Babe at the Beach

I have enjoyed an unexpected little holiday at the sea recently. Having finished the training course in Tsavo, things were not finalised as to ‘where to next’ so I found myself hanging out on the most gorgeous beach south of Mombasa called Tiwi Beach at a rustic little resort called Maweni Cottages. Its like a mini Caribbean. Being on the equator, the water is so warm in the ocean that sometimes it doesn't really refresh you until you get out and allow the breeze to blow on you. It’s quite hot and humid on the coast but having a private beach is what it’s all about and everytime one feels soggy, off you trot for a dip in the turquoise ocean. Its heaven!

There is a shallow reef all the way along this stretch of coast so at high tide the waves aren't very big against the sand (they break further out where the reef starts) and it’s like swimming in a peaceful rock pool. When the tide is low one can pick through the reef on foot (I say pick coz there are tonnes of urchins) and explore the pools full of little rock-pool fishies (not an area of speciality!) and bristle stars and sea cucumbers and and and.... If you head north up the beach, there is a place the locals call 'starfish village' because there are hundreds of multi-coloured starfish that become beached at low tide. I went when the tide was coming in with a mask and swam out with a fisherman to see them. It was incredible. We also saw living corals with their polyps and clams and an anemone complete with clownfish 'Nemo'! I was completely exhausted after the swim because we had to go far out and you can hardly stand for the urchins! Good exercise after not doing much for a few weeks....plus the hike down the sand back to my cottage!

If you go south down the beach, one heads towards Diani Beach...a more renowned coastal destination but more built up. I went at low tide again, along the reef and the local ‘askari’ (guard) took me to a place they call the map of Africa (its prudent to take an 'askari' for safety when exploring further a field). It’s a deep pool in the reef that holds water when the tide is out shaped like the continent and complete with Madagascar pool! Next pool up is Australia which is bigger and has two caves over it but looks nothing like Australia! Go figure. Inside the caves (which are open in places to the sky and you can see the vegetation above you and the light plays on the walls...lovely) there is a colony of bats that roost on the highest parts of the walls coz when the tide comes in that’s the only place they can hide from it. The water over the years has shaped small pot holes in the ceiling and each little bat roosts in its own 'egg-cup'! They chatter while you explore and it’s like a scene from a story book!

The gardens at Maweni are beautiful. Everything is quite tropical and so there is greenery and flowers galore and the smell of frangipani wherever you walk. There was a team of gardeners at work in the gardens when I arrived (poor guys working in the heat!) and they only just had seemed to have made headway a week down the line due to the extent of the beds! Palm trees line the banks (the camp is raised above rocky cliffs) and there are a good few Baobabs too. There's a restaurant and a pool but I prefer the self catering option and the sea!

One can get fresh fish caught that morning from the fishermen. There is a small thatched 'banda' - shelter - near the edge of the living area and the locals are allowed to come up and sell their wares. It’s really cool that this is a private beach so you don't get harassed by locals to buy things all the time like in central Mombasa. I did however get offered seashells for purchase by a fisherman while I was swimming in the sea! Anyway, the locals sell everything you could wish for at the sea....fresh fish (filleted for you on request thank goodness), lobster, crab, prawns, calamari, oysters etc. And you see them collecting it so you know it’s fresh (and they don’t harvest in excess it appears, just what is needed which it super). Then there are some veggie sellers with tomatos, ginger, garlic, fruits and potatoes so the basics are covered and one doesn't ever need to go to town really (I picked up milk and the like on the way in as well as an emergency bikini! Who'd have thought!). The coconut milk mandasi's (like a sugarless doughnut) freshly baked are my best.

The first 3 nights I was at the beach were the best. Caroline, a Dutch girl who did the Ecotraining course I just instructed (www.ecotraining.co.za), had a few days to waste before she headed home. The 2 of us teamed up to find a place to stay and then enjoyed such a lovely holiday together - fresh food (she's a great cook!), pedicures and massages from Smugglers Rest, the on-beach local salon!, long swims and walks and lots of laughs. We were like two kids at Christmas. She swears she'll be back from Amsterdam ASAP again with everyone she knows...she's fallen in love with Africa!

I adopted 2 stray cats. The first showed up while Caroline was still with me and we couldn't resist her. She's pregnant and obviously hungry so each meal we'd dish her some fish or calamari or tuna...the life of a beach cat. She makes the most bizarre squeaking mews and is too sweet. She's little, black and white with a pink nose and green eyes. This morning 'Grizabella the Glamour Cat' (I saw cats when I was home last!) had brought a tabby friend along for milk! It’s nice to have the company. Grizabella has got to curling up on the chair beside me in the evenings. It took a few days for her to get so familiar. The other climbed onto my lap immediately begging for attention...a bit more forward!

