Mara West is a camping site outside of Mara West, but when we arrived there, it was like driving through the famous national park. There were zebras, impalas and giraffes in front, behind and to the left and right. We were cooking dinner and a herd of zebras was grazing next to our car, the secenery seemed so unreal. Andrew and Francis, an American couple who run Mara West, were very helpful and gave us many tips about the area, and they told us that we could drive through the Masai Mara National Park without paying the horendous entry fee, if we would ask for a transit permit at the gate. This allows you to cross the park in your vehicle within a certain timeframe for free. So after two days of enjoying our neighborhood with the lovely giraffes and zebras, we drove through the famous Masai Mara.
It was not a problem at all to get the transit permit, and eventhough we only spent 2 hours in the park, we saw so many animals - besides the giraffes and zebras, we also spotted some hyenas, elephants, a crocodile, a big group of hippos in the water, many pumbas, austriches and other birds. We spent the night at Aruba Mara, another campsite just outside of the National Park on the other side. It was a nice spot at the river but there was not a lot to do other than going for game drives, therefore, we left the next day already. Eric, the lovely Massai guard of the camp, told us to drive to Maji Moto, a town on our route towards Lake Naivasha, where they have a camping site which is run by real Maasais, a great place to learn more about their culture.
When we arrived at Maji Moto Maasai Cultural Camp, we were welcomed by the Maasais in their beautiful red dresses. They showed us where we could park our car - in between a forest of huge cactus-like trees - and offered to show us around the village and the camp and take us to the vulcanic hot springs, where “Maji Moto” has its name from (it translates to “hot water”). We walked up Loita Hills and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, they showed us their warrior skills, like throwing a speer. Tom tried as well but found it was not that easy. When we came back to our camp, we decided to do a quick workout before taking a shower, to the amusement of all the Maasais who were watching us doing mountain climbers, push-ups and sit-ups next to our car. After a nice hot shower (they take the water straight from the spring) we enjoyed a drink at the bonfire, which the Maasais made for us in the original way, without any matches or lighters but only by rubbing two wooden sticks against each other. Salaton and Susan, the owner of the camp, joined us as well and we talked about their project here. Susan originally is from the United States but came to Keny for charity work over 20 years ago, fell in love with Salaton, who is a Maasai Community Chief. Together, they run Maji Moto Maasai Cultural Camp, where they try to share the ancient Maasai culture with their guests and support Maasai tribes to live as a self-sustaining communitiy where they can keep their traditions but also to positively impact the lives of Maasai people by providing free education for children, or teaching them how to plant and grow their own fruits and vegetables. It was very interesting to talk to them about all the challenges they face while trying to combine the good from the traditional Maasai world and the new modern way of living. Salaton told us that the next day he would go to the Maasai kettle and sheep market, which occurs only once a month, and he invited us to accompany him, For the Maasai, their kettle and sheep do not only serve as food, it’s also their “bank”. When they need money, they will go to the Maasai market to sell a sheep or cow in order to buy whatever they need.
At Maji Moto, there were also two volunteers, Zara and Jessica, who stayed and worked with them for a few weeks. Zara studied bee-keeping and her mission was to teach the Maasai how to keep bees, so they would not have to go and “steal” the honey from wild bees (and distroy the hives while doing this) but to sustainably gain honey from bee hives they keep. Zara and Jessica invited us to help them check on the hives during the night - they need to do it when it’s dark, because African bees are very aggressive and they are a bit more calm when it’s dark. This didn’t sound very promising to me, but Tom was all in and I didn’t want to chicken out. Later that night, when we were about to get ready for the bee action, we found that Tom didn’t fit into the bee suit, he was too tall. Because they needed 4 people to go check on the hives, I had no choice but to get dressed (wear as many layers as possible so the bees can’t sting you - was their advice) and go into bee land. It was scary but very impressive too stand in the middle of thousands of bees (desperately praying that there is no whole in the suit) and listening to this enormous sound they are making. My task was to hold the torch, Jessica held the smoker, which imitates a forest fire and therefore makes the bees either leave the hive or stay attached and calm in order to protect the honey. Zara and the 4th guy were checking on the honeycombs. They were not ready to be harvested yet, the experience was still unique and defiinitely one to remember.
