Kenya 08

When I first joined scouts, I never for one minuet imagined that one day I was going to end up running round in the middle of Kenya being chased by elephants or woken in the middle of the night by lions! If you had told me that three years ago you would have probably got a reply like;

"What me in Kenya, I don't think so some how, that’s where they have big animals and insects and snakes!" Well what a difference 3 years can make

Looking back though, it dose seem hard to believe that I actually got there! It's still overwhelming to think that a month ago I was in the middle of one of the most beautiful places in the world with some of the most amazing people I had ever met! The fact that it all seems so surreal is that we found out about it over a year and a half ago and every single part of my life from that point seems to have been geared to going on the trip.

The journey getting there was almost as challenging as the trip it's self. As well as attending the training weekends and selection day, we had the daunting task of raising £2000 expedition fees as well as the money to buy all our kit and not forgetting the vaccination and medical fees! I know for sure I wouldn’t have been able to go if it wasn't for the support and help everyone gave me, especially JCH, the Brian Sellars Scout trust fund and the Alec Oats funds. With out them I wouldn't have made it and I know I'm really lucky that I got so much help and support.

We didn’t have time to take in our surroundings when we eventualy managed to get through customs in Nairobi as it was dark and due to the fact, Kenya wasn't the most stable of countries at that precise time we had to go straight from the airport to our first base camp at Hill Crest Boarding school on the outskirts of Nairobi.

The next day we awoke to a day of preparation. (As if we hadn’t done enough already!) We spilt of into our teams to prepare all group kit such as machetes, shade sheets, spades, and most

importantly the food and water. We were slightly perturbed to find that our staple diet consisted of Alpen, savoury mince, tuna, corned beef and angle delight. (As well as a few other goodies and surprises. Such as the 5 teabags per person a day rations.)

The next day was an early start, as we had to cover a lot of distance in one day on pretty poor roads if we wanted to arrive at base camp 2 in daylight. We were crossing the country in giant army trucks; this was the first real glimpse of Kenya that we got. The crowded dusty roads, the busy cities and the quiet mud hut villages. It was like two opposites, the built up areas had smart business people going to work, and the villages had children playing barefoot in the dust. It was surreal. But the most jaw dropping view was the rift valley as it fell away beneath us. The journey lasted 8 hours plus two stops, as it was a scouting expedition we decided to stop at


Baden-Powel’s grave to pay our respects and then gate crash his bungalow.(Where spiny now features in the guest book!) However the majority of the journey was spent in true scouting spirit, singing songs or using our amazing ability to be able to sleep anywhere.

(Even in a truck going on tracks not unlike some of the stuff you would find over houndkirk or Totley moss.)

We were sharing our base camp with two other teams, Camel trek B and the community service team. It was quite daunting as we drew nearer and the rolling hills gave way to thick bush and dusty tracks, with ecathia trees with 4 inch thorns. We had a bit of a shock when we

arrived at base camp, as the blue skies suddenly turned black and the scorching sun gave way to an outburst of tropical rain storms. So much for "All ways being prepared." our reluctantly packed waterproofs were shoved in the bottom of our kit bags! We huddled in the truck as we waited for it to stop, to paint a picture for how heavy rain it was, if you leant your head out the window you would get hit in the face by the rain coming back from the ground.

Thankfully the rain only lasted two hours, so we ended up putting up camp in the setting sun. Our team was on the first nights "Watch." It was essential to have a night watch rota whilst we were out in the bush, otherwise we may have woken up with some not so friendly neighbours. (Although from experience I can tell you that not even watches can prevent this some times!)


Watch consisted of getting out of your lovely warm sleeping bag, and bumbling over to the fire, where you were handed a hot drink by the pair before you, who went to bed as soon as they were sure you were awake. And then you and your partner spent an hour drinking hot drinks, scanning the darkness surrounding you with a torch and building up stupidly big fires, we had some quite eventful watches, which evolved the camp being surrounded by hyenas, a lion getting to close for comfort and a herd of elephants splashing in a dam. It was one of the scariest yet exiting feelings in the world when your torch hit a pair of eyes coming out of the bush. I was so glad that I got put on watches mainly with people who knew what to do. (Aka. The Kenyan scouts, and the camp leaders. ) (I was not impressed when one of the guys I was on the last night with decided to fall asleep and wouldn’t wake up! This just happened to be the night the camp was visited by a lion.)


