The Maasai Mara National Reserve. It gets scary; can you hold you nerve?!

The main course on our Kenyan safari was Maasai Mara, the country’s vast game reserve, which we caught at just the right time: during the wild animals’ mass migration. Huge herds of wildebeest, zebras and assorted other, smaller hooved beasts. But the main attraction is the wildebeest, and their particular migration is known as the great migration – up from Serengeti in neighboring Tanzania ->

A zillion zebras too:

Read on…

African vacation – ver. 2023: Hippo Point.

Before continuing with my narrative along our route through Kenya, I must tell you a bit about where we stayed on the bank of Lake Naivasha. It was at Hippo Point (but don’t click that link just yet)…

Now, before reading on, dear readers, can you guess what I’m about to write here? Was I one-star-hotel slumming it, or five-star-living-large?…

See, I do both – and everything in-between. I prefer 5*, of course – who doesn’t? – but sometimes lesser star-rating hotels (or no-star establishments, like Airbnb-style apartments in remote towns in deepest Siberia) are the only thing going. In Tibet and Nepal the ratings tended to dip, while in Kamchatka and Altai we’ve always bedded down of a night in the tents we carry on our backs all day. Then there are the spartan but cozy-enough cabins we sleep in on yachts workhorse ships – that sail around, say, the Kuril Islands or even Antarctica. Things sometimes get real bad: in the year 2000 we stayed a night in an abandoned port in Belomorsk; it was… indescribable. Heck – the trauma lingers to this day!

So, come on folks, what do you reckon?…

Well, it went like this at Hippo Point:

Joke. That’s the former servants’ quarters of even stables of the British landed gentry that must have had the place built and who lived here originally. Here’s where we were staying:

No, it’s not an Edwardian country pile in Surrey – it’s actually Hippo Point here in Kenya!

Inside, just like outside, and just like the lawn and garden – all in traditional English style. Couldn’t complain…

…Wait: yes we could!…

See, the place was so old-fashioned and typically British that it still featured old-fashioned and typically British… taps (faucets to our American friends); meaning: one tap is for (freezing) cold water; the other – for (scalding) hot water. No mixer tap/faucet where you can get just the right temperature for the water for your bath. And bath’s the right word since – there’s no shower here either! What? In 2023? :0)

We have a walk around the property and its grounds…

Africa, stone fireplace, armchairs. The only things missing are a Sir John and Lady Mortimer or some such!

All’s set for cocktails at sundown ->

And finally – my luggage lost by Ethiopian Airlines arrived! ->

Over there – zebras!

From here to the lake – a zebra crossing! ->

Sunset: another aaaaah ->

And that was that. All very nice. We’d have loved to have stayed longer in this little piece of England, but we had to be up and off in the morning…

The rest of the photos from Kenya are here.

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African vacation – ver. 2023: Lakes Naivasha and Nakuru.

After the brief Everest Base Camp trek video interlude, I continue today with my tales from the Kenyan safari side…

Pre-safari Nairobi – done.

Ol Pejeta reservation – done.

Next up – Lakes Naivasha and Nakuru (here). First – Naivasha…

It’s around 200km to Lake Naivasha from Ol Pejeta, which took us four or five hours by road. What made the journey a pleasant one were the good quality roads: astonishingly well-built, smooth, and rather new:

Read on…

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The long and winding… trek – to Everest’s Base Camp: video version.

Hi folks!

I’ve decided to take a time out (for some, probably a welcome one) from my ongoing Kenya-safari series, to bring you a redux of another series – the one on my trek up to the (Nepalese) South Base Camp of Mount Everest in May, but in video format.

Now, I’m no (video) cameraman; nor are my fellow travelers who found themselves 5000+ meters above sea-level at the foot of the world’s tallest mountain. Photography is more my thing. However, one of said fellow travelers did a rather good job of shooting plenty of footage of our trek, and a short video has since been produced therefrom. And that’s what today’s time-out of mine is about: to suggest you, dear readers, become dear viewers for a mere two minutes and 37 seconds. You won’t regret it!

