Bidding has opened for 95 of the quarter million dollar residences on the Mt. Kenya Holiday Homes resort, located hardly spitting distance of the Safari Club. Each of the ultra modern 3- or 4-bedroom homes in two or three stories has a fireplace, and is powered and heated by solar panels.

The 123-acre complex is being marketed to city dwellers who long for a second country home, in a perfect location for weekend hiking, bird watching, trout fishing, horseback riding and that occasional golf.

There will be a perfectly manicured 9-hole golf course, and the entire complex is secure by a big game proof electric fence and mini-moat to keep out those wandering buffalo. But if you yearn for wild animals like zebra, lion, elephant and so forth, don’t worry. The resort is just south of the Sweetwaters Ole Pejeta private reserve, famous for its abundant big game.

When Kenyan safaris first became popular to Americans in the 1970s, trepidation was introduced into hard-earned holidays, and the “adventure vacation” was born. And to be sure back then, we knew lots less about malaria and how to prevent it, many of the roads were hardly tracks, and most of the night time lodging was in very basic tented camps with shared toilet and shower tents.

More than once I took my safaris far enough into the bush that we would encounter locals who had not often seen visitors. It was never certain how these meetings would develop: friend or foe. And about the same time police were being appointed to far out places, and it was always certain we’d be delayed for a bribe.

And quite different from what you might expect, the game was hard to find. There was actually more of it, of course, but it was very skittish of people. It wasn’t really until the 1980s that Kenya’s highland game was approachable enough to take good pictures.

So what game we did encounter evinced the old “fight or flee” syndrome. On my very first safari at the age of 21 on my very fast game drive I was charged and hit by a rhino. In my first decade as a safari guide I had tusks through floorboards, was rolled in my tent by an elephant, escape charging lions, had a woman faint to a bellowing buffalo and watched two lovely ladies scream while being charged by a hippo.

And every day was very dusty and very dirty and the evening’s ice cold water for showers was manna from heaven. And even the finest Chicago debutante appeared at the evening camp fire looking like Miss America.

In those days you didn’t race over to Kenya and back for a 12-day jaunt. Most safaris were 22-26 days long. And by the third week, I would definitely notice “adventure fatigue.”

That was when we’d arrive at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club.

Frankly, in the 1980s, the Mt. Kenya Safari Club was hardly more than a nice Holiday Inn on well landscaped grounds built around a central Victorian mansion. The fact was that there were similar homes in the Kenyan highlands, but kept well under the radar, because they were owned by old white colonials still lying low. So to a visitor the Mt. Kenya Safari Club was the most unexpected and amazing jewel in the crown of an adventure safari.

It cost about three times what other night’s lodging cost. The plumbing always worked. Usually, there was hot water. The food, all local, was fabulous, and the old colonial woodworking, Victoria furniture and servants clicking heels became a sort of Colonial Theme Park.

There was a Members’ Dining Room ostentatiously separated from the guest dining room, and membership (open to all) cost about $500/year. The President of Kenya was one of the few black members at the time. (He was one of the few who could afford it.)

So your richest and most resplendent clients were advised before departing home that William Holden, the principal investor of the Club, would welcome their “membership.” And by so doing on those few nights under Mt. Kenya, you would remove yourself from the grand guest dining room and be escorted by the Maitre D’ into the exclusive members’ lounge.

Back then $500 was about a third what a 25-day safari cost! Using the same metric, today, you can actually make the entire down payment on a 4-bedroom, 4-bath luxury home with a fireplace!

The grand if palatial public areas of the original Safari Club were all deep wood plastered with big game trophies. The Club was originally designed as a hunter’s retreat by William Holden and friends. As photography safaris grew much more popular, the board had no trouble pivoting into the modern age.

Today the Safari Club is a Fairmont Hotel. Its revenue stream is now less than 50% from tourists, attracting Kenyans from the city for a weekend holiday.

And no longer unique, there is nothing here different from other nearby resorts like the new Mt. Kenya Holiday Homes except some very precious nostalgia.

In this case, the cheetah on the roofhatch. Ari Grammaticus died last month. His memorial service is tomorrow in Nairobi. With him goes the personal daredevil thrill that was the keystone to many early safaris to Africa.

Ari was the son of a Greek railroader who found himself in Kenya in the spring of safari travel. Film had become cheap and powerful. Air fares were cheap and numerous and Americans in particular began to travel like they never had before. And the British colony of Kenya was newly independent, reshuffling the deck of privilege and business opportunities in ways few could have imagined.

Often you never know if some successful person had a good time or not. Ari had a good time. His smile was infectious. He wasn’t a front guard but he was a big man for his time, and certainly matched any Maasai that he encountered. For some reason that became his connection, Maasailand.

Repeatedly and regularly, Ari traveled to Maasailand until he secured management of a piece of Maasailand that I doubt anyone at the time could truly value. It was on the Mara River about 20 miles north of the Tanzanian border and about 25 miles northwest from at the time the only road into this new non-hunting game reserve called the Maasai Mara.