When we met the camels we were surprised at how big they were, and how ugly! They looked nothing like the camel Amy and I drew at our training weekend (MR.DARCEY)

I'm not going to subject you to a day by day account of the trek as I don't think I’d fit everything one post! But a basic day went like this;


5:30- Get up
6:30- Have camp taken down, camels loaded and set off walking.
7:00 to 7:30- stop for breakfast. (A yummy packet of Alpen. yay! can you detect the subtle hints of sarcasm?)
WALK- between 10 and 20Km a day.
Around 11:30-12:30 - arrive at the day’s camp. (Usually a random spot next to a river or dam.)
From 12:30 to 6:30- Set up camp, do slightly crazy scoutish things eat two meals, do some project work, do more stupid things and then go to bed.) (Setting up camp involved, lighting fires, putting up shade sheets, digging toilets, ECT.)


Walking

Whilst we were walking we managed to stop and do some weird and wonderful things, ranging from spotting 78 different species whilst we were in Africa, most of which we were some of the luckiest people in the world as we got to see some of the rarest animals in Africa on foot within a distance of 20 meters. (Wild African Hunting dogs.) we even got pretty close to some elephants.

(Too close in some cases.

We even managed to get a wee bit of bouldering in. We came across a rock that looked as if it had been the inspiration for pride rock (In the lion King.) we just casually decided to eat our packets of Alpen sat at the top. The rock its self was about 3 times the height of stannage, and the view was spectacular, you could see for miles and there was not one sign of civilisation. There were no buildings just a blanket of rolling hills, stretching away into the horizon. The only movement came from the birds flying around us. I would have quite happily stayed up there all day, however we only had time to take in the view, eat our Alpen. (Whilst doing so me and Keith decided to make an advertisement, to try and make it more appealing after 5 days.) And we had to go down, as each day we were in a race against the sun, as no one was capable of braving the midday sun.


We did the walking and thankfully the camels carried out kit. It was a good job, as we weren’t used to temperatures of high 30's and 40's. It was very intensive and we had to stop a lot, as people were getting slightly dehydrated and suffering from mild cases of heat stroke. Even the smallest thing took maximum effort, out there.

Other slightly interesting aspects of the walks included, watching the guys who were meant to be in charge of the gun, jump of a 40ft waterfall to have a swim. Or a

river crossing that came up to our armpits.

However most days I have to admit I was relieved to get to camp. Desert boots are not comfy. Never have been, never will be! How I missed my normal walking boots! My only consolidation was that I knew I wouldn't get any blighty ecathia thorns stuck in my foot due to the steel plating in the boot soles.


CAMP

I loved being on camp, it was awesome. We spent the time we weren’t doing jobs, working with the Kenyan scouts to learn Swahili, Learning about the wildlife and surrounding area, completing small projects that related to camp and generally learning a lot of stuff. However my 4 best camp experiences were;

1) Being in a tree during a tropical storm; on the first night of the actual trek, we found ourselves being washed out by more pouring rain. It just so happened I was sat on a platform in a very tall tree as the first lightning bolt cracked. (I got down quite sharpish.) We spent the rest of the night all staying up round the fire so we didn’t get hypothermia, as our sleeping bags were drenched. They even sent rescue trucks out to us; however they soon went back when they found us eating popcorn and singing round the fire. I didn't mind the weather, It was a great bonding opportunity on our first night alone as a team, and it was actually very amusing, in a strange sort of way.

2) Swimming in Hippo infested Rivers: Yes, defiantly not my brightest moment! But it was so hot and the river was nice and cool. We did check for crocs before we got in. (using a very reliable method of lobbing rocks into the river to see if anything moved.) and we were pretty sure it was shallow enough to see if there was a hippo there. (Even though we had seen hippos further up stream.) Me, Lizzy and some of the guys went swimming every day. Whether it be in dams or rivers. (Yes we braved tropical diseases to splash about.) The best bit was when Lizzy caught robs foot by accident, his reaction was tres ammusant!

