Sleeping in Khashoggi’s Bed
Pamela and I spent last weekend at Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy otherwise known as Sweetwaters on the northwest side of Mt Kenya near Nanyuki last weekend. Kenya tourism has a lot of great specials this time of the year (rainy season) and I wanted to go on safari to see Kenya during the green season. We were signed up to stay at the Sweetwater’s luxury tented camp (the only thing resembling “camping” is that you are in a tent… in a king size bed!). Serena, owner of the camp, called to say that I was a good customer (we stayed at their hotel in Kampala – the place where The Queen stayed and a couple of their other properties in Kenya and Tanzania) and they were going to put us in the best tent – the one located right in front of the water hole where animals congregate. Something must have happened with making this promise reality because I received another call saying that they wanted to put us in the Ol Pejeta House instead. This is another place to stay in the same park whose price is well beyond most people. The home has had a couple of owners before Serena acquired it most notable being Adnan Khashoggi.
When I read “Adnan Khashoggi” a bad feeling went right through me. I told Pamela that I could not remember who he is, but he is a bad person from the 1980s. Some more thinking and I came up with arms dealer and Iran-Contra scandal. Sure enough, an internet search led me to billionaire Saudi arms dealer involved with Ollie North and more recently with Richard Perle of Number 43’s administration. I was a little disappointed not to be in the tent in front of the water hole since we were going to see animals, but the home certainly sounded nice. We had planned to take a matatu from Nairobi to Nanyuki and then get a ride into the 90,000 acre private conservancy, but Serena provides a package deal that basically makes the flight free so we went with that. Flying 35 minutes from Nairobi to Nanyuki rather than a bumby, crowded and dangerous drive of five or more hours was much more preferable especially since we would be there only two days.
We were greeted by the staff when we arrived at the home and they led us to Mr. Khashoggi’s suite – the best room in the home. I have stayed in some nice rooms in my life including a suite at a Four Seasons in Beverly Hills thanks to Chris’ brother, Michael, who was a manager there. But nothing compares to what Adnan used for his bedroom in his personal getaway home (he has owned many properties around the world including the yacht that is now owned by The Donald). There we found the most ridiculous bedroom I could ever imagine. The room was huge with a bed, dressers, sitting area and television… a TV in an animal park??? It faced its own pool and private yard. After the bedroom there was a dressing room with closets and French doors facing the pool. The dressing room alone was larger than any normal hotel room. Adnan must be a large man! A hallway led to a water closet on the left and a room on the right that was the shower – large enough for a dozen people to shower at the same time. Straight ahead there was another room that contained a huge sink area and a tub the size of most hot tubs and a lot of empty, useless space. Before the weekend ended, I measured the whole suite to be 25 meters long by 9 meters wide – more square footage than the home I owned in California. But the size of the suite was nothing compared to the bed which measured three meters by three meters. We estimated six people could sleep in that bed or maybe twelve people if they doubled up on the length! We took our cell phones to bed in order to stay in touch with each other. The rest of the home matched up to the bedroom mostly with lots of big, open, useless space somewhat tastefully decorated in a large way. It provided lots of laughs, but I think in the end we would have preferred the tented camp. There is something very weird about being enveloped in luxury and over-indulgence in Africa.
As odd as the accommodation was for us, the park proved to be fantastic. First, the landscapes were truly stunning with everything being alive and green. Being that most of Kenya is savannah, most of the year the plants are either dead or struggling for survival. During the rain season (April – June is the “long rains” whereas November – December is the “short rains” – a double rain season situation repeated in much of Africa), Kenya looks like Ireland and the dry and wet season pattern reminds me of California where golden hills is the normal, but where fields of vibrant green exist once the rains begin. I now understand why Hemingway would name his book “Green Hills of Kenya”. I must say that my love for this country has increased a great amount after seeing this green beauty from the ground and the air. I don’t think there is any better way to see the wildlife than against the vibrant green grasses, shrubs and trees. Some of my favorite wildlife pictures that I have taken were in a park in Ethiopia where we found zebra in a green swampy area. The contrast of zebra stripes against bright green is phenomenal. Ol Pejeta provided many such scenes with zebra, elephant, many types of antelope and a whole host of great African animals.
