by David Simpson

As a tourist destination, Kenya has had mixed fortunes. But one thing has remained constant: This country probably has a greater variety of high quality attractions than any other in Africa. But does it offer the right safari experience for you?

Towards the end of the long overnight flight south from Europe the sun comes up over the horizon to illuminate the vastness of Africa below. I already have my nose glued to the window and as the plane creeps further south, I notice I am not the only passenger craning for a glimpse. By the time the jagged peaks of Mount Kenya sail past the excitement is palpable. We are nearly there.

For the next hour or so the visitor is assailed by the contrasts which make Kenya one of the world's most interesting countries. As the plane sweeps south on its approach to Nairobi, one's eye flits from the parched, volcano-studded plains of the Rift Valley to the moist cloud-flecked slopes of the Aberdare massif and the lush Kikuyu highlands.

Soon the plane is swinging east and, as it descends, the vast scale of the Rift Valley becomes apparent. Below is dusty savannah, then suddenly the seemingly vertical forested walls of the Ngong Hills loom underneath to announce one's arrival in Nairobi. A short hop over Nairobi National Park, still a major destination for migrating wildlife during the long dry seasons, and you are landing at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

This glimpse from the air of some of Kenya's physical contrasts can little prepare the visitor for what lies on the ground. After the standard immigration and customs formalities - invariably brief and hassle-free - you are soon driving on the main highway into town. Passing you, on either side, are battered minibuses, packed beyond bursting point and belching diesel fumes. Passing them are shiny new Mercedes and top-of-the-range four-wheel drives.

But they all have to slow down for the two Masai herdsmen wrapped in red shukas who are driving a hundred sleek cows across the highway. The cattle are grazing between dazzlingly glazed offices and warehouses through whose windows you can see the accoutrements of the rich. Yet, reflected in the glass, you will also see the tin roofs of squatters for whom the dream embodied by the fancy glass walls will never come true.

It is contrasts like this which make Kenya such a stimulating country to visit. Put another way, you'd have to be particularly dull-witted not to at least question some of your assumptions and prejudices during a typical safari. Nevertheless, apart from the beggars, the possibility of being pickpocketed and the sordid ritual of bargaining with someone poorer than you can imagine for a discount representing a quarter of the cost of your next bottle of mineral water, the starker realities of life in the developing world will rarely affect you. Certainly the average Kenyan will not confront you with them; your reception across the country will almost always be helpful, humorous, inquisitive and respectful. Most tourists leave Kenya with happy memories of its citizens.

One of Kenya's distinguishing features is the variety of its people and cultures. As a nation, Kenya struggles to come to terms with its cultural and linguistic diversity. To the visitor it's an extra ingredient in the country's rich dish.

The most exotic and obviously different people - and hence most attractive to the tourist - are Kenya's pastoralists. Leading semi-nomadic and seemingly independent lives they have held an attraction for Westerners from Joseph Thomson onwards, an attraction which abides to this day.

The most obvious example are the Masai, simply because their land is at the heart of the main tourist circuit. Most people who come to Kenya visit the Masai Mara and while there they will almost certainly see some sort of cultural demonstration. Yet the Maasai are not Kenya's only nomads. To the north, tribes like the Rendille, Turkana and Samburu also command much interest, yet living as they do on the perimeter of what to many - even Kenyans - is terra cognita, their lives are less touched by the ways of the 20th century.

Or so we would like to think. Kenya's north is a harsh place of deserts, mountains and searing winds, and its people by and large still live as they have done for centuries, eking an existence from the arid land, herding their livestock and warring with their neighbours. Unfortunately, romantic views of people living in a natural state are exclusively Western. Nomads are nothing if not pragmatists and the easy availability of 20th century technology in the form of the automatic machine gun is an uneasy complication for the government and the tourist industry, which is particularly vulnerable to the bad publicity banditry generates.

The region's indigenous populations are also affected. They are finding that traditional skirmishes with non-traditional weapons vastly increase fatalities and greatly enrage the authorities, especially when one's traditional enemy lives across an international border.

