Road-tripping in Kenya with Wander Expeditions
This February saw me say yes to one of Alvaro Rojas's expeditions... to Kenya and Lamu! Alvaro is the youngest Spaniard to have travelled the world! When he created an adventure travel agency, I kept my eye out. Boom. A Kenya trip shows up and I see that it is happening in about three weeks. I book it and even convince one of my friends and fellow artist (Avneet Cheema - @avsinghart, go check out his work!) to come along!
Preparation
The way Alvaro's expeditions work is you apply to get accepted. That's probably so that they filter out people that are anxious travellers, and just do some screening. This kinda put me at ease that the people on the trip would be similar if not more adventure-y and outgoing than me. Once I was in I applied for my Kenyan visa, got my Yellow fever vaccine and booked my flights. The rest went like this...
Flying into Kenya
I arrived in Nairobi and met with Avneet to catch a taxi to out hotel about 30 mins away, most of the travellers flew in the night before (apart from those who were coming from the Congo trip) and we got to know each other over dinner. The next few days saw us roadtrip across the Kenyan landscape in some pretty cool jeeps for hours on end.. I actually can't say which was more fun, the singing and story-telling in the jeeps with everyone or seeing the Big Five although that was epic!
Meru and Nakaru National Park
The map above shows the jeep routes that took us to the national parks for full game drives, where we spent the days spotting and luckily seeing giraffes, elephants, rhinos, zebras and with towards the end we did get to see a leopard and two lions. Honestly, it was so surreal, because I hadn't seen anything like it before. We also spent some time by Lake Naivasha, amongst flamingoes and other incredible wildlife!
Downtown Nairobi
After a few days of road-tripping around Kenya with dust building up and the safari look being completely exhausted (though great fun), we spent one day in the capital city. A very built up capital where we lunched and walked around. Our local guides, Sami and Obed, took us to one of the largest slums in Kenya. Small huts made of corrugated iron, with large populations living amongst unsanitary water and a heap of rubbish everywhere. Of course an emotional day that put life into perspective - we should be grateful for what we have and travelling is not just about enjoyment but seeing countries and communities in a raw way.
Lamu
After one more night in Nairobi we took a domestic flight to the beautiful Island of Lamu! Lamu is a Muslim-majority island and Lamu Old Town considered a UNESCO world heritage site. It was an unexpected beauty that I hadn't heard of before, we enjoyed the East African beaches and boat rides (you actually have to take a boat from the small airport to the mainland!) samosas on the beach, incredible food by the Muslim community and incredible places to eat! We stayed in an incredible airbnb by the beach, and ahh.. let me put in some pictures and stop talking because I can't do it justice!
After just over a week of travelling with everyone, it was so hard to say goodbye. We'd travelled from the US, Germany, Spain, Finland and the UK. Ahh they were such a fun bunch, and we actually have already done one reunion in London! I would highly recommend Kenya as a place to adventure, it was also one of Alvaro's tamer trips, and it was the right balance of adventure and chill!
Alvaro's travel agency: www.wanderexpeditions.com
Watch my Kenya stories on instagram and my tiktok on Kenya below :)
Until next time,
Shaimaa