Africa Is Still Worthwhile

This is the third (and concluding ) part of a series on what the tourist can see and do in South and East Africa. As we said in Part I, the tourist view of Africa is much the same as it always was, signs of political upheaval are there only if you know where and wish to look for them.

FLYING time from Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, to Nairobi, Kenya, is about hours by jet; or about twice that time from Living stone (where we left you in July), by conventional aircraft.

In either event, you arrive at Nairobi’s magnificent new jet airport that has replaced the barracks-like structure of a few years back where (so residents liked to tell visitors) Mau-Mau more or less roosted at the bottom of the garden.

The new airport is about seven miles out and matches the architec ture of the modern city that has boomed into existence in the last

half dozen years.

Nairobi itself is built on the high plateau that forms part of the southern and more fertile part of the Colony. The city is virtually right

on the equator but its elevation of over 5,000 feet tempers the climate which generally produces warm days and cool nights.

The tourist usually goes to Kenya for one thing—to see big game—and most Kenya tourism is organised for that purpose. The two main game reserves are Tsavo National Park, which can be reached from either Nairobi or Mombasa and which lies in the dry zone behind the coastal belt skirting Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,340 ft.); and the Amboseli Game Reserve which you attack from Nairobi across the Athi Plains. This reserve lies below Mt. Kilimanjaro but to the north-west of it. [Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, is in Tanganyika,

not in Kenya, but there is no form ality about getting from one to the other. Visitors to Tsavo frequently make use of the excellent small hotel part way up the Mountain at Kibo during their stay in the Park. Roads go a fair way up the mountain and there are numerous interesting walks for people who like this form of exer cise. The head of the mountain is more often than not hidden in cloud although both from the plains and from aircraft, spectacular glimpses of the rounded, snow-capped peak can sometimes be obtained.] Apart from the two big game parks, there is the small Nairobi

National Park, right at the city’s door. The Nairobi Park, unlike the game reserves, is fenced, but other wise the animals live in their own natural surround

ings as in the bigger reserves and the same rules for visitors about staying in their cars apply.

Finally, there is the privately owned “Tree-Tops”, run as an an cillary to the Outspan Hotel, Nyeri, about 80 miles from Nairobi in the foothills of the Aberdare Mountains.

“Tree-Tops” provides comfortable but somewhat primitive (and certainly novel) accommodation for about 20 people. You climb into it by a stair way in the early afternoon and re main there until the next morning, during which time (if you are lucky), elephant, rhino, many varieties of buck, monkeys, warthog and buffalo will come along and parade under neath for the benefit of guests, quite unconscious of the fact that they are

being watched from the bale* A visit to “Tree-Tops” mu made through the Outspan where transport and a guide ar vided.

The cost is about £Stg.s per p The drive itself, from Nair Nyeri, is worthwhile for its sake as this particular road— all the way as a welcome « from African roads’ almost cc state of dust and corrugafl passes through some of the agricultural land in Kenya, sisal and coffee stretch aw; either side of the road an traveller gets a glimpse of the discussed White Highlands— however are no longer reser Europeans. This is Kikuyu c and the road passes several large new villages in whichi people were settled after the Mau emergency.

Accommodation in Ambosel safari lodges or in small c hotels on the fringes of it. y to Tsavo will find the hotels at convenient intervals for either on Mt. Kilimanjaro or routes between Mombasai Nairobi. Accommodation in generally, is excellent, in city country. The New Stanley H Nairobi is very new in the i tional sense but there are

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perhaps not so much plate and chrome, which are very ortable. od is almost always very good 11 —the Europeans who settled in Africa seem to have had more js in turning Africans into good than Europeans have had with Pacific Islanders, iirist travel in Kenya is usually unerican sedans and station us each carrying a party of four. Based on this number in you should calculate on game excursions costing about £8 to tg. per person per day, every lincluded. h Nairobi as a base, probably ays would give you adequate iunity of exploring both Tsavo imboseli Parks, with something : Rift Valley and Mt. Kiliman hrown in. An excursion from 3i to “Tree Tops” and back take the best part of two days; amewhere in between, a spare Don could be spent in the Di National Park. With this ge there should be no diffi in seeing lion, elephant, rhino giraffe, warthog, buck, wilde zebra, hippopotomus and per . leopard. )d’s Tours Ltd., African Road the United Touring Co. of Ltd., East African Airways and East African Railways Mombasa or Nairobi), will all tourist information on request, tors can hire cars in either asa or Nairobi and make their rrangements, but if time is a the surest way to see big quickly is to be guided by the iionals.