Kenya and Egypt - The Magnum Opus

The great wildebeest migration. Masai Mara.

Following on the streak of visiting bucket list items, we finally planned the trip to Kenya. This was actually a choice between Ukraine, Rwanda and Kenya. Ukraine had immigration horror stories all over trip advisor. Rwanda was kind of okay but had a weird USD 1500 per head permit to visit the Volcanos National Park, which housed the mountain gorillas. Rwanda also had a national park called Akagera NP, which was basically an extension of the savannah. We then thought to visit Masai Mara itself, instead of Akagera. Kenya has an e-visa policy for Indians. We booked our onward flight by Qatar Airways, flying through Doha. The return was still not fixed. We put up an enquiry on Mojhi.com for the safari and got a few quotes. We chose the 4 day Masai Mara and Lake Nakuru trip through Baboon Budget Safaris. This was a group safari and we'd be travelling as part of a 6 person group in the van. We debated a lot about visiting a second country at the end of the trip as this will end on Oct 1st and we had Oct 2nd as a holiday here. We had options such as Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar, Dubai or Abu Dhabi. After a month of pondering and watching flight ticket prices, we fixed on transiting Egypt. Egypt had an interesting visa policy. Indians were eligible to get a transit visa if a transit tour was booked via Karnak Tours and if we had a long layover via EgyptAir in Cairo. We booked a tour of the pyramids, Memphis and the necropolis of Saqqara. 

Hilton Garden Inn, JKIA. Our first day in Kenya.

The Great Rift Valley.

We departed Bangalore on 26th September. Srivani came to GwynnieBee and we booked an airport cab from there itself. We flew to Mumbai by IndiGo and were received by Ankit and Supriya. After having dinner with them, they dropped us off at T2 of CSIA. We flew to Doha at 4 AM on 27th. After a 3 hour layover in Doha, we flew to Nairobi. We were received by the driver from Hilton Garden Inn, JKIA. The hotel was plush and we had a hearty lunch and dinner. The travel by Qatar gave me a headache and I slept it off.

Impala. Masai Mara. 

Miti Mingi Eco Camp. Masai Mara.

The Milky Way.

The next morning, a cab from Baboon picked us up and took us to the Baboon office. This is where we met our safari group, two Turks, Yunus and Ihsan and two Russian Brits, Neri and Tim Markov. We also met our safari driver cum guide, Clement. We set off to Masai Mara at 8:30 AM. We had a short halt at Narok to check out a view point on the great Rift Valley and a lunch stop at a restaurant shortly after crossing Narok. We were served vegetarian food as promised. The last 70-odd km to Masai Mara was through incredibly bad roads. In many places, the roads were purposefully damaged to direct us through Masai lands, where tolls were collected. We finally reached Miti Mingi Eco Camp by 3PM. Miti Mingi means 'many trees' in Swahili and it really stood up to its name. We set off for a game drive at 4:30 PM. The evening game drive wasn't so great and we managed to spot no big cats. We just saw herds of resident wildebeest, buffalo and zebra. A few giraffes, an elephant and a hyena gave us a break at the end of the disappointing 2 hour drive. Clement felt it was best to combine the third day's early morning game drive with the second day so that we could go deeper, all the way to the Tanzanian border. So we pushed the Masai village visit to the third day and planned to start the second day at 6AM.

African elephant. Masai Mara.

Sub-adult male lion cub. Masai Mara.

Plains zebra. Masai Mara.

The second day started pretty early with a cold water bath and an early breakfast at 6AM. We left for the park at 6:15 AM with hopes of getting all the Big Five. The Big Five is a term used by safari operators to denote sightings of lion, buffalo, leopard, rhino and elephant. It's got nothing to do with size or population. It was a hunting term meant to denote the top five deadliest animals to hunt. After a while of crossing herds of resident wildebeest, zebra and giraffes, we stumbled on a herd of elephants. Yunus and Ihsan split from us here as they were scheduled to leave for Nairobi after just half a day at Masai Mara. They joined another group from here. We then came across a pride of lions resting in the shade of a nearby tree. This pride had mostly females and a sub-adult male cub, who was playing with his mother. We went deeper into the savannah until we came across a patch which was reduced to cinders by forest fires. There were bones of several large mammals strewn across the burnt patches. I stopped for a toilet break in a bush. We then came across a secretary bird which was being fended off another bird's nest. I've read a lot about the secretary bird as a kid and it was great seeing one for real. We then came upon a large rock with two cheetahs resting atop it. There was a third cheetah nearby in the grasses which was stalking a herd of impalas. He couldn't get a clear target and then abandoned the hunt. After some driving around, we came upon a carcass of an impala high in a tree. It was clearly the doing of a leopard and looking at the freshness of the kill, the leopard had to be nearby. And it eventually was. We found a drowsy leopard, half asleep and cooling it off in a little puddle near the carcass. This completed four of the Big Five. We headed to the Mara river for lunch. We were escorted by an armed guard who showed us hippos and Nile crocodiles in the river. After a quick packed lunch, we set off for the second half of the game drive.