Our next destination was Lake Naivasha. On the way, we stopped in the town of Naivasha, a quite big and touristy place with many shops where you can get all the groceries our European stomach was craving. We stocked up on food and drove to Camp Carnelley’s, a camping site at the southern part of the lake, which enjoys a very good reputation. We weren’t disappointed at all, the place was beautiful and there were not many people, in fact, we had the whole lawn to ourselves and chose the perfect camping spot directly at the lake. There was only an electric fence a couple of meters in front of us, scaring the hippos away at night. From the fence, we got to pull a cable into our car, so we had electricity, there were bathrooms with hot, strong showers just a few meters behind us, we had our own fireplace beside our Defender and enough privacy, since we were at the one end of the camp - it was the perfect spot and since we were in so many different places for the past weeks, we decided to stay for 5 nights. The first morning we woke up and there was a hippo very close by, eating the delicious gras. We cooked coffee and made some breakfast and enjoyed watching the hippo having its own brekky. I must admit, I was a bit nervous, knowing that hippos are very dangerous and responsible for the most death of human by animals in Africa. I wasn’t quite sure how much effect this electric fence would have, if the hippo would get angry or scared. Luckily, it was a very chilled hippo and we got to enjoy a very close and unique experience with it. During another night, we decided to hide inside the car though, when we were watching a movie outside on our beamer by the bonfire and suddenly two hippos started fighting only a few meters away. The noise they were making was very loud and scary, and when we got the torch and saw how fast they were running into each other over and over again, we decided to move our movienight inside the Defender ;-)
We had many people admiring the Defender and coming up to us to ask us about our journey, two of them were Max and Sonja from Germany, two friends who were travelling in Kenya for some weeks. We got along very well and decided to cook dinner all together. We shared a fun night making burgers and sitting by the fire and making plans for the next day, which was to rent bikes and cycle through Hell’s Gate National Park. Ironically, it is the park from where they took a lot of inspiration for the movie Lion King, however, in this park there are no lions nor other predators, which makes it safe for hiking and cycling. It was a great experience, cycling in between Zebras, Giraffes and Buffalos eventhough we went for the long route which turned out to be quite tough. When we were back at Carnelley’s, we really enjoyed the cold beers and pizza they serve.
Our anniversary was coming up and we therefore decided to treat ourselves with a nice, cozy Airbnb cottage. We found a lovely place a bit further south on Lake Naivasha. Sam & Alicia, the owners of the cottage, are a couple from England who have been living in Kenya for a few years and decided to build a house and a cottage to rent out on Airbnb. They invited us to a barbecue on the first night when we arrived, and we had a great evening together with their friends who were also joining.
On our anniversary, we went for a late lunch at the Ranch House Bistro, a nice restaurant by the lake. We had a delicious meal and a nice bottle of wine.
Sam and Alicia invited us to stay a bit longer for free, since they did not have another booking and of course, we accepted gladly! We really enjoyed the luxury of having our own bathroom and a bed in which you don’t have to climb up to for a few nights.
We started planning our trip up north to Lake Turkana. Since this area is quite remote we asked in the Overlanding Africa Group Chat if someone was around who would maybe like to join us. We actually found a couple from Germany, who was interested in joining us, they were just on holidays and did not have a lot of time, but they still wanted to drive up with us, however, they intended to to the east side of the lake, Tom and I were planning on going up the west side, since there was a community project we knew about that we wanted to visit. We dicussed our options and came to the conclusion, that we would just do both sides, driving up east fist together with the Germans Jana and Malik and afterwards drive up the west side, since we had plenty of time and were in no rush. Janna and Malik still needed a couple of days until they were ready to start, they were traveling with their families at the moment, so Tom and I drove to Lake Elementaita, a place which is famous for it’s flamingos and camped there for 2 nights until we met up with the others.
There was one problem left to be solved - Kenya was suffering a fues shortage and it was almost impossible to find petrol and diesel. The reason for the shortage was, that the government was behind with paying out subsidies. We had to wait in line for over 2 hours and the maximum allowance was 20 litres per car only. Luckily, the guy at the petrol station let us fuel up our tank, since diesel was a bit less required than petrol. We were ready for our Lake Turkana adventure and drove towards Maralal, where we were meeting Janna & Malik, to start our trip.