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Kenya: Africa's variety show

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.

For further information on travel in Africa, visit Travel Africa Magazine

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