Cheetah. Masai Mara.

Black rhinoceros. Masai Mara.

Secretary bird. Masai Mara.

Almost immediately, we came upon a sole black rhinoceros. All five of the Big Five done. The rhino was grazing happily, ignoring the safari vans around it. Black rhinos get their name in a weird way, with being the opposite of 'white' rhinos, where 'white' is a corruption of 'wide' as they have wide lips. So, black rhinos have a beaked mouth and look very much as if a dinosaur had a baby with a modern mammal. Black rhinos are the rarest of animals to find on the savannah, with only about a couple of hundred left in all of Africa. After this sighting,  we drove till we reached a rock which marked the border between Tanzania and Kenya. On the way back from here we came across the herds of the great migration. Endless herds of wildebeest and zebra stretching out as far as the eye can see. The migration happens in pockets and the herds generally return to the Serengeti in Tanzania during September-October. The safari van was surrounded by an endless sea of animals, thousands strong. It took us over an hour to cross the herd and go ahead. Here we saw yet another black rhinoceros. Clement remarked that we were indeed very fortunate to see two black rhinos in one day. The drive finished after this the way it began and we were back at the camp by 4:30 PM. We sat in the tent, had dinner, filmed the Milky Way and went off to bed.

African Fish Eagle. Lake Naiwasha.

Hippopotamus. Lake Naiwasha.

The Masai welcome dance. Masai village. Masai Mara.

We started the third day with a visit to the nearby Masai village. This reminded me of the days of Maxis' Sim Safari of my childhood, where the objective was to strike a balance between the game reserve, the village and the camp to make profits and conserve wildlife. The son of the village elder invited us and showed us around. They showed us the insides of their homes and gave us insights about their everyday lives. They have all converted to Christianity and their latest generation is attending a nearby school. We found a little souvenir handicraft from them. We then started off towards Lake Nakuru. After a quick lunch near Narok, we went for a boat ride in Lake Naiwasha. This lake is famous for its fishing eagles. The boatman throws a little fish into the water for the eagle to come swooping. Lake Naiwasha is a sanctuary for hippos as there is nothing around that can eat a hippo. There are herds of zebra, waterbuck and giraffes on the periphery. The other residents of the lake such as herons, egrets, pelicans, geese and cormorants are common in India as well. After this, we drove another hour or so to reach the hotel City Max in the city of Nakuru by early evening. We had a good dinner that night at the hotel and took rest.

Baboon. Lake Nakuru.

Greater flamingo. Lake Nakuru. 

Lioness scouting for prey. Lake Nakuru.

White rhinoceros. Lake Nakuru.

The last day of our trip started off with a game drive inside Lake Nakuru National Park. This park is famous for being a white rhino sanctuary. The other reason for its claim to fame is the greater flamingo, thousands of which line the shores. This is one of the alkaline lakes of the Great Rift Valley. The alkalinity of the lake has been dropping in recent years and many flamingos have relocated to other lakes nearby. After crossing two hyenas, we came across a white rhino in the beginning of the drive itself. It was on the periphery of the park with buildings visible on the horizon. After this, we drove to the lake itself. On the way, we came across herds of zebra and Rothschild's giraffes. One zebra had its hind leg torn to shreds, possibly by hyenas or wild dogs. We came across a few more white rhinos before finally reaching the flocks of flamingos on the shores of the lake. After watching them for a while, we started driving back. We stumbled on a harder-to-find resident of the park, a lioness. Clement heard chatter on his radio and immediately drove to the spot where the lioness was. She was clearly hungry and was in search of a meal. She tried stalking an impala but failed when she was spotted from the other side of the path by another impala. She then tried stalking a zebra and failed in that as well. She then climbed a fallen tree to scout for other prey. Leaving her to her job, we drove away from the scene and finished the drive soon. After this, we were scheduled to depart for Nairobi. Clement organised for us to be picked up from the previous day's lunch spot by another vehicle. However, as Neri and Tim wanted to stop by at Lake Naiwasha once again, we had to shift to another vehicle at Lake Naiwasha. Then we had lunch at the previous day's spot and left in another van from the company. Neri and Tim went on to Amboseli from here. We were promptly dropped at the Best Western hotel by late afternoon. We had dinner at the rooftop poolside restaurant and slept for some time. We had a flight to catch at 4:30 AM the next day. The check-in counter opened pretty late and the security check took a hell lot of time at the gate. In all, JKIA failed to impress us. 

