Archive for March, 2009
Begin in Tsavo
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Planning Travel, Tsavo on March 30, 2009
Starting a safari in Tsavo West insures a memorable safari. But don’t drive! My 60th birthday safari began in Tsavo West at Kilaguni Lodge, in part because it was where my kids, Brad and Elizabeth, had their first safari when they were little, and in part because over the years clients have told me that [...]
Must-Do Nairobi
Posted by jimheck in Nairobi, Planning Travel on March 28, 2009
A safari without Nairobi misses a lot. But don’t arrive during the day on a weekday! I know that a lot of people come to East Africa just to see the animals. There are many safaris that do little else. But never mine. My 60th birthday safari began with three days in Nairobi. And we [...]
Dry Serengeti
Posted by jimheck in Great Migration, Serengeti, Weather on March 27, 2009
Our safari encounters a very dry Serengeti. Is a drought, or are floods, coming? We arrived Ndutu Lodge on Wednesday after an extremely dry drive east to west across the entire bottom half of the Serengeti. It isn’t yet a drought, but it’s very dry. We started north of Olduvai Gorge, saw the remarkable Shifting [...]
Fabulous Crater
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Ngorongoro Crater on March 23, 2009
The crater never seems to fail me. But client patience made it better than ever. We left Crater Lodge at 6 a.m. having cajoled our butlers to wake us shortly after 5 a.m. with hot drinks and the cookies of the day. It was dark until we reached the down-road gate around 6:30a. Even on [...]
E.Africa Drought?
Posted by jimheck in Lake Manyara, Weather on March 21, 2009
We abandon Lake Manyara because it’s too hot and dry. I think this is global warming. We entered the park around 11:30a coming from Tarangire. A midday game drive in Lake Manyara for safaris traveling north from Tarangire to the crater is commonplace. We take a picnic lunch and sit by the lakeshore watching flamingoes. [...]
Yr-Round Tarangire
Don’t consider Tarangire only a seasonal park any longer. For several years, now, I’ve been writing how wonderful Tarangire National Park is at any time of the year. So many guide books claim otherwise. They’re wrong. Until the early 1980s, Tarangire was a hunting preserve. The 2200 sq. miles is the best elephant habitat in [...]
Location,Location,Loc…
Posted by jimheck in Arusha NP, Planning Travel, Safari Lodges on March 19, 2009
Successful safari days have as much to do with where you’re staying at the end of the day, as what you’ve seen on your game drives. We spent the last two days at Hatari Lodge in Arusha National Park. Some of my clients had been with me in Kenya for 6 days and others were [...]
Safari Club?
Posted by jimheck in Planning Travel, Safari Lodges on March 16, 2009
Should the Mt. Kenya Safari Club be on your safari? We are spending tonight at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club, having just completed a fantastic short Kenyan safari in the Aberdare Mountains (Aberdare Country Club & The Ark) and in Samburu (at Larsen’s Camp). For years my clients have been fiercely divided on whether the [...]
Fantastic Samburu
Dry Samburu gives us great game viewing! It’s a real fallacy that the dry season is better for game viewing than the wet season. I think this myth was propagated by safari companies who didn’t have the right equipment capable of driving over slippery roads or getting out of mud. Wet areas draw the animals, [...]
Oil Highway
The Chinese are building a modern road through Samburu. The road from Mt. Kenya into the Northern Frontier is being transformed by the Chinese. The Chinese have been prospecting for oil in northern Kenya and rumors have been flying that they’ve hit liquid gold. For twenty years I’ve suffered this horrible drive from Nanyuki to [...]
Long Rains Begun?
Our fingers are crossed that the Long Rains have begun. Today we went deep into the Aberdare National Park. It was terribly dry. The November short rains failed. We aren’t certain yet if the long rains will, too. In this part of East Africa there are normally two rainy seasons: the short rains begin by [...]
Safari Traffic Jam
Posted by jimheck in Nairobi, Planning Travel on March 12, 2009
Never start your safari in Nairobi on a weekday morning. I estimate there are 120-140,000 cars that try to get into Nairobi’s downtown area each morning, on only four roads into the city. The west and north sides aren’t impossible, but the east and south sides which include access to the international airport, are horrible. [...]
Kenya Struggles
…and inches forward, just a little bit late. Today, Kenya’s President Kibaki makes an unusual road trip a-la-Obama into some of the areas in the country most effected by food shortages. Kenyan presidents don’t normally show their faces in public, much less in troubled areas. He is desperately trying to prop up the political soul [...]
Darwin & Shelby
Darwinism Slams The 3rd World London As I make my way more slowly than usual to Kenya, I’ve stopped in London to visit the Darwin exhibit at the British Museum. While flying over, the World Bank issued a report that for the first time since WWII the world economy is expected to post a decline, [...]
Can’t Trust the NYT?
My favorite newspaper publishes an unfair article about Kenya. The situation in Kenya – as throughout the entire world – is not as good as we expected it would be a year or two ago. Kenya was plucked from near abyss by a Grand Coalition Government that ended the political violence that accompanied the December, [...]