For those who might have missed the series, what I’ll say briefly about it is that it was tough. So tough in fact, that near the end I even contemplated… deserting (visibility was down to almost nothing: no enjoyment whatsoever)! Yes – me: who normally relishes tough stamina tests in harsh conditions around globe (and mostly – up it:). In the end, it was probably a mix of laziness and mild altitude-sickness symptoms that convinced me to carry on. Today, looking back, I’ve only fond recollections of the adventure (memory’s like that:) – mostly of the bonkers beauty all around for almost the whole trek – that is, when the Himalayan foggy weather didn’t spoil our view of said beauty all around. It’s experiences like this one – with all their ups-and-downs (pun not intended) – that life is made up of.

Enjoy the show!…

African vacation – ver. 2023: Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

Farewell Nairobi; hello savanna-safari!…

But first – warning: coming up – tons of photos. But of course; for what was observed in the Kenyan savanna was just so exotic, varied, and often unique!… Don’t later say I didn’t warn you!…

Our first spot of safariing took place in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy – a conservation area crammed with marvelous mammals and wonderful winged creatures, whose main attraction is the rhinoceros – of which there are plenty…

Read on…

African vacation – ver. 2023: Nairobi.

Should you ever head to Kenya for a vacation, you’d most probably fly into the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, the nation’s capital. Nice airport: good level of service – and extraordinarily light on lines for both passport-control and customs. I wonder – were we just lucky, or is it always like that?

Nairobi itself looks like… pretty much what I expected: the capital of a country that’s successfully developing toward a brighter future. There’s poverty – plenty; but there are also plenty of districts that are positively salubrious…

Read on…

African vacation – ver. 2023: why, where, how.

As you can work out from the title to this post, this year’s trip to Africa wasn’t my first lengthy vacation on the African continent. In early 2016 I was in Tanzania, where I scaled Kilimanjaro, went on a safari around the country’s savanna, and wunderbarred in Zanzibar. And details and pics of that African adventure were later all compiled into a hardback illustrated travelogue book – Awesome Africa.

Fast-forward to 2023, and here I am again – this time in Kenya!…

Africa: jaw-dropping landscapes, vast swarms of roaming wild animals, and the ultimate in stark continent-specific daily-life-with-a-difference! In short: all the ingredients for an amazing vacation!…

Read on…

Shenzhen in a day – to drop in on Huawei.

Next up – we fly southeast from Guiyang to Shenzhen. Sure, the center of the city is radically urbanized, but we saw none of that; for we spent all our time in the city in… its parks! Yes, you read that right. See, we were in Shenzhen to pay a visit to our friends at Huawei, which is headquartered in the city, and it just so happens that the road between the airport and said HQ is lined with nothing but parks!…

Everywhere you look – greenery and lakes. It resembled more Singapore than the stereotyped image of a large Chinese metropolis…

Read on…

China’s province of Guizhou: where if there are no tunnels – they bore some through!

From Beijing we flew into Guiyang (here), the capital of the Guizhou province (here). Though they call Guizhou a “third level” city, it still plays a key role for China’s economy – since here are located large logistical centers, plenty of other businesses and industries, plus… the largest data centers in the country. Which is why we paid a visit. Our annual Chinese partner conference also takes place here. But about that later. Today – tourism!…

Since Guizhou is mostly mountainous, the topography-geology of the province is off-the-scale beautiful, with the tourism built up around it correspondingly enormous in scale. It also holds records for the number of bridges and tunnels in the country.

For our portion of tourism while in the province, we were told we should get ourselves to Tianhetan for its waterfalls and caves (here), since it’s the one of the province’s most unusual places. Which turned out to be entirely true – with a twist…

Read on…

How to kill time in Beijing if your flight’s delayed.

Hi folks!

Been a while – yes; but I’ve been busy. More on that…

So, you know how business trips for me are pretty much always intense, hi-tempo, tight-schedule, action-packed affairs? Well, guess what? This summer that “template” transferred over to my summer holidays. And I couldn’t be happier for it!…

In almost three weeks – first with colleagues and then with family – I visited a full 10 locations, staying in hotels, villas – even tents! Put another way, for 18 days we stayed in one place on average 1.8 days. More specifically: Beijing; Shenzhen; Guiyang; Nairobi, plus another six overnight stays across Kenya (the final one being next to Diani Beach, where we decompressed for a few days after all the tourism-till-you-drop:).

I said above I couldn’t have been happier; however, not everything went smoothly. Luggage went missing, and there were flight delays of several hours. Fortunately, the first such delay we found out about in advance of setting off for the airport, so we killed time whiled away the time leisurely at Lake Houhai (situated near the center of Beijing, some two kilometers north of the Forbidden City)…

Read on…