Kenya highlights
Nairobi
The skyscrapers of the nation's capital stand over what was 100 years ago just a remote, uninhabited waterhole in the highlands. Its Masai name means "place of cool waters" and that was good enough for the British to choose it as base camp for their 1,000-km (620-mile) railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria. Today, at an altitude of 1,657 m (5,437 ft), the town's generally pleasant and temperate climate makes it an ideal starting point for exploring the game parks of the country's interior-or as a place to relax after a safari. Lions roar a mere 8 km (5 miles) from the city centre.
The imposing centrepiece and a good place to start your sightseeing is the huge Kenyatta International Conference Centre in City Square. Its cylindrical honeycomb effect owes little to its African roots, but the next door amphitheatre is shaped like a rondavel (African hut) and nicely balances its neighbour. Jomo Kenyatta's statue surveys the scene. The Centre forms a strange contrast to the quintessentially English neoclassical Law Courts. Across the road are the parliament buildings.Beside the Uhuru Highway, the greenery of Central Park and Uhuru Park could provide welcome relaxation from the city bustle were they safe to visit. Unfortunately they are crawling with pickpockets and con men.
As the cradle of mankind, Kenya has understandably built in its capital a splendid National Museum providing an exhilarating visual account of Africa's prehistory. Its displays include remains of awe-inspiringly large rhinoceros and elephants, but pride of place goes to an ancient human skull reckoned to be 2.5 million years old.The Railway Museum celebrates the city's beginnings as the HQ for the tracks connecting Mombasa and Lake Victoria along what was known as the "Lunatic Line". Glistening relics of the trains are exhibited, along with the coach from which lion-hunter Charles Ryall was dragged to his death. The poor man sat up in this coach all night in the hope of catching a man-eating lion, but he fell asleep and the beast caught him.
Opposite the National Museum is the Snake Park, where you can see all manner of snakes, crocodiles and lizards. Once a week, usually on Wednesdays, it is possible to watch the snakes being "milked" for their venom. More appetizing is the colonial institution, still going strong, of an English tea, taken either at the Norfolk Hotel built in 1904 or the Thorn Tree Cafe in the equally venerable New Stanley.At Karen, near Langata, Danish author Karen Blixen's farm has been turned into a museum of colonial times.
Mombasa
There's a rhythm to the name itself. You sense an excitement, a musical quality in the way people talk and move, and in the tapping hammers of the Old Town, where craftsmen beat out brass fittings for elaborately carved chests. The odours of scent, dust, coffee and camphorwood hang in the air of this torrid and humid island-city linked by causeways and bridges to Kenya's east coast. What Winston Churchill in 1908 called "the gate of Africa" has been greatly modernized. He found Mombasa "alluring, even delicious", but the town has always had its sleazy side, too. When you've finished shopping for silks and cinnamon, seen the Ivory Room, photographed the fake tusks spanning Moi Avenue and visited Fort Jesus, there are plenty of tough sailor spots where only the brave should go.
As in centuries past, vessels sail into the Old Harbour from India, Arabia and the Persian Gulf, laden with carpets, silverware, spices and dates. Every April they make the return journey home with cargoes of mangrove timber, ghee, limes, animal skins and ivory. Many traders have stayed behind to give Mombasa a rich and handsome mixture of Arab and Asian peoples.
Excursions
A 10-minute ride on the Likoni ferry brings you to the palm-fringed beaches on the south coast-Shelly and Tiwi. A little further, Diani is easily voted the most beautiful, but also the most developed. Its many hotels are generally well integrated into the landscape, surrounded by forest.For a refreshing break from the beach routine, visit the charming little game reserve at Shimba Hills with its treehouse. On the wooded plateau you can take a cool, escorted stroll-no lions here-among splendid sable antelopes with scimitar-shaped horns, rare in Kenya. The males have handsome coats of reddish black while the females are more modestly clad in chestnut-brown.
To reach the northern beaches, take the new Nyali Bridge to the mainland. Off to the right lies English Point, site of a monument to German explorer Johann Ludwig Krapf who charted the Kenyan interior on behalf of the British Church Missionary Society. Some 3 km (2 miles) north of Mombasa are traces of Arab ruins at Jumba La Mtwana (Home of the Slave-Master), followed by long gleaming beaches shared by the luxury seafront hotels.
