I (didn't) have a farm in Africa: Safari in Tsavo, Part 3
- Bernd
- Nov 15, 2023
- 9 min read
Updated: Jul 22, 2024
Mitwirkende
Jack: Safari Guide
Marko: Tourist
Bernd: Sozialarbeiter, Unternehmer, Blogger, Traveller, Investor,
Martin: Ehemann, Vater, Tourist
Elsbeth: Ehefrau, Mutter, Touristin
Lisa-Lea: Tochter, Studentin, Touristin
Laura: Managerin der Villa Massai, Seelsorgerin, Farmerin
Hickson: Manager der Villa Massai, Seelsorger, Farmer
Tsavo East
Tsavo East has an area of 13,000 square kilometers. It is separated from Tsavo West only by the expressway and the railway line. The vegetation is sparse and characterized by severe drought. This allows you to look out into the savannah and see herds of animals heading to the waterholes. The park became infamous because of the construction of the first railway line from Mombasa to Nairobi in the 19th century. Legend has it that two lions killed 135 railway workers before being tracked down and shot.
All known animals live in Tsavo East: giraffes, zebras, hyenas, buffaloes, ostriches, leopards, oryx, impalas, various species of monkeys...
Tsavo West
With an area of around 9000 sq km, it is smaller than Tsavo East, but is scenically interesting and very varied with green hills, lava rock and savannah. In 1940 there were still 20,000 rhinos here. Poaching reduced the population to just 20 animals by 1989. Thanks to the Ngulia Sanctuary in Tsavo West, the number of rhinos has increased again to 1,605 animals. At the end of 2022, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), there were again 23,300 rhinos living across Africa. Tsavo West is home to buffalo, ostriches, hippos, zebras, antelopes, elephants, birds and giraffes...
Do not disturb!
A research team from Western University Canada used camera traps and speakers to monitor wild animal behavior at 21 waterholes in Kruger National Park for human voices, gunshots, barking dogs and lions. The biologists examined 19 mammal species, including giraffes, hyenas, zebras, leopards, kudu, warthogs, impalas, rhinos and elephants. They evaluated 15,000 videos over a period of six weeks. The result: 95 percent of the animals fled or left the waterholes faster when they heard people than when they heard their predators, the lions. Liana Zanette from the research team states: "...They are deathly afraid of humans - much more than of any other predator." (Source: ntv, Alice Lanzke, dpa)
Get involved
There are a few basic rules you should keep in mind when going on safari. Lack of rainfall, droughts, storms, climate change and urban sprawl are problems worldwide. A ranger here in Kenya told me years ago that the animals were becoming increasingly stressed. A lack of food and water, as well as increasing tourism, are affecting them and sometimes making them more aggressive. We are guests in the nature reserves. So we should behave like this:
The driver should not leave the slopes in the park. Please do not pressure the driver to drive into the bush. These are retreats for the animals.
Entering the bush with a vehicle destroys the vegetation. Soil erosion or siltation cannot be our interest.
Behave calmly and respectfully when dealing with the animals; please do not call or scream. You want to observe, enjoy and learn, don't you?
Paying for the tour does not give you a guarantee of seeing all the animals. Slow down.
Intervene when the driver honks to get animals moving. That stresses her out. More than 2 million tourists visit Kenya alone every year. It doesn't take much imagination to imagine the amount of traffic in the parks, even if not everyone goes on safari.
Do not leave trash in nature. Actually a matter of course.
Don't just "ratt off the animals". Stop for a moment and enjoy the spectacle of nature, the behavior of the animals, their voices and noises, their communication.
From disc to disc
A safari is part of every visit to Kenya. Unfortunately, the adventure doesn't come cheap. Marko and I book a two-night tour, one in Tsavo East and one in Tsavo West. We are there for a good €840, including meals. But we each have a single room.
At around 6 a.m. Jack, our guide, arrives in an aging off-road vehicle. A family has already taken their seats: Martin, around 50, his wife Elsbeth and their daughter Lisa-Lea, a student teacher. They spend their vacation in a hotel not far from us. We nod at each other in a friendly, visibly tired manner and murmur something like "Good morning." And off we go! Our driver is bursting with energy, asks if we all understand English, but speaks German to us as the trip continues. He drives towards Mombasa and unexpectedly turns left, well before the Likoni ferry, towards Kwale Country.