That was in the early 70s, a year or so before my own first safari. The first place my wife, sister and brother-in-law camped was in this reserve off that main road near a place that remains the focal point for the Mara, Keekorok.

Today the Mara is Kenya’s most important game reserve, whether you measure animal viewing, game management, ease of flying in and out of (there are more than 15 flights daily from Nairobi), range of accommodations or tourist revenue streams.

But not then. The only reason we stopped there was because it was on our journey into the great Serengeti, which we did the next day at first light. The Serengeti and Mara share the political border between Kenya and Tanzania. Then, as now, you can’t really tell where one country ends and the other begins.

But today and since 1979, tourists can no longer cross that border. Until 1979, the Mara was hardly anything but a way station to get to the Serengeti. Today it’s the end of the line for Kenyan tourists, and what a fine end it is!

Ari created Governors’ Camp. (Plural today; very singular back then!) To begin with it was a brilliant name, encapsulating the colonial era with abandon. (Today it would be politically incorrect. Today’s camps all carry local names for area clans or African animal names or local geographical features like rivers and hills.)

But what Ari did was build a tourist camp that recreated the admittedly bold comforts that colonials eked out of the surrounding poverty. There was no need for an apology, then, it was the way things were. Africa was being developed, and if you wanted visitors to come see, they needed a toilet. Animals second.

And so they came. His first camp was Governors’ Camp, today referred to as Main Camp. I remember the old days at this camp before the border closed. It was luxurious by anyone’s presumption of what camping would be in those days: actual toilets (although not exactly quick flushers), hot-bucket showers, and a bed on a frame!

One of the greatest treats I as a young guide had in those days was scaring people to death about camping in Africa! Intentionally, we told them very little, or told them about our own personal camping adventures which certainly no travel insurance would have dared cover. And when they got to the camp and saw the privacy and comfort, we had customers for life!

Governors’ modernized with the times, of course, but it never went over the top, like so many did. Even today there are still pressurized gas lamps as your tent’s main source of light. The beautifully wood paneled bathroom is completely functional with modern plumbing all around and amenities of soap and shower gel and all that stuff.

And Ari modernized, too. He built several more camps nearby, including the more contemporary and luxurious Il Moran. He assumed management of a beautiful lake manor house about half way back to Nairobi, and he built a retreat on Lake Victoria.

And his last great achievement was partnering with a several local organizations and the African Wildlife Foundation to build and manage Sabyinyo Lodge in Rwanda for mountain gorilla viewing. There is absolutely no question that this is the finest property anywhere in gorilla land.

We non-Greeks have this pervading notion that Greeks are first and foremost family men. Ari’s sons now take over for him, and his grandchildren were by his side when he died. Once his friend or his customer or his employee, plan on a lifetime.

Time and again he employed one of the finest camp builders in Africa, even though time and again the builder fell off the wagon while building the roof. I was a certain critic of some of his aging driver/guides, particularly when they starting losing their sight, and of some of his cooks who I felt boiled food too long, but Ari was steadfast. Many claimed he was pinned down by the peculiar and nepotistic politics of Kenya, and that may be. But it all fit a better image:

Heri kufa macho kuliko kufa moyo.

The Swahili proverb is one of loyalty and constancy. What you see isn’t as important as what you feel. The first time I arrived the little tree barrier into Governor’s Camp, some smiling guard saluted me like I was the King of England. Since then there have been hundreds of thousands of guests that followed me. And yet today, you’ll be saluted.

But times have changed. What Ari did can’t be redone. The world has modernized too much. Travelers no longer go anywhere without insurance, cell phones and extra medication. You can’t fool them anymore with a flush toilet.

Unless, of course, granddaughter Amy decides to develop Taurus-Littrow.

Zambia’s biggest, arguably best and certainly most famous game lodge, Mfuwe Lodge, presents a special opportunity to its residents from October – December. You can be squashed by elephant.

The lodge is a truly wonderful place, near a river in Zambia’s best game park. By today’s standards, it’s fairly if even value priced. The problem has nothing to do with the politics in the area; Zambia’s politics is a constant clutter of insignificance. It’s not because of AIDS or too many mosquitoes or anything of the sort.

It’s because: “Elephants march through hotel lobby … on their migration trail!.”

That report by London’s Daily Mail was first published in October, 2008, nearly three years ago. And the lodge hasn’t figured out a way to stop it, yet.

I called the lodge Tuesday morning and spoke to Client Relations Manager, Lucy. She confirmed that the elephants came last year and are expected this year. When I asked her if it wasn’t dangerous, she replied:

“I’ve been here for 4 years and nothing’s happened. When they come through we make sure that the guests are out of the way.”

Don’t they break things in the lobby? I asked. “If the juice is out, they might come and drink a glass of juice.” How many? I asked. Well, the original family is 10, but now there’s a second family that also strolls through the hotel.

Mfuwe Lodge has been around for as long as Luangwa welcomed tourists, which is many decades, but it was rebuilt five years ago. The story goes that they didn’t realize they had built the hotel right on a “migration route” for elephants.

Well it’s not exactly a migration route. It’s just that the new hotel layout cuts off a grove of wild mango trees (loved by elephants) from the greater surrounding bush.

