I adore wildlife and object to circuses and zoos, so visiting one of Africa’s national parks to see elephants, lions, buffalo and the rest of the savannah was a dream come true for me.
I had been nurturing the idea of going to Kenya for about a year. The lack of sufficient information about resorts, safety in the country, and the epidemiological situation stopped me. After reading and reviewing everything I could find about it, I decided: Kenya is better to see once.
Itinerary
Briefly, our program looked like this:
- Visit to the Masai Mara National Park.
- A visit to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Foundation in the capital Nairobi.
- Vacation at beach resorts: Malindi, Mombasa and Diani Beach.
Vaccinations
Vaccinations are not required to enter Kenya, but it is recommended to be vaccinated against yellow fever. Despite the fact that there have been no cases of the disease in the country for more than 10 years, we decided to get vaccinated. We received an international certificate, which is valid for life, and now we can enter exotic countries such as Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
We live in Yekaterinburg, so I was looking for a flight with a convenient connection and a minimum of connections. In the end, we settled on the route Ekaterinburg – Dubai – Nairobi with a four-hour connection. The journey to Nairobi took 16 hours, which seems a very easy option for us.
We flew Flydubai and Kenya Airways.
Housing
I booked hotels, villas and apartments on the well-known services Airbnb and Booking. For New Year’s Eve I chose a decent hotel Lotfa Resort Diani within walking distance from the coast and I was not wrong. For the days after the safari, we booked the cool Lion House Villa in Malindi because we realized we would be tired after such an adventure. It exceeded all expectations.
In Mombasa we decided to take a simpler accommodation – Zuri Studio Nyali Mombasa apartments, as we planned to sleep and wash there only. And so it turned out. We suffered terribly the first two nights without air conditioning, but then we got used to it, and shower with cold water only was not a problem. And the girl we rented the apartment from made our vacation unforgettable: she showed us the best bars, took us to local discos, told us what to see and where to eat. We are still in touch.
Transportation
To get from Nairobi to the coast, I chose a flight, which was not the most budget-friendly option. Since I was planning to visit three resorts, I took a flight to Malindi airport and back to the capital from Mombasa airport.
We bought the first round trip tickets for two people. But two days later I received a notice that the reservation had been canceled and there were no more tickets for those flights. The domestic flight was taken a couple weeks before departure. Buy tickets in advance.
An alternative to flying is by bus. From Nairobi to Mombasa is about 450 kilometers and the travel time by bus is 10-12 hours. It leaves in the evening and arrives the next day. 450 kilometers in 12 hours is brutal. The thing is the lack of normal roads and terrible traffic jams. But we decided to refrain from such exotics. And our first checkpoint was in Malindi. We did not want to spend almost 24 hours on the road.
We took a shuttle bus from Malindi to Mombasa and paid 600 KES (Kenyan shillings) for two people. For comparison: the cost of an Uber cab is 6500 KES.
From Mombasa to Diani Beach, where we celebrated New Year’s Eve, a friend of the girl we rented an apartment from gave us a ride. We paid him 2000 KES, and cold beer and interesting conversations were waiting for us in the car. He also drove us to Mombasa airport, but for 4000 KES.
Safari
The safari is something I recommend to all wildlife lovers. Almost all three days I cried with happiness. Occasionally, of course.
I chose the operator through safaribookings.com and was looking for a three day tour. It was important for me to be picked up at the airport and taken to the hotel after the tour. I settled on Lenchada Safaris – we communicated by mail and found common ground right away. The safari cost $300 per person, including transfer, tent accommodation and meals. It was possible to take a more expensive tour – there were options with lodges and hotels on the site. But the difference in price was significant for us – almost twice as much.
The first mistake was the decision to go on safari straight from the airport. The drive to Masai Mara takes about 7.5 hours, most of it off-road. I have not been so tired of the road for a long time.
The second mistake is saving money on accommodation. The tent itself is quite comfortable. It is a large tent with an attached shower room, there is light from 6 to 10 pm and in the morning, hot water. But I didn’t take into account that we are traveling in the rainy season. At night the temperature drops to +15 ° C and it is very humid. All night there is a real tropical downpour and screaming baboons. It feels like we slept under a cold wet blanket. One night someone jumped on our tent and tried to get inside.
The Masai Mara is considered one of the coolest game reserves in Africa. All of the big five are found there: lions, rhinos, elephants, buffalo, and leopards. We saw many animals: zebras, antelopes, cheetahs, crocodiles, hippos, elephants, many different birds, wild boars. And naturally, lions – every day.
