trees were some Bee-eaters which I initially misidentified as Little Bee-eaters but were in fact my first ever Cinnamon-chested Bee-eaters. Other species seen included African Grey and Paradise Flycatchers, Lesser Honeyguide, Grosbeak Weaver, Speckled Mousebird, African Citril and Plain Sand Martin.

The next day I went back to the bottom of the garden in the morning and found a noisy pair of Giant Kingfishers and a Hamerkop on the river. We decided to go to the Museum which was fascinating and well worth a visit, as was the Snake Park where I saw my first White-bellied Tit and Common Indigo-bird. Birds were plentiful in the grounds but didn't vary much from the Hotel gardens. On our return to the hotel I discovered a colony of Vitelline Masked Weavers on the other side of the grounds from our room.

That evening we met up with the rest of the trip and Patrick our driver and tour leader, then I watched the Scotland v Uruguay Rugby World Cup Match on the TV before we went for a group dinner. The next day we would be heading south to the famous Amboseli National Park.

We left Nairobi at 9am on the 9th October, heading south towards Amboseli on the Tanzanian border.

Part 1 | Part 2| Part3 |Part 4 |Part 5

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