Apart from its pastoralists, Kenya does not boast much in the way of cultural attractions. That is not to say Kenya does not have culture, merely that, as in the Western world, culture is something that is private, shared by one's own people, undergoing constant flux and not easily accessible or even visible to the outsider. In fact, Kenya possesses a bewildering variety of tribal groupings and traditions. As an outsider living here one gradually begins to see some of the deeper patterns in this tapestry, but as a visitor one will generally neither notice, nor care, nor need to know who is Kamba, Kikuyu or Kalenjin - though you will, of course, notice those semi-naked young men dressed in red and propped up by spears.

Nor will you be particularly captivated by the architecture of the towns and villages, though an exception, culturally and architecturally, is found on Kenya's north coast. Lamu - the heart of Kenya's Swahili civilisation - is the embodiment of the confluence of African and Arab influences which define the culture of the East African coast. Deeply Islamic, Lamu town is a warren of tall narrow buildings built of the predominant local materials - coral and mangrove - and defined by its ornately carved doorways, the call of the muezzin and a languid pace of life dictated by the enervating heat.

Lamu's laid back atmosphere has also made it Kenya's premier destination for those seeking the hippy backpacker atmosphere and these days the songs of Bob Marley vie with more traditional calls to worship. Nevertheless, there is a strong sense in Lamu of a people proud of and fighting to retain their old traditions.

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While Kenya offers plenty of cultural diversity, the principal attraction for the majority of visitors to Kenya is its exotic wildlife and the almost unbelievable variety of its physical geography. It is hard not to think of Kenya more in terms of a continent than a country. Where else can you find palm-fringed beaches, coral reefs, abundant wildlife, alkaline and freshwater lakes, deserts, rain forest, mountains and miles and miles of acacia savannah? Tanzania comes close, but even that country can't boast the stark desert beauty of Kenya's far north, nor does Kilimanjaro possess the charm and interest of Mount Kenya.

And this is another of Kenya's major selling points: it wins out not only in terms of the quantity of experiences available but also in quality. Whether one is talking about the physical grandeur of its features or the opulence with which one can see them, Kenya delivers. While it remains a country which can be seen at leisure on a low budget, it also offers the wealthy many opportunities to part with their cash in novel ways - like helicoptering over Mount Kenya to an exclusive US$500 per person per night retreat overlooking a seemingly endless and empty African panorama.

More modestly there is a plethora of highly professional companies offering the kind of eco-tourism experience - mobile tented camps, personal guides and walking in the bush - which some people think you have to go south for.

And they've been doing it for years. While Zimbabwe and Namibia were embroiled in wars of independence and South Africa was an international pariah, while Tanzania was experimenting with socialist deprivation and Uganda was tearing itself apart, Kenya was receiving and satisfying tourists. Maybe that's part of Kenya's problem. It pretty much invented the safari and was the first sub-Saharan country to become a popular mass tourist destination. Now these other destinations are available, Kenya is seen as pass - often by people who have not even visited it - a mentality unfortunately abetted by its failure to market itself imaginatively against its southern competitors.

Marketing Kenya should be an easy job. Of course, there's always bad news - that's what news editors like best - but show me a country devoid of violence, mismanagement and sleaze. Certainly not England, Germany, France and the United States, from where Kenya draws most of its foreign custom.

So what can you do in Kenya? As already indicated, there's little that you cannot see or do. In many countries there's a fairly well-set itinerary encompassing the country's main attractions; everybody goes to the same places, often in the same order. Kenya is not like that. First you have to think what it is you'd like to do. Scuba diving off a coral reef? Technical mountaineering? Camel trekking? Wildlife viewing?

Then you've got to decide where you want to do it. There's always a choice.

Let's take a whistle-stop tour of some of the country's highlights. Leaving Lamu, we head south to Watamu. Here we can dine on fine seafood after a day spent basking in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and watching nature's aquarium display its splendours among the corals of Watamu Marine National Park. This is one of a string of protected marine areas stretching from Kenya's border with Somalia in the north to Tanzania in the south. Alternatively we can take a boat among the mangroves of Mida Creek or a walk in Arabuko Sokoke, one of Kenya's finest indigenous coastal forests. This is home to a wide range of mammals from elephants to the elephant shrew and a spectacular population of butterflies and birds - many endemic to the area.