Ele would not normally walk through a building, no matter how attractive was the fruit stand on the other side. But Luangwa is not and is not supposed to be a normal place. This is where walking safaris were pioneered by Norman Carr years ago. And the tradition has been preserved to the present time. The animals here are much more acclimated to people than elsewhere in Africa.

I consider that a danger. It’s a danger that once advised may not be considered serious enough to change your travel plans, and to be sure, if you want to walk among wild African animals, this is probably the safest place in Africa to do so. I don’t recommend walking with animals, anywhere. Note that Luangwa is a great place for traditional vehicle safaris.

The walks in Luangwa are led by trained, armed guides. Presumably check-in at Mfuwe does not include an elephant gun rack.

But if you stay at Mfuwe Lodge when the wild mango are ripe enough for the ele (usually the first of October through the end of the year), they’ll most likely be joining you for tea.

The Mfuwe Lodge elephants are clearly habituated to people. So are zoo elephants, but I’d be hard pressed to find a single zoo director in the world that would allow patrons to get this near them.

It’s a mistake that’s been fortunate enough to have had no consequences, yet. Don’t you be there when it does.

Bit by bit, blog by Huffington Post blog, my irritation with Andrew Harper’s remarks was never great enough to warrant a response. What I noticed was that in 2008 and 2009, when he launched big time his travel company, his critiques started to turn into infomercials.

But, you know, a lot of us (and I include myself) are travel commentators and analysts with travel companies, so there’s no lack of owners recommending themselves. But I’d put myself and many others in the good guy group, people like Rick Steves. I really think we achieve a balance despite our vested interests.

I don’t feel qualified to speak generally about Harper, but I do feel eminently qualified to say what I’m going to say based upon his recent remarks about East Africa:

Beware Andrew Harper when planning a safari to East Africa.

I often caution travelers not to embrace any single guidebook, any one internet site or any single authority or single personal referral when planning their travel, and to recognize that each may provide some insights but that each can also come bundled with inaccuracies and other flaws.

Think of it this way. If you had to tweet the absolute best time to visit your own home town, what would you say? Stutter, stumble, toil and trouble is a good sign. There’s too much to qualify.

A good analysis, travel or anything else, is careful about broad generalizations, mindful about seasons and unique conditions that might be totally off base if applied to someone traveling at a different time or in a different way.

But in East Africa, Harper has lost this care. Of the nearly 1200 safari properties in East Africa, he’s reduced his recommendations to a single company, &Beyond. &Beyond’s good, don’t get me wrong. But it is rarely worth the prices they command, and in fact several of their properties are very poorly located especially for certain seasons. And there are many companies that rival or exceed their standards (Sanctuary Retreats, Lake Duluti Lodge, Bush ‘n Beyond, and some of the Cheli & Peacock properties to name but a few which quickly come to mind, and this is hardly exhaustive).

So what caused Harper to reduce this huge cornucopia of wonderful safari lodges down to the few managed by &Beyond?

I think I know. They’re the most expensive, and they treated him nicely when he last visited them.

Neither of these two reasons is inherently bad. And as I said, &Beyond is good, but clearly Harper isn’t doing his homework and more importantly, an event he himself referred to clearly outs him when it comes to any value he may now possess regarding recommendations in East Africa.

Harper went to East Africa last year and began his trip at Nairobi’s best hotel, the Norfolk. He arrived before the stated check-in, and his room wasn’t ready.

He blew a fuse. He claims that the early check-in had been guaranteed, but Fairmont does not guarantee early check-ins. What they guarantee is what most larger chains do, that the request will be put into the computer record, a sort of priority waitlist.

Harper knows this, we all do! But he simply couldn’t understand why Fairmont would deny such an important critic an early check-in.

(Perhaps it was because, as is often the case, the Norfolk is full up with Heads of State, concert pianists, billionaires and fancy journalists.)

And given what Harper’s now earning from his travel company, I can’t understand why he just didn’t prepay for the early check-in like the rest of us do (including Heads of State, concert pianists, billionaires and fancy journalists).

So he laid into the hotel, unliterally. He threw down the gauntlet and stomped away like a kid who wasn’t allowed to join the ballpark game.

He moved to, and now recommends instead of the Norfolk, Giraffe Manor for a Nairobi stay. First I must say how much I love Giraffe Manor, and what a great job Mikey Carr-Hartley has done since purchasing it several years ago. It’s a fabulous place. As are all the Carr-Hartley properties.

But it’s no substitute for the Norfolk, because of where it’s located. It may be a great addition, but it’s not in Nairobi! It’s no substitute for a good hotel in the city.

The Norfolk is in town. Giraffe Manor is out of town. At the best of times (maybe 2 a.m.) it’s still 40 minutes from town. For the rest of the day traffic can separate them by an hour. The Norfolk positions you for town activities, like the museum, shopping, people gazing, dining, etc. Giraffe Manor is a retreat from all of that.

Harper is simply way off base in his criticisms of The Norfolk. He’s more correct about the mayhem of Nairobi town, but if that’s his gripe, he shouldn’t have stayed at Giraffe Manor, either. Hit the airport and fly directly into the bush. It’s a pain getting to either of them from the airport these days.

