Kenya Advice

[char]

Heading to Kenya/Tanzania in October. Fiance is there already doing some non-travel stuff.

Anyone been and have tips, place to see, place to avoid, etc? Realize timing may to be perfect for safari's etc.

Thinking of hitting either Masai Mara then Kenya coast or heading to Tanzania and Serengeti then Zanzibar.

Already finding that travel agents like to book you into expensive hotels when a $30 guesthouse will do fine.

Lonely Planet (not exactly 100% reliable) seems to indicate that you can go midrange for ~$60 a day.

[hop]

Your first option was my plan exactly 10 years ago. Got six weeks in country but had to abort mission on the coast (and the continent) due to the global predicament that started one day after I left the US. I had plans to sail from Lamu to Zanzibar on a dhow, climb Mt. Kenya, Ngorongoro, maybe drive down the coast to Seeth Eefrica or something - fully open ended feral sub-Saharan adventure for a few months but alas. Not a big loss considering what others were going through. Anyways...

How long are you there for?

Watch your wallet in Nairobbery.

Order your Tuskers "baridi" unless you like them warm.

If you have to travel by matatu, don't sit in the front or the back so you have a buffer between you and the other matatu that's going to crash into you. Try and find a driver that's not totally whacked out on mira (but do try some yourself).

I really enjoyed Lake Nakuru. It's a fenced in park so there's an artificially high density of animals. MM was also awesome for the vast landscape and impressive animals that you'll recognize from the Discovery Channel.

Bring fast lenses. The best animal action is in the crepuscular hours (aka golden hour) but it's more like the golden 20 seconds since Kenya is on the equator. Get up early, stay up late, nap mid-day when it's hot as fuck and everything else is asleep and/or backlit anyways.

Twende ka uchi kwaki tenda saa hii.

[grapedrink]

i just booked our flights for trip to east africa last night, landing oct 15th but will be in tanzania a week later. there's a bunch of tanzania tr's on here, and search for a thread i started about hawaii and utah a couple weeks ago because it turned into a discussion about east africa and there's some good info in there. travel agents are useless unless you want a packaged tour.. i prefer lonelyplanet.com and tripadvisor.com

if you have the cash look into mountain gorilla trekking in rwanda/uganda, for safari we're leaning towards tanzania and bush camping but even that is expensive. from what i gathered kenya has smaller parks, a lot more people on safari, but is cheaper. one advantage in kenya is in some parks you can drive off road and get closer to the animals, which is good for humans, but probably less good for animals. nairobi can be a fairly dangerous city from what i've read so be careful where you go at night. got a crazy slum, kibera. and tanzania has kili and zanzibar

[warthog]

My advice- get a Malaria shot. Hell, get 3.

All 3 people I know that have gone there have come back with Malaria.

[WARY]

If you want a safari that is a little more reasonable with no crowds, go to Ruaha National Park southwest of Dar es Salam. It takes a good day and a half to get there by bus, but there are tons of animals and very few people. Its on Tanzania Hwy #1, and a good overnight spot halfway there is Iringa Town. Good restaurants (we recommend LuLu's) and cheap hotels are available, then the road turns to dirt and gets a bit dusty. But once you arrive in the park you find great accommodations and super good food at the Mwagusi Safari Camp run by Chris Fox, who's family has run the camp for decades (www.mwagusicamp.com). There are elephants and lions in camp at night so no going outside in the dark, but the day trip safaris are completely jammed with tembos, simbas, giraffes, hyenas, ostriches, cape buffaloes by the thousands and all sorts of other creatures, but no humans. In several days of driving around we saw only one other vehicle. That's not the case in the Serengeti or the Tsavo where squads of vehicles converge on any lion sighting.

Dar es Salam is huge and completely sucks, but the resort community of Bagamoyo an hour or two north on the coast is great (and its a good ways away from those butchers from Somalia who have targeted the resort communities of Kenya). Zanzibar is cool but its a BRUTAL ferry ride over there (two hundred people drowned this week on a ferry trying to get there). Freddy Mercury's restaurant is pretty cool right on the ocean in Stone Town. Stone Town itself is awesome and the people of Tanzania are super friendly in general.

[WARY]

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...light=tanzania

[haydukelives]

I have been to all the parks in Kenya but missed Tanzania due to politics at that time. For sure go to the crater if its the right season.I personally would not go to the coast anymore unless you are a mooselyme

[grapedrink]

If you want a safari that is a little more reasonable with no crowds, go to Ruaha National Park southwest of Dar es Salam. It takes a good day and a half to get there by bus, but there are tons of animals and very few people. Its on Tanzania Hwy #1, and a good overnight spot halfway there is Iringa Town. Good restaurants (we recommend LuLu's) and cheap hotels are available, then the road turns to dirt and gets a bit dusty. But once you arrive in the park you find great accommodations and super good food at the Mwagusi Safari Camp run by Chris Fox, who's family has run the camp for decades (www.mwagusicamp.com). There are elephants and lions in camp at night so no going outside in the dark, but the day trip safaris are completely jammed with tembos, simbas, giraffes, hyenas, ostriches, cape buffaloes by the thousands and all sorts of other creatures, but no humans. In several days of driving around we saw only one other vehicle. That's not the case in the Serengeti or the Tsavo where squads of vehicles converge on any lion sighting.

