Nairobi - The road to Lake Naivasha, northwest of Nairobi, is not for the faint-hearted. If it’s not the huge loaded trucks overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic like bull elephants each making their own way through the veld, it’s the prospect of plunging 1 000m or more off the verge to the floor of the Great Rift Valley.
The view, though, when you can tear your eyes off the back of your driver’s head, is – it must be said – spectacular, from the aptly named “Viewpoint”, a motley collection of corrugated-iron spaza shops selling everything from Russian-styled sheepskin hats to curios and Maasai blankets.
Time and distance mean something else in East Africa, particularly in Kenya, and especially in making the 17km trip between Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Nairobi’s city centre (the equivalent would be going from OR Tambo to Eastgate), a journey that took 2½ painful hours.
Lake Naivasha, though, is worth the trek. The only fresh water in the Great Rift Valley, which stretches from Mozambique to Lebanon, it was used as a landing strip for flying boats carrying the post (and passengers) from Southampton in the UK to South Africa, via the Vaal Dam. There are no flying boats today, there haven’t been for decades, but there are more than 400 species of birds from pelicans to herons, kingfishers and fish eagles among hordes of hippos. On Crescent Island, there’s also a collection of plains game, imported and relocated for the filming of Out of Africa, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Hollywood’s needs have become Kenya tourism’s boon as visitors are met by animals tame enough to be approached on foot to within about 50m.
It’s an ideal opportunity for the amateur photographers, but an incredible gift for city slickers just looking to unwind as the deft skippers of the narrow fibreglass canoes use their 15-horsepower engines to get their passengers as close as possible to the basking hippo families – or even the resident python grotesquely bloated after its meal, coiled around a low slung branch less than a 1m above the water’s surface.
As the sun starts to dip over the yard arm, it’s time for sundowners. Steering back to shore, we beach at Enashipai Resort & Spa – a three- time winner since 2013 of the World Travel Award for Kenya’s leading spa resort.
Belovedof Nairobians seeking a weekend away or high-powered corporates putting the world to rights during their week-long bosberaads, it’s an accolade that’s been deservedly won.
Beautifully designed, eco-friendly cottages complete with their own open-plan lounges and kitchens meld into the bush, with paths leading to the main dining area, pool, bars and even a private museum dedicated to perhaps the most famous people of East Africa, the Maasai.
You’ve got a serious number of choices when it comes to having that sundowner; on the patio, at the pool, back on the lake at a traditional Kenyan Nyama Choma (braaivleis) or even in typical South African-style bellied up to the bar.
There’s only one choice for your drink – a½-litre of ice-cold Tusker, the legendary Kenyan lager. Just make sure you ask for it cold – “Tusker baridi” in kiSwahili – because even here on the baking floor of the Great Rift Valley, true beer country if there ever was, many Kenyans prefer their beer at room temperature.
Choice is yours: game viewing or the beach
Kenya has had a rough couple of years, between battling political instability following the general elections in December 2007 and the recent threat of fundamental religious terrorism through al-Shabaab to the north.
But even before then, al-Qaeda blew up the US consulate in Mombasa in 1998 and militants blew up an Israeli-owned hotel in the country’s second-biggest city in 2002. The worst attack was carried out on the Westgate Mall shooting, an upmarket Nairobi mall in 2013, followed by the Garissa University College shooting in the east of the country last year.
“Is Kenya safe?” is the question everyone asks, when the country comes up as a possible destination in conversation. Well, anecdotally CNN and MultiChoice hosted the 20th edition of their African Journalist of the Year awards there earlier this month.
From a personal perspective, it definitely feels that way. I’ve been there twice within a year. The people are friendly, the security is omnipresent though not oppressively so. The country is nowhere near as obviously militarised as South Africa was during the 1980s; there are not armed troops on the roads or doing manoeuvres in the countryside, only metal detectors and bomb checks from security guards at every hotel, every place of business and, naturally, the airport. Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the home of Kenya Airways, is fast undergoing a major transformation. It’s chaotic in parts but with real hints of the kind of airport it will soon become.
For people wanting to take a leap of faith, the risks are minimal, but the rewards incredible: fantastic game viewing on the Maasai Mara and exquisite beach resorts on the Indian Ocean. The choice is yours.
Kevin Ritchie, Saturday Star