Harper tried to list specific complaints, about plumbing and air-conditioning, for instance. He’s right on. But don’t expect you won’t incur such annoyances at every place in East Africa at some time or another, &Beyond and Giraffe Manor included.

That’s East Africa, as compared to Europe for example. It’s a reflection of constant power outages, inferior craftsmanship and materials, and bad roads. It’s a good object lesson in the difference between the standards of expectations in East Africa versus southern Africa. And in the course of an overall safari, it’s hardly noticeable and rarely happens. The fact this litany of irritations all happened to Harper during a single stay at the Norfolk is suspect.

But whether you believe me or believe Harper about the standards of the Norfolk, there’s no way anyone with half a keyboard and dial-up can’t easily prove him absolutely wrong on much of his general commentary about East Africa.

Here’s Harper’s basic introduction to East Africa, corrected with my italics as you go:

“Wildlife-viewing is generally excellent throughout the year in the Masai Mara and Ngorongoro Crater. However, game-viewing opportunities peak from January-April in the southern Serengeti and from June-October in the northern Serengeti. This variation is due to the Great Migration of several million wildebeest, zebra and gazelle. (Gazelle don’t migrate.)

…”The herds gather in the south to feed on the immense grasslands and to give birth to their young. When the food supply is exhausted (only when and because the rains stop) and the newborns are strong enough to travel (that doesn’t matter, they go whether the young are strong or not) they begin to head north and west (and northeast), passing through the Grumeti area from May-July (and a lot of other areas but &Beyond just happens to have a camp in the Grumeti area).

…”By August, (normally only about half) the herds have reached the northern Serengeti, where they cross into Kenya’s contiguous Masai Mara to enjoy its lush grazing. In November (or October (2009) or December (2010)), they begin the 200-mile (roundtrip 200-mile) trek south to the plains of the southern Serengeti, where the grass is once again lush after the seasonal rains. There the epic cycle begins anew.

…”The times to avoid in Kenya and Tanzania are the long rains. (Northern Tanzania has only ONE rainy season. Kenya and only north of the equator has two rainy seasons: long and short. Just look at the welcome sign to the Serengeti National Park which describes this on a sign about 10′ high) in April and May and the short rains in November. The rest of the year, you can typically expect cool nights and warm, sunny days broken by occasional afternoon and evening showers. (There’s been no measurable rain in the Serengeti in September or October for the last half century since good record-keeping began.)

…”In recent years, however, weather patterns have become notoriously fickle. (No cigar, buddy, not as fickle as your mounting inaccuracies.)

OK, OK, there’s some nit picking above, and, in fact, that’s my problem. Take any one paragraph, and it will pass over my bitten lip. Take any one blog about East Africa, and it’s foolish and silly but not worth the time to answer. I even passed on the Norfolk blog last December.

Believe it or not, I even passed on his February blog about the Serengeti, carried in the Huffington Post about the Serengeti highway.

The post is crammed with dated ideas, wrong facts and poorer generalities. But it was the final paragraph that really ticked me off:

“Of course, African people have a right to development. But the Serengeti is Nature’s equivalent to Chartres Cathedral. And if it is not possible to preserve the world’s greatest national park, then what, ultimately, will remain? “

This patronizing, slimy (is it racist?), egocentric condescending nonsense begs all sorts of really important questions many of us have been trying to deal with for years. Harper has proved he has no capacity to judge the “world’s greatest national park” any has moved into vendetta mode.

But I let it sit until recently a client contacted me and asked what I thought, since I still recommend the Norfolk.

What we have here is a man whose ego was pricked by a global hotel chain, Fairmont, and who has lost his cool. Honest critique has been replaced with … infomercials.

I’m not alone, by the way. You can go to the blogs and forums of excellent traveler sites such as Gallivanter, Inworldguide and Flyers.

Here’s one short one that sums them all up:

From BLG on Flyer’s:
“As far as the Harper services are concerned, I was a member for many years and I dropped my membership — didn’t feel like I was getting much that I couldn’t find for myself online, and I was not a fan of their in-house travel agency… I kind of feel like those services have been somewhat obsoleted by the plethora of great internet sites.”

Beware a crusader, especially one crusading for himself.

“Community Based Tourism Projects,” “Fair Trade,” “Shared Value Pricing,” and a ton of other phrases to champion a capitalist market in control of its morals, today those lovely little properties and projects are disappearing downwards faster than loose jeans on teen hips.

It all began when the king tried to pretend he really really cared about the slave weeding his rose garden. And it was challenged when the consumer got fed up with allocating her hard won vacation to another cause. And it was finished when the world global crisis left only the rich in the leisure travel market.

Mombo Camp, Singita Lodge, and Bilila Kempinski, are just a few examples of what works, today, in African tourism, and they are anything but ecofriendly.

I can’t think of a single successful ecotourism property that has been built anywhere in Africa in the last five years, and most that were built prior to that are on the skids. Newly built properties, and the ones that are roaringly successful today are all spas and castles. And there are several reasons why this makes good business.

