In Kenya you've got the great birds and monkeys leaping through the trees overhead. It's a chance to remember what the world is really like.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I really enjoyed staying at an encampment at the top of a hill in the Samburu Reserve in Kenya. You reach it on a small plane; there is no electricity, no city noises and you sleep and shower under the Milky Way, with moths fluttering around a kerosene lamp, knowing that there are elephants and lions roaming free in the valley.
I have family in Tanzania. I can't even explain the joy of riding through the Tanzania national park and seeing giraffes run across the road and elephants over in a pond and baboons running.
I did go on safari in Kenya when I was 17, with my mother, stepfather and little brother, and I kept a careful journal of the experience that was very helpful in terms of my sensory impressions of Africa. I have traveled quite a bit at distinct times in my life, though now that I have kids I've settled down.
I very much like Kenya. It's hard to beat the Masai Mara and the idea of ballooning across it. I have a great time at Lewa. There's more rhinos than you'll find anywhere. A great part for the children is you can ride horses with the giraffes and the zebra.
Africa is not a fun place, you know. A fun place is somewhere that lifts the spirits, that cossets the senses. I don't think that can be said of the Africa I traveled in.
I was a safari guide in the 1980s in Kenya.
When I run in Ethiopia, I look out and see eucalyptus trees and rivers.
It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.
My conscious life has all been in Kenya, and it's my point of reference. But going back to Mexico was very formative.
I got to Africa. I got the opportunity to go and learn, not about any animal, but chimpanzees. I was living in my dream world, the forest in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. It was Tanganyika when I began.