3) Being charged by a very angry Elephant; again this was due to a lack of common sense and basically the fact that we were scouts and not guides. We were sat round camp, when we heard an almighty crack and turned round to see the top of a tree fall to the ground. Intrigued we decided to go have a look. It turned out to be a rather large bull elephant. So typically out came the cameras and we got some rather good shots. However the elephant didn't like the attention and started to walk away, Guys will be guys and decided they would follow it, which made it a very angry elephant, which turned on us and charged.... In blind panic we ran into the bush. I have never run that fast, and the only thought that kept in my head was "I'm safe, there’s 6 other people behind me!" Its no exaggeration to say we were all rather shell shocked for the rest of the night. (It was also reassuring to find out afterwards, that the guys with the emergency gun, for charging elephants, were asleep in their tent and had no idea where they had put the gun at the time!)

4) Being woken in the middle of the night by a lion; this was something that wasn't anything to do with us being stupid. The whole camp suddenly awoke to a very loud grunting noise. Petrified we sat up in our beds. We had no idea what it was, and the people on watch were in a total tizz as even the bush hard camel men were looking worried. All I remember is some one shouting its a buffalo and some one going its to loud to be a buffalo its an elephant! I was relived when Will one of the Kenyan scouts tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the shade sheets at the other end of the camp beds, at least whatever the animal was it could eat 15 other people before it got to me! I thought to soon however, as the buses started moving, I slunk into my sleeping bag, not daring to breath. I heard movement all around. Then the bush behind my head started to move. And stopped. I waited for what seemed like forever. And slowly undid my bag. I went over to the fire, (which by this time was surrounded by the rest of the team.) We asked our leader Adam what he thought it was; we told him to shut up and stop joking when he suggested a lion, but he wasn’t joking. The next morning the Camel men came over to ask if we were all ok and if we saw the lion walking round our camp!

The last night was full of emotion, we had come to the end of our journey and we were shocked that we had made it and sad that it was over, we just sat there, not knowing what to say. It was the same when we got back to base camp2 for the celebration party. It was draining. I didn't like sitting around waiting to go back to Nairobi, I would have preferred to have done another day walking. It was annoying that we had to wait for the truck when we could be out discovering more new things.
The whole trek was mentally and physically demanding, however it taught us all things that we might never have learnt. We saw things that the human eye seldom gets to see, and we experienced so many emotions in such a short space of time; from fear, awe, excitement, exhaustion, determination, panic and freedom. Not one of us left the trek the same as we had started it. We grew individually and we grew as a team.


Back at Base camp 1 in Nairobi, we sorted out all our gear and spent a day washing and sleeping, or in some cases, swimming.:) It was nice being able to get a shower , however it was slightly disappointing to find that out tans were Infact mud ! Our stay at base camp 1 was short lived , as they day after we set out for the Masi Mara.

The Mara was amazing. Whilst we were there we got to see the Wildebeest migration. I can't begin to describe how breathtaking it was, so if you want to know, have a look at some of the pictures on face book. We had some interesting brain lapses , like getting lost in the middle of the bush in the middle of the night. (And then getting out the tucks.) (Bearing in mind the Masai Mara is a game reserve!) , Keith jumping out of the truck to rescue my sunglasses after we had literally just driven past a pride of lionesses. So you know this and that the usual stupid stuff. It was one of the greatest feelings in the world, driving through the Mara listening to the Lion King sound track , however cheesy it was! There was nothing in the world that could have taken away the feeling of complete freedom and peace that I felt in Africa
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Back in Nairobi we spent the last two days, sampling the local restraints and discos. The highlight being the farewell meal at the world famous "Carnivore." where we were served meats of spears with swords, such as crocodile , or ostrich. Followed by a disco, with a live local band that included a lot of crowd surfing and dancing, particularly for some people who had maybe too much of the local larger "TUSKERS!" It was hard saying good bye to everyone, as it always is once you get to know people so well. The farewell party went out in style and it will be one of my last memories of a totally amazing country and the most awesome expedition.




Kenya has changed my life, I wouldn't have had this opportunity if it wasn’t for scouts, so I recommend that if someone offers you a trip like this, just go for it and don't look back. There is so much out there that we may never get to see! I know for one thing, Kenya has inspired me to get out there and do more, and I hope that if you ever get the chance you will too!