Think the border of Kenya and Ethiopia....
Think English Patient.....Think Doctor Zhivago....
Think vast expanses of sand running from the North of Kenya into Ethiopia. Think an invisible sand airstrip that takes five passes to find. Think hot wind, camels, herders, goats, palms and thousands upon thousands of sand grouse flying in at dawn and dusk to drink. The male birds soak their breast feathers in water and fly back to the nest to give their young a drink of water. 
This is Kalacha, an oasis on the Chalbi Desert. After flying over nothing for an hour, a green island appears. As I buzz the camp and the nearby mission town, the camels and goats scatter. Finally I land and taxi through the trees (literally!) to the camp. An old man from the Gabra tribe, known as the "camel nomads" of Northern Kenya politely tells me that there is a big wide (OBVIOUS!) mission strip just over there. I smile and thank him, feeling absolutely ELATED that 1. we found the strip finally and 2. I did quite a nice landing if I say so myself. The instructions had been to look for "a biggish tree on the left and a pretty normal tree on the right and land between them. But don't land at the beginning because there is a hump that will get you airborne again. If you get it wrong and DO land on the threshold and get airborne on the hump, add power and settle down again and DON'T worry that the strip starts to go downhill and you feel like the palm trees are racing towards you, you'll be fine." Hmmm. Quite a lot to think about for someone with only a 120 hours in a plane. And that didn't include thinking about the HEAT and the WIND.
This was my biggest flying safari so far and it was one of the "must do" trips in Kenya. We departed Greenpark on Lake Naivasha, walking down to the strip and loading the plane with all the gourmet food, wine and beer we would need for our "self-catering" trip. We flew to Nanyuki at the foot of Mt. Kenya and loaded the plane TO THE GILLS with fuel. We took off and set course for 003 degrees - pretty much straight North. We passed the beautiful Matthews Range and then the Ndoto Mountains, looking for strips marked on the map, timing progress and flying first by dead reckoning with a gps for backup. After the Ndoto's we came across a sand storm as the wide desert opened up before us. I tried to go around it but saw that it was never ending in width but not too high. I climbed up well-above it for fear of dust clogging up my beloved single engine. That worked fine and soon we could see the end of the storm and a clear path ahead.
Once the landing at Kalacha was done, and the taxi through the trees, a cold beer in the swimming pool that lies half in and half out of the little lodge was in order. We had friends joining in their plane and soon we heard the hum of their engine and breathed another sigh of relief now that the rest of the food and the Champagne had arrived.
Two days at Kalacha camp were spent watching the herdsmen bring their goats and camels to drink (and watch us). We also took walks around on the desert and went to visit a beautiful little church at the mission town with frescoes by an Ethiopian in the traditional Christian style of that country.
We left Kalacha in floods of laughter when I told quite an ancient Gabra man passing by who wanted to look into the cockpit that I was the pilot: "No, Bwana is!" he insisted (Bwana meaning the MAN of course!) "No, it's me, really, me, not Bwana" I told him in Swahili. He seemed convinced and began laughing with his whole body, waving to me as we taxied back through the trees to the strip and took off for Lake Turkana. Known as Lake Rudolph in Colonial times and called the "Jade Sea", Turkana is home to lots of Leakey family research as well as lots of famous photo shoots by Peter Beard. The winds are legendary and the landing at Loiyangalani strip was into a 30 kt headwind that caused me to fly again just before touch down. Happily the strip is LOOONG. Word is this strip has been used for access to everything north of Kenya and there are supposedly plenty of spies here! From Turkana we flew down the Seguta Valley, considered one of Kenya's most stunning flights. The landscape varies from gorgeous lakes teeming with flamingo to lush rivers to four story high sand dunes to canyons and flows and everything else related to relatively recent volcanic activity. We flew all the way down the valley taking photos and changing our minds about driving the Seguta with the 100 degree temperatures up high in the ventilated cabin.
We landed at Lake Baringo, home of hippos and crocs and the most peaceful still water in Kenya. Our friends collected us at the strip, drove us to their home on the shores where we had a swim ("We've got a quick meeting, go for a swim to refresh, just have a good look first to be sure there aren't any crocs.") We had two swims and LOTS of good looks around. After a relaxing lunch and snooze on the lawn to let the heat of the day pass, we climbed back into our faithful Bravo Papa Kilo and sailed home just before dusk.
It was 6 hours of flying time. 594 nautical miles. Three new airstrips. I landed back at Greenpark with that rare feeling of having got the landing oh so right. After a big hug to BPK, we went home, toasted ourselves for a great flying safari and fell into bed.
