The Rough Guide to Kenya (Travel Guide eBook)

Description

The Rough Guide to Kenya has been the most authoritative guide to the country since it was first published in 1987. The fully revised, full-colour 11th edition covers the country in fine detail. Learn how to cope with and enjoy Nairobi; visit the Maasai Mara without the crowds; explore lesser-known parks and conservancies; and make the most of the Indian Ocean coast. A wealth of practical information covers the highways and byways, supported by the most thoroughly researched and reliable background coverage available. Go on safari in Tsavo East, Amboseli, Samburu Reserve and Meru National Park. Explore Rift Valley lakes, Mount Kenya, the Kakamega Forest and the Shimba Hills. Enjoy the Indian Ocean - not just at Diani Beach, Mombasa and Watamu, but also at Msambweni, Tiwi and Kilifi. Stop off in Machakos, Nanyuki and Kisumu and visit local markets, museums and wildlife sanctuaries.

Whether you're visiting for a safari and beach holiday or embarking on a longer stay, The Rough Guide to Kenya is the ultimate travel guide.

Informations

• Publié par: Apa Publications
• Date de parution: 02 mai 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780241278437
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 97 Mo

Extrait

CONTENTS HOW TO USE INTRODUCTION Where to go When to go Author picks Things not to miss Itineraries Wildlife BASICS Getting there Getting around Accommodation Food and drink Health The media Public holidays and festivals Entertainment and sport Outdoor activities National parks and reserves Safaris Crafts and shopping Culture and etiquette Crime and safety Travel essentials THE GUIDE 1. Nairobi and around 2. The Central Highlands 3. The Rift Valley 4. Western Kenya 5. The national parks and Mombasa highway 6. The coast 7. The north CONTEXTS History Music Books Language MAPS AND SMALL PRINT How to Use How to Use Cover Table of Contents


HOW TO USE THIS ROUGH GUIDE EBOOK

This Rough Guide is one of a new generation of informative andeasy-to-use travel-guide ebooks that guarantees you make the most of yourtrip. An essential tool for pre-trip planning, it also makes a great travelcompanion when you’re on the road.
From the table ofcontents , you can click straight to the main sections of the ebook.Start with the Introduction , whichgives you a flavour of Kenya, with details of what to see, what not tomiss, itineraries and more – everything you need to get started. This isfollowed by Basics , with pre-departuretips and practical information, such as flight details and health advice. The guide chapters offer comprehensive and in-depth coverage of the whole of Kenya, including area highlights and full-colour maps featuring sights and listings. Finally, Contexts fills you in on history, art, architecture, film and books and includes a handy Language section.
Detailed area maps feature in the guide chaptersand are also listed in the dedicated mapsection , accessible from the table of contents. Depending on yourhardware, you can double-tap on the maps to see larger-scale versions, orselect different scales. There are also thumbnails below more detailed maps– in these cases, you can opt to “zoom left/top” or “zoom right/bottom” orview the full map. The screen-lock function on your device is recommendedwhen viewing enlarged maps. Make sure you have the latest software updates,too.
Throughout the guide, we’ve flagged up ourfavourite places - a perfectly sited hotel, an atmospheric café, a specialrestaurant - with the “author pick” icon . You can selectyour own favourites and create a personalized itinerary by bookmarking thesights, venues and activities that are of interest, giving you the quickestpossible access to everything you’ll need for your time away.

INTRODUCTION TO KENYA
Lapped by the Indian Ocean, straddling the equator, and with MountKenya rising above a magnificent landscape of forested hills, patchwork farms andwooded savanna, Kenya is a richly rewarding place to travel. The country’s dramaticgeography has resulted in a great range of natural habitats, harbouring a hugevariety of wildlife, while its history of migration and conquest has brought about afascinating social panorama, which includes the Swahili city-states of the coast andthe Maasai of the Rift Valley.
Kenya’s world-famous national parks, tribal peoples and superb beaches lend thecountry an exotic image with magnetic appeal. Treating it as a succession of touristsights, however, is not the most stimulating way to experience Kenya. If you get offthe beaten track, you can enter the world inhabited by most Kenyans: a ceaselesslyactive scene of muddy farm tracks, corrugated-iron huts, tea shops and lodginghouses, crammed buses and streets wandered by goats and children. Both on and offthe tourist routes, you’ll find warmth and openness, and an abundance of superbscenery – rolling savanna dotted with Maasai herds and wild animals, high Kikuyumoorlands grazed by cattle and sheep, and dense forests full of monkeys andbirdsong. Of course the country is not all postcard-perfect: Kenya’s role infighting Al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia has resulted in reprisal attacks, while ifyou start a conversation with any local you’ll soon find out about the country’sdeep economic and social tensions.

