I lived for sixteen years in Kenya as a tourist. We visited the beach, the game-parks, and the geographical wonders. Only a few times did I ever get the chance to see the people of Kenya as friends, rather than 'sights'. I regret not making an effort to see Kenya as a Kenyan would see it, but I enjoyed the places we did visit.

Kenya's most famous attraction is its game parks, huge areas of land set aside where no people are allowed to live, and where wild animals roam freely. In 1976 Kenya banned all hunting of game, increasing the game population outside the parks, but the parks remain the best place to see animals. The game parks were like something I had never seen before, it's not like as a child when you may have gone to a British seaside resort, stayed in bournemouth hotels and visited the zoo there. These animals are wild and seeing an elephant just roaming about is an incredible experience.

Eight kilometers from Nairobi City Centre is the main entrance to Nairobi National Park. Most of it is savanna, open grass land, but there is an area of forest along the western edge, and the Athi river forms the southern border. In an afternoon you can see most of the park. You can always see zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, giraffe, and various antelope and gazelle. Quite often you will see lions. The big cats are always a highlight of a visit. Cheetah are seen quite often, but a leopard is a rare sight. The easiest way to find good sights in Nairobi park is to watch for a group of the mini-vans used to haul tourists around. The guides and drivers have a very good sense of where to find animals. It somehow takes a little away from watching lions at a kill when there are a dozen vans full of tourists clicking cameras around it.

We always considered ourselves 'local' people, and didn't have much time for tourists. They tended to be ignorant, loud and not a little gullible. The streets of Nairobi are full of con-men with a sob story of needing money to return home for a funeral or something. I suppose a few might be valid, but it is an effective way to get a bit of money out of a tourist. We considered it almost an insult to be called a tourist. If, along the coast, I was greeted in German, I always replied in Swahili, just to establish my position. One incident that springs to mind was my attempt to buy a rungu, a type of club, in the Nairobi market. I went into a stall selling various wooden carvings to see if they had any. There were some carved out of soft wood, not the proper hard acacia branch with a knob of the trunk. I asked the girl working there if they had any others. she replied something to the effect, "Those are for tourists, the real ones are in behind." I found one I liked and asked for a price. 35 shillings was the price on it. I offered 25, as bargaining is standard there. She asked "Why?" I said "Because that's how things work here!" She laughed and gave it to me for 25. I should have started lower!

Amboseli National Park is on the Kenya-Tanzania border just to the north of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. There are all kinds of game there, but Elephants are the main attraction. To get to the park we had to drive along fifty kilometers of corrugated dirt road. It was always a tiring and uncomfortable ride. There were three choices of places to stay, the Lodge, the 'Bandas" or bring your own tent and use the campsite. The lodge is a typical Kenyan tourist hotel, offering nice rooms and good food to the hundreds of package tours which came through every year. Although we could get some good deals on lodges, we preferred the cheaper places.

A 'banda' is a word which means 'hut', but is always used to refer to self service bungalows where walls, roofs, and beds are supplied at a cost not too much less than the lodge. We had a full view of Kilimanjaro from the front of the banda. One night zebra and wildebeest were grazing just outside my window. I tried to take some flash pictures out my window, which didn't bother them at all. However, like most important times, my film hadn't caught, so I never found out if it worked.

Camping in any game park is and experience to remember. One of our first times camping in Amboseli, and elephant walked between two of our tents, eating grass, but not touching any guy ropes. One morning we were attempting to make toast over our campfire. We knew there were elephants around, when they appeared, the herd walked between the tent and the campfire. We had burnt toast for breakfast.

We stopped camping after we discovered than elephants and tents do not go together.

