A Great Start to the Week

Sundays are never going to fill my heart with joy (Sunday is our Monday folks!) as they mean it's back to the long daily grind in the office. So it was an absolute treat to come into work to an email from our lovely safari guide in the Masai Mara, Anderson.

I'm not quite sure how he has an email address - there was one computer in the camp, so maybe he hi-jacked that. It was a simple email hoping that we were ok and telling us how touched he was that we emailed the camp (we got in touch as soon as we returned to Dubai to say thank-you for such an awesome trip and how much Anderson had made our holiday).

It was a reminder (not that I really need one) that holidays are crucially important, not only to my physical and mental well-being, but also as a reinforcement of why I moved to Dubai - to be able to travel and explore 'this side' of the world. Next stop: a weekend in Cairo and a trip to Hong Kong and Tokyo. If anyone has any hotel recommendations, please do share...

Anyway, this morning's email took me right back to the Masai Mara and a very happy time. Thanks, Anderson.

My Top Safari Tips

Keep your mouth closed most of the time, and especially when you’re driving across the Mara in your 4x4. Insects were never really a problem but there were a fair few winged creatures bouncing off my head as we went along. At one point the girl sat behind me announced: Kelly, I’m about to hit you on the head, but it’s because there’s a giant bug on it. Hurl! I would have hated for that to go anywhere near my mouth…

It’s not THAT cold…and it’s not THAT hot. I’d heard horror stories about how utterly freezing it becomes at night – what a load of rubbish! Maybe it’s because I’m used to harsh Northern England winters, but 15 degrees at night is not cold to me. Duncan our butler very kindly popped a hot water bottle in our beds each night, but I never needed it.

Safari dust is like glue. I’m used to living in the desert with a fine covering of sand over my balcony/inside my flat etc etc, but this stuff is different. After a day animal watching I’d use a face wipe, wash my face, have a shower, and STILL the towel would be black with dust at the end. What’s in it?!

Consider taking a sports bra with you. No, I’m not joking. I can’t describe the state of the roads – well they’re not roads, just tracks through the Mara. The first day I felt like I needed spine surgery – you do get used to it by the end of your trip. Back to my original trip – if you’re, ahem, blessed in the chest department, you could find this endless bouncing around quite painful…..

Make sure you take binoculars. You spend a huge part of your time scanning the horizon for..well..anything. Without them you'll just be looking at a load of grass for days.....

Half the Adventure is Getting There….

Safari, stage one……in all the excitement of getting up at stupid o’clock to get to Sharjah airport (incidentally, it may not be the most modern of terminals, but Air Arabia are amazing) I completely forgot that I do, on occasion get extremely travel sick. As in: raging nausea, hot sweats, in short: wanting to die. It didn’t help that the flight started out quite bumpy, and it also didn’t help that a) the guy sat across the aisle to me kept burping really loudly (nice) or that b) the girl sat next to him spent half an hour throwing up noisily into a carrier bag. Anyway, after some travel sickness tablets I came around..over the counter pharmaceuticals from Dubai somehow seem so much more powerful and effective than back home!

4.5 hours later we arrived at Nairobi airport to be met by our first lovely guide, Joseph. He was at pains to take us through every item on our itinerary- we were in a frenzy of excitement and trying to crack open bottles of wine in the back of the car (you can take the girl out of Manchester..).

We’d opted to stay just outside of the city in a gorgeous place called the House of Waine. It’s a private house that has been converted into a guest house. It’s small boutique style place with themed rooms and gorgeous gardens. There wasn’t much to do apart from drink wine, chill in the gardens, and eat. Bliss.

Next morning and the moment I’d been dreading…..the Safari Link plane down to the Masai Mara. I’m not scared of flying, in fact I love travelling and never think twice about getting on a plane. Big planes, that is. Small planes, I don’t get along with. It’s something I just can’t control, they terrify me.

This plane was a 13 seater - If I’d have known at this stage how much smaller the plane on the return route would be….well, that’s a story for later. Our pilot introduced himself – Jackson – it didn’t help that he looked about 12, and was there really any need for him to keep insulting the map as we went along?? It wasn’t really instilling me with confidence. I won’t go into the torrid detail, but there were tears… I could barely get off the plane at the end, but soon perked up when we were met by our wonderful guide for the next five days, Anderson.

We’d barely been in the 4x4 for five minutes when we started making our first sightings, by the time we arrived at Olonana Camp we were in a state of near-hysteria. The head of staff, Maurice (they all have such English names!) and introduced us to Daniel, our personal waiter, Duncan, our butler, and a myriad of other people on hand to look after us. Spoilt isn’t even the word.

After an amazing lunch we headed out on our first afternoon game drive. We saw everything, apart from a leopard (which we saw the next morning). Truly amazing. What Anderson doesn’t know about animals really isn’t worth knowing. We rounded off the evening with wine, dinner, and cards by the fire. Bliss.