Xmas, Amboseli, Mandy's bday, New Years and the rest

The day after we got back from Mt Kenya was Christmas eve, so time to get merry! We introduced Mandy to our local supermarkets and shopping centres... she was amazed at their good standard and couldn’t believe we’d asked her to bring so many supplies with her. I guess we were just spoilt for choice in SA and pined for all the things we couldn’t get here. Mandy and Collin had bought us marmite, protein bars, (affordable) wine, sushi equipment, an ipod, books, magazines... We even got them to bring us a set of Thule roof racks for the prado, poor overloaded travellers!
We went to Mike that afternoon to pick up his bike that we were borrowing for Collin and stayed for some Rosé and stollen. Then to Ashe and Kiran for sundowners, followed by a fun Christmas eve dinner at Mathaiga Club. So plenty of Christmas cheer was had by all! Mandy was on TOP form (and in her element being at the Muthaiga Club) and entertained our table of 12 all night. The best joke of the evening was when the topic of the full moon over new years was being discussed and Collin asked Mandy if she gets affected by the moon. She threw her head back and answered ‘NOooooooooooooooooooooooooo’!!
On Christmas day the four of us went for a really cool bike ride with Danny and Mike. Mandy and Collin were impressed by our never ending beautiful bike trails we have on our doorstep. Then it was present time!!! Yipppee! The best part of Christmas! We all got loads of stuff, our stockings were full and the tree was gift laden. For our Christmas dinner we did raclette with all the fine meat and cheese and various trimmings. It was a feast of note. That evening we watched Benedikt’s xmas dvd, Bruno, possibly not the best choice for a family day!
On the 26th we left for Amboseli, shocking Mandy and Collin with the ‘national highway’ mess as you leave Nairobi. Actually the entire journey shocked them.... have I mentioned how diabolical the roads are here?!! Kenya is just so stuck in the sixties...1963 to be exact. Thats when the country gained independence from the brits and all development ceased!
On arrival in Amboseli we saw lions, elephants, hyenas, warthogs, giraffes, hippos, buffalo, zebra and loads of different birds and that was all on our way to our accommodation. Which was a good thing because our accommodation was disappointing- it turned out to be simple (ugly)brick buildings which were basically cordoned off staff quarters. Oh well, we got out the whiskey and the wine and played poker and braaied up a storm. The following day we did an early morning game drive where again, we saw loads of animals. Even though it rained a little while we were there, Amboseli is still severely drought ravaged, and, like the last time we were there we saw plenty of carcasses. That side of it is quite depressing. But it didn’t stop our excellent game viewing and bird spotting mission... I think Mandy and Collins bird count went up by 15 or so? We also went to see a lady who runs the baboon research centre at Amboseli which was very interesting. She has been studying baboons for 30 years! On our third day there we went to Ol tukai, a supposedly 5 star lodge before leaving to come home. We had tea and coffee there, played some table tennis and sat by the pool for a couple of hours, totally making ourselves at home as only us Wielopolski’s can!
After Amboseli Mandy and Collin still had just under a week left, so we did all the Nairobi sights. We went for a really cool Ethipian dinner that evening at an authentic Ethiopian (would you believe) restaurant. We made a ton of sushi the next night with all of my new goodies which was very exciting. We had our neighbours round to share it with us, and it even past Naoko’s japenese stamp of approval!
On the 30th, Mandy’s birthday, we went on a Nature Kenya bird walk in the morning which was just brilliant. (Benedikt was glad he was working that day!) The lady who took it knew every bird, plant, insect and animal and all the bird calls... she made the walk so worthwhile. Again, Mandy and Collin raised their bird tally by about 20 birds. Which is ALOT. Then we went to the Karen Bixem (!) Restaurant for a divine lunch, followed by a visit to Karen Blixem’s house. This was a REAL highlight for Mandy. You will never meet a bigger ‘Out of Africa’ fan than her. She knows the movie backwards and says all the lines before Robert and Meryl do! She’s read lots of Karen’s books too and knows her history so well, I learnt a lot going there with her. Mandy was amazed at how the house looks just like it did in the movie. We took loads of photos of course and had a nice sit down in the beautiful expansive garden.
The next evening was New Years Eve. We had some friends around for a ‘party’ most of whom were (older) couples from our compound as many of our friends were away at the coast still. There were about 20 people in the end and it was a pretty tame evening really. Even with Mandy and Collins dodgy attempts at opening up the dance floor!
Next up was Magadi. A salt lake about 100kms away which has natural hot springs. It borders Lake Natron which is in Tanzania and the change in scenery on the drive down was very interesting. Mahindi battled a bit with the salty water but enjoyed chasing the birds down. Boz and Collin wallowed in the (very) hot bubbling pools.
In between of all this we played some excellent tennis and squash matches and chilled at the pool, all at Muthaiga Club. We definitely got value out of our new membership there! And Mandy and I of course stole the stage with our impressive tennis match, what a display of skill and professionalism. We also got some yoga done, more bike riding and some running in the forest which Mahindi loved of course.
On our last night we were invited to Naoko and Roland for Shabu Shabu. Another real highlight for everyone. Excellent company and excellent food – Shabu Shabu is a japenese style dinner where you all share a hot pot of water in the middle of the table and dip your food in to cook it. It’s a lot more glamorous and tasty than what it sounds! And of course Naoko’s trimmings and style always create a special experience.
On our last day I took Mandy and Collin to Kiambethu Tea Farm where drank tea (naturally) and had a tour of the farm and forest and listened to a very interesting Tea Talk.
Then they bloody left. And I cried.