Nairobi. Shot from the roof of the Best Western hotel.

The pyramid of Khufu.

The great sphinx with the pyramid of Khafre.

EgyptAir was decent and landed us in Cairo Terminal 3 bang on time. As was expected in Egypt, the Karnak counter in the terminal was closed. Upon asking, a nearby information desk person said, 'he should be there but he isn't'. Karim finally came and opened the counter at 9:30 AM. He was shortly joined by Amany. He finished our paperwork and got us forex for 100 USD and our transit visas. Our passports were deposited at the airport. We were given a yellow slip and were instructed that we would get our passports at the departure area upon producing that slip. Hassan was our driver and our ride was a plush Toyota car. We departed the airport for the Giza plateau. We picked up our guide enroute, who got us vegetarian falafels for breakfast. We reached Giza in about an hour and headed to the pyramids. The last remaining one amongst the 7 wonders of the ancient world, the pyramids were a magnificent sight. The sheer scale of the construction was overwhelming. We didn't enter the royal tombs due to the lack of time. We saw the three pyramids up close and then drove up to a panorama spot. From here, we can get 6 of the 9 pyramids in the area in one image. All the pyramids of ancient Egypt date from the earliest dynasties and are all around Cairo. From the Middle Kingdom onwards, they learnt to bury their kings in secretive tombs in the valley of the kings, down south. We then went to see the great sphinx which was built to serve as an eternal guardian. We stopped at a nearby perfume shop to purchase a souvenir for my dad. After this, we drove 45 Km to reach the ancient city of Memphis (or what remains of it). The single biggest thing in what remains of the city is the fallen statue of Rameses II. This statue was part of the innumerable number of statues of his likeness commissioned while he was alive and reigning. This puts the date of this statue to around the time of Moses from the Old Testament, roughly 3500 years ago. Very little of the city remains till date, apart from a few sphinxes and a few columns and another standing statue of Rameses II. After this whirlwind tour of Memphis, we visited the place that started it all. King Djoser's step pyramid at Saqqara. Saqqara is hardly 3 km from Memphis and is in a way the opposite of Memphis. While Memphis was a triumphant capital and model city of the ancient world, Saqqara was a necropolis. Djoser's experiment with stone has been preserved in Saqqara across the eons and has been polished and perfected by Khufu and his descendants. Djoser hails from the fourth dynasty of Egypt's Pharaohs, from a time when mounds were erected to symbolise tombs. Djoser erected mounds on top of mounds in a recursive fashion and the first pyramid was created. The architect of this pyramid was the legendary Imhotep (from the Mummy movies). Next to the step pyramid is a temple of the dead, with columns which look like reeds from the banks of the Nile. This temple was a later addition to the complex. This was the last visit for the day and Hassan drove us back to the airport by 2:45 PM. 

The temple of the dead. Saqqara.

The fallen status of Rameses II. Memphis.

Srivani with the step pyramid of Djoser. Saqqara.

We collected our passports from the EgyptAir counter at the departures side. We did not require an immigration stamp as we had just a transit visa. The initial security check was quick and we got to the concourse area pretty quickly. After a little shopping, we had pizza for lunch. The aircraft to Mumbai was on time and was brand new Boeing 737-800. The flight was pretty comfortable and the food was decent. We were received in Mumbai by Ankit and we slept in their home till morning. He dropped us at the airport for our onward connection to Bangalore. This trip was a magnum opus in many ways. I carried the most amount of camera gear on this trip. I got my best shots ever, on this trip. This trip took us around two of the greatest sights on earth, the pyramids of Giza and the great wildebeest migration. It was also our most expensive trip yet.

The Giza pyramid complex.