I have been in the safari business for a long time – from managing lodges to running safaris.  During that time I have had the opportunity to meet many people on holiday and talk to them about what they like and don’t like.  Many people are looking for holidays with an experience attached. Wildlife viewing safaris provide this in many ways- surely one of the most exciting things is to be face to face (maybe a bit of glass in between you) with a huge primal, lethal beast.  The problem with this is that it involves a lot of time sitting in a vehicle.

Ngorongoro Crater

Though I have lived and worked in Africa for over a dozen years I will never forget my first time in the Ngorongoro Crater. The mystery of all those childhood wildlife programs where the sun goes down at the end of another day and the hyenas come out to feast – had put the place very high on my list of places to go.  At last I was there and could come back as often as I liked now that I lived nearby.

As the years go by the Ngorongoro Crater still holds a special place in my heart as an idealized “Garden of Eden.”  I guess it may not feel that way to a gazelle listening in the night to hyenas whooping it up nearby; and I guess the forbidden fruit would have to be the black rhinos that can still be seen virtually nowhere else.

I also always get a pang of regret that I couldn’t have been there 20 years earlier when it was possible to camp there – or maybe 50 years earlier when you could just walk wherever you liked – or 100 years earlier when apparently it was possible to just claim it as your own personal farm.  Still one can’t have everything and the thing to remember is that somewhere you visit today will be someone else’s idealized Garden of Eden in the future.  Imagine not taking the chance to climb Kilimanjaro now when there is still snow on the top.

When I was spending New Years Day down on the coast it reminded me of another time on the beach, though that time at Lake Tanganyika. My wife Teena and I were the managers of Greystroke Mahale Camp where we first met Alan and his wife, Diane. This is where Alan and I discovered our shared love of kayaking.

The weather was dry and the chimpanzees had come down to the lakeshore to drink. Some were sitting around on the verandahs of the lodge – taking the sales phrase of barefoot luxury a little too literally I felt. A warthog was trundling hopefully along the surfline when one of the recent batch of tectonic after-shocks in the area rumbled through the air. The chimps took to their heels (don’t quote me, that may not be anatomically correct), screeching with fright. Some of our guests followed suit but realised they weren’t such good climbers.

A crocodile decided to come and see if there were less vibrations on our beach than his. Some clients who we took boating saw a hippo come up and yawn with such perfection that they thought I had staged it (think Disneyland’s fibreglass Jaws if you can’t appreciate the perfection of a hippos yawn).

Living in East Africa and being a sea kayaker offers the chance to go exploring new waters quite often.  In fact when Alan Feldstein came here in 2008 with his kids we were the first to paddle down a mangrove river and out to Maziwi Island.  Later when we were together in February after the launch of Infinite Kayak Adventures we paddled Manza bay and explored areas that had never been explored before.

I thought I’d explore the bay and have a look at a channel that was shown on no maps except my German 1870′s chart, where it was denoted as “canoe passage”.  Fully expecting it to have silted up 100 years ago, I was able to keep pushing through the mangrove estuary into ever narrowing channels.  There was no sound of life except things plopping into the ooze and the only movement was the current of the rapidly ebbing tide.  In the end the channel was the size of a stream and getting smaller.

I had to get out of my kayak once and I was about to turn back when I sensed the tide going the other way. I realised I must have got past the highest point so persevered as “canoe passage” widened once more into a channel worthy of the noblest of tall ships.   Well the tide was with me but the strong winds that picked up funnelling into my face had enough power to stop a  60 gun Ship.  It took another 3 hours to make the open ocean again and discover I am now in Kenya, not Tanzania, (somewhere in the channel I had missed all the duty free shops).  I had discovered that what had once been Kirui Island on the old charts and is just a peninsula on modern maps, is still an island.

Tanzanian law is quite strict with rules about cutting down and developing mangrove areas and this might well be what stops things silting up here and preserves tracts of (nearly) impenetrable mangrove swamp – possibly one of the last preserves of the African dugong (called a manatee in North America).

Anyway, after a full days paddling and 40 kilometers under my spraydeck- it would be an easy couple of hours paddling home in the dark.  Or in reality an 4 hour battle once the wind turned to face me once again- nothing about that on the charts! Still I did not care – a days paddling like that was worth every “day after” ache.

Kayak Christmas Paddle in Tanzania

In the U.K. where I am from or for those of you in the former colony most Christmases are spent indoors with family and friends usually with snow outside and a fire burning.  I haven’t spent Christmas at home for several  years but this year had hoped to until Alan sent me some wonderful clients on Safari instead.  Thus I “had to go” kayaking instead (I will wait for the awwwww heard around the world).  With that offer it was certainly not worth staying at home for! So Teena and I packed up Aidan and presents and down we went to Fish Eagle lodge.

Christmas day was a beautiful sunny day that I spent kayaking with our clients.  We spent the day kayaking – pulling up on forgotten beaches;  warm, calm ,deserted …  perfect places for some kayak play and instruction.   We then paddled onto gigantic Moa Bay for some snorkelling ( we” just missed” seeing a Whale Shark there- later that day it got very affectionate with a fishing boat).  Then we cooled off on a sand island that slowly disappeared as the tide came in.  From there we hopped in our boats before the wind picked up and blew us back to shore.   What a great Christmas day and there was still Christmas dinner and presents to go!