The foremost is that the mid- and down- travel leisure markets are rapidly shrinking, and by necessity, becoming more and more efficient in delivering their core product: vacations. Any type of exotic or what we used to call “adventure” travel is under heightened pressure just because of how hard it is to get to them and then use them, and these (especially in Africa) were the pillars of ecotourism.

The lower market tiers shrank as all travel shrank in the massive economic downturn, but they never recovered, as the upmarket did. There’s a lot of speculation as to why this is true and if it will ever return, but right now, it’s fact. The midmarket is AWOL.

And there’s another very important reason specific to Africa.

African wilderness is under siege. By development forces like mining and urban development.

Take forests, for example. In Kenya the loss of forests has so drastically impacted in real time the potable water of urban Kenyans that recently a sizable majority of voting Kenyans supported a pretty draconian move by the government to forcibly relocate nearly 40,000 people.

Take elephants. Concerted action by world conservationists to save the elephants began in the mid 1980s. It is a success story without a rival. Not only was a catastrophic slaughter stopped, but wildlife management efforts helped accelerate the recovery.

But to what avail, from the point of view of a young African trying to make a success in the world? To the avail that his farm is being mauled, that his county roads are being destroyed and that his children on a weekend country holiday are in danger?

Take the Serengeti highway, which is just one of many industrial projects currently being plowed through previous grand reserves in order to facilitate rapidly developing industry.

And take the relaxation of environmental standards, which kept the wildernesses healthy. This week Tanzania President Kikwete ridiculed the environmental community for trying to delay mining a 300 million ton soda ash deposit which lies adjacent the Serengeti and will likely at the very least destroy the flamingo populations living on Lake Natron.

“We cannot continue to mourn about our country being poor while our minerals are lying untapped and [while] … our neighbours, Kenya, are doing the same on the other side of the lake,” he said.

Which is true, and is the reason that the Kenyan side has no birds or animals.

“At times I wonder whether those who are opposing this move are really patriotic, because it seems as if they are agents of some people we don’t know,” Kikwete said. Bulls eye.

So with a shrinking wilderness and a shrinking market for it, what to do?

Build Up. As high and expensive as you can get. Be damned the resources consumed to build Versailles! Onwards and upwards! Four Posters! Plunge Pools! Solar Cosmetics!

The upmarket has by definition been primarily interested in comfort and style rather than context. It matters, but less with the upmarket, if the Serengeti road will disrupt the great wildebeest migration. So long as there is still a feather bed at the end of track that has a wildebeest or two, it will be just fine.

Bilila Lodge in the Serengeti is not so dissimilar to an Aman Resort Indonesia or a Canyon Ranch in Arizona. Bilila is a Kempinski property, one of the oldest, most successful European grand hotel chains that exists.

I just stayed at Bilila Kempinski and was truly astounded. The lodge is very remote and made even more so by a single access road that is 35 kilometers long. That’s one impressive driveway.

The public areas resemble any wonderful western spa or upmarket golf lodge, for example, with stylish architecture, spiraling staircases, giant lounge chairs, and lots of glass. The infinity pool is spectacular. Individual rooms are magnificent and huge with tasteful accouterments and the highest quality furniture.

But here’s what really got me: wifi worked better than in any upmarket hotel or lodge I’ve stayed at anywhere, in Nairobi or Dar. The wide-screen TVs had a whole arm’s length of channels, not the 7 or 8 limited ones found in Intercontinentals and Fairmonts in Africa.

Hot water was hot and always so. The air-conditioner not only worked, but well and softly, even when it shouldn’t have (when it was cool out). The telephone by the bed could ring my wife a half world away quicker than reverse when I was in any office in Africa.

The a la carte menus seemed right out of lower Manhattan, and the food was just as good. The boutique didn’t mess around with wood server spoons, but rather trendy canvas art whose price tags usually started at five figures.

Ecotourism is dead, because … it didn’t work. It relied on the generous spirit of middle class travelers willing to donote a little bit of their vacation to a better world order.

What an absolutely laughable idea, today.

Is it right that you as a tourist pay $1500 per day to stay at &Beyond Ngorongoro Crater Lodge when that is more than the average wage earned by a Tanzania in a year?

Sunday, a respected journalist in Kenya admitted that the publicity over Kate and William’s engagement tugs his “instinct to look at the dark side of acres and acres of land still reserved in the Kenyan countryside for the occasional pleasures of visiting monarchs and aristocrats, and the local privileged class.”

And while it’s a bit hard to tell from an email address if someone is white or black, I venture that the critical comments left after Otieno’s column were from white Kenyans and that the blacks were supportive or equivocal. More or less.

Until this year, tourism revenues in Kenya were constantly vying for the top foreign currency earnings with tea and coffee. But Kenya is growing rapidly, and manufacturing, mining and service industries look like they will all surpass tourism within just a few years.

Tourism is no longer the sacred cow it was for at least several generations.

Otieno used the publicity about Kate and William’s engagement as the vehicle to discuss the question: are the privileges given the tourist industry fair?

