Ol Pejeta Conservancy

Please excuse this rather smug post but we have just been on safari.

Allys and I have had the benefit of Allys' parents, Suzy and Bob, recently. They are spending two weeks in Kenya and it has been great seeing them (not just because they brought a suitcase of books, magazines and a bottle of whiskey, but it helped!)

We went to Naro Moru River Lodge, an idyllic setting with a series of cottages by a river in the shadow of Mount Kenya. The hotel itself is a rather odd affair: a 70's Alpine mountain lodge in Africa, with tree hyrax running about and making strange noises at night. I did get over my urge to order a raclette at dinner, which was good because they were running a buffet.

Neither of us have ever had a great urge to go on safari, and even when we found out we were moving to Kenya this was never top of our list of things to do. I cannot fathom why: perhaps it is an anti-colonial sentiment or that people are generally more talkative than animals. So, with this rather ill-formed passionless idea, we went to Ol Pejeta Conservancy with a guide, Festus, and rapidly changed our minds.

It turns out animals are pretty awesome. Our favourite character was Max, the blind white rhino. Rhinos are huge: this one was about the size of the car we were in. Festus decided to drive right up to Max so close that we could stroke his head. Max didn't seem to mind, he appeared to be a friendly rhino which was lucky given that he probably could have turned the car over quite easily.

We also met Baraka the blind black rhino (Baraka means blessings in Swahili). Black rhino can be more aggressive than white ones so he was in his own enclave at the conservancy and, like a sensible chap, was sleeping in the midday sun. Actually after about midday it seemed that all the animals were sleeping. We passed a lake with a really fat hippo sleeping on the muddy bank; three hours later he was still there (some hangover!)

We passed a couple of herds of impala, and our guide pointed out that they were acting a little strangely and looking very alert. A little further down the track we realised why: two lionesses dozing under a tree. One lioness was tagged with a collar and we were told her name was Milly, the other was blind in one-eye (no idea why all the exciting animals we saw had eye trouble - just coincidence we think!). The lions did not look in a hunting mood but were vaguely tempted, particularly as the impala were showing them a lot of 'front'; several male impala were stamping and making a lot of noise showing either bravado or distracting the lions from the main herd of females. Our guide called these show-offs the "Boys' club".

The guilty pleasure of our safari were the warthogs. Never the stars of the show, not the smartest or prettiest animal on the range, they have a certain charm. Generally, they trot about looking for food but they occasionally start running excitedly (either towards food or away from predators) but after a surprisingly short while they'll stop running as if they have forgotten why they started in the first place.

We also hiked in the foothills of Mount Kenya. We were taken to some of the caves where the Mau Mau hid. I don't usually think of myself as ignorant but I genuinely am ignorant of the Mau rebellion and while I know broadly that British colonial history has its share of atrocities, to hear our guides tell us that their fathers and grandfathers were involved not so long ago was humbling.