Fun in Kenya - A Seven Day Itinerary to Make the Best of it

Once upon a time, Africa was considered mysterious and unknown. Not any more. Present-Day Africa is still mysterious but not unknown. Today African Nations are top tourist destinations because of having a variety of tribes, a mix of various cultures and most importantly, Hugh National Forests containing teaming wildlife.                      

         

Visiting Africa is one of the lifetime chance to see so much of variety of Wildlife. We, in India, have great national forests and they have a variety of wildlife. However, these forests are thick and chances of sighting the most sought-after animals like Tigers, Lions (only in Gir forest in Gujrat) or Rhinos (in Assam) in few safaris are minimal. The sighting may happen, sometimes in the very first Safari, only and only if you are lucky.

The case with most African Forest Reserves is different. Africa does have Mountains but most of the Forests are on flat grasslands where the grass is short and big the trees are only around water bodies. Sighting is far better there than in Indian Reserves (that does not mean we stop visiting our forests where we get to see Royal Bengal Tigers, not seen anywhere else).

Every African country is unique and it is upon individuals to choose their African Destination. We choose Kenya. As for every decision, this decision of ours also was based on some factors. They were, Kenya is more economical compared to most other countries, temperate climate with temperatures moving in a short-range irrespective of the season and chance of witnessing the famous Migration of Wild Beasts, Zebras and Giraffes across the Mara River (sometimes between Kenya and Tanzania because Mara forms the border between them at some places).  The Migration can be also viewed from Serengeti National Park of Tanzania but a trip to Tanzania is costly.

The first step to taking a trip, foreign or in Inda, is to look for a suitable window and making a tentative plan. We fixed a window of 9 days including Flying in and Flying Out days. Next step is to see where all one can go in that window (the window being dependent on various factors and limiting conditions of issues of leave of group members, etc).

Kenya has much too offer. Four major lakes, 4 forests, 9 Wilderness area (Forest Reserves), Also mountains like Mount Kenya (takes 5 days to complete the trek of Mount Kenya), valleys like The Great Rift Valley, A great coastline with many beaches (and by the way, diving can be done on these beaches) and its cities.

With so much to do, a trip of a month may be able to cap some of it. 7 day to visit the places in Kenya was tough. We narrowed our places to wildlife and started looking at Amboseli National Pak, Lake Nakuru National Park, Lake Naivasha and Hell’s Gate National Park and Masai Mara. Originally, we wanted to fly back without touring the Nairobi city for lack of time as we had fixed up a total 9 days trip (of which 7 days in Kenya and two days to travel). Once our programme was ready, the next step was to look for a suitable flight. In order to utilise early booking benefit (of lower fares), we booked our air tickets early, almost 5 months before the trip.

 There are many flights between India and Kenya. Depending on the Airlines, most will take you to Kenya with one stop (as they take you to their Hub first and then to Nairobi) for example Emirates will take you from Mumbai to Dubai and then from Dubai to Nairobi. We were not interested in such a flight. That left us with only one option, to fly Kenya Air, which flies direct from Mumbai to Nairobi. The costs also were competitive. We took evening 1600 hrs flight out of Mumbai.

After doing Air booking we had the task of fitting our trip in the time fixed by us by optimising destination and days combination.  As we researched further, we decided to drop Amboseli National Park, not because of lack of wildlife (this place has the highest concentration of African Elephants) but because of the low possibility of viewing the other major attraction of Amboseli. Amboseli is a place from where one gets a clear view of Mount Kilimanjaro (in Tanzania) on clear days. In this current season, the sky is generally overcast and the probability of seeing Mount Kilimanjaro is very low. Since there are elephants present in other National Parks too, we choose to drop Amboseli. That gave us one additional day at Masai Mara and also gave us a spare day. Now that we had time in hand, we decided to use that day to tour the Nairobi city.

Since we were taking an evening flight from Mumbai, there had to be day zero for the trip, when we were to stay a night at Nairobi. Our final programme crystallised as follows:-

Physical Day	Trip Day	Place
1	0	Arrive Nairobi
2	1	Lake Nakuru Reserve
3	2	Lake Naivasha
4	3	Hell’s Gate / Reach Masai Mara
5	4	Masai Mara
6	5	Masai Mara
7	6	Masai Mara / Return to Nairobi
8	7	Nairobi
9	8	Fly Back

If one takes a flight in such a way that they reach Nairobi by morning 1100 AM, this programme can be restructured accordingly as follows:-

Physical Day	Trip Day	Place
1	1	Arrive Nairobi / travel to Lake Nakuru
2	2	Lake Nakuru Reserve / Travel to Lake Naivasha
3	3	Lake Naivasha / Hell’s Gate / Reach Masai Mara
4	4	Masai Mara
5	5	Masai Mara
6	6	Masai Mara / Reach Nairobi
7	7	Nairobi
8	8	Fly Back

If one does not want to stay at Nairobi, one day would reduce. I, however, do not recommend dropping Nairobi from the itinerary.

Next task was to hire the services of a reliable local Tour operator based at Nairobi. There are many such operators but, in our case, we found a family friend who is into travel business in Africa (not in Kenya) having a sister concern at Nairobi. That sorted out the problem of finding a reliable tour company as reliability became intrinsic to the fact that the tour company was a known one.

After everything was finalized, we took Yellow Fever Vaccine at appropriate time (it must be taken at least 10 clear days prior to date of departure and it is available in various government hospitals) and (to our surprise) Polio Oral Vaccine as government has made it compulsory to take Oral Polio Vaccine if travelling to some countries, Kenya being one of them.

Coming to currency, some places do accept USDs but most accept payment in Kenyan Shillings. It is better to exchange a limited amount of the USDs into Kenyan Shillings at an authorised money changer. To give an example, while authorised money changer gave us 99 shillings to 1 USD (official exchange rate being 100 Shilling to a USD) other places offered 93 to 95 Shillings to a USD). Kenyan Shillings also can be withdrawn from ATMs of the banks in Kenya using your Debit card.

Finally, it was time to apply and obtain e – Visa (Visa on arrival is available for Indians but e visa is quick and saves time at Immigration counters at Nairobi). If one searches, there are plenty of websites but most are facilitators. The original government website is - https://ecitizen.go.ke. At this site, one needs to go to EVISA button and register. Thereafter one needs to follow the steps. Once the documents are submitted, it takes two working days for Kenyan Authorities to grant an e-visa. Here comes the unexpected part. They take your email id but Visa is not mailed to you after it is granted. One has to visit their site, log in and download e-visa.

With all these steps taken, all of you would be ready, as we were, to fly to Kenya and enjoy great Wildlife in a very moderate climate. “Happy shooting” of the wildlife (by a camera). Don’t forget to keep spare batteries for your camera and carry a binocular.

My Trip Blogs will follow soon. Hope you all will enjoy reading them too.