Jack bypasses Mombasa so as not to waste time on the ferry. Behind Kwale the paved road ends abruptly. This will show whether all the intervertebral discs hold their position. It looks like I'm the oldest one in the car. We crawl meter by meter on a very bumpy track with countless potholes. On the plane, the captain spoke of turbulence, asked us to take our seats and asked us to fasten our seatbelts. We pass several smaller villages with friendly waving children.
At some point we reach the highway from Mombasa to Nairobi, take a short break at a rest stop with the ubiquitous souvenirs before continuing our journey and checking into the Ashnil Aruba Lodge in Tsavo East around 2 p.m. Shortly afterwards we go to lunch. The buffet is prepared.
"There!" "No there!" "Where?" "Well, there!" "I do not see anything!"
Have you ever noticed how powerful the human imagination is to see things that only exist in the viewer's imagination? Nurtured by wishful thinking, fueled by the competition of emotions.
Without a doubt, our guide has an eye that has been trained over the years. It detects animals at very long distances, hidden behind trees, bushes and grass. So we are in good company. Our small group moves patiently through Tsavo East. His binoculars rest on Martin's lap, Lisa-Lea clutches her SLR camera, Elsbeth stares intently at the landscape, Marko stands and peers out of the open roof into the parched wilderness. I just sit there.
Suddenly Jack stops his Range Rover. With a stretched arm and index finger, he points to a group of trees with bushes very, very far away: "Lions! At least three!" he calls in a muffled voice. What joy for us! Finally!
A safari without lions is like a cocktail without alcohol. Lisa-Lea and her mother jump up to Marko, who is tensely peering into the distance with his eyes narrowed - like a scout from a western. Martin follows his women. They search the area patiently and with concentration, armed only with binoculars and a camera. I stay seated because I can't see anything, which doesn't mean anything because I'm short-sighted. Jack points in the right direction again. A very amusing conversation between the glorious four begins. This is pure comedy!
Martin: "There's a shadow between the bushes!"
Marko: “Where?”
Elsbeth: "I can't see anything!"
Martin: "You have to focus the binoculars, love. There between the bushes!"
Lisa-Lea: “Where are the lions?”
Marko: "I think I see something!!!"
Lisa-Lea: "Where? Where?"
Marko: "Back there!" (he says at the back and means at the front) "There's something yellow! An ear!!!"
Elsbeth: “Now I see it!”, she hands her binoculars to her husband.
Martin: "No, that's a leaf!"
Marko: "That's an ear!" Marko replies, slightly irritated.
Elsbeth: "Martin, give me the binoculars again! Where should the ear be?"
Martin: "Now I see something! It could also be a dead tree trunk!" He hands Elsbeth the binoculars again.
Elsbeth: "Thank you. Where should the ear be?"
Marko: "Back there!" (he points to the front again). "Shit, now it's gone!"
Lisa-Lea: "They're there...yes, I see them!"
Lisbeth: “Where?”
Lisa-Lea: "Below the cloud there!" (Note: The sky is full of clouds on this day.)
Lisbeth: "Which cloud?"
Lisa-Lea: "Well, the one in front!"
Martin: "Yes, exactly! There by the stones!"
Marko: "I see something yellow! By the bushes!" Marko insists.
I can not see anything. Really! But I have to intervene now, intervene in the conversation from the back row of the Range Rover, say loudly but very decisively: "YES! NOW I CAN SEE IT TOO! BESIDE THE SHREW!"
General but relaxed laughter. I casually ask Jack which eye doctor he has, I want the doctor too.
Addendum: I'm thinking. This is probably how religions arise. Shortly afterwards we fortunately discovered a pride of lions. Clearly this time, but now decidedly too close for Lisa-Lea and her mother.
According to current estimates, there are only around 20,000 lions left in Africa, 2,000 of them in Kenya. Its distribution area extends from the southern edge of the Sahara to South Africa. The hot spots are the Kruger National Park in South Africa, the Masai Mara National Park in Kenya and the Serengeti in Tanzania. Lions live in prides. The females are an integral part of the group, the males change when they are driven away by younger members of the species in violent fights. When alone, lions prefer to hunt zebras or other medium-sized ungulates. In a pack they are also dangerous to buffaloes and giraffes. Their head-torso length is between 158 cm and 250 cm, and their shoulder length is between 107 cm and 123 cm. The males weigh between 150 kg and 225 kg, the females between 110 kg and 192 kg. When sprinting they can easily reach 45 km/h to 60 km/h. So an e-bike is not enough to escape them. The life expectancy of females is up to 16 years and that of males is up to 12 years.