It is tempting to just stay here and relax - which many do - but we must move on. Leaving Watamu, we cut inland to Tsavo East National Park. Immediately we see classic images of Africa: baobabs give way to doum palms and acacias, and the bush, its flatness broken only by the occasional kopje, stretching into the distance. This is elephant country. From an estimated 40,000 elephants in the 1960s, Tsavo's elephant population dropped to as low as 5,000 before the 1989 CITES' ban on trade in ivory effectively stopped the poachers' slaughter, leaving Tsavo's elephant population to recover slowly.

Heading west and south we come to Tsavo West. Watered by the Tsavo river, which flows from the slopes of Kilimanjaro, Tsavo West has a much more rugged countenance. Everywhere you look there are towering hills topped by dripping cloud forest - hard to imagine from the hot plains below.

In the distance Kilimanjaro provides a photogenic backdrop to the most famous elephants in the world, those of Amboseli National Park. They have now been studied continuously for 25 years and the knowledge gleaned has added immeasurably to our understanding of elephant society.

Our journey inland brings us up to the fresh highland air of Nairobi - at over 5,000 feet above sea level, a refreshing contrast to the humidity of the coastal strip and the heat of Tsavo. From here we have many choices. Perhaps we should head down into the awe-inspiring Rift Valley with its soda lakes and massed flamingoes. Continuing west, we could visit the Masai Mara, the northern tip of the vast Serengeti ecosystem and one of the world's greatest wildlife spectacles.

But my choice would be to head north. Leaving the airy moorlands of the Aberdares - like Scotland with lions - for another trip, I would head for Mount Kenya, specifically the breathtakingly beautiful Chogoria route where the deep Nithi Gorge penetrates right to the foot of the summit peaks. Here I can clear lungs and mind and look down on one of the most beautiful and varied countries I've known.

Then, time permitting, I'll continue north, dropping down from the Samburu escarpment into the dry heat of an Africa that can still feel as if it has barely changed for millennia. Here I am surrounded by isolated granite peaks whose precipitous valleys echo to the songs and laughter of people for whom my world is as much an alien dream as theirs is to me, listening to the night noises of wildlife yet to be fenced in and looking up at the naked brilliance of a billion stars undimmed by city lights. I know I am privileged to live in a land where the prehistoric and the contemporary can still exist - precariously - side by side.

British-born David Simpson has been living in Nairobi for almost four years. He is the editor of Swara, the magazine for the East African Wildlife Society.

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Kenya: A Brief History

Homo habilis lived in the rich fertile rift valley about 2.5 million years ago. By 50,000 BC, Homo erectus had emerged and stone age cultures spread over Kenya. The forefathers of Homo sapiens became hunter gatherers. Cushitic-speaking agro-pastoral people from Ethiopia and pastoral Nolites (from the Nile Valley) followed during 3000 to 1500 BC.

Between 500 BC and 500 AD, Bantu-speaking cattle herders and cultivators entered from the Sudan and West Africa. By about 800 AD Omani-Arab trade centres, under the Sultan of Zanzibar, operated down the coast and subsequent intermarriages with Bantu created the Swahili culture.

From 1500 to 1600 AD the Portuguese gained control of coastal trade but Arab resistance saw the latter's power restored.

During 1780 and 1850 Britain, France, Germany and America established trading concessions with Zanzibar, but by 1895 Kenya had become a British Protectorate. During the early 1900s the Kenya-Uganda railway was built and a white settler farming community established on land taken from the Masai and others.

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What's in a Name?

Compiled by David Round-Turner

The influence of the Masai is reflected in the number of modern place-names which stem from their language, Maa. For example:

Nairobi means "the water which is cold" (enk-are na irobi). Long ago the Nairobi River was a clear running stream favoured by Masai herdsmen.

Amboseli, the famous National Park, is from em-posel, "salty dust" from the lake bed.

Donyo Sabuk, the small mountain national park, is "the big hill" or "mountain" (ol doinyo sapuk).

Keekorok, in the Maasai Mara, is "[the place of] black trees" (il-keek-orok), for the indigenous forest near the famous lodge.

