GUEST BLOG II "by Barney"

Out of Africa – and Ready to Return

Author: Barney O’Meara (Patrick’s father)

Our extraordinary visit to share a slice of Patrick & Wendy’s life on the Kenyan coast was a magical mix of people, animals, and place.

The reason for and real reward of our trip was quality time with our dear family-in-Kenya, Patrick & Wendy, and our dear extended family – college roommate Dave Wyatt, and his wife Ann Porotti.

Coming from Washington (Thursday, May 17th) via London to Nairobi, our first taste of ways-Kenyan was a very warm welcome from the passport control officer. Collecting our luggage, we hurried across the street to Nairobi’s “domestic terminal”, where we navigated a multi-step process of exchanging our on-line reservation printouts for real tickets and boarding passes for the flight to Mombasa. Despite the seeming (to us) confusion, we began to realize that chaos and inefficiency were the rule rather than the exception, and the airline people were courteous and quite accommodating of tourists. Over the course of our visit my observation was that the majority of Kenyans lead a happy life, and that their graciousness and generosity towards visitors is genuine and a part of their cultural – more the cause of tourism being the largest part of the economy rather than its effect.

We arrived in Mombasa about midnight (Friday, May 18th), were met by Wendy and Patrick, with a minivan for the ride to Kilifi. It was great to see them again after more than four months!

Lamu: Saturday morning after breakfast we took another minivan north up the coast to Malindi, for a short flight to Lamu’s airport on Manda Island. If Malindi’s is small (herons and egrets needing to be shooed from the side of the runway for a safe takeoff), the Lamu airport was tiny – the “terminal” being like a small picnic pavilion, and electricity apparently from a generator.

A short boat ride across the channel to the town of Lamu, and we stepped back a couple of centuries into an Islamic-Swahili fusion for two days. Cooling off – at dinner – in the plunge pool of Lamu’s most elegant hotel & restaurant. A memorable boat ride on Sunday with Captain Hassan (the 1st), and his merry band, around the north and west sides of the island to see Matandoni and Kipungani. Patrick and I managed to cut ourselves on parts of a dhow on the beach, while the ladies were wowed (wooed?) by handsome Hassan and his delicious fresh crab stew. [Any reports of his massive biceps and 6-pack abs are greatly exaggerated.] On Monday we flew back to Malindi and partook of another common local transport -- a large (60+) passenger bus to Kilifi; no particular schedule except not to leave until fully loaded.

Returning to Kilifi we hit the beach for our first Indian Ocean swim, then ordered ahead for grilled pork chops at Members Club, one of P & W’s favorite local eateries.


Watamu: On Tuesday we rose early in order to arrive at Arubuko Sokoke Forest to meet our very well-trained Forest Service guide, Alex, for a nature walk at 6:30am. This forest preserve is one of Kenya’s hidden gems, being the only known habitat of the Golden-Rumped Sengi (aka Elephant-shrew) and the endangered Sokoke Skops Owl. We were very fortunate to get a very good look at the former, and we saw many beautiful birds, but not the owl. We scaled the 700-year old baobab tree in whose treehouse-sleep-platform Wendy & Patrick camped on one of their earliest explorations [see blog post dated 16 Feb 2007]. We saw Kenyans collecting butterflies under a cooperative program of sustainable harvest of pupae – an effective and successful alternative to poaching, which can endanger insect populations in similar ways to elephants killed for ivory.

After a refreshing lunch at a Watamu roadside eatery, we toured the Mida Creek tidal inlet with mangrove forest, a sea turtle nesting/feeding area and home of Crab plovers, Maribou storks, and other flora & fauna viewable at very close range. This coastal locale, with plenty of water plus dense, lush foliage, contrasts dramatically to the dry, open, savannah-like terrain we would see later, and we were fortunate to get a good glimpse of this portion of Kenya’s ecological diversity.

Sunset sail with Capt. Hassan II: Returning home, we met a second Captain Hassan and crew for a sunset cruise up Kilifi creek, under sail in his dhow. He supplied wonderful samosas and anchored us near a heron/stork nesting are, where we enjoyed watching the birds watch us enjoying a spectacular sunset. As in virtually every other experience on our trip, our Kenyan guides were, like our American hosts, both graceful and gracious.

On Wednesday morning (May 23rd), we recharged our batteries (literally and figuratively), and sorted our gear in anticipation of our upcoming safari. In the early afternoon we drove to the sisal plantation, timing the trip to leave the car at Carolyn and Nathan’s house and to walk and wade the beach in order to reach (and cross) the Mnarani Creek inlet while the tide was low. Our goal was an early dinner at Rolando’s. I defer the description of person (Rolando), place (Rolando’s), and our private banquet (incredible) to Ann or Dave, who until recently operated an Italian restaurant (L’Avventura) in Charlottesville. I’ll just provide a preamble by saying that this delicious advventura began by our reaching Rolando’s work-in-process, Mediterranean-style villa like shipwrecked fishermen washed up on his beach in a steady rain.

