The strange case of the jungle rash

Monday, October 31, 2011
Nairobi, Kenya
As I sat in the bar at Nile River Explorers Camp, Jinja, Uganda, I noticed my forearms had suddenly become covered in an ugly, itchy, red rash. It looked like I'd been on an episode of "I'm a Celebrity" and stuck my arms in a cage of mosquitoes or sandflies until I was bitten to buggery. Or maybe it was (hopefully) a heat rash. I showed the rash to some of my fellow travellers to see if any of them would be able to help diagnose my condition, more in hope than expectation.

"It's gerpes" joked Dave.

"Gerpes? What's that?" I enquired.

"Gorilla herpes!" replied Dave.

Hmmm, I recalled a close encounter I'd had with Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda a few days earlier. However, it wasn't that "close" an encounter. In the next couple of days, the rash started spreading up my arms. Tanya said she'd arrange a visit to the doctor when we got back to Nairobi in a few days time. I scratched my arms again.

Jinja is located on the shores of Lake Victoria, near to the source of the Nile River, and is the adventure centre of Uganda. There were options to go white-water rafting on the Nile, quad-biking to local villages or bungee jumping. You could also visit a local school to do some community work, although this merely involved painting some murals on walls. I just decided to chill out and have a free day doing nothing.

On Wednesday, we left Jinja, heading back into Kenya to Kembu Camp on the outskirts of the town of Nakuru, in preparation for a trip to Lake Nakuru National Park the following day. Unfortunately, a load of wrinklies had descended on the camp and taken all the rooms so this would be one of the few occasions I couldn't upgrade and had to camp. One of the major downsides of camping is, after having had a few beers in the evening, having to get out of your sleeping bag and tent every time you needed to have a piss during the night. Of course, I could drink less but that would just be silly!

The following day, we had an early start for an all-day game drive in Lake Nakuru NP. We were split into three 4WD minivans, like the ones we had used for the Masai Mara game drives. At the NP main gate, as a twitcher, I took great delight in seeing the words "Birdwatcher's Paradise" under the NP sign. The NP was also supposed to be the best place in Kenya to see rhinos so I was very hopeful of seeing my first ones in the wild.

The drive in the park turned out be a magical experience. The variety of birds was amazing, mainly water birds, although the park was also supposed to be noted for its sea of flamingos but most seem to have flown off elsewhere. There were large families of Olive Baboons and it was fascinating watching them as the youngsters played and fought, whilst the adults seemed to be only interested in grooming and sexual activities - females would walk past erect males and back onto them, males would have sex with what seemed like very young females due to their small size, other males would sit at the roadside playing with themselves. They certainly were a bunch of dirty monkeys! We had some great rhino sightings too - a couple of White Rhinos running across the grassy plains as a helicopter hovered overhead watching them, another very close encounter with a lone White Rhino, and a distant sighting of a rare Black Rhino too.

Rant time: I have an interest in all wildlife, no matter how big or small, with a particular interest in birds. After asking our driver/guide to stop for only a couple of birds so I could take a photo (out of the many that I saw), I started getting all-too-familiar moans. "Why are we stopping for a bird?" moaned one of the girls, who usually didn't have an interest in anything anyway. I'd only asked to stop for a couple of the many birds I saw that I thought were the most interesting. "I want to see a lion" moaned one of the guys, who obviously expected us to drive around all day stopping for nothing except lions. Being able to only drive around on a few marked tracks in a massive NP, the chances of seeing a lion would be down to luck. Did he just expect us to drive past everything until (if) we saw a lion? Also, being the middle of the day, they probably wouldn't be doing much anyway. It didn't stop the moaning. Grrrr, selfish morons. Mental note: I must pack a taser next time I go on holiday - one quick zap and I could enjoy my game drive in peace.

During the heat of mid-afternoon, we stopped off at upmarket Nakuru Lodge for a whole three hours. Driving back out of the park before it shut, we did indeed see a lion (male), unsurprisingly asleep under a tree. However, there was also a female lion hidden in the tree which we didn't spot until she stirred and came down. A bit of sniffing and grooming and the male lion then proceeded to mate with the female! An amazing sight, actually seeing lions doing something interesting. It shut everyone in the minivan up. Back at camp at 6.30pm, I was in the cook group and we still had to cook dinner for everyone, although Tanya had done most of the preparation. A few bottles of beer during cooking (cooks always drink on the job!) plus plenty more during the evening, added to a torrential downpour all night, meant I had to use a plastic bottle during the night. It helped having the tent to myself! I should have used a bigger bottle though, because I had to empty it outside the tent during the middle of the night.

The next morning, we had a relatively late start, it was even light when we put our tents down. We had a fry-up too - sausages, bacon, eggs, toast, beans, tea, and people had generously offered to do our cook group's duties for the morning as we'd had a hectic previous evening cooking after coming straight off an all-day game drive. Then, it was a short drive to Naivasha with a stopover at the Nakuru markets for some very cheap souvenir shopping. We were staying at Crayfish Camp and I upgraded to an en-suite room for a pricey $25 but I needed it!

In the afternoon, I took up the option for a boat/walking safari in Crater Lake National Park. The two hour boat ride was great, we saw thousands of flamingos close-up, including shots of them flying en-masse, lots of other water-birds, hippos close-up, and on the shores of the lake, plenty of game and giraffes. The walking safari was very enjoyable too, we had a different perspective walking with the wildlife rather than incubated in a minivan, but we only managed half an hour before it started chucking it down and we had to do the rest of the two hours in a minivan. When we got back to camp at 7pm, Tanya was dismayed to find our driver Alan doing the cooking by himself in the dark and everyone else in the bar getting pissed. Although it later turned out that the cook group had actually done the main cooking, it didn't look too good!

The next morning was free for various options such as horse-riding or mountain-biking in nearby Hell's Gate NP. I had a lie-in, spending a very enjoyable hour later on in the morning doing some bird-watching at the lake on which the camp was situated. In the afternoon, we had a short drive back to Nairobi and Karen Camp. Tanya had arranged for me to visit a doctor at Karen Hospital about my rash, which hadn't gotten any better. A very efficient hospital - I was seen and out in half an hour. I was relieved to find out that apparently, I had had an allergic reaction to something and it wasn't caused by any strange African bugs. Since I didn't have any food allergies, it may have been plants in Jinja which were growing around the permanent tent I had upgraded to and I had probably brushed against. I was prescribed a course of anti-histamines. At US$10 for the consultation and about $2 for the pills, it was pretty cheap.

That evening was the final one for some members of our group so we had a group meal at Carnivore's, an African buffet restaurant where game meat was served from Masai spears until you could eat no more. A rather pricey $35 a head, but for a three course meal and all-you-can-eat meat until you pop, not too bad. They also served bull's balls but I decided to give them a miss. It was off to a club next door for some more drinks. The dance floor seemed to comprise locals having an epileptic fit, and in the garden outside there was "Rocktoberfest" with a Kenyan thrash metal band grunting into microphones. Interesting.

The next day, we'd be getting some new members to our tour group before heading off to Tanzania and the famous Serengeti NP, more on that in the next entry.

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