This conservancy is known mostly for the work it is doing to recover rhino populations. They now have 76 black rhinos and 8 white rhinos. These are becoming one of my favorite animals in Africa. I’m not sure if rhinos will survive after 97% of them were poached in order to satisfy some Arab and Asian fixation with their horns being an aphrodisiac, but Kenya as well as a few other African countries has a serious program to bring back their numbers. Although there are many more black rhinos, we only saw white rhinos until the last drive. Unlike the national parks, we were able to drive off the road and get very close to the rhinos including one couple with a very young baby. A baby rhino is almost cute! The conservancy has an old black rhino named Morani who was orphaned in the 1970s when its mother was poached. This rhino is friendly… friendly to the point where you stand next to it and pet it. I think we were both scared. Morani is a huge beast and there is something much scarier about a rhino as compared to an elephant even though being next to an elephant is scary, too. I was able to take a lot of close-up photos while he ate and Pamela posed next to her friend.
Aside from the natural park and Morani, Ol Pejeta has one other attraction. It has a chimpanzee sanctuary which was originally started by Jane Goodall. Part of the very large caged area is next to a river so the river provides a natural boundary for keeping the chimps enclosed. From across the river we were able to watch one family eat, rest and play. The setting is so good and natural without an obstructing fence that you almost feel like you are seeing them in the wild. Well, accept that chimpanzees are native to rainforest and not savannah. When we were leaving the facility we saw one more chimp near the exit and we went over to see him. He was staring at Pamela basically the same as I had witnessed in Cameroon. Suddenly he made a face and stuck out his tongue at her. What? I looked at her to see that she had made the same face… first. He was imitating her! We were once again reminded that the apes are so much more intelligent than the rest of the animals. He repeated her face numerous times right after her each time earning big laughs from us. I know he thought it was funny, too.
We found black rhinos during our last drive on Sunday. Whereas the white rhinos are grazers and therefore can be found in open grassland, the blacks are browsers who usually hide in brush so they are more difficult to locate. The black rhinos were in an area with giraffes, zebra and antelope so it was quite a busy site. The giraffes in this park are exceptionally calm and we had numerous close encounters including having two of them sit down near the vehicle. I am used to skittish giraffes so this was very nice. The zebra on the other hand were the skittish animals of the week performing all kinds of crazy runs near us as they cleared the way. We did a night game drive Saturday right after sunset. This involves driving around the park with a spotlight to see the nocturnals. Right after we started, we found a dozen lions sitting on and next to the road so we had a very nice viewing of them before they got up and headed into the bush to find some dinner. It is always exciting to be close to such big and dangerous predators… from the safety of a car. This was the closest I have been to lions since Ngorongoro Park two years ago. The highlight of the night drive was finding a serval cat. This is a small predator with markings like a leopard. It was the first time I have seen them in the wild.
The flight back to Nairobi mainly involved gawking at the beautiful green hills. We were especially mesmerized by one area and we were wondering where we were when I looked up and downtown Nairobi was right ahead. I’ll write about Nairobi soon, but suffice to say that it is an amazing jumble of beautiful greenery and brown slums. The plane swung around on its descent into Wilson Airport passing over Kibera – the largest slum in Africa with somewhere over 800,000 residents. Kibera sits in a rolling hill area so you normally only see glimpses of it and it is therefore difficult to understand its size. I know I was actually questioning the 800,000+ number because it looks so small. That is until I was flying over it and its true immensity was made clear. We could see all of the tin shacks and pathways separating them surrounded by some of the best areas in Nairobi and places that any of us would dream to live in. It was a good kick in the pants to bring us back from Khashoggi’s bed and into Africa. Once again, TAB… That’s Africa, Baby!!!
Tags: Africa, kenya
vagabondrick
Glad you are doing well and went back to Kenya. Jessica and I saw Kibera when we were in Nairobi before meeting up with the group in Tanzania. My first trip to Africa was Botswana and we did a night drive and saw amazing creatures as well as the serval cat. Best to you and Pamela.
oh man I envy you! would love to do this – John not up to this kind of a trip yet – the hip replacement was more of a recovery than any of us thought. Maybe next year!
Although John could have handled Khashoggi’s bedroom – we stayed in Wales in a huge room that Prince Charles slept in the night he was invested as Prince of Wales – had to leave shoes as a trail across the room or we wouldn’t have been able to find the door.
Way to go you two! I expect you will remember Khashoggi’s excessiveness in luxury for a long time. I’m glad that you got to see all the animals too. All my best – and a belated Happy Mother’s Day to Pamela!