Our safari took us further. Another group of lions. This time, much to the chagrin of the two women, they are very close. Too close. Jack tries to calm her down. “Don’t worry!”, he’s probably said that so many times. "In the Masai Mara the off-road vehicles are open on the sides!" he explains to us, which doesn't really reassure the women. This roof is open, that's enough for them. In order to track down these lions, Jack has to leave the official track. The tire tracks show that others were here before us and did the same thing. The small pack lies like department store carpets in this parched landscape. To cheer them up, Jack honks the horn, which doesn't go unnoticed on my part. I politely but firmly ask him not to do that and to return to the slopes. The two women nod vigorously, although for a different reason. Jack seems surprised. In his opinion, this is what tourists ultimately expect.
Shortly afterwards we come across a relatively large herd of buffalo. Most people don't die anything from big cats. The most dangerous and aggressive animals in Africa, apart from humans, are the buffalo and hippos. Would you have known? Buffaloes don't hesitate and attack relatively quickly if they feel threatened. This information is also new for our small group. Surprisingly quickly everyone, except Marko, is back in their seats and asks Jack to drive on as quickly as possible. This time it's Marko who stops it, visibly annoyed. "We're here to watch animals! These are part of the Big Five!" Jack stops the car.
The buffalo has a head-torso length of 240 to 340 cm, a shoulder height of 148 to 175 cm and a weight of 350 kg to 900 kg. Their life expectancy in the wild is up to 20 years. Its top speed is around 55 km/h.
The herd doesn't let us out of its sight. One or two young bulls position their powerful bodies. "That's enough now!" says Lisa-Lea with increasing nervousness. Jack starts the car and drives away.
The one who talks to the elephants
Elephants are considered to be one of the most popular animals in the wild. They radiate intelligence, strength, dignity, grace and at the same time, despite their proverbial slowness, sensitivity. Elephants communicate using infrasound. These are sounds below the human hearing threshold of 16 hertz, but at 103 decibels they are louder than a jackhammer. Ideally, infrasound transmits over the ground. Elephants can use it to communicate up to 10 km, but they do not hear it with their large ears, as many believe. They "communicate" with the trunk by producing infrasonic sounds deep in the throat and pressing the trunk to the ground. Elephants therefore perceive their “secret language” with their trunks and feet.
On this day we are lucky. We come across a group of elephants and are very close to them. They grow up to four meters high and weigh up to 7.5 tons. Elephants are the heaviest living land mammals on earth.
Elephants eat around 150 kg of grass, fruit, leaves and seeds per day and drink up to 200 liters of water. In the wild they can live 60 to 70 years. It seems we are too close to the herd. Two bulls keep an eye on us, come closer and raise their ears, which is not a good sign. Admittedly, I had never experienced that before. They turn their ears against us and trumpet. Jack is amused, Marko, Martin and I are irritated, Lisa-Lea is almost panicked. Jack tempts us with "They're not doing anything!" to calm down. In my opinion he misunderstands the seriousness of the situation. One of the cops turns away, the other continues to threaten. Comes even closer. Jack revs the engine, causing him to stop. At least he keeps the engine running. Actually, Jack should now extend the distance to the elephant to 30 m, but he doesn't. In my opinion he is just acting negligently. He only hesitantly complies with the women's very justified request and finally accelerates the Range Rover.
In the event of an attack, the car, Range Rover or not, would have stood no chance. To my surprise, the elephant follows us. They can reach speeds of up to 40 km/h. Jack speeds up, but the elephant is really angry now and follows us for quite a while. The distance is increasing. Marko is the only one in our group who takes a photo of the elephant's chase. Here it is.
On this day we are truly lucky! Happiness is also part of traveling. We begin our journey home to Diani Beach.
In Part 4, I (didn't) have a farm in Africa: Farewell
The Sinful Shisha;
Farewell
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