The royal proposal was made while the two were on holiday in Kenya.

I for one was glad to see Otieno’s column. He began politely enough but ultimately used his talent as a writer to make a very strong case. Otieno penned that “the future tribal king of the British” had stirred up a hornet’s nest in Kenya about privilege, land ownership and income inequality.

“I thought we particularly looked good out there on CNN where the local correspondent ably re-enacted a Jesus-born-in-a-manger scene complete with a muddy footpath and a humble cottage where the royal romance miraculously blossomed,” Otieno joked.

But the joke is right on. Christian charity? Christian fairness?

Do the west’s Christian values apply to the extraordinary tax breaks given &Beyond? To the ownership/management of fertile lands normally unavailable to foreigners? To the visa waivers for foreign managers to live and work in Tanzania?

The answers always used to be, Yes of course. Because the benefits to East Africa, mostly in terms of employment, were large enough. But the discrepancy has gotten bigger, not smaller, over the years.

Kenyan GNI from the UN.
Lodge STO Rates: likely effective average amount received per one night stay from one tourist.

Now in fairness to &Beyond, not all that increase has been pocketed by its stakeholders. But in fairness to East Africans, neither is that increase justified by increased prices or taxes. The truth is somewhere in between, but it seems to me definitely skewed to Crater Lodge’s advantage.

And I think that’s what Otieno is basically referring to.

Honing in like a lasek laser Otieno writes the wealth of a foreign tourist “…symbolizes the kind of inequality and ostentation despised by a large section of the Kenyan society.”

This is only the beginning of the debate, but it’s important to expand, and the bitter voices of foreign managers that dominate the comments following Otieno’s blog are disturbing. That kind of vitriol is not going to help our “tourist cause” one iota.

It’s a real issue. Let’s deal with it.

The weather’s been unusually rainy, but I can see through the mist to a 2011 landscape with fewer tourists on safari.

As we approach the most important annual conference for African tour companies in London next month, the news is leaking. Competition is fierce.

Budget travel has been all but wiped out. Midlevel travel is in fierce competition with a major decline in prices, and upmarket travel is contracting capacity and not increasing prices.

For the prospective traveler it looks good on two counts: (1) there will be fewer tourists, and (2) prices are stable or dropping.

For the local African tourism company, there’s going to be a lot of rolling up the sleeves and hard work. I predict more closures, merges and partnerships and a workforce that is likely to contract by another 5% before it bottoms out late next year.

The surge of travel that followed the technical end of an economic downturn is over, and vendors see this from slim forward bookings. By June of this year vendors had noticed a pullback in December holiday bookings, and pretty grim pickings for the start of the year.

This is an economic cycle at its perfection. When travelers realized the earth wasn’t coming to an end last year, those who had waited up to two years to travel all came at the same time. That’s now over, and the market is readjusting to levels that will be here for years to come.

Germany is an important source of foreign tourists to East Africa, and the German economy is doing well. So companies specializing in tourists from this area of north central Europe might even expand next year.

The other source of a smile is the coast. Sun ‘n sand holiday makers from Europe have replenished the Indian Ocean beaches. Charters were pretty full this past season and will likely stay that way next. Africa’s coast is now a nearly completely matured market that can rival coastal holidays almost anywhere else in the world, and so the value particularly for Europeans is pronounced. It’s a wonderful success story. Now, all we have to make sure is that security that Kenya and Tanzanian can provide will do the trick.

But as far as I can tell, Germany’s momentary economy strength and the East African coast are the only two positive signs in a year which otherwise looks very weak and pretty miserable.

Southern Africa’s ridiculously high exchange rates – a result of the world’s reliance on basic resources like gold in an economic downturn – are keeping prices for everything, including tourism products, ridiculously high and this will continue to depress that market.

Often budget travel does well in an economic downturn, but the problem this time is that the younger traveler no longer exists, the Asian traveler which flooded the market last year has stabilized and is decreasing, and all that’s left are pensioners with an increasing concern about their financial future.

To the extent that the midmarket doesn’t depress pricing enough, it will move down to the budget level. We see that happening right now with chain companies like Serena and Sopa providing Somak’s new customers. To the extent that the first two S-companies lack further pricing moves, they will drop customers to the bottom S.

And that’s where the stiffest competition will be next year: The midmarket. It’s where potential travelers will find the best values and where investors will have the most headaches.

The upmarket was the hardest hit when the economic downturn began in 2008, it rebounded the most in 2009, increased a wee bit again this year, and will take the hardest hit next year because its rebound was so high relative to the overall market. Although where it ends up as 2011 will be remarkably close to where it was in 2009.

The volatility of the upmarket is a result of its small size and ability to price quickly depending upon market trends. So with alarming speed &Beyond published incredible deals in early 2009, ended them with the same alacrity in 2010, and is now presenting them again for 2011.

&Beyond is the only transnational company throughout sub-Saharan and southern Africa, and so it has its feet solidly in two different mud pools. One might be sinking while the other is firm. It’s always a good company to look at for comparisons. Right now &Beyond’s pricing is getting much more aggressive in east than southern Africa, I think because of presumptions that Zimbabwe might be coming back on line and a recognition that the East African market for upmarket travel is cooling.