Dar es Salam is huge and completely sucks, but the resort community of Bagamoyo an hour or two north on the coast is great (and its a good ways away from those butchers from Somalia who have targeted the resort communities of Kenya). Zanzibar is cool but its a BRUTAL ferry ride over there (two hundred people drowned this week on a ferry trying to get there). Freddy Mercury's restaurant is pretty cool right on the ocean in Stone Town. Stone Town itself is awesome and the people of Tanzania are super friendly in general.

yeah i was looking into the southern circuit (ruaha, selous, etc) vs the northern (serengeti, ngorongoro, tarangire).. less people in the south, but the serengeti is famous for a reason, hard to pass that up.

[char]

Land in Nairobi on the 6th and fly out of Nairobi on the 21st of October.

I've got malaria meds and a whole bunch of shots at this point. N. Kenyan coast seems a little iffy right now due to security, so we are probably not going to Lamu. Due to the time frame of our trip we are looking at doing some internal flights to save time.

A travel agent quoted me 3500/person + 700 in internal flights for 2 weeks not including the plane ticket I have already purchased, which I thought was a little excessive.

[montanaskier]

Go to the Mara for sure. All the things HOP says are truth....road laws are loose to say the least. The coast is great, Lamu is sweet but you might check out Watamu as well...nice place (relative). If you are driving from say Nairobi to the Mara or anywhere else, I'd arrange a Kenyan driver as police stops can be a tad shady at times and end up costing you some cabbage. I'd tour the slums....it'll change your life. Don't go out at night too much. GREAT people but lots are REALLY poor and your watch, wallet, etc...could feed their family for awhile. Have fun.

[jm2e]

My advice is: Don't fuck anyone in Africa. According to every news report I've heard in the last 5 years, Everyone in Africa has full blown AIDS. Don't even fuck your girlfriend/fiance. As she is in Africa, she fits in the category of "everyone in Africa" and thus you shouldn't fuck her. At least until you're safely back in the states.
Have fun.

[grapedrink]

Land in Nairobi on the 6th and fly out of Nairobi on the 21st of October.

I've got malaria meds and a whole bunch of shots at this point. N. Kenyan coast seems a little iffy right now due to security, so we are probably not going to Lamu. Due to the time frame of our trip we are looking at doing some internal flights to save time.

A travel agent quoted me 3500/person + 700 in internal flights for 2 weeks not including the plane ticket I have already purchased, which I thought was a little excessive.

depends.. how many days safari? private? camping, tents or lodges? all meals included? so many variables, it can cost $100 a day, or $5000 a day..

[bklyn]

Be ready with your anti-malarial meds, but don't forget to be prepared with a prescription for the inevitable stomach distress that will happen if you drink local water, eat salads, or fruits you don't peel yourself.

Also be aware of the side effects of the most commonly dispensed medicines and why they might be a problem for skiers/active people months post trip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciprofl...dverse_effects

6 weeks in east Africa and I really enjoyed Nariobi, Lamu, Zanzibar, Samburu, Masai Mara and the Seychelles. 10 weeks of preventative malaria meds, and 2 courses of cipro were not so nice. I knew about the vivid dreams but a seasons worth of sore Achilles tendons and joint pain were an unexpected result of the cipro.

[hop]

Yeah, since you're there on the short term take malaria meds (I was on Lariam) but all the long-termers I know just dealt with malaria instead of the crap that Lariam can have you go through.

Also most definitely bring some heavy duty gut medicine. The "2nd week" syndrome can be a killer. It took out half of my companions including me. I was somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of effect; about five days of pissing out of my ass every 15 minutes. Others only had a day or two of the shits but it also put one girl in the hospital.

Oh yeah, Samburu was bad-ass too. Gerenuk!!!

[The AD]

Fiance is there already doing some non-travel stuff.

Unless you're marrying a dude I think you mean fiancée.

Glad I could help...

[char]

Crunch time on planning...

If I were to re enter Kenya for about 3 hours on the way back from Tanzania via airplane, do I need to get a visa again?

I'm arranging a flight back from Zanzibar which will put me in Nairobi for about 3 hours, but I will need to check in again for my return to the US flight.

Zanzibar --> Nairobi (need to check in again) --> US

If I need to clear customs again I might need to reconsider this plan...

Would someone at KLM even know the answer to this question?

[Gerome]

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/kenya/




RE: side effects of Cirpo; An alternate to Cipro that my doctor prescribed for my trip to India was Zithromax, mainly considered an upper respiratory antibiotic, it was prescribed since India had cipro resistant bacteria. Maybe it's an option for Nairobery.

[grapedrink]

dunno if you're going to lamu but i just read there was another kidnapping by somali pirates today, and another incident earlier in september where two british tourists were killed.

[DownAmr]

My best recommendation - http://www.lonelyplanet.com/kenya

[Jethro]

I flew into Nairobi in June 2001, and got a taxi to Tanzania. We did the Serengeti and Ngoranro(?) crater for a week, five days on Kili, and ten days of swimming and diving in Zanzibar. We spent a good portion of the Zanzibar time in a small area an hour out of stone town. Great trip

[char]

Bagged Lamu, heading to Zanzibar.

[Jethro]

Hit the fish market in Stone Town for dinner as often as you can