I think both Laurie and I were a bit dissapointed with Egypt.  We didn't know what to expect with Kenya after that.  We certainly didn't have any fun leaving Egypt, either, what with the crazy airport stuff and all.

We arrived at the airport without any trouble.  However, the car was not ready.  Although the Avis office was a 24 hour office, some people weren't in that needed to be in.  We waited around in the cafe (called Karibu Cafe -- meaning "Welcome Cafe" in English).

Ultimately, our friends arrived from the UK while we were waiting.  We all then waited around.  We had started talking with another traveler from Iceland.  That was quite interesting.  We've had Iceland on our short list for a while now.  In fact, it was even considered as a stopping over place in Europe before heading in to Africa on this trip.

Finally the car arrived.  It was a 7 seater Toyota Land Cruiser outfitted for safari.  It had two spare wheels on the rear, a support cage for climbing around on top of the car, 7 seats with maybe 2-3 working seat belts, and two full fuel tanks.  The rear had room for all of our luggage, but could only be accessed through the back.  Right behind the rear seats was a metal caging that prevented accessing the rear luggage compartment.

The roof had three opening doors.  The center one was removable and could be stowed in the rear while the other two could be clamped down.  This allowed for all three rows of seats to be able to stand up and look out.  You could even climb out and sit (or even stand) on top of the vehicle.  We took advantage of this frequently.  When I wasn't driving, I would stand in the rear the whole time (this led to a sunburned hand, but was worth not getting car sick).

Willem did the initial driving since they were used to right hand drive on the left side of the road.  Heading out of Nairobi, the roads were completely smogged over with diesel fumes.  This was getting us a bit ill.

Once out of Nairobi, we had some good roads for a while that deteriorated in to terrible roads.  I was sitting up front for this whole leg of the journey, but still had a hard time.  The paved roads were rough and unmaintained and the dirt roads, although better on the tires, were still pretty bad.

Getting out to Mara Bush Camp did take longer than expected, given the distance, but we ultimately go to Masai Mara National Reserve without issues.  We had to call and meet someone at the airstrip to help us find Mara Bush Camp since it was well hidden in the bush near a river.

I had the sat phone on the whole time without charging it.  I then learned that the wall charger wasn't going to work so I had a dead battery on my hands.  Luckily, the car charger did ultimately work and Mobal had provided two fully charger batteries (a standard and an extended -- the standard was the dead one).  We did have to use the phone on our way out because we could dial from it. 

To our surprise, though, there was GSM coverage in most of the area.  Our friends were able to roam on to it, too.  On the coverage maps I had looked at, there was no coverage (or roaming) in most of the areas we were going to be that were outside of Nairobi or off the main Nairobi-Mombasa road.

We were greeted by the entire staff (well, lots of people anyway) of Mara Bush Camp when we did finally arrive.  The camp itself was a temporary affair with true tents.  My first impression was that this would be a problem for us because of showering and charging.  However, the tents had full bathrooms with showers and flush toilets.

We did have serious reservations about the environmental impact of this, though, because the shower water went directly in to the ground and who knows where the sewage went, but we were very close to the river. 

The showers were handled by asking one of the staff members to fill some reservoire with hot water.  Although we were conservative with the amount of water we used, we never did run out of hot water.  And had we, they were ready to fill it with more hot water.  This was nicer than expected.

The toilet was filled from a water tank only a few feet about the toilet's own water tank.  This meant filling was slow and a full flush would only happen maybe every 4-6 hours.  Given some of our "issues" this was a slight problem. 

Bugs were not an issue here.  First off, they said there was no concern of mosquitos because there weren't any.  Well, we never saw any, which was rather odd.  There were some other bugs, but nothing that bugged us (har har).  They did provide bug screens for the bed and bug spray for other areas, but we never had to use it.  We're not sure if there just weren't many bugs there (right next to a river) or if they were putting stuff in the nearby water to kill off things.  It is possible there just weren't any because we were up at around 5300 feet altitude.

They provided flashlights (aka "torches" as non-Americans call them) as well as people to help light the way between the lounge and eating tent and the bed tents.  In addition to this, there was 24-hour Maasai warrior guards.  We didn't see as many animals here as we did at other camps.  This was odd since it was the most remote and natural camp.

The staff was really friendly -- sometimes to the point of folly. ;) Example: Willem wants a beer. The fridge was locked but the key was away with someone. Well, it was the first time we asked. Willem then said he didn't need the beer. They then said that the key had been lost. Willem still insisted he didn't need to the beer right then. Well, they broke open the fridge... it didn't seem to close as well after that. Silly.

The food was fantastic at Mara Bush. Cooked every night, with plenty of reuse of materials. e.g what was bacon one morning became black forest ham salad in the afternoon and a cold starter that night.  The packed breakfasts were very good and in nice heat-retaining containers.  The two we got consisted of bacon, sausage, hard-boiled eggs (a common food in Kenya, as we would learn), juice, coffee, tea, yoghurt, and various breads.  There was always plenty for us and Kiswe, too.

Within the main tent they had a power strip for charging phones or camera batteries off of. This was powered via a diesel generator in the mess tent (which we never saw the inside of).

For light at night in the tents, each tent had a bag with a battery inside and mutiple LED lights. These were charged via solar during the day. This provided plenty of light with little worry of running the battery dry. No inverter was supplied for this, but the batteries weren't all that big anyway.

Kiswe, our Maasai guide for our drives, spoke very little English but was very helpful in finding animals for us and navigating the amazing patchwork of roads and tracks around the Masai Mara. 

Overall, we had two nights at Mara Bush Camp, which allowed for a full day of game drive as well as a half day before we headed off to Fig Tree, which was one of the most well marked camps since we'd seen multiple signs on our drive in to Mara Bush Camp.

It was nice to head over to the lounge, have a drink of Tusker or Amarula with our friends, visit, and check out the books provided.  This was a nice camp with a rough luxury to it.  Our goal had been to get instant, deep immersion -- and it worked. 

Posted by Shane on September 7, 2006 9:19 PM | Permalink