by Simon Calder, The Independent, UK (May 2008)
'The turmoil that followed Kenya's recent
elections led to a sharp drop in tourist numbers. But the Masai
Mara's game parks need visitors more than ever, says Simon Calder
- even if they do reveal nature red in tooth and claw...
Photographs can be unkind to Africa. The widest lens in imagedom
cannot do justice to the breadth of vision that so liberates the
eye on this magical continent. The usual banal clutter that so
obscures perspectives in Britain has not (yet) infiltrated the
grassy plains that are within tickling distance of the Equator.
So there is an awful lot of land, and dust, and a huge sky perforated
by skeletal acacias and speckled with ghostly clouds, for your
untrained eye to take in. But right now, shivering in the half-light
in a lightly visited corner of Kenya's Masai Mara, everyone is
focusing on the foreground.
The latitude is around zero, and the temperature feels about the
same. Before dawn, the cold infiltrates everything. But that might
be because we motley dozen have been still for a good half-hour,
on an outcrop overlooking Leopard Gorge, whose main feature is
a tortured fig tree that droops over the shallow dip.
The only movement is wavering, whispering grass and insects pursued
voraciously by a scarlet sunbird. A rock high above the channel
carved by some long-lost river resembles a giant's clumsy attempt
at dry-stone walling - or a couple of seriously rotting molars.
But what it actually is right now is a natural fortress.
Three lionesses have taken up residence, where they can keep their
offspring safe from predators - the young, even lions, are always
vulnerable in this wildest of worlds. The first rule of photography,
or so I have heard, is simply stated as 'f8 and be there'. The
dinosaur of a digital camera that I am carrying does everything
in an automatic, if eccentric, way, so I shall leave the aperture
to its own electronic devices. But at least I arranged the 'be
there' bit.
In fact, being there has involved very little effort on my part.
Sure, you have to get to Nairobi - an easy and inexpensive matter,
given the way that visitor numbers and fares have fallen since
violence erupted, post-election, in parts of Kenya. On the flight
I read enough dire warnings in (pre-conflict) guidebooks to convince
me that I would be lucky to escape the Kenyan capital with my
possessions intact. In fact, I spent a couple of days in the urban
jungle encountering nothing but small kindnesses. Nairobi may
be the de facto capital of East Africa, but it felt more like
a big village with some elegant colonial remnants - plus a scattering
of ungainly office blocks that look as though they were fly-tipped
in about 1975 by town-planners from Swindon who had discovered
that the Wiltshire had too many urban monstrosities for comfort.
Comfort in the capital is easy to find, because the reservations
systems at the big hotels are about as empty as the pre-dawn sky.
The most central is the Stanley, which is the location for a travellers'
shrine: the Thorn Tree. This knarled mess of timber became one
of the beacons of the overland trail; before the internet eradicated
the art of handwriting, notes gave advice to, or sought succour
from, travellers in Bedford trucks or geriatric Jeeps.
Today, short cuts abound: five airlines fly from Wilson airfield
in Nairobi (smaller and nearer than the main Jomo Kenyatta airport)
to half-a-dozen airstrips in the Masai Mara. These six define
the term 'arbitrary': they seem to be etched out of the earth
at random, with tracks leading off to places where herds of tourists
cluster.
If you do not see yourself as part of a mob, then perhaps you
should follow in my Toyota Landcruiser tracks and head for Kicheche.
This is a safari camp with several differences. Unlike some of
the more mass-market (a relative term) locations, Kicheche
Main Camp caters for just 22 guests. They sleep in canvas-walled
structures, but these were like no tents I have seen before; kitted-out
with beds so cossetting that the 5am call seems all the more cruel,
and with a built-in shower and loo. The Woodcraft Folk excursions
on which I cut my camping teeth some years ago, seemed only distantly
related to these temporary palaces.
