Lions, Giraffes and Gorillas Oh My

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At Segera you can buy drawings done by the school children. All the money goes directly to the school.

 

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We also visited Satubo - a women’s initiative. There were three separate tribal groups Samburu, Turkana and Borana communities, where the men were fighting each other. The women decided they had had enough and decided to get together and work together, producing beading and craft work. This gave them an alternative source of income, which assisted the communities and created unity.

Mr FM didn’t know if he could take photos, so all I have is a photo of a photo my guide Sammy took. I had a go at beading - it’s very hard .

 

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The owner bought the plane that was used in the movie "Out of Africa". It is kept at Segera and flown from time to time.

We also visited the vegetable gardens at Segera which are used to supply all the lovely food we ate. Everything is organic -amazing variety of vegetables etc.

 

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On one of the days our guide Sammy surprised us by taking us to a picnic on the river - it was all very "out of Africa" and I would have loved to stay there on the cushions drinking wine and relaxing, but unfortunately it was really hot!

 

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Another day we were having lunch and monkeys came to visit. They kept pulling flowers off and throwing them down -very naughty

 

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There is an amazing amount of modern African art in the gardens. There is a series of bronze statues called Eleven Deadly Sinners by David Brown. These are some of them.

 

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Also some interesting pieces in the Stables. My favourite was an animated piece called State of the Nation - quite political - its the last one

 

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One night we had dinner in the wine cellar and I have a picture of the wonderful cook- Elizabeth.

We came home to find Calvin (our general factotum), had run a bath with geraniums.

 

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For our final game drive in the morning, we asked Sammy to find Oryx and Giraffe. The Oryx were quickly found, but Giraffe were elusive.

Instead we happened upon a Lioness and 3 cubs playing in the road. In the first photo, how many lions can you see?

 

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Another one of one of the cubs - so cute.

we went back to have lunch and a whole herd of Giraffes walked past the Villa.

 

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I needed to pay for the kids drawings with a credit card, so the owner brought over the machine and we had a bit of a chat. A very down to earth person.

I have been reading a bit more about him and he is pretty amazing. Became CEO of Puma at 30 and its price increased 4,000% during his tenure. He now devotes himself to various projects like a museum for Contemporary African Art in Cape Town, Segera and various community and conservation projects.

 

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Some of the staff - Sammy, our guide. Peter the waiter, Calvin our house keeper and Camilla who was a relief manager and heaps of fun.

Also a card Sammy and Calvin organised for us which the staff signed

 

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So no trip can ever go smoothly, so I am going to have some complaints.

Complaint no 1

Segera is obviously very upmarket and tipping always confuses the hell out of me. Clearly the normal game tipping standards were going to be a bit low, so I consulted with Management and was given amounts I should tip. Tips were in the order of US$650 - which for 4 days and given our exchange rate is a fair whack of money.

Unfortunately our waiters tip seems to have been too low as he changed from this smiling happy person to totally miserable. It was too late to do anything about it by the time I worked it out and you know I am not sure I should have to. So it really spoiled the whole experience for me and left me feeling that unless you were a New York investment banker, you should probably avoid Segera - such a pity.

Complaint No 2

we usually stay at the Norfolk in Nairobi, but decided to give Hemingways a try. Checkin was at 11am and we arrived at 11:30. Receptionist was very sour and said the room was not ready. No problems I said and we went to sit down near her. Mr FM was feeling quite ill after a pretty bumpy flight back (A two seater is all very well, but a bit more of a bumpy ride). He really needed to lie down. When it got to 1pm I threw a bit of a wobbly and we finally got our room. I will leave it until the end to report on Hemingways, as we have another stay there and hopefully it will be better.

Complaint no 3

About a year ago I booked 2 business seats from Nairobi to Kigali on a very civilised lunch time flight. Kenyan Air cancelled the flight in July and we had no choice except to move to an all economy flight at 7:20 (leaving hotel at 4:30 -yuk!). I tried to get Kenyan to refund the $500 pp difference, but got nowhere and it wasn't worth hassling.

