Word: samburu
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...safari company Karisia, www.karisia.com - run by husband-and-wife team Kerry Glen and Jamie Christian - has been organizing tailor-made expeditions and promoting conservation work in the Laikipia and Samburu regions of central and northwestern Kenya for five years. Christian says the safaris enable them to pursue their passion for conservation. "The idea is to get people to appreciate nature through traveling here and supporting the local communities, so they in turn become inspired to protect the animals and everything around them...
...twin-prop touched down at a remote bush landing strip at Kimanjo, deep in Laikipia. From there it was a Land Cruiser ride to our first camp, set beneath acacia and a vast sycamore fig. Here we met the troop in its full glory: 19 camels and 15 Samburu, Turkana and Masai tribesmen. The sense of joining an ancient caravan heading into the bush was heightened by the fact that there would be almost no contact with the outside world for several days...
Walking with our guides, and the intimacy this encouraged, meant our knowledge of local tribal customs and habits was also constantly being furthered: we learned from the Samburu about the local form of messaging, which uses a cissus plant and an acacia thorn. The cissus leaf is like a thick, green pad, and you write by making indentations with the acacia thorn, passing on or leaving the leaf somewhere for the recipient. We also learned how the fibrous branches of sokotei tree can be used as an effective toothbrush and toothpick, and heard about the medicinal properties of plants like...
This was the line of march: first bright Lutupen, the Samburu guide, with his spear and tribal finery, the yellow-and-black-bead cords crisscrossed on his chest, the tops of his ears sprouting the bead horns that gave the Samburu warrior, Toad thought, an air of medieval imp. Toad admired Lutupen's sense of style. Lutupen had slipped a trapezoid of broken mirror under his bead headband for decoration, so that he now had a kind of third eye, a window in the center of his forehead that flashed as he slipped along through the forest...
After Lutupen came the mule, Miss Mule, policed by another Samburu warrior named (it is true) Livingston. After Miss Mule at a cautious distance marched Toad and friends -- the guide Chrissie Aldrich, the Kitich Camp manager Ian Cameron and the others. And last, the ten donkeys that carried water and food (short rations that got shorter as the days passed and the wild walking grew more wonderful). The donkeys advanced along the trail like a party of schoolgirls in dove-gray uniforms, sociable and disorderly, the sheer din of their progress driving off elephants and lions and all other wilder...