The staff quarters are much more solid and permanent than the
guests'; if only the future looked as stable. Seventy staff, all
of them male, look after the guests at a ratio of 3:1. In an area
where only one-fifth of the workforce is meaningfully employed,
these jobs are even more precious than the experiences that the
traveller will take home. Running a safari camp - and creating
the conditions that will indulge high-spending guests while leaving
the wilderness undamaged - is a labour-intensive business. Laundry
is done by hand, and plenty of effort has gone into creating a
'fridge': a shed with charcoal walls; water is poured through
them, and the evaporation keeps fruit and vegetables cold (electric-powered
refrigerators are used for fish, meat and drinks).
Kicheche Camp has continued to employ its workers through
the strife, and remarkably its owners' confidence has been rewarded
with strong bookings. In contrast to the experience of many tourist
enterprises in Kenya, 100 per cent occupancy is a regular occurence.
Kicheche is the exception, though. Kenya's economy is powered
by tourism. In the brutal, bloody power-struggle that followed
the disputed elections, not a single tourist was harmed. Yet the
British government warned its citizens to avoid what had, until
then, been regarded as a safe, well-managed nation.
Reports suggest that besides the human casualties, plenty of animals
have paid with their lives: with many Westerners choosing to dispose
of their income elsewhere, pay has dried up for perhaps millions
of Kenyans. Reverting to subsistence agriculture means predators
such as lions and leopards - who see cattle as easily accessible
snacks - have been culled by villagers. Tourism has hitherto worked
miracles in preserving wildlife in Kenya, by making creatures
most valuable when they are left alone. The downturn in visitors
has shaken perceptions of the value of animal life.
Back at Leopard Gorge, the animal kingdom looks more like a kindergarten.
The cubs are pawing each other, looking for all the world like
oversized kittens, unconcerned about the three - then four, then
five - Toyota Landcruisers that arrived bearing spectators. The
only noises are the whispers of tourists, the staccato of their
shutters and the static of the two-way radios with which guides
communicate about the best locations. The big (and little) cats
are communicating, too, but wordlessly, by gesture.
Later, the savannah changes from nursery to mortuary. In full
view of a group of us sprouting from the top of a Landcruiser,
a Thompson's gazelle is 'taken' by a cheetah after a widescreen
sprint at the sort of speed that can be achieved only by mortal
danger. Exhausted by the chase, she is tripped, strangled and
quickly dies from asphixiation. Her gender is obvious, because
she perished when heavily pregnant.
A kill brings home the naked savagery of Africa. I find it distressing,
particularly that the moment of her death was caught on a dozen
cameras, including mine.
Later still, while a rainstorm captures about 270 degrees of the
horizon, I am still struggling with the confrontation with nature
in which I had willingly participated. A mother and her unborn
child have died, so that a family of cheetahs - a mother and four
cubs - can live. But most Kenyans have too many hardships to overcome
to allow themselves the luxury of self-doubt. They are hungry,
too.
You and I were not made for life on the equator. The journey from
Kicheche exposes the painful irony of the past four months.
Airport life in the Masai Mara is more relaxed than in the UK.
At Ngerende airstrip - one of the main gateways to the camps in
the National Park - the only permanent airport building is a shed
with a corrugated-iron roof that claims to be the 'Departure/Arrival
Lounge'. The duty-free shop is a shack on the edge of the wilderness.
It sells hippo skulls. Oh, and bows and arrows. And spears. There
is no security check. So you are welcome to carry a lethal weapon
on board. Only the least lethal of countries can allow that sort
of caper, and Kenya feels a kindly place. With the plains as empty
as a baggage carousel at Terminal 5, there has rarely been a better
time to visit the Masai Mara.
Just before the dust of the runway strip swirls up beneath the
wings of a Cessna, I take a picture of the shop. Then I look around.
To remember what Africa looks like, take another frame. But to
know what Africa looks like, take your eye from the lens and invite
the continent to flood into it.' Simon Calder, The Independent,
Saturday, 3 May 2008
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