Imagine my surprise on boarding to find they had changed the equipment again to a plane with business, they had sold all the J seats again and left us in economy - talk about thieves and robbers!

It wasn't too bad though, as I had decided to act as though we were in Business, so we had used the priority entrance for security, used business checkin, had our bags priority tagged and got entrance to the lounge. so apart from the seats, which really don't matter on a short flight, I made sure we got our moneys worth

 

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It was far too early in the morning to take photos, so apologies for that, but I was actually quite impressed with the Kenyan J lounge in Nairobi - better than Qantas' appalling one in Sydney.

There was a very extensive selection of breakfast foods and it was clean and modern.

 

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Next stop Kigali

 

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We were quite surprised by Kigali airport as it all seemed very clean and pleasant. On exiting we found two atms - we were going to use ECO again but someone told us it wasn’t working. We tried the one next door, but just as it was about to issue the cash it shut down. It appeared both had run out of cash.

However our driver turned up and he said he could take us to an ECO bank in n town, where we could withdraw money, so we were soon cashed up and no ATM fees.

We then discovered that we were actually on a 7 night tour! Singita had booked it for us, but we didn’t realise that it included our own driver for the whole time! Seems pretty standard in Rwanda!

Alex informed us he would drive us around the town, then to the Genocide museum, followed by lunch and then the three hour drive to Bisate. I hadn’t decided whether I wanted to go to the museum or not, but the decision was made for us.

Kigali is an incredibly clean town, very safe for tourists, with heaps of construction work happening.

The Genocide Museum is definitely worth a visit. While a horrendous subject it is not too confronting. E.g. the children’s room had many photos of happy, smiling babies and children, not dead bodies.. It was incredibly sad to think of them being killed. There were plenty of sad stories and some pictures but they didn’t dwell on the slaughter as much as reasons and background and hope for the future.

 

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Re tipping. I understand these are world class facilities that take money to create and upkeep but in the same breath, these aren't Contiki Bali prices either, people are paying $$$+ for the privilege so the expectation of tipping and poor performance is very disappointing.

 

[vetrade]

Unless the tips were paid directly to the employees, how much they actually received is out of your control. Admittedly that can be difficult where tips to kitchen, grounds and cleaning staff are concerned. Managers can't always be trusted not to take a "handling fee". Tips in the order of $US650 over a 4 day stay seem excessive to me and the fact the waiter seemed disappointed suggests to me he might not have got all of what he could reasonably have expected (unless he had grown spoiled by overindulgent Americans tipping as if they were back in NY). IME safari camp staff have always been extremely grateful for any tip - but after one suspicious episode we go out of our way to pay tips directly to the staff who have personally attended us, and then leave some "community" tips for the other staff as well.

 

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Unless the tips were paid directly to the employees, how much they actually received is out of your control. Admittedly that can be difficult where tips to kitchen, grounds and cleaning staff are concerned. Managers can't always be trusted not to take a "handling fee". Tips in the order of $US650 over a 4 day stay seem excessive to me and the fact the waiter seemed disappointed suggests to me he might not have got all of what he could reasonably have expected (unless he had grown spoiled by overindulgent Americans tipping as if they were back in NY). IME safari camp staff have always been extremely grateful for any tip - but after one suspicious episode we go out of our way to pay tips directly to the staff who have personally attended us, and then leave some "community" tips for the other staff as well.

tips were paid in cash directly to the staff, except for the general staff, where it was given to management for distribution. Unfortunately in the case of our waiter, I think he was disappointed because he is used to extravagant USA level tips - it was very sad.

Generally at the game camps we have stayed at don’t find that management don’t hand on tips, unlike restaurants. They want the staff to be well rewarded to keep service levels high. However we always try to make sure we get cash and hand directly to the staff where we can.