I’ll revisit all these general predictions with hard numbers after the November convention.

Oops. There goes the migration!

I hate reporting a story like this, but it’s been growing in my conscience like mold on the wall. Time to disinfect.

“Scientific studies” in Kenya just don’t carry the weight of well-funded work elsewhere in Africa, particularly in the south.

Just a few months after rains returned to East Africa late last year, the Kenya Wildlife Service mounted an animal survey that began in Amboseli. KWS concluded that as much as 83% of Amboseli’s wildlife had been lost.

Click here to see the survey. Oops. Gone? It’s been removed. But aha! I saved the paper: click here.

All sorts of bigwig organizations participated in that paper, including some that are now criticizing it.

Evidence is growing that the survey was wrong. Not long after the survey suggested that most of Amboseli’s elephant and wildebeest had died, Cynthia Moss’ ATE
group reported that “most” of the elephant were returning, although with fewer juveniles. And only a few weeks ago, one of ATE’s researchers, J. Kioko, reported that “about 1000 wildebeest have arrived in the park.”

Now, this second damming report might be just as flawed.

The report was funded by the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and was published in the Journal of Zoology and essentially painted a catastrophic situation in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, claiming the reserve was on the brink of collapse.

The Mara Conservancy, one of the two authorities controlling the Maasai Mara, issued a stunning denial. The Conservancy called the report “false.”

The report put much of the blame on the explosion of Maasai homesteads in the “private” reserves that ring the Mara conservancies. Specifically, the report claimed there were only four homesteads in 1950 and that there are now 368. And in what I consider a gross indication of the report’s inaccuracy, it claimed there were 44 huts in 1950 and 2735 in 2003.

Homesteads, maybe, but huts are built and torn down weekly. The 1950 data wasn’t sourced, but had to come from colonial authorities, and native statistics in 1950 have been proved time and again to be grossly inaccurate.

Paula Kahumbu, Executive Director of Richard Leakey’s reputable Wildlife Direct organization, remarked as follows on one of the report’s huge claims of wildlife losses:

“For the life of me I cannot find the 95% decline in giraffe in any of the blocks – the greatest decline that I can find is in block 3 where numbers of giraffe decline from 37 to 12 individuals. That’s only a 67% decline.”

I’m not trained or blessed with enough time on my hands to wade through the competing reports to determine in any scientific fashion which are right and which are wrong.

But that’s not going to stop me from making a few conclusions that might help those of you interested in East Africa’s wildlife, or those who are considering traveling there.

First, why are things so confused? Isn’t science… science?

Yes to the second, but as the first, Kenya’s problem is unique; unique even to Tanzania, its nearest and most similar neighbor. The government of Kenya long ago divested itself of full control over a number of its wildlife reserves, including both Amboseli and the Maasai Mara, arguably the two most important ones.

These great tracks of national treasure were seconded to local authorities (Maasai county councils) who exacerbated the problem by privatizing their operations.

The federal Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) still has some authority in both areas, but the bulk of the authority, including reporting facts on a day-to-day basis, is left in private hands. Even anti-poaching patrols in the Mara are run privately, not by KWS.

And to make a terrible situation intolerable, in the last decade the Mara was divided into two separately operated reserves. One by the Narok County Council, and the other by a sister Maasai community, the Trans Mara County Council.

One of Kenya’s legendary safari guides, Allan Earnshaw, wrote recently for the East African Wild Life Society, “The root of the problem is the fact that whilst the Maasai Mara is called a National Reserve, it is in fact treated and run as a local asset by the two different local authorities.”

(Problem upon problem: I cannot link you to this article, because remarkably EAWLS does not publish anything digitally.)

But Earnshaw is right on. And it gets truly ridiculous, as is the case as I write at this moment, if you wish to visit the entire Mara (which isn’t very big, you could do it in a day), you have to pay two fees: two times $60, to cross the Serena bridge going from one half to the other.

Anti-poaching patrols and scientific study groups are similarly constricted.

Collection of tourists fees, scientific study oversight and anti-poaching are operated by private organizations, separately for the two halves of the Mara, but the building of tourist lodges is a federal decision.

So since 2005, “no fewer than 55 new camps and lodges have been built in the Mara.” In 1997, there were a mere 20 camps and lodges. Today, according to Earnshaw, “there are over 100 and counting – with a bed capacity for 4000 tourists.”

The confusion over the numbers of animals, and the numbers of tourist lodges, is because there is no single authority managing the Mara. Studies and revenue receipts contradict each other. Private companies, competing for business jobs, exaggerate their potential. There is no neutral authority overseeing all this.

This is a Ph.D study of mismanagement at the least. Can’t do that, now. But let me try to glean from this mess three simple conclusions:

The effect on the area’s wildlife by the last drought was not as bad as local “scientific” studies suggested.

It was still bad, but probably not worse than in previous droughts. And with time we’ll know this for sure, but even in this short period of time since the rains returned late last year, things look pretty good to me.

