Dr. Romero in the World Dr. Romero in the World
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The history of Kenya begins to the two months of to come from Cuba. My aunt invited me to a safari for this country African. The trip will be in group, all with an age stocking of 50 years, for what the most probable thing is that it is a little strange for me. regulation Jabs and medication against the malaria, 15 days before the departure. For my head they pass a thousand preconceived ideas on like it will be this country that he/she reminds me my readings of childhood when he/she dreamt in being a 15 year-old captain. Mombasa, slaves' port, city that he/she brings me sensations of trips and it risks.
I fly via Madrid from Paris to Nairobi, 20 hours. We arrive crushed, in Madrid we have been united the rest of the group. All work in the English Cut, they are a very united family. My baggage weighs of the Host, I take a tight box to rotate in the reefs of the Indian one, a gigantic tripod, cameras of pictures and a container of sensitive material with the diving team. My aunt something is horrified with so much volume.
Nothing else to arrive at the airport of Nairobi, I checked that the baggage had been plundered, they lifted me my apnea fins. I mounted a chicken of balls, without them I felt nude against the reefs. 1,20 m measures. and they are absolutely indispensable to be able to take pictures without bottles, it leaves of my plans he/she leaves to the garete. To make up for of the offense, I get dressed of safari in the Hilton, where we will happen one day, with a salacof that will accompany me the whole trip and with some comfortable boots to walk, 20 $, veri cheap, to be."
The Dr. with the Luos ® Toni Romero 93"Jambo wuana", first words in swahili that they mean hello friend, the formula to begin any conversation, I respect and African kindness. We visit the city, dangerous he/she notices us the guide, you don't leave to the street without knowing to where you go and if you make it in taxi." In the door of the Hilton they mount guard about 10 employees dresses of red, under the sun of Africa that falls to lead. We visit the zoo of Nairobi, stingy and small, and the museum of the railroad, with machines of century principles. Kenya was colony British, the train opened the interior of the east from Africa to the one white man, a true pity.
I die from desires of to leave this city and to see the true Kenya, the massais, the animals. I dislike scent of the city, we have dinner in the hotel with the perspective of leaving tomorrow to the Massai Mara, in the Kalahari.
We get up with the sun, Nairobi is wrapped in the fog and there is not nobody in the streets, it is extremely sinister. We approach a series of minibuses of eight squares of capacity. With them we go toward the savanna, we will finally leave this capital that not anything has seemed me hospital. Our driver is called Wiliam, it is serious as a judge, I don't remember to have seen him smile in the whole trip.
The highway opens up before us like in Memoirs of Africa. People walk for the border of the roadway in an eternal search of the water, women and girls with clothes of red colors that contrast with the green tone of the vegetation, they circulate loaded with drums of plastic.
The Rift Valley, the flaw that crosses the whole continent African, it is shown after a corner with all their splendor. For me, that I have worked with ethnic music during many years it is a dream: Manu Dibango, King Sunny Adde & the African Beats, Fela, all my heroes of this containing rulan for my head. To the one bottom, the savanna with the acacias and the first flocks of gnus are a new scenario for my camera that is ready to rotate and to rotate for that highway toward the man's origins.
Woman luo and samburu girls ® Toni Romero 93
I think of Michael Litti, the anthropologist that he/she discovered Luci, the first homínida (it was female) and him that it would feel the one it turns face to face with the oldest ancestor of the humanity. Now I understand that the homo sapiens comes from Africa, it is something that one feels in that earth that has the red color of the blood.
We arrive to the doors of the National park of Massai Mara, in which we have the first contact with the true inhabitants of this wonderful country.
They come closer to the window loaded with their necklaces circular of bills of colors. We are inside with the conditioned air, when lowering the window the heat and their scent they are like a slap. A cloud of flies it watches them rotating around to its.
The rest of the clan (and myself) we react enough bad, we didn't understand a word of what you/they told us, although their idea it was more than white, they wanted to sell us beads and other sew for guiris. I find pelmas extraordinarily, we tell them that not and give him that you give him. We close the windows so that most of the flies they stay with us. With them and the scent we enter in the he/she reserves, gnus, giraffes and antelopes accompany us while we circulate for an earth hint with two roderas that are sometimes full with brown mud.
Wiliam stops in a hedge of thorns and he/she tells us - " lion ". Among the branches some yellow eyes, its are glimpsed look doesn't resemble in anything those of the zoo of Barcelona, this is a murderer. But the beast yawns and you/he/she is rotated lying down to give a nap, it is midday and the big felines move at night.
The lodge of the Massai Mara is fantastic. A massai for guiris (more appropriate, I would say) he/she welcomes us armed of the typical truncheon and with an ear smile to ear, it seems of plastic. The hotel runs off with on a hill from the one that he/she restrains a good extension of the reservation, it is an idyllic image, the elephants pasture sluggishly accompanied by flocks of antelopes. We eat as lions, bait with vegetables to the vapor, salads and we drink African beer in bottles of 1/2 liter, uhmmm!, stupendous.
