Lake Victoria Island Community

Recently I visited Kisumu, which is Kenya's 3rd largest city and also borders Lake Victoria, Africa's largest fresh water lake.  I took a boat ride on the lake, and visited a small island.  

The island houses a small community living in mud huts.  The local teacher joined me as the boat driver walked me around.  She teaches all the pre-elementary kids in a small pavilion with a dilapidated blackboard.  The older children take a ferry to Kisumu for school.

The island residents farm the rich soil.  Hippos live in the lake and come on-land during the night.  The farmers are required to sleep in their fields to protect the crops from the hippos.  Below is a picture of me stepping into a fresh hippo footprint.

Fishing is another source of food and income for the community.  Tilapia and nile perch are widely available, although the fish stocks are suffering from overfishing.

It was humbling to see how this community thrives on so little, and a reminder to be thankful for all that I have.

More pics from Egypt

More pics of my fellow travelers in Egypt:

Journey through Egypt

In mid-March, Jeremy and I visited Egypt. We had planned to go previously - before the revolution broke out - so we were glad to have a renewed opportunity to go.

First stop, of course, was the pyramids. We climbed on the pyramids, walked the tunnels inside them, took pictures in front of them, and fended off the vendors trying to sell us all manner of souvenirs.

Next to the pyramids is the sphinx, which offered a great photo opp even though the sphinx long ago lost its nose.

Leaving Giza, we headed south to Luxor. Soon enough, Jeremy found a coffee shop where he smoked some shisha. He also couldn't walk away without buying a shisha pipe of his own.

Much of our tour involved visiting temples. Here's a great pic of Jeremy standing on our Nile cruise boat with Kom Ombo Temple in the background.

Our trip ended with one final night in Cairo, including a sunset visit to Al-Azhar park, where I hammed it up for the camera with our fellow traveler Javier.

If you haven't been to Egypt, go now! Prices are low and the tourist industry is hungry for visitors!

Real big fish... and golf balls

A few weeks ago I went on a guys weekend... Kenya style.  Does that mean going out 4 wheel Driving looking at animals... of course not.  We did not deviate one bit from what we could have done in the states.  We went golfing on the coast with a day of deep sea fishing thrown in.

Seven guys from the embassy, four days, 6 cases of beer, two bottles of bourbon, and some poker chips made a fantastic long weekend. The golf was spectacular, but the highlight was the one day we went fishing (we can't survive on golf alone).

I say the fishing was good, and it was, but it was not what I expected.  My boat caught only two fish, one right after another... after 4 hours of trolling.  I was lucky enough to reel one of them in; a nice size sailfish that was making advertisement brochure leaps out of the water.

The experience was too short lived, only about 10 minutes on the reel, but it was worth it.  It was no marlin but it was pretty impressive none the less.

Yup, check that one off the list.  

Brown's Cheese Factory

Last weekend, I toured Brown's Cheese factory. Brown's is the only edible cheese I've found in Kenya, and it's quite good! First we donned lab coats and attractive hair nets:

Then we were taken through the factory area and saw some of the vats where they make the cheese. Our tour guide told us that Brown's makes over 15 different types of cheese from mascarpone to cheddar to bleu. We also walked through the cheese "cellars," where the cheeses sit to age. Each cheese is wiped and turned every day, and some stay there for months or years.

The most impressive feature of the operation is that it's still very much a family business. The factory is actually attached to the founder's house, and we traipsed right through their living room during out visit there. I have no idea where they have the space to make 15 different types of cheese! At the end of the tour, we were rewarded with a scrumptious sampling of 10 of them. I also went home with about $40 worth of cheese!

Camel Adventures in Central Kenya

We had an amazing weekend in Nanyuki in central Kenya. Thanks to Lonely Planet, we learned of a place called Nanyuki River Camel Camp and decided to check it out. Upon arrival, the staff showed us to our huts. At this point, I was a little worried my friends would insist on getting back in the car and finding someplace else to stay.

The doorway into the hut was so low you almost had to crawl in. The interior of the dirt floor hut housed only a simple bed with a rough-hewn bedside table. There were no lights and the hut let in so little sunlight, you had to use your flashlight inside the hut even during the day.

We put our bags in the huts and walked down to the "river" that ran along the edge of the camp. River was a strong word, since it was more like a stream. When we came back to the camp, the staff had built us a fire, which we gathered around with a bottle of wine. Soon, the owner of the camp joined us. Chris is a Brit who has lived in Kenya since the early 60s. Chris began telling us stories of his years in northeast Kenya, living and working with nomadic communities. This experience inspired him to buy a herd of camel, build the camel camp, and transport authentic Somali huts from northern Kenya as sleeping lodges. Chris seems to have traveled everywhere in Kenya and knows everyone, including Kuki Gallmann, the main character of the "I Dreamed of Africa" movie.

Soon we adjourned to dinner, in the Restaurant of a Thousand Stars, which featured a low table flanked by sitting cushions under the night sky. In this simple environment, with no electricity, we didn't have high expectations for dinner. The meal was simple Kenyan/Somali dishes - pilau, potatoes, kachumbari, camel - but it was delicious! Our friend Keith who eats like a bird went back for thirds!

The huts were surprisingly warm when we crawled back in to go to bed. We fell asleep to the gurgling sounds of the stream and the "dulcet" screams of the tree hyrax.

The following morning, we met the namesakes of the camp - members of the camel herd. We climbed aboard and Chris led us on a 1.5 hour ride out of the camp, along the road, and into a neighboring ranch. Our caravan of camels was quite a sight to the others we encountered - motorists, bicyclists, pedestrians, and a very skittish horse. My camel also enjoyed biting the leg of the camel in front of me, which added to the excitement of the journey. When we finally dismounted, we were as saddle sore as if we had taken a six-hour bike ride!

As we bid farewell to Chris and his camels, we all agreed that we'd had a wonderful adventure and a great escape from our comfortable, predictable, routine lives in Nairobi.

Christmas at Lake Baringo

I had planned to include pictures with this post, but the internet is being so slow I had to abandon that idea. (Seriously, I clicked upload, went downstairs to play with the cats, grab a snack, and read a magazine article, and when I returned, the computer was still working on uploading my five photos.)

We spent Christmas camping on Lake Baringo in the Great Rift Valley. It was a fun trip, but I barely got any sleep. Lake Baringo is home to crocodiles and hippos, with informational memos posted at the camping site reception desk about how to avoid getting eaten by a croc or crushed by a hippo. Despite these warnings, Jeremy and our camping partners wisely chose a camping site right at the water's edge, and I warily eyed the crocs who were watching us as we pitched our tents. No one else seemed bothered by this, and they all slept peacefully. But I spent the night trying to ignore the sounds of grunting hippos and splashing crocs, and hoping dawn would come quickly!

The daylight hours were much better. We took a boat ride on Christmas morning, seeing lots of birds, more crocs and hippos, and throwing fish to fisheagles who swooped down from the trees and scooped the fish right out of the water with their talons. In the afternoon we took a nature walk, giving wide berth along the way to a male ostrich protectively guarding an egg, a venomous snake, and a beehive. Dangerous animals were clearly the theme of this trip!