Second, game viewing is increasingly depressed outside the parks. If you want to see a lot of game, avoid the private reserves and stay inside the park.

(Necessary semantic clarification: The Maasai Mara is not a private reserve, it is composed of two separate (County Council) government reserves, but it is privately managed. But ringing the Mara as is the case with almost all parks in East Africa, are adjacent or near adjacent private lands with tourist lodges.)

&Beyond’s Klein’s Camp and the Grumeti Reserve camps outside the Serengeti are examples. Saruni, Sasaab, Elephant Watch Camp are others outside Samburu. Treetops and Kikoti outside Tarangire. Literally all the Bush ‘n Beyond camps, and Laikipia camps like Lewa Downs and Loisaba are outside parks.

This doesn’t mean they aren’t fabulous additions to a vacation with their own unique attractions. It just means if you aren’t close enough to a park to at least enter it during a day-trip, your game viewing will be depressed compared to being inside the park.

Third, privatizing management of national treasures like a wildlife park or national Park (as being considered in the U.S.) is nothing less than stupid.

It transforms good, neutral scientific studies into the components of a cost-effective business plan. It prostitutes moral authority with profit. The decline of American zoos, for instance, I place squarely on the fact that the vast majority were privatized in the 1980s and 1990s.

America, take note. Kenya’s greatest national treasure, if it is in peril, is because it was off-lifted into private hands.

Maasai cow laced with poison kills entire lion pride.

Probably both.

The organization’s warning followed an incident in late April where three lions were poisoned in Lemek, a private wildlife conservancy north of Kenya’s famed Maasai Mara game reserve.

Wildlife officials arrested the alleged killer, a Maasai herder, who admitted the poisoning and showed wildlife officials the powder he used. He explained that the lion had been killing his cattle.

Lion have been killing Maasai stock for aeons. And in the old days Maasai morani would spear the lion to death and that usually did the trick. Today, pesticides have replaced spears. In this case, pending chemical analysis, wildlife officials believe the poison was carbofuran – widely available in Kenya because it’s used in the cut-flower industry.

Unlike spearing the marauding lion, pesticides laid out for the intruder end up killing the whole pride, and that’s what seems to have happened in this case. In the old days, the speared (usually) male lion traumatized the pride enough that they left the area. Now, there are no lions left to leave.

Killing wildlife in Lemek is a violation of two laws: a federal law against killing lions (that allowed federal officials, the KWS, to become involved) and a business contract with tourist camps in the area.

So the alleged culprit was arrested and arraigned, but later released. Not on bail, but because “a local politician intervened on his behalf,” according to Wildlife Direct.

Don’t get too angry.

Wildlife/human conflicts are on the rise throughout Africa and I don’t believe they are being properly handled. In Kenya a number of initiatives are underway, including KWS programs to educate herders and farmers on the importance of wildlife; in Tanzania more aggressive actions are being funded by organizations like AWF to actually fence portions of farms against intruders as large as elephant.

But as human populations develop and their needs become greater, and particularly during an economic downturn and following a drought, these initiatives can actually exacerbate not solve the problem.

Lemek is an excellent example. This is too far away from the real wilderness of the Maasai Mara, an extension of a “private reserve” because of presumed tourist interests. Many of Africa’s best camps are in private reserves, but I think these private reserves have become too far out.

This is really an area that should be left to stock grazing, and what the Kenyan government and wildlife officials should realize is that trying to expand it for tourism is a bad idea. It should be developed for agriculture.

Lions should not be protected in this area. They should be confined to areas further towards and actually inside the reserve, and if motivated to move out into these areas, they should be picked up or shot by wildlife officials before such messy and uncontrollable acts of poisoning grow widespread.

Protecting them in areas like these just increases the problem.

A number of high-end, professional robberies have been reported at camps in East Africa over the last month. As in downturns in the past, many disgruntled workers turn on their former employers in a number of ways. The most common one is to become the thief that knows where the clients’ valuables are stored.

As in the past, we’re all more vigilant in instructing clients how to act if there is a hold-up. And we’re more careful where we stay. And usually, nothing happens. Thefts tend to occur in areas with less police protection, like private reserves, and on lonely roads we have to avoid.

And until Tuesday the current trend wasn’t violent, but Tuesday Tanzanian police confronted five robbers fleeing the prestigious Grumeti Reserve and shot them to death.

The media has been all over with praise for the Tanzanian cops, but frankly, I think this is bad. There’s no need to make a war against redundant workers.

According to two sources, Agence France Press and Wolfgang Thome, a reporter based in Uganda, staff at the upmarket Grumeti Reserves tipped off area police that five laid off workers were planning an inside job. Presumably it was the inside that ratted on the outside.

Police and other security operatives laid a trap for the robbers. When the robbers arrived, they were killed in a gun battle started by the police.

I’m not suggesting that our empathy for redundant workers should transform into letting them off the hook. But my experience with these guys is that they’re hungry, educated and have little interest in doing anything but stealing wallets. The Tanzanian response might just have been a bit over the top.

Note: The next day, Grumeti Reserves announced it was seeking a new head of its Tanzanian operations.