When we were just approaching Masai Mara, we met a zebra. I was impressed to the point of tears: I was incredibly happy to see it, it was so unusual. On the second day, seeing a zebra became the norm and my brain perceived it as a dog in the street. Then we were impressed to see lions – again there was a storm of emotions, plus there were little lion cubs. On the third day, I finally stopped crying with joy at seeing them. The brain adapts quickly, and what yesterday was a huge thrill, today it seems like an ordinary thing.
We observed all the animals very closely. The only thing we couldn’t get close to was the cheetahs: there were many cars with other tourists around, and cheetahs probably don’t like that. We saw them from a distance of 20-30 meters.
No one let us close to the hippos, because most people die in accidents on safari because of hippos. They are very aggressive and unpredictable.
It was memorable how we went out to look for animals very, very early. The rest of the group didn’t want to get up because it seemed like they had already seen everything. We greeted the sunrise and then were the only ones to come across a pair of young male lions. They posed for us at arm’s length, lying around, yawning, opening their mouths.
The advantages of traveling in the rainy season are that there are few tourists, prices are half as low, and the temperature during the day is no higher than +25°C. This is important when you sit in a car all day, albeit with an open roof.
Also, the company I chose had a four-wheel drive Land Cruiser. This allowed us to drive through the national park during the rainy season with virtually no problems, and the downpours there just wash out the roads. Most of the cars that come into the park are underpowered. In three days we pulled out three or four jeeps with tourists that got stuck in the middle of the park.
On the second day, after it had rained all night, we got into a brutal traffic jam because one car on the road got stuck in the mud. It was impossible to go around it. Behind this jeep there was a string of about 20 cars that could not move on. And then all the tourists got out of their cars and started carrying stones to the place that had been washed away by the water. They put stone after stone into the mud so that the car could get out. That is, the tourists themselves paved the way for their jeeps.
Attractions
We stayed in Nairobi for a day for the David Sheldrick Wildlife Foundation. This is a very cool organization that is dedicated to rescuing elephants who are left without a mother. Every day for one hour the elephant sanctuary opens its doors to guests. Admission is $7 and all the money raised goes to the orphanage.
Volunteers tell about the work of the orphanage and the history of the animals that got there. After reaching a certain age, all elephant cubs are sent to their native savannah. 90% of them successfully adapt in the wild. Anyone can “adopt” an elephant by transferring a small amount of money to the fund. And the foundation will send you letters with photos of your elephant. You can become a sponsor without coming to Kenya – all the information is available on the Foundation’s website.
Resorts and beaches
Due to my lack of information, I thought any resort on the coast of Kenya was paradise.
In Malindi, we encountered a tide so strong that you couldn’t even see the water and the entire shore was covered in seaweed. By evening the water was knee-deep, but I did not want to swim in the warm jelly of seaweed. I would not recommend Malindi for a vacation.
Malindi is also an Italian resort, and we didn’t find any normal cafes there. There are either Italian ones, which start working at lunchtime and close at 10pm, or quite local barns with complete unsanitary conditions. But we never got poisoned.
I read that Italians came there about twenty years ago. At first it was just a few families. Then their friends and friends of friends started coming. Soon there was a settlement of Italians, they put up a high fence, brought in Italian coffee machines and olive oil. There were inscriptions in their language, and cooks from Italy began to arrive.
Nowadays it’s mostly elderly Italians who live there. My impression is that they go there for exoticism in the form of escorts. Nowhere else have I seen so many European male pensioners accompanied by African girls. As Caroline, who we stayed with in Mombasa, told us, this is the norm for them. English and Italian pensioners come there, rent a house for a year, make a permanent girlfriend who accompanies them, goes to the beach with them and spends time together.
We spent five days in Diani Beach. There is a gorgeous multi-kilometer beach with snow-white, fine sand, like flour, one of the most beautiful in Kenya. And in one part of the beach thanks to the reefs there are no waves and you can safely swim with children, as it is shallow. The second part of the beach is designed for windsurfing: there is a constant wind. Surfers and windsurfers hang out there.
Another peculiarity of the beach is that on the first shoreline there are several dozen abandoned hotels. Once tourism in Kenya began to develop actively, and everyone began to hastily build hotels near the shore. But for some reason the coast of Kenya has not become a popular tourist destination. And huge luxury hotels either stand overgrown, or the building itself is closed, but on the territory there are lounge chairs and sometimes working pool. Local entrepreneurs use them as a beach club, but this name sounds too loud for them, in fact everything is modest there.
Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya and is on the ocean coast. We really liked it there. First of all, there is infrastructure: shopping centers, cafes. But the city is very small by our standards, there are no tall buildings or special entertainment. All the local population in the evening comes to swim at sunset in the ocean. In general, I recommend visiting Mombasa to see how people live in the second major city of the country. The people there are much kinder than in Nairobi. If you compare the two cities, it’s just heaven and earth.