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FACT FILE
With an area of 580,400 square kilometres, Kenya is about two and ahalf times the size of the UK and nearly one and a half times the sizeof California. The population , which for manyyears had a growth rate higher than that of any other country, is nowbeginning to stabilize and currently stands at around 44 million. Kenya regained independence in 1963 afternearly eighty years of British occupation and colonial rule. TheRepublic of Kenya is a multiparty democracy with more then fiftyregistered political parties. With few mineral resources (though potentially viable oil reserveswere confirmed in 2012), most of the foreigncurrency Kenya needs for vital imports is earned fromcoffee and tea exports, and tourism. Most Kenyans scrape a livingthrough subsistence agriculture and remittances from one or two familymembers in paid employment. Kenyan society consists of a huge,impoverished underclass, a small but growing middle class and a tinyelite whose success often owes much to nepotism and bribery. Unbridled corruption percolates every corner of thecountry and affects every aspect of the economy. More positively, more than 93 percent of Kenyans have a mobile phone , an exceptionally high figure for adeveloping country. The mobile money service M-Pesa, allowing anyonewith a mobile phone to send money to another phone user, is one of themost advanced in the world, and has transformed the lives of many poorKenyans working far away from their families.

Where to go
The coast and major gameparks are the most obvious targets. If you come to Kenya on anorganized tour, you’re likely to have your time divided between these twoattractions. Despite the impact of human population pressures, Kenya’s wildlife spectacle remains a compelling experience. Themillion-odd annual visitors are easily absorbed in such a large country, andthere’s nothing to prevent you escaping the predictable tourist bottlenecks:even on an organized trip, you should not feel tied down.
  The major national parks and reserves , watered byseasonal streams, are mostly located in savanna on the fringes of the highlands that take up much of the southwest quarter ofthe country. The vast majority of Kenyans live in these rugged hills, where theridges are a mix of smallholdings and plantations. Through the heart of thehighlands sprawls the Great Rift Valley , anarchetypal East African scene of dry, thorn-tree savanna, splashed with lakesand studded by volcanoes.
  The hills and grasslands on either side of the valley – Laikipia and the Maraconservancies , for example – are great walking country, as are thehigh forests and moors of the Central Highlands and Mount Kenya itself – a major target and afeasible climb if you’re reasonably fit and take your time.
   Nairobi , at the southern edge of the highlands,is most often used just as a gateway, but the capital has plenty of diversionsto occupy your time while arranging your travels and some very worthwhilenatural and cultural attractions in its own right.
  In the far west, towards Lake Victoria , liesgentler countryside, where you can travel for days without seeing anotherforeign visitor and immerse yourself in Kenyan life and culture. Beyond therolling tea plantations of Kericho and the hot plainsaround the port of Kisumu lies the steep volcanic massif of Mount Elgon , astride the Ugandan border. The Kakamega Forest , with its unique wildlife, isnearby, and more than enough reason to strike out west.
  In the north, the land is desert or semi-desert,broken only by the highlight of gigantic LakeTurkana in the northwest, almost unnaturally blue in the brownwilderness and one of the most spectacular and memorable of all Africanregions.
  Kenya’s “upcountry” interior is separated from the Indian Ocean by the arid plains around Tsavo East National Park.Historically, these have formed a barrier that accounts in part for thedistinctive culture around Mombasa and thecoastal region. Here, the historical record, preserved in mosques, tombs and theruins of ancient towns cut from the jungle, marks out the area’s Swahili civilization . An almost continuous coral reef runs along the length of the coast, beyond thewhite-sand beaches, protecting a shallow, safe lagoon from the IndianOcean.

NAIROBI AT DUSK

KENYA’S PEOPLES
For Kenya’s forty-plus ethnic groups, the most important social marker islanguage and the best definition of a tribe (a term with no pejorativeconnotation) is people sharing a common first language. It’s not uncommon forpeople to speak three languages – their own, Swahili and English – or even fourif they have mixed parentage.
  The largest tribe, the Kikuyu , based in theCentral Highlands, make up about 20 percent of the population; the Kalenjin from the Rift Valley 15 percent; the Luhya of western Kenya 14 percent; the Luo from the Nyanza region around Kisumu 12percent; and the Kamba from east of Nairobi 11percent. Many people from these big ethnic groups have had a largely Westernizedorientation for two or three generations and their economic and politicalinfluence is considerable. Which isn’t to say you won’t come across highlyeducated and articulate people from every tribal background. “Tribes” have neverbeen closed units and families often include members of different ethnicbackground, nowadays more than ever. Politics still tends to have an ethnicdimension, however: people retain a strong sense of whether they are loca