The silhouettes of Wildebeests make a striking impression against a setting sun

Think Kenya. And you’re likely to think Swahili, Serengeti, Mombasa, Masai Mara… May be Mt Kilimanjaro too, thanks to Hemingway. After a weeklong stay you realise there is much more to this North African nation. Having arrived after a six-hour long flight from Mumbai at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, we were taken in by the mad, bustling city of millions, always a maelstrom of activity and humanity with smells of smoke, roasting corn and diesel from the matatus (minibuses) spilling over with riders.

Nairobi’s streets are crowded with roadside vendors selling everything from tomatoes to ebony. Nairobi’s a busy city that comes across as a fascinating combination of African colour and cosmopolitan, hustle and bustle. Like Mumbai, it never sleeps. Like most tourists, we too stopped for the smells and sights of the night, to soak in the city and left at the crack of dawn for a jaunt to the beach and safari. Kenya’s capital has some great restaurants, shop-till-you-drop offers, classy colonial-era hotels and plenty of wildlife within the city environs. The irony of life here is that you can play with baby elephants and crane your necks to look into the eyes of a giraffe on one hand and have a meal of ostrich or crocodile meat on the other.

Set astride the equator, cut in half by the Great Rift Valley and marked by a chain of fresh water lakes, Kenya woos wildlife enthusiasts with its 25 national parks and 29 national reserves – home to the greatest variety of wildlife anywhere in the world. But there are other attractions too: high mountains, wide rivers, dense forests, and on its eastern shores, the most beautiful and unspoiled beaches in the world, the coral reefs where you can go scuba diving or indulge in deep sea fishing. It’s only once you experience a Kenyan Safari that you will know why so many safari-addicts return to Kenya repeatedly. Wildlife of great variety is to be found here, both in the sparsely populated areas and in the vast number of national parks and reserves that have been created for its protection.

The dry weather has elephants, giraffes, wildebeests, zebras and gazelles – as well as their attendant
predators, including lions and cheetahs – gathering at water holes in the Mara. This is game-viewing in peace. The vast amount of animals, including big cats and wildebeests, and the rolling African savanna grasslands draw tourists to Masai Mara.