Kakamega Forest

Ever since my first visit to Kenya in 2003 I have wanted to visit Kakamega Forest, the largest bit of rainforest that is left in Kenya. Since I grew up near a rainforest at home in British Columbia, I always was curious to see what an African one looked like, and also to compare it to the dry coastal forest I had lived near on the coast of Kenya. I had also previously visited Mt Elgon forest, another rainforest, in 2006 (see previous posts) but revisiting that place would be impossible with recent violence in that area.

Kakamega Forest is Kenya's largest bit of a virgin tropical rainforest that once extended from West Africa through the Congo into East Africa. It is easy to find accomodaitons there- from luxury guest house to rustic bandas. We chose the bandas (huts) which were run by KEEP (Kakamega Environmental Education Program), a non-profit community based organisation keen on educating people and protecting the forest. The bandas were clean, spacious, and came with linens and towels for the three single beds inside. At night there was a watchman and solar powered lights as well as a main dining and socialising area, a fully equipped kitchen we could use to cook our own food (we didn't know this until we arrived- we would have brought more than peanut butter, bananas and bread if we did!). There was a pump for water (which you then could use for a bucket bath) and clean long-drop toilets (they are all squatters in rural Kenya).

Although we had the camp to ourselves the first night, we met up with about six American volunteers the next day while walking in the forest, and then spent the evenign with three Australians who were occupying another banda. Apparantly the locks on the banda doors are quite cheap, because when they lost their key in the night I lent them ours and it worked like a charm!
We enjoy learning as much as we can about areas and also supporting local guides, so when I knew there was a possibility of a guided walk, we jumped at the chance to go with one of them on a five hour morning walk. Our fabulous guide Ben met us at 5am sharp and proceeded to lead us through a narrow path through forest for about 1.5km. In the pitch black. I concentrated hard on keeping my footing on the muddy ridges instead of letting my imagination wonder what kind of slithering creatures I could have drop in my face.

This walk was amazing. We got to experience the forest waking up- first only a couple species of crickets chirping almost imperceptibly, but then, slowly, we a few birds, then the roaring croaks of monkeys declaring their territories (this also happened around 1am - Mike heard it but I didn't), and finally, when we reached the top of Lirhanda Hill, we could survey the sun rising, the mist lifting off the forest's rivers and streams, and hear a symphony of chirps, whistles, and melodies from the forest's 330 bird species.

We hung out on the top of the hill for almost an hour taking it all in. Ben entertained us with stories about local people and the history of the forest, then we walked back and attempted to do some bird watching, which for me turned into flower watching, and for Mike into watching anything but birds. Although the songs are nice, watching darting silhouettes, for inexperienced birders like us was considerably more frustrating than spying on birds in open places like beaches and meadows.

Here is some grass that has been cut and left to dry on this high hilly meadow. It will be picked up in a few days by local people to use as thatching materials for their rooves.

Oooohhh.... bats... I think bat caves are cool. I've been in several (all in Kenya) and enjoy the adrenaline rush of being surrounded by innocuous flying mammals that you can hear but not see until you capture one on camera. This one was a simple abandoned mine shaft. Apparantly Kakamega Forest Reserve was first set aside because gold was found here. Not much has been extracted though.

After our morning tour Mike and I spent the rest of that day and the next morning exploring the simple matrix of trails close by to the bandas. We saw lots and lots and lots of monkeys and heard lots of birds but didn't see many other animals. We spent time looking at cool mushrooms, and butterflies, and caterpillars, and ferns, and tree canopies like this lacy one below. We did not see any snakes or spiders, but I'm sure they saw us.

Red-tailed Colubus monkeys. Very fun to watch. Their long red tails looked like streamers in the sun as they jumped around branches and trees.

A cool tiny fungus my camera liked.

A strangling fig tree... somehow, the parasitic fig tree completely envelops an unsuspecting host and grows completely around it, consuming it's timber as food to grow even bigger. You can see a hollow part in the middle of this one where the original tree once was.

Blue monkeys. These guys have been studied a lot by researchers from Columbia University (we met some of the researchers while we were there, then met one student two more times in completely different parts of the country several weeks later). As a result I could get fairly close to this pair without them being disturbed.

Some brilliant government administrator sitting at a desk in Nairobi decided that all government offices should be equipped with electricity. Then they decided that instead of installing solar panels or some other practical technology that other people in the area use to get electricity, they would allow great swaths of this Virgin rainforest to be cut down in order to install a powerline to a very remote office (I'm imagining how often they will actually have power though, as this line will likely be compromised by falling branches and swinging monkeys more often than not!). A huge scar now runs through this section of the forest, disturbing tourists, conservationists and wildlife alike. The ones who profit from this are the government officials in the area who are now legally allowed to sell the very valuable timber from the cut trees (fat wallets for them) as well as local folks who are allowed to harvest wood for cooking fuel. Some of these women and children have walked ten km to get here.



At the end of the road we could see the poles set up and guys climbing them with hooks attached to shoes in order to install bars and lines to the top.Entertainment on the way home- a blurry picture of a chicken in a plastic bag on our bumpy ride back to town. Someone's having a tasty dinner tonight! It seems like such a normal thing to do here, to carry live chickens around in all manner of portable containers- baskets, bags, or boxes!