Safari: We began our safari by Wendy dropping us off at the “matatu” depot, for Patrick, Ann, Dave, Mary & I to ride approx. 1 hr. south in a matatu – Swahili word for a minivan that is shorter and narrower than a Dodge Caravan (or equivalent) and carries 14 or more passengers, plus a driver and a ticket seller. We arrived in Mombasa in the middle of one of the only downpours we encountered, to meet Southern Cross Safari outfitters for our upcoming 3-night trip to Tsavo East National Park, one of Kenya’s larger parks and game preserves.


I defer to one of my fellow travelers to provide a more-detailed account of our safari. As Isak Dinesen wrote in Out of Africa: “The chief feature of the landscape, and of your life in it, was the air.” This is big sky country, and an extraordinary opportunity to experience animals, over a period of three days, from the perspective of being guests in their habit. Checking in the morning to see if the baboons had slept overnight in large numbers on the power line support tower, coming to recognize several varieties of antelopes on sight, and seeing such an enormous variety of birds that it was an accomplishment to remember the names of perhaps 20 (of more than 100) new-to-me species, with the bird watching being the most memorable part for me. I would not have imagined that “superb starling” is not an oxymoron, but a breathtakingly beautiful bird, or that the 18kg kori bustard is the heaviest flying bird in the world.

Despite faithfully reading this blog, I didn’t fully appreciate the variety of other critters and creatures we would encounter throughout our trip, in addition to the incredible birds. Patrick’s pictures of huge millipedes can’t convey their size as dramatically as stepping barefoot on one on the way to the bathroom in the dark.

On Sunday, May 27th, we ended the safari with the final treat of seeing a monitor lizard ensconced in a large termite mount, and hanging around to be watched rather than bolting when first feeling the vibrations of an approaching vehicle. We returned to Mombasa and met up Wendy and two couples from Maryland/DC who had visited her for two days while on a several-country trip to Africa. We returned to Kilifi still aglow from our experience in the great outdoors.

Back in Kilifi: On Monday morning we visited KEMRI, where we had a tour of the labs from Patrick and his lab support colleagues, and a tour of the Kilifi district hospital from Wendy. Back at the house, on the way to the pool, we heard a tremendous bird cacophony, and Mary and I pulled up patio chairs in front of a bamboo thicket at watched about 50 male black-eared (aka “village”) weavers making basket-like nests at break-neck pace amidst intense squawking. We understand that the female comes by to inspect her mate’s “beakiwork” and either to give instructions on final finishing touches, or to reject it outright and have him start over.

That afternoon I investigated the sisal processing operations and equipment at the sisal plantation, with Patrick and his friend, Rob Barnett, the instigator of the Wild Living Resources Conservancy. We also explored the 130-acre plot donated to the Conservancy by the owner of the sisal plantation, and walked a portion of its boundaries and dense, rugged terrain. It was great to see firsthand the physical challenges that await Patrick and Rob in the launch of the Conservancy’s first programs.

At our farewell banquet Monday night we had for dinner Kate and Margaret, two of Wendy’s KEMRI co-workers, plus a large, fresh, grilled red snapper.

Tuesday morning – Wendy & Patrick’s second wedding anniversary – we packed up our gear, said sad farewells, and got a lift to Mombasa with Rob Barnett to catch our flight to Nairobi. Upon arrival in Nairobi we were met by Raphael, a driver friend of Wendy’s, who took us to a special shopping place with every imaginable form of Kenyan crafts and merchandise. We got settled into our hotel and had a big city style meal at the nearby Fairfield Hotel. Once again we had a great meal, although far different from all the other dinners in Kenya, formal elegance complete with flaming fireplace, special in a different way from the great dinners at Lamu World, Rolando’s, Members Club, and P&W’s.

On Wednesday, our last day in Kenya, Raphael took us on a driving tour of Kenya, including a stop at the site of the bombing of the US Embassy in 1998. We visited the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi National Park [see Wendy & Patrick’s description in their blog dated 2 June 2007] during their daily one-hour opening. Next we visited the Rothschild giraffes at the Langata Giraffe Centre, feeding both the giraffes and ourselves.

Being at the foot of the Ngong Hills, we spent the final hours of our trip at the museum home of Karen Blixen, who wrote “Out of Africa” under the nom de plume Isak Dinesen. The buildings and grounds, numerous pictures, plus remnants of farm and coffee plantation equipment give a rich sense of what life was like for foreigners who adopted Kenya as their home for a portion of their lives. If you’ve followed this far, kind reader, you’ll understand that the words and pictures of this blog allow you to have a similar, vicarious glimpse into Patrick & Wendy’s life in Kenya.

We are enormously grateful to have shared firsthand a portion of their experience. My sense of why Wendy and Patrick love Kenya – and why all the Kenyans we met love Wendy and Patrick – is that they have a common, strong predisposition for welcoming, caring, helping, and sharing.