Mara is "dotted", "patchy" or "chequered", from the patches of bush which give the land a dotted or spotted appearance.

Longonot, the extinct volcano to the south of the Nairobi-Naivasha road, is literally "it of the valleys" (o-loo-ngonot), a description of its slopes, scarred with valleys.

Naivasha, the great Rift Valley freshwater lake, is the anglicised version of na-iposha, "that which is heaving", explained by the sudden storms which can turn the placid waters into a churning mass of waves.

Nakuru is "that which is bare (grassless)" (na-kurro), not the misconceived and popular "a place of swirling dust devils".

Menengai, the crater that overlooks the town and the national park, is "the place of dead spirits" (ol-menengani). Legend has it that many people died in a battle here; their voices and the sound of lowing cattle can be heard at night.

Loitokitok is from ol-o-itokitok, "the bubbling spring".

Uaso-Nyiro is "the brown river" (e-uaso ng'iro). 0l Tupai, the lodge in Amboseli, is "the place of palms" (Phoenix reclinata).

It has been suggested that Samburu is derived from o-sampurumpuri, "butterfly", but the more likely meaning is from e-sampur, a small bag once carried by Samburu women. The Samburu people call themselves il-pusi-kineji, literally "they of the grey goats" or il-oo-ibor-kineji, "they of the white goats".

Swahili is the source for many place-names, especially at the coast:

Shimoni, the deep sea fishing centre is Swahili for "the place of caves", where slaves were kept before shipment to Zanzibar.

It is said that Mombasa is derived from the Arabic nabas, meaning to "speak in public", implying that the settlement was a meeting place for trade and gossip. From around the middle of the 16th century it was known as Kisiwa ya Mvita, "island of war". Today the Swahili name for Mombasa is still Mvita.

Likoni, across the channel from Mombasa, means "at the landing place" and Mnarani, on the north coast, is "the place of the lighthouse", or "minaret", from Swahili mnara.

Malindi was known by that name when Vasco da Gama landed there in 1498. The name possibly stems from the Swahili kilindi, "a place of deep water".

Tsavo, the vast national park, probably means "a place of slaughter" from the Kamba language, according to Col Patterson of Maneaters of Tsavo fame.

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The Winds of Change

By Craig Rix

In the last 18 months there has been a major shift in attitude in Kenya. There is a new optimism that the country can return to being Africa's prime safari destination. There are some major hurdles to be overcome before this can be achieved, but much of the groundwork is now being done. Some of the advances made in the industry have included:

• A week-long workshop held last year to discuss the future of tourism. While there are too many divergent interests for a fixed consensus to have been achieved, a more determined focus has emerged within the industry. The fact that these discussions took place at all indicates a willingness by all parties to work together - cooperation sadly lacking in many other African countries.
• Efforts made to redress the poor standards of guiding in the country. The Kenya Professional Hunters and Guides Association, after studying systems employed in other African countries, has instituted a voluntary grading system to enable guides to attain recognised standards of proficiency.
• Considerable enthusiasm that Dr Richard Leakey's reappointment as Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service will revive the service's ailing fortunes. Two main concerns for him are issues of funding and security in and around the national reserves.
• The Kenya Tourist Federation's launch on January 29 as the united voice of the private sector in addressing issues of concern in tourism. It will work closely with both the Kenya Tourist Board and the Government. One of its first actions was to agree that a network of 2,000 radio units will be installed throughout Kenya by July, linking all accommodation facilities and thus providing greater security for travellers.
• Increased co-operation within the regions. The coast is being 'cleaned up', while landowners in the Laikipia district are working together to promote that region more aggressively.

Perhaps the two most important issues to address now are safety and corruption. There have been too many robberies, particularly in the north of the country. Many of the problems occur on the open road, so policing needs to be stepped up in these areas.

High levels of corruption are preventing finances from being released efficiently enough in the right places. The Kenya Tourist Board, for example, is hindered in its work while it waits for funding to be forwarded from central treasury.

Responsibility for both of these issues falls primarily with government. If they can address them determinedly, Kenya's tourism will have a very bright future. The ball is in their court.

Published in Travel Africa Edition Seven: Spring 1999. Text is subject to Worldwide Copyright (c)

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