My Kenyan experience has been a brilliant adventure all round but I am looking forward to heading home to family for Christmas after some more training in the Mara (back to Koiyaki Guiding School www.koiyaki.com soon). I have a new little dress I want to wear and a great tan to show off when I get back!

Moments in Rukinga (Tsavo, Kenya)

The magic of Tsavo

Kenya: Considering Conservation

Reflecting on my first exposure to the Maasai Mara, I found great satisfaction in an article by Brian Jackman for the Telegraph (UK) and thought I'd share an extract from it as I have the sentiment in common with Brian regarding the future of the Mara and could not have worded it so eloquently myself...

"Kenya: a return to the age of innocence"

…In the wake of December rains, thousands of zebras and wildebeest had moved in from the Loita Hills and the big cats were out in force. In two days at Little Governors’ Camp I saw 30 lions, seven cheetahs and three leopards - and no one else was around. No wonder the BBC chose the Mara when filming its long-running Big at Diary series. But being the predator capital of the planet comes at a price: the reserve has become too popular for its own good and, in normal times when the camps are full, there would have been vehicles all over the place, converging like vultures whenever a cat was located.

A freeze on new lodges inside the reserve has brought some respite; but on the private land outside the reserve, it is a different story. There, on the rangelands of the Greater Mara, a government decision to give away common grazingland has triggered a property free-for-all, with unscrupulous investors buying up 150-acre plots in the hope of making a
quick killing from tourism.

The most outrageous example was an attempt to build a lodge on the rim of Leopard Gorge, an area frequented by generations of Mara leopards including Half-tail and her cubs, seen by millions of viewers on Big Cat Diary. Fortunately, the plan was quashed, but the abandoned buildings are a hideous eyesore in a hitherto pristine wilderness.

Elsewhere, development has continued unchecked. In the past year alone, at least a score of camps has sprung up within easy reach of the reserve’s main gateways, and the effect has been disastrous. At peak times, especially in July and August when the Serengeti wildebeest arrive, more than 8,000 visitors pour into the reserve, all wanting to see what has been called the greatest wildlife show on earth.

Last year, in an attempt to reduce the pressure, the Kenya Tourist Board doubled the park entry fees to discourage the minibus fleets favoured by budget travellers…

…Even so, in other parts of the reserve the congestion continues and the Kenya Wildlife Service admits it has no clear guidelines on how to control it.

Amid all the gloom, one initiative stands out like a beacon of hope, not just for the Mara but also for wildlife all over Africa. Three years ago, at the request of a local Maasai chief, 23,000 acres of pristine savannah on the reserve’s northern border were set aside as a private wildlife sanctuary. The Olare Orok Conservancy consists of 184 plots of freehold land whose owners have agreed to remove their cattle in return for a more generous income generated by high-end eco-tourism.

There are no fences and the savannah inside the conservancy is indistinguishable from the adjoining reserve, with giraffes, elephants and zebras moving freely among scattered flat-topped acacias - only the minibuses are absent.

The deal was brokered by Ron Beaton, a game warden’s son who has spent most of his life in the Mara, and Jake Grieves-Cook , spokesman for the Kenya Tourism Federation and owner of Porini Lion Camp , one of the four low-impact bush camps allowed on the conservancy.

“These private wildlife conservancies are the way forward,” says Grieves-Cook. “They give the Maasai a better income than they could ever earn from cultivation and we are very strict about visitor numbers, with no more than one tourist bed for every 700 acres of conservancy land.”

Wildlife inside the conservancy has also benefited. “We now have two resident lion prides, five leopards and regular cheetah sightings,” says Beaton, “and this all goes down well with our visitors. They enjoy watching lions without jostling minibuses disturbing the peace they have come to enjoy.”

During the dry season, these last unfenced rangelands of the Greater Mara become a vital dispersal area for wildebeest. They form an area bigger than the reserve itself and, without schemes such as the Olare Orok Conservancy, Grieves-Cook believes that the Mara ecosystem cannot survive.

Already, the amount of land available for wildebeest migration has been seriously reduced. The tragedy is that the Mara, which generates more revenue from tourism than anywhere else in East Africa, should have suffered the highest rate of wildlife decline. In the 1980s, 800,000 of the Serengeti’s 1.3 million wildebeest poured into the Mara each year.
Nowadays, fewer than 300,000 make the journey.

Ironically, the trauma of Kenya’s descent into anarchy has given the Mara a breathing space. The collapse of the country’s tourist industry will drive many of the cowboy operators out of business and shut down their camps. When tourism resumes, as it undoubtedly will, perhaps the government will see that privatising wild land, as the Olare Orok Conservancy has done, holds out the best hope for saving its wildlife…

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/africaandindianocean/kenya/1000488/Kenya-a-return-to-theage-of-innocence.html