promises and miles
Forgive the neat little literary allusion there, but it fits the content rather nicely. Added to which winter solstice is coming up fast, less than a month to go now, we'll maybe get snow if we're lucky, and if a book deadline counts as a promise then I certainly have a couple of those to keep. Eeek. Appropriate time for Frost, if ever there was one.
Ahem - the point: I did quite a few miles back in September/October and completely forgot to mention it last time I posted - Virginia and I spent two weeks in Kenya, mainly in a little coastal town called Malindi (Hemingway stayed there, it seems), but also up the coast a bit and on safari in the Masai Mara, all of which added up to one of the best holidays I've ever had. I also made a promise there, to two guys in Malindi who helped make that holiday what it was - the promise being to mention their names here. So Lenny Henry and Omar Sharif, Lenny and Omar, if you're reading, this is for you - thanks for everything. And for anybody else who's thinking of Malindi, Kenya as a worthwhile holiday destination (and it is, can't emphasise that enough, it is) - these guys, Lenny and Omar, will sort you out with whatever you need in terms of safari arrangements, snorkelling expeditions, further travel, whatever. Check them out - everything they promised to us, they delivered (plus a couple of things they hadn't promised, when things went awry for us - the most luxurious tuk-tuk in Kenya, right Lenny?). You'll generally find them outside the Scorpio Villas hotel complex (where we stayed, also highly recommended, a beautifully laid out, laid back place to base yourselves). You'll also find them mentioned repeatedly on Trip Advisor.com - proving that we aren't the only ones they delivered for.
So what's on offer, exactly? Well, Malindi itself has beautiful white sand shorelines, some of the more colourful reef diving I've ever seen, and a bustling, pluralistic culture in which the component groups (Christians, Muslims, Animists, coastal dwellers and inland visitors, native Kenyans and immigrants alike) all just seem to get on. It provides a salutory reminder that melting pots are everywhere, not just in big, first world metropli like New York, London or Sydney. (It also provided a salutory contrast with another place we went, some distance up the coast, where the population were 90% Muslim and the remaining 10% minority were decidedly not (IMHO) feeling the love.)
Meanwhile, in the Masai Mara, you have to keep pinching yourself to recall that you are not participating variously in a David Attenborough documentary or a Hollywood movie about Karen Blixen. The animals show up out of the bush or from over the veldt horizon as if booked in for the event; elephants, lions, giraffes, cheetahs, you name it, every African animal you've ever seen Attenborough stand dangerously close to. Your driver can mostly get you to within single figure metrage of all of them, and they're all utterly unfazed by your presence. You spend the whole day in the same this-is-not-fucking-real trance. And then, heatsore and full of aches from the bone-rattling hours of cross country driving, you head for home, and that's a whole other unreal experience. We stayed in a place called the Mara Safari Club, in what is rather deceptively called tented accomodation. Ye-esss. Let's put it this way - these tents had purpose built wooden porches overlooking the river (and a pod of noisy hippos therein), tiled floors and electric light fittings, ensuite marble topped bathrooms and a four poster bed with turn down service including a hot water bottle for your feet (which can be a bit of shock when you get blurrily into bed after a day watching exotic animals and aren't expecting to find anything warm in there with you). This kind of camping I could get used to.
And (to wrap this up quick before I become the family look-at-my-holiday-snaps bore) the Kenyans themselves have to be the most incredibly friendly people I've ever felt the urge to generalise about - I mean, come on; where else in the world does your immigration officer inquire at length what kind of holiday you've had, ask you to write down a few useful phrases for her in Spanish (Virginia's native tongue), tell you to come back soon, and wish you a safe journey home with such warmth and enthusiasm that she completely forgets to hand you back your exit-visa stamped passports? Homeland security, it ain't!
So, if you're wondering about a holiday in sub-Saharan Africa - don't wonder. Just go to Kenya, go to Malindi, and go to the Masai Mara - it's life-enhancing, life affirming, in a way I would not have believed a two-week last-minute break ever could be.
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