We had travelled, more or less since Malawi, up along the Great Rift Valley, a geological scar that runs some 5,000kms up through Africa. It’s characterized by a wide valley and towering escarpments bordering it in the hazy distance. Our final stretch of challenging off-road travel took us up the western side of the Mara escarpment without incident over the rough tracks that were baked hard and dry in the red ground. Anyone who has travelled through Southern Africa knows of its red soil. From South Africa to Kenya it dyes the land. Many say that it’s red from all the blood that has spilled into it. The clay soil, which is rich in aluminum and iron, has literally “rusted red” by the intensity of rains and heat over time. In the dry it can be rock hard but under vehicle wheels it can become a fine choking red dust. It sheathes everything. We have fought a futile battle with that dust over much of our journey trying to keep it out of the cab of the 4×4, our hair, eyes and equipment but as our journey draws to a close we began to realize that we will miss it. Unknowingly it has come to symbolise something, and under that surface layer we have been able to get a little closer to the heart of Africa and feel a stronger pulse each day of being alive.

As we bridged the rim of the great escarpment and with no significantly demanding 4×4 tracks ahead of us before we reach Nairobi we stopped to salute our trusty Toyota Land Cruiser, the “Vervet Monkey” that got us all this way without any major issues. The fitting of the armor tech tires paid off despite the extra weight, as did Eric’s systematic and regular maintenance checks on the filters etc. It has to be said, however, that its 4.2 diesel (non-turbo) engine struggled on the steeper stuff with all the weight it was carrying, not helped by all the chapattis we started eating in East Africa. The Vervet Monkey got all our thanks on getting us so far and through so much, although it did not do it economically. It consumed diesel like the lions we saw devouring the Zebra in Zambia, voraciously.

Passing a broken down Land Rover Defender on a descent reminded us to comment on what is almost a “religious” debate between 4×4 over-landers and serious off-roaders who do this kind of journey and to fail to do so would be sacrilegious for this community we have now become a part of!

When Eric selected the vehicle he was torn. The British heritage of the iconic Land Rover Defender, with its classic design, born under the art deco influence and its long 4×4 heritage was the preferred choice, especially as after nearly 70 years this iconic vehicle ends production. It is undoubtedly more photogenic than the Toyota with a far more quixotic image. Certainly for our friends who are design aficionados and aestheticians there would be no choice in this debate. Design dogma would win out. However, it comes with a reputation for breaking down and that was one criteria of selection that carried great weight for us on this trip especially given Eric’s (and Monika’s) concern that he was “mechanically challenged” on this skills front. Also with its narrower cab it’s said to be more uncomfortable over the long days. The Toyota “bush taxi” can be fixed more easily and is certainly more prevalent in most areas of Africa. The heart said Land Rover but the head said Land Cruiser and practicality won out in that decision. Meeting a couple of over-landers on route with Land Rovers gave us a degree of “design envy”, but we feel we made the right choice, and we were glad how the Toyota “blended in” and made us a little more incognito. We are going to miss her.

Passing through a noticeably dryer Southern Kenya we made sure to spend some time with the pastoral Maasai, whose small kralls and regal herdsmen, walking tall and proud in their deep purple shukas, we had been passing since Northern Tanzania. A Maasai contact we had from a lodge helped us to visit a village on the Mara escarpment where we glimpsed an insight into this distinctive and proud culture. Again, all welcomed us warmly, except for the suspicious small children who cowered behind the baked earthen huts. Monika and her trusty instant Polaroid helped to breakdown barriers, as did their feeling that Eric’s longer golden hair resembled a lion’s mane, the sign of a warrior. Once nomadic people, now most communities in this region have become more settled and again it’s all too evident that their proud ancient culture is under relentless assault from a modern world. The tall slender young men with their handsome features, however, took time to talk with us about their traditions and life.

Formal schooling is challenging the foundation of its culture as the herding of livestock, once the children’s responsibility, is left to their parents so the children can attend school. This also contributes to the end of the nomadic ways, as have the constrictions of movement imposed upon them by wildlife conservations like the Maasai Mara National Reserve. As a result of global warming, droughts are becoming more severe in East Africa (something that became very obvious to us as we travelled north east) and this coupled with western education means that many of the younger Maasai are seeking out alternative livelihoods.

