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Trivial Pursuits
 Davies, husband launch safari company
 Photo courtesy of Rachel Davies Rachel Davies (feeding a giraffe) and her husband, Alan, are leading a safari trip to Kenya. By Monique Bos Published: Friday, October 28, 2005 College printing assistant director Rachel Davies plans to ring in the New Year in Nairobi, Kenya, along with her husband, Alan, and seven adventurous friends. The two-week trip is the first that the couple — who has visited Kenya together three times in the past five years — has organized for other people, and it signifies the launch of a new venture for them. “It’s something that we’d like to do as a business,” Davies said. “We’re using our friends as guinea pigs.” They’ve named their enterprise Jambo Safari Company. “Jambo” means “Hello” in Swahili, Kenya’s native language, Davies explained. She first became interested in the East African country when she met Alan, a professional tennis player who grew up in Kenya. His family still operates a tennis academy in Nairobi, the capital city, and owns a home on the Indian Ocean coast in Mombasa. “He kind of took me on an extended version of this trip the first time I went,” said Davies, who spent six weeks in Kenya on that visit. “His whole family lives there.” The rest of the group will benefit from the couple’s contacts and experience. After a week divided between a photo safari and Nairobi, they will relax for about six days in the Mombasa house. “It’s really fun,” Davies said. “The Indian Ocean is just beautiful, and the house is an old colonial house.” A reef about two miles from the shore stretches for approximately 10 miles and serves to keep sharks away, Davies said. “It’s like a big swimming pool. It’ll be relaxing.” New Year’s Eve might be less relaxing, but it should be equally memorable. The group will visit Carnivore, a Nairobi restaurant that is holding an open cookout with 17 different types of game, “so you eat all this exotic meat,” Davies said. They also plan to spend three days on a photo safari, camping each night at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro near the Tanzania border. “We’re going to see lions and tons of elephants — Kenya is known for its elephants — and hopefully also cheetahs and rhinos,” Davies said. “Kenya also has really cool, exotic birds that are all over.” Experienced guides and basic precautions ensure that tent camping in wilderness inhabited by large predators and poisonous snakes isn’t dangerous. Davies said that at night, small fires surround the tents, keeping both lions and snakes away. During the day, the group remains mostly in their vehicle. “We’re traveling everywhere in a 15-person Land Rover,” she said. “We’ll be taking in a lot of country.” Wildlife sightings aren’t limited to the safari portion of the trip, however. “Alan’s family has pet peacocks, monkeys, all kinds of stuff at their home,” Davies said. “There are tons of monkeys everywhere.” In fact, her mother-in-law, who lives in Nairobi, receives regular afternoon visits from a Colobus monkey. Around 3 p.m. most days, the monkey reaches down from the roof to tap on the window. At the signal, Alan’s mother takes an orange outside to it, and the monkey pats the back of her hand as a gesture of thanks, Davies said. “Nairobi is a big city that has skyscrapers, but you drive 30 minutes out and you’re in the Great Rift Valley. It’s surrounded by wilderness.” While American tourists aren’t universally popular, Davies said Kenya is quite welcoming. “Kenya’s very American-friendly because there’s a large presence with the U.S. embassy,” she explained. “There are a lot of American businesses.” In addition, one legacy of the British colonial presence — which ended in 1963 — is that almost everyone speaks both English and Swahili. “It’s really easy to get around if you’re American,” Davies said. Nonetheless, she anticipates a certain amount of culture shock for her fellow travelers. “It’s going to be interesting to see people’s reactions to the little things,” she said. “They drive on the other side of the road. There are no stop lights in Nairobi, which is a city of 4 million people, and there are no lanes.” As Jambo Safari Company grows, Davies said they probably will offer various types of trips, ranging from luxurious to “sleeping in a tent, depending on what you want to do. There are so many cool safari lodges — that’s really their big thing.” She feels positive about the inaugural trip. “I’m optimistic that this one will go well,” she said. “We’re starting slowly, maybe a trip or two each year.” Someday, the couple hopes to operate their safari business from Kenya. In the meantime, Davies joked that when SCAD-Nairobi opens, she’ll be the first employee to sign on. Anyone interested in information about future Kenya trips can e-mail rdavies@scad.edu. |
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