Mt Kenya

I’m all mif and depressed now... I don’t like living in a different country anymore... its gonna mean I am always saying goodbye to those I love the most.
My sister and her husband have been and gone... we had an awesome holiday of course. With Mandy around, everyone is guaranteed to have fun. But I miss her terribly!

So, what we got up too:
Well, the morning after Mandy and Collin arrived in Nairobi, we headed off for Mt Kenya. We were climbing the Chogoria route, which is apparently the most scenic.

DAY 1: We had lunch and chatted to our guide in chogoria town before making our way to our first campsite which was at about 3000m above sea level. This was the only hiking we did where we actually carried our own bags. We had porters to carry our bags for the rest of the trip.... which we realised afterwards was a bit unnecessary...our bags weren’t that heavy and the hiking was definitely not strenuous. Besides the 5 porters, there were 2 cooks and our guide, plus us 4 = a big group! In retrospect we should have saved ourselves some money by doing the trip with less support. A challenge we would have all been up for. Oh well!
As soon as night fell it became freezing – so we huddled round our fire, me with ALL my clothes on that I’d bought with me. I realised I had misjudged just how cold it gets!DAY 2: The next day we hiked at a leisurely place up to Lake Ellis where the boys both swam, starkers. Crazy things- it was freezing! Then went on to a very pretty waterfall before making our way to a cave where we would spend the night. The porters (who always took the more direct route) had set up our tent and had a good fire going for us on arrival. Although The Cave itself was pretty dismal - definitely the campsite we enjoyed the least.
Our meals were prepared for us by the 2 cooks and were great. We would have pancakes, eggs, sausages(not me obviously) and cereal and fruit for breakfast. Sarmies, nuts and more fruit for lunch, followed by rice or potatoes and veggies and meat for supper. Followed by more fruit. Hot chocolate, tea and coffee would be bought to us regularly and it was much appreciated with the chilly weather. It was great to not have to do any of our own cooking and cleaning... although with all of us being seasoned campers we wouldn’t have minded!

DAY 3: The next day we did another easy paced, non taxing hike to Lake Michaelson which has to be the most amazing spot on the whole mountain. The beautiful glassy lake is surrounded by dramatic cliffs and is fed from water running off the glacier. Another chance the boys couldn’t resist – so again, they swam starkers in the minus 2000 degree icy water!
The scenery that day was just spectacular. And the birdlife, the fauna and the flora all very interesting throughout the trip. Collin and Mandy were great to have around as they really know their birds and plants.
It rained a lot that afternoon so we were forced to huddle in our tent... which was my large family dome tent, a cheapo I bought at Game 8 years ago that has stood me well. It was not waterproof though so things got a little wet. All part of the fun I guess. We had a dry night thank goodness, although very cold....we were at 3900m after all.
DAY 4: The following morning a helicopter came impressively circling and swooping over us and landed 500m away. Several people then got out and did some fly fishing for a couple of hours before flying off again. The whole episode made Collin super envious- he would have done anything to have had his fishing rod with him. But what a spectacular trip those tourists must have had, flying in to remote destinations and fishing in secluded lakes. WOW!
We hung around at the lake the whole morning while our porters and cooks tried unsuccessfully to catch fish. Their attempts were quite comical really.
The hike to the next spot was steep but not long and we did it in the drizzle.
I had to stay at a hut on a lower level (4200m) because of the altitude, so Benedikt, Collin and Mandy hiked with the guide to a higher spot and camped at 4600m that night – in a snow blizzard! The tent was certainly not snow proof either!
DAY 5: In my sisters words: "The Summit was out of this world. We left Wewies at 4000m and the 3 of us slept at the foot of the peak Lenana 4998m. We slept in a snow blizzard, in the funny tent from Game!! Ha ha it was so funny. I had about 20 layers of clothes on and didnt sleep much. The scenery on the way up was just to die for. Photos will tell all. So when we awoke at 4,30am (I was wide eyed and ready to hike all night!) to summit it was pitch black and our tent was 3 inches deep in snow! It was so exciting. As we summited the sun was glowing orange through the clouds. C and I have never been so high and it was rather breathtaking. A wonderful moment I will NEVER forget. You could see for miles. Incredible.
We were down with Wewies for breakfast at 8am. (C and I got quite sick on the way down, massive headcahes and I vomited a little bit! LOSERS!)"
All in all it was a great experience. It is a beautiful mountain and is relatively untouched by humankind. Apparently Kilimanjaro is a bit more touristy. If we had to do it again we would do it on our own, without a guide or porters or anything - which is permitted on Mt Kenya....not like Kili where you have to have a guide. We were not impressed with our guide. At all!
Apparently we went through 7 different biomes on the way up: rain forest, bamboo forest, normal forest, fynbos type vegetation, a rocky cactus layer, bare volcanic rock moonscape type stuff and lastly the scree. Well those are my guesses to the 7 layers anyway.

We had a hectic trip back down the last part of the mountain in the car- it had been raining heavily and the bad dirt road was just a mud bath. The 26kms took us 2 hours to do with all the slipping sliding. Then we got stuck for hours in typical Nairobi traffic – a real eye opener for Collin and Mandy. At one stage, Collin asked Benedikt in a very diplomatic way, ‘So what was it on your pre-trip to Nairobi that made you say yes to the position?’! ha ha ha.... I think Collin and Mandy’s romantic view of a beautiful Out of Africa type Kenya was shattered that day!