However the obvious intensity of pride in their identity, traditions and tribal culture is a strong counter balance to the press of modernity. The village life remains traditional in substance and rhythm, from the simple small round three roomed wood and mud/cow dung huts (built by the women, who also perform most of the village tasks) to the daily corralling of the cattle and goats by the men behind the tall thorn bush protective walls of the village. Most villages are based around an extended family and, as we learned, these could extend pretty far indeed. One young man we met was one of 39 sons and 3 sisters – that’s a staggering 42 children from one father across his three wives!

Ceremonies, rituals and rites of passage tightly bind the cultural fabric. Perhaps one of the most striking and vital traditions is the “Emuratare” or circumcision ceremony performed shortly after puberty (!). The tradition of female circumcision, now outlawed in Kenya, is thankfully ending but for the young men it remains an essential rite of passage and the ceremony takes place in front of the entire community, without any painkiller or analgesics. For a boy to cry out or shed a tear is an unimaginable disgrace and to run away from the knife will mean exile from the village so they go though several other rites of passage in tolerating pain throughout childhood, including burning of the skin and extracting teeth. We listened with ever-increasing awe at what these slim elegant people endure for sake of their traditions. It was not without some irony that as Eric was entertaining the young men later in the day with videos of heli-skiing in deep snow, they remarked with horror-struck faces, “But why would you do that”?

After a long bureaucratic delay getting the permit for us to wild camp alone out in the Maasai Mara National Reserve it was not without emotion that we sat for our last night by our campfire deciphering the sounds of the remarkable African wilderness. The Mara gave us what was undoubtedly a highlight of our safaris. In the heat of mid-day, through the tall grass, we spotted two rare and magnificent cheetahs on the hunt. Captivated we watched and followed in silence these elegant and beautiful cats for over an hour. In an uncommon act of cheetah behavior one leaped up a tree to gain a better view out onto the plains whilst the other lazed serenely in its shade. It was also not without some emotion that we awoke at dawn to a rustle very close to our camp/tent and looking out through the mosquito netting saw the silhouette of a huge bull elephant, its long white tusks illuminated by the fading moon light, nonchalantly grazing just meters away. A close encounter with a lioness soon after sunrise with our morning coffee, witnessing hundreds of beautiful yellow weaver birds busy preparing their nests as part of their elaborate mating ritual and the sighting of a rhino a little while later was a thrilling end to our self-safari across Southern and Eastern Africa. It has been humbling to be so close and deeply immersed in this great diversity of nature over the last few months. At many times the beauty has been so overwhelming that you can only sit in silence and consider the small space we occupy in the immensity of the universe and listen to your inner voice gently whisper, “I have witnessed this, I have to hold on to this, this matters to me”. It has helped shift our perspective on our role in the life of our planet. We could almost be lulled into thinking that the wildlife of Africa is safe as we have been lucky to experience so much of its unique diversity. However, it would be remiss of us not to warn of the continued and serious threat to it. The plight of the rhino and elephant is worse than we have ever imagined. The figures remain horrifying. There were over 200,000 rhino’s in Africa in the mid 1970s, by the mid-90s that was down to around 3,000. The situation improved for a short while but has once again become far worse with poaching soaring. In South Africa alone 14 rhinos were poached in 2003 but by 2014 the number was closer to 1,000. The rhino is once again facing extinction in the wild and demand for its horn in Asia and Middle East has driven the market prices per kg well above that of gold. The majestic elephant is sadly not faring much better. More than 1/3 of all African elephants were killed between 2007 and 2014. In the more politically stable countries of Southern Africa the situation is far better than elsewhere but it’s an increasingly desperate situation and the exploding population will only put more pressure on the natural habitats.