In February 1981 our family and a friend of my sister went camping in Amboseli during a school long weekend. On our second night we were woken up at two in the morning by some noises outside. I was woken up to look out(and up) at an elephant right outside our tent. There was a crash as the table outside with our kitchen utensils on it was knocked over. The elephant was looking for food. Evidently it had found that food could be obtained fairly easily if it looked through the campsite. We were nervous but couldn't do a thing. Elephants had been close before, so it wasn't totally new. The terror set in when the elephant grabbed the outside frame of the tent with her trunk and started to shake it. We panicked. Our first reaction was to get as far away from the elephant as possible. The door was on the side of the tent, but none of us thought of attempting to unzip it. Rational thought is not possible when an elephant is knocking you tent down on top of you! We prayed. After what seemed to be an eternity, watching the tent collapsing from the other end towards us, the tent ripped between the floor and wall on the end where we were. Five of us exited through the hole in a hurry. Fifty meters away some friends were camping. They had watched the whole thing, but were as incapable of doing anything as we were. We ran under a thorn tree to their tent. None of us stepped on any thorns, although the ground was littered with them. Mom figured that we were flying low! We watched as our tent was turned inside out by an elephant. We decided that we had to do something. After about fifteen minutes of watching, eight of us piled into our friends car and drove the kilometer or so to the lodge and Wardens post. The night watchmen were very nice, and we ended up staying in the lounge for the remainder of the night. Three of us went back to the campsite with a warden. The elephant had left, so we picked up all we could and threw it into our car, after we found the keys, that is. The only thing we couldn't find was Mom's glasses. they showed up the next morning, almost buried in the ground. Surprisingly, not too much was damaged apart from the tent. A radio of mine was evidently stepped on, breaking a few parts. I should have sent it back to Phillips to see if their guarantee included being stepped on by and elephant!

It was a terrifying experience. We learned that it was not the first time it had happened, in fact, another tent had been hit the same night, though not as bad. It did put an end to our camping activities. It became more feasible to stay in Lodges after my sister left, so we didn't really miss it.

Taita is an area to the east of Kilimanjaro. It has the distinction of being the only British territory occupied by the Germans during World War One. Hilton hotels owns two tourist lodges in the area to go along with one of the few private game parks in Kenya. Taita Hills Game Lodge is built just outside the game park, and is built to bear some resemblance to a German Fort. A group from Kijabe got a special rate for a three night stay. We rented RVA's small bus, which held twenty five people for the trip. It was full and a little cramped for the trip there, but was great for the park. Quite often the long grass in a park prevented us from having a good view of animals away from the road. Not only was the bus higher off the ground than a car, but it had a large luggage carrier on top, and we did a good part of our viewing from there. I have one picture from behind the bus with people on top hanging out windows, watching some elephants. The lodge just shows up in the background.

It is hard to describe the lodge, which was slightly better than the typical tourist lodge. There was a Huge round entrance/lounge with a thatched roof. In the middle was a large stone fireplace. After dinner we would sit around it drinking coffee and talking. While the rooms were clean and functional, they were not really luxurious. They were meant for sleeping in and not spending time in. Entertainment was a group activity, films, talks, or local dancers in the evenings. Early morning and dusk were the best times to watch game, and the hot mid-afternoon was spent by the swimming pool, reading, or perhaps on the putting green.

Salt Lick Lodge was the second lodge in the middle of the park next to a salt lick and a water hole. It was a place where you went for one day to watch animals from nearby. The evenings were spent watching the various animals which came by to drink. Treeptops lodge is probably Kenya's most famous game watching lodge. Princess Elizabeth was spending the night there when her father George IV died in 1953.

Treetops is in the Aberdare Forest, at the edge of the National park. It is built on stilts with a tree growing in the middle of it. It is a place for a one night stay only. No private cars are allowed, they must be left at the base hotel in Nyeri. A bus takes a load of people to Treetops at 3:00 every afternoon and returns at 8:00 the next morning. A hunter with a loaded rifle escorts the visitors the 100 meters from where the bus parks to the hotel. It is mainly just to give an image of the "wild" Africa, although there have been one or two cases where it has actually been used. The dining room has served the same food every night for years at a time. When we spent a night there my friend David and I decided to stay up the whole night to watch animals. The water hole was floodlit, so we could see quite well. We were hoping for elephants to come along, but they never did. We did see two rhino which was a little unusual. We made it until about 4:00, but were exhausted and uncomfortable, so retired to our room.

I can say a lot about the beauty of Kenya as a tourist, but I know almost nothing about the people from personal relationships. Perhaps I'll have a chance to change that in the future.