Watamu and Malindi Marine National Parks
South of the beach resort, these are two protected areas of white coral beaches and stunningly blue lagoons. The marine parks' fragile natural beauties are still a great joy for scuba-divers and snorkellers. They are especially attractive to Malindi holidaymakers as the sea here has a crystalline purity that contrasts with the resort's more muddy waters brought down by the Sabaki River.
Game Reserves and National Parks
Animals are the privileged inhabitants and walking monuments of Kenya. You can either go out in search of them or sit in your lodge and let them come to you. As the human population has grown, urban areas and farmland have expanded and a system of national parks and game reserves has been developed to protect people from wild animals-and, of course, the other way around. It's important to remember, as you read or hear about what you can see at this or that park, that animals are not always to be found in the same place. They migrate, weather conditions change and availability of food and water varies from day to day.Here are a few of the bestknown reserves and parks:
Samburu
Relatively small by Kenyan standards, the Samburu-Buffalo Springs Game Reserve gives you a great opportunity to see a wide variety of game in a compact area of 330 sq km (127 sq miles). It is located on the Uaso Nyiro river north of Aberdare Forest. Early morning game-runs in jeeps and minibuses tend to stick close to the river where, especially in the dry season, you are most likely to see the hunters' coveted Big Five: lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo. At the Block Hotel's Samburu Lodge built right beside the river, the Crocodile Bar gives you a close-up view of crocs enjoying their (hotel-supplied) dinner. But Samburu's most elegant beast is the otherwise rarely viewed reticulated giraffe, famous for his bronze, web-patterned coat.
Tsavo National Park
This is not one park but two, with east and west sections straddling the Mombasa-Nairobi Highway to the southeast of the capital and east of Amboseli. Its area of 20,000 sq km (7,712 sq miles) makes it almost a country in itself. You should see stately giraffe, lumbering buffalo, elegant antelopes, cheeky monkeys and exotic birds. But the star attractions, up in the park's hill country, are Kenya's largest herds of elephant, sometimes all startlingly red when covered in the dust and mud of the region's ruddy soil. For a close-up of hippos, crocodiles and tropical fish in their natural habitat, head for the observation tank ingeniously built into one of the park's pools.
The rhinoceros population, virtually wiped out by poachers in the 1980s, is gradually being resuscitated around the Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary. The crash of rhinoceros at Tsavo now numbers almost 200. The elephant population is also increasing. At the end of the 1960s it reached a maximum of almost 23,000 animals altogether, distributed in large herds. At one time, it was even claimed that seasonal gatherings attained as many as 15,000 animals. Whittled down to only 3,000 individuals in 1985, they have today been saved, as poaching is practically eliminated.
Hell's Gate
Immediately south of Lake Naivasha, the small Hell's Gate is one of the rare national parks where you are allowed to get out of your car and walk around, mainly because there are no dangerous animals. The landscape is dominated by an escarpment of volcanic rock and by Hell's Gate Gorge-a one-time outflow of Lake Naivasha-both spectacular and a haven for numerous animals. The park is one of the rare nesting sites of the crested vulture.
Lake Baringo
At the confines of Samburu and Pokot country, on the edge of the vast tracts of semi-desert stretching to the north, freshwater Lake Baringo, in stark contrast to its austere environment, is the premier ornithological destination in Kenya. Birdwatching is a tradition here. Twitchers could not hope for a happier hunting ground: more than 450 different species have been recorded. A few years ago, the full-time ornithologist employed by the Lake Baringo Club established a world record by observing more than 300 species within 24 hours. There are bird-watching walks every morning (7 a.m.) and evening (5 p.m.) and the expert is on hand to answer your questions.
Apart from the pink flamingoes that cluster around the landing stage, white pelicans, cormorants, herons, egrets, spoonbills, gallinules and kingfishers are frequently to be seen. The Eurasian winter brings flocks of duck and migrating waders that fly in by the thousand. You can take boat trips and buy fish, and the boatman will whistle for the fish eagles who swoop down and snatch them up.Other inhabitants of the lake include hippopotamus, relatively numerous and not at all bashful. They stay in the water until nightfall when they browse the grassy banks. They congregate especially around Kampi-ya-Samaki ("the fish camp"), the chief village of the west bank. Baringo also has a large crocodile population, but this does not seem to deter the lakeside village children from swimming. Apparently the reptiles are not interested in humans. If you believe that, have a go at water-skiing.