The bungalows is located in a small one walk covered with trees for where they swarm the dantas, a species of giant rat that is not a rodent it is related with the pachyderms (elephants). We accommodate the things and we leave safari for the reservation. There am mounted the video camera in a bolster subject to the minibús with a grip (sucker), it works of marvel. I rotate the gnus, those hyenas, giraffes, a flock of lions and the eagles that observe from the acacias, by way of watchtowers, in search of something that to eat. Gigantic termiteros stands out of the floor that surprisingly is covered with almost 40 cm. of green grass. It has rained one week and the Kalahari ago he/she offers that unusual, fertile and magnificent aspect in all their splendor.
The sky in Africa is different, the clouds seem suspended on the horizon who has visited these places he/she can him to understand, that rabid blue and the light so peculiar near the equator. The scent of the savanna that impregnates you and it intoxicates, he/she hangs on us when being soaked the earth with a cloudburst that falls wetting it suddenly everything.
We return to the charmed lodge with our first one taking of contact. I want visionar the images in video, I have rotated about 30 m. For of raining nothing else to arrive, I change myself and I give myself a bathroom in the pool, supported in the border I contemplate the setting of the sun inside the water drinking a blodymary. They recommend us desinsectar the room before go to have dinner, the spray is of the mark Jhonnson and the text is in English and swahili, it seems able to fulminate to a lion since should be absent of the room at least half hour after fumigating it.
We have dinner by the light of the candles while the massai they dance tribal dances, a show for tourists, however these they are really", they use their voices like only instruments and it would even be said that they are beings of another galaxy with their rhythmic ones jumps.
A stupendous day.
Kenya is an expensive country, if your trip is hired. An important safari can cost you from 500.000 to 1,000.000 of pesetas peacefully. The rent of Lodges, vehicles, guides and permits will make that the budget is shot.
If it is the first time that you visit this place you I recommend that you catch a route made from a travel agency. The capital, Nairobi, is only advisable to contact with guides of safari and transports. It is a dangerous city they advise you not to leave the one hotel without guide or with taxi. This is due to the interior migration from the field toward the cities, where the unemployment always drives to the delinquency. A common phenomenon in most of African countries.
You don't stop to visit the Museum of the train and the restaurant The Carnivore", you will eat antelope and crocodile, some delights. Only take dollars U.S.A. and change in the Hilton, or in any important hotel. The native language it is the Swajili and the population belongs to the ethnoses Masais and Samburu. The character of the native ones is very reserved, don't try to photograph them without requesting permission. The habitual greeting is: jambo wuana" (hello friend), it is used with everybody. The national motto is: it only Takes their pictures and leave alone their prints", the conservacionismo taken to slogan. It is absolutely forbidden to be taken: ivory, bones, horns, skins, you plant, corals, shells, eggs and feathers. As you will see it is more than clear, the pain to infringe this norm is a strong ticket or the jail, few jokes.
The exit of Nairobi toward the field won't forget it never. The appearance of the Rifft Valley, on the way toward Massai Mara it is a show that will make havocs in your movie stok and mainly the first contact with the massai. The life of this ethnos rotates around the livestock, their wealth is measured by the number of heads that they possess. They live in cabins that recover of excrements of the heads to make them raincoats. Their diet is based on milk and blood that you/they obtain puncturing the neck of the bulls, it is picked up in a pumpkin, he/she clots and it is already clever for their consumption. The milk gets ready as yogurt, mixing it with some urine.
The massai is transhumantes, they and the livestock they travel the savanna in search of water and grasses, on the contrary of the other ethnos that Kenya, the Samburu inhabits. These, are farming and therefore sedentary. They have the power in the government (although they are minority).
Of course for an European it is absolutely impossible to distinguish both ethnoses, both descend of the Nubios. For me they are one of people but beautiful of the earth.
Inside the Massai Mara, is a lodge that I recommend you, the Mara Calms, she has one of the views that would rot to describe to the whole east of Africa, from the same pool can one it turns great extension of the Serengueti. If you like panoramics you will be able to fly in globe for the savanna for the savage price of 450 $.
The lakes are another of the marvels that reserves us this country, I was fascinated by Naivasha in the island Crecente declared sanctuary for mammals. As there is not depredadores you can to go for a walk freely for her, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, also of eagles pescadoras and an infinity of birds to photograph without any problem.
Another jewel is the lake Elemeantita, it is covered for millions of flamingos and their plagued bank of geysers with formations of crystallized sulfur, I have never seen anything resemblance.
The half temperature of the area (very near the one Ecuador), it is of 55ºC and just as they noticed us it is earth of snakes, the black mamba (call two steps) it is the most common.
The coast of Kenya has for us, the submarinistas, all the necessary one for some days to happen of it authenticates adventure. The island Wassili and the reservation of Simoni are the most accessible from Monbasa. Anyway in the hotel I could hire an immersion to a reef that was only about 100 m. of the beach and it stops repera, the picture of the fish angel that figures to the foot.
As the tide it ascends twice a day for to find clear waters has to move away from the coast, it is the case of Wassili. Their waters are the typical of the Indian, blue turquoise and a great variety of fauna and flora.
Be careful with the grazes, a German that I knew, it took one week in dry dike to cause of a lesion for coral in the leg. The wounds in the tropic they are very bad of healing.
In the reservation of Simoni you will consent to one island where you will be able to observe in the reef great quantity of howitzers coming from ships of the Second World War. They lie covered with inlays making company to the most curious fish, gender platax, plectorhinchus, fish clown, loras (scarus), you line, etc.
To finish, if you have some 400.000, - ptas and time, go to Kenya, it is another world.