Food
We were not impressed with the local cuisine. We tried one dish, I don’t remember what it was called. It is highly overcooked pieces of meat that are impossible to chew. Everyone there eats them, and they recommended them to us. But we couldn’t even eat a piece. The cook was very upset that we refused to finish, came out to us, asked what was wrong, asked us to let him cook this dish again: perhaps he had failed and it would taste better the second time. But we explained that it was just an atypical meal for us, so he didn’t waste his time.
We decided not to experiment further and ate in European restaurants, which, strangely enough, are plentiful in Kenya. Apparently, this is due to the fact that retired Europeans come there. Almost anywhere you can find a good cafe or restaurant with very tasty cuisine. In Mombasa we ate at such a cafe in a shopping center, and in Diani Beach there are several good restaurants on the coast. And of course, there is delicious and inexpensive African wine everywhere.
Safety
To say that Kenya is a safe country is a mouthful. To say that Kenya is dangerous and that you are bound to be robbed, stolen or killed is not the same. Just in this country you need to observe elementary safety rules. And the level of risk in the capital Nairobi and on the coast is quite different.
Nairobi is horror, filth, poverty, the most inhospitable city I have ever seen. On the side of the highway we met three-year-olds with infants strapped behind their backs, playing in piles of garbage with plastic cups. This is the other side of Kenya, with its stunning reserves and miles of white-sand beaches.
With all the flights and overnight stays, we were in Nairobi for no more than two days. During this time we saw two fatal motorcycle accidents and got into an accident ourselves: a motorcyclist crashed into us. Luckily, other than the transportation, no one was hurt. As our huge cab driver looked at the car and the motorcyclist, I had only one thing on my mind: “Please, just don’t shoot each other”.
Kenyans tried very hard to make us feel comfortable. The cab driver, the motorcyclist and even the policeman, seeing my face contorted with fear, apologized and said that everything was fine.
It is dangerous to go out after 19:00 in Nairobi. We wanted to go from the hotel to the nearest shopping center for dinner – it’s less than a kilometer away. But the reception told us that it was risky and we should call a cab, and they would not let us out on foot. The gates of the hotel are closed in the evening, there is a checkpoint and guards with machine guns. They let the cab through, the guests get in, and the cab leaves the hotel with them.
And in Mombasa everything is much simpler, kind smiling people. Even the begging children there are very nice. We were in town on December 31st. I bought a bunch of chocolates and handed out snickers to the kids who were selling green oranges outside the mall. They were very happy. Amazing the difference between the two cities.
The only recommendation is not to walk in Mombasa in the dark on deserted streets. In Kenya, the usual locals are not on the streets at night. Tourists can always take a tuk-tuk or order a cab through Uber or Bolt. By the way, Bolt always has a lower price.
Once in Mombasa, someone tried to take my phone from me. We traveled there from Malindi on a public bus. We got off at the bus station and the cab drivers asked for three times what it cost to travel between the cities. We set off on foot. Some guy followed us. He was walking very close behind us, and at one point I sensed something wrong and turned around. The guy was standing right in front of me. I started yelling at him “Hey man, what do you want?” and waving my arms. He walked away. I took off my backpack, and it turned out that my pocket was already unzipped, and in it was a card holder and my phone. Literally a split second saved me from being left in Kenya without communication and money.
But when I shared this with Caroline, she said I should have shouted loudly that he was trying to steal from me. Kenyans really hope that tourists would come to the country and locals could publicly punish him: catch him, beat him or take him to the police. Every honest resident wants Kenya to be known as a good-natured country where tourists are welcomed. So this guy was more of an exception.
In general, I liked the people in Kenya very much – they are wonderful, kind, cheerful. We have been many places, but Kenyans seemed to me the most sincere. Whatever we asked for, whatever question we had, they always helped us, and completely unselfishly.
Communication and internet
We did not use cell phone service in Kenya. But we learned that you need a passport to get a SIM card. There is wifi in almost all cafes, hotels, villas and apartments. You probably won’t be able to download movies, but it was quite possible to send photos or upload them to your Instagram.
Money
Traveling is the best way to learn about the world, yourself and spend money. We spent a lot of money – our trip to Kenya was the most expensive trip we have ever taken. But not because the prices there are high, but because we had the opportunity to eat in expensive restaurants, drink wine and pamper ourselves with gifts.
We took a small amount of cash with us in dollars. But there are no problems with cashless payment in Kenya. All restaurants, cafes and hotels accept cards. Cash is needed for small expenses, souvenirs, tuk-tuks. I have never had any problems withdrawing cash: there is a well-developed network of ATMs almost everywhere except Malindi.