The long drive to Nairobi from the Maasai Mara edged us ever closer towards the end of our journey and the vast rolling grasslands gave way to villages and towns strewn with garbage, litter and clamour of urban Africa. An evening encounter with a couple of crooked policeman was a poignant reminder of the pervasive corruption that still infects Kenya and so much of Africa. As we mentioned in our initial post it was our first visit to Kenya and Tegla’s project that drew us to the continent. For almost half a century since its independence in 1963 Kenya was considered a bastion of relative peace and stability amongst the chaos that surrounded it. Sadly, in recent years a wave of violence has spread, fuelled by droughts, an exploding population, scarcity of resources, increasingly government corruption and Sudanese warlords who are flooding restive tribes with modern weapons. As we met and talked with friends in Nairobi there is a growing and palpable concern. It is distressing to see Kenya and South Africa, which is also facing similar self-destructive forces, being threatened with a descent into darkness. Through this journey we have come to appreciate just how precious and fragile the pillars of law and order are to a stable society and also to understand how loyalty to family and tribe persistently undermine African leaders’ commitment to the welfare of the broader community. That said, there is hope for a brighter future as mankind’s capacity to love and care for one another is also evident throughout the Africa in which we travelled.

It was with this in mind that we met with our inspirational friend, Tegla Loroupe, and the CEO of her foundation, Eunice Hasango, whom we have worked with to support the great work the small team does through the Tegla Loroupe Peace Academy and Foundation. As mentioned previously Tegla was a world champion marathon runner and record holder with wins which included London, New York and Berlin. Coming from a poor remote region of northern Kenya bordering South Sudan, plagued by conflict, Tegla committed her post athletic career to promoting peace through sports through the work of her Foundation. Her impact led to her being named a UN Ambassador of Peace and in 2016 she was nominated as the Chef de Mission organizing the first ever Refugee Team for the Rio Olympics. Through Eric’s work with the company On AG, who continues to support Tegla, we became close friends and have endeavored to help Tegla on her mission that also includes a school/peace academy and orphanage.

We met Tegla outside Nairobi at a repurposed old orphanage, which currently houses and acts as a training center for the refugee team. 36 young athletes, some of them orphans themselves, have been selected from the vast refugee camps of Kakuma and Dadaab (that house well over 500k refugees from the conflicts and famines of Dafur, Sudan, Somalia, Congo etc.) to train and compete as athletes under the Olympic flag and also engage in vocational training and education. It’s a program Tegla and the UNHCR encouraged the Olympic Committee to support, initially for Rio, as a way of providing a light of hope to the youth of the camps and as signal of a new beginning and as a way of ending isolation and instead, tapping into their potential.

Several of those we met were born in the endless tent cities of the barren and dusty camps and have known only a life taut with hopeless dependence. Many are stateless persons, having no citizenship, who without a program like this stand little chance of being able to escape the confines of the camp legally. The idea over time is to bring the model of the center into refugee camps themselves around the world and through sport development and vocational programs act as a tool for progress and empowerment. Despite the backing for Tegla’s Foundation and this refugee program by the UNHCR and Olympic Committee she, her team and the refugees are in desperate need of greater backing and support but in true African sprit they are making do with what little they have.

We went on the morning training run with the young athletes and through increasingly breathless gasps chatted about their lives and hopes. It was moving to feel, especially in these times, that through their efforts they are committed to send a message of peace and resilience and to demonstrate that despite war, conflict and division that the more noble values of the human spirit continue to shine.

So it was that we packed our bags and boarded our flight from Nairobi back to Europe. Adventure is all about letting the unexpected happen to you and confronting your own fears around that, about putting yourself off balance. Exploration is all about seeking out experiences in places you have never been before. You spend your days improvising, adapting and overcoming new challenges. But the real excitement comes in the changes you can make in yourself and how you interact with the world around you. Although it is always a little melancholic to draw an adventure like this to a close and return to the familiar walls of home there is a strong sense that the actual journey does not have to end. Marcel Proust put it well when he wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes”. In many ways the journey can continue when you return to your home as you see the world and people around you with new eyes. That is the value of adventure travel, it feeds the appetite of curiosity we have for life itself. It reminds us most firmly that our measure of life will not be in the things we have but in the moments and memories we have created and finally as we return home, following the sudden death of a close family friend, that aside from good adventures the finest luxury we have is that of our greatest friends.