The Horse’s Mouth

Luxury, uncertainty, and holes-in-one.

Mt Kenya at sunrise (photo: JD Breen)

Nanuki, Kenya

June 7, 2025

[NB: Our journey started last weekend. Previous installments are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here]

“Maybe we should just go to Busch Gardens.”

- Me to my wife, when trying to obtain a visa to Tanzania

Doug Casey is among the world’s most successful speculators. When he shares investment philosophy, it’s wise to listen.

Shun bonds, hold gold, receive warrants, and diversify politically are sound suggestions he offers today.

But given where I’m writing, another adage Casey recently repeated might be more relevant: avoid investing in any country with the color green in its flag.

We’ve wandered two republics featuring verdant hues in their national banners. Each offers ample reason to heed Casey’s advice.

Equatorial Resort

I’m glad William Holden didn’t. On a tour of Kenya in 1959, Holden and a couple friends bought a hotel property near Nanyuki.

Over the ensuing decades, luxury cottages, sunken baths, tennis, golf, and wildlife facilities sprouted from the lush terrain west of Mt Kenya.

The Mt Kenya Safari Club sits astride the equator thirty miles from its namesake mountain. Drinks are ordered from the main bar in the northern hemisphere, and enjoyed by a fireplace situated in the south.

At 7,000 feet above the sea, the resort sits on a hundred acres… across which llama, peacocks, baboons, and colobuses roam free across the lawn. Last night we indulged a fire-fed feast along the Leakey River.

On site is a remarkable “orphanage” for vulnerable animals, some to be tended the rest of their lives, others destined to be returned to the wild.

The landscaping is immaculate, the service superb. On the grounds is a golf course that serves as a walking safari. Across it scamper baboons, impala, waterbuck, warthogs, and colobus. In his final shot of our round yesterday, my younger son walked off with a hole-in-one.

Rough Ride

Getting here wasn’t easy, which reinforces the maxim of which Casey reminds us.

A forty minute flight carried us from Amboseli to Ol Pejeta. Here resides the largest population of eastern black rhinos in Kenya.

But the assortment of animals by which they’re surrounded is astounding. Anything we’d seen elsewhere we saw here, while also adding a couple cheetahs and more hypnotic terrain.

From there, we stopped for lunch, and proceeded north. The ride to (and thru) Nanyuki was rough. The roads treated us the way James Bond’s bartender treats his martinis.

Most paths were unpaved. Whichever weren’t may as well have been. We weaved incessantly around ubiquitous potholes, which in most places were more prevalent than pavement.

Originally settled in 1907 by British, Nanyuki became a base for the King’s Army, as it now is for the Kenyan Air Force.

Small farms and wildlife conservancies surround the town. Within it, poverty grinds and festers as in most Kenyan villages.

Buildings are makeshift, and look liable to fall under the seismic shove of a strong sneeze. From them traders sell supplies to regional ranches, farms, and parks.

Along the road, children emerged from school. Some chased our epileptic truck, extending hands and smiles in hopes of receiving samples of “sweets”.

Wasabi and Sushi

Bruised backsides aren’t the only obstacle to reaching this region. Planning a trip to East Africa isn’t like preparing to visit South Dakota.

As with almost all international travel, passports are required. But so are visas and (presumably) yellow fever vaccines.

Yet like the IRS forcing you to tell them what you think you “owe”, much of what’s really required is a guessing game. If you choose incorrectly, you’re made to pay a fee and then try again.

All governments share general traits. But they’re exhibited with varying degrees of effectiveness and efficiency.

Corruption and incompetence are common to all of them. But like wasabi with sushi, the mix and amount determine the discomfort they cause.

Many are insidious, yet inept… which can be OK. If the people appointed to push us around are going to be awful (which is the sort of person such roles typically attract), it’s best they be bumbling imbeciles incapable of inflicting too much harm.

The worst governments would be ruthless regimes run by brilliant psychopaths with powerful tools and elite capabilities. Fortunately, that combination is relatively rare.

Long Slog

For Tanzania and Kenya, the visa processes couldn’t have been more annoying… or the vaccine requirements more ambiguous.

Not that I wasn’t warned.

Family friends visited this area last fall. Apparently, applying for visas would take longer (and be more painful) than the flights to Africa.

That was a bit of an exaggeration. In reality, getting here wasn’t nearly as painful as getting permission to come.

Our friend’s advice was to grab a cup of (Irish) coffee… or a fifth of Scotch… and settle in for a long slog. When she put it that way, it didn’t sound so bad. Until I logged in to the official “websites”.

I tried Tanzania first.

With trembling hands I followed the links, and made my way to the questionnaire. I answered several boilerplate inquiries about where I was from, who I married, and whether I’d ever been to Tanzania.

It seemed easy, and I began to relax. At the bottom of the page was a transparent banner offering the option of returning to the previous page or continuing to the next.

Underneath was a final question I now can’t recall. But I couldn’t answer it because it was under the banner. I was unable to scroll down or proceed to the next page.

I decided to go back to where I’d been, which made me repeat answers I’d already given. I was dumb enough to do this several times.

I decided to call the Tanzanian embassy. No one answered. I phoned the home government in Dodoma, but was told the number didn’t exist.

After a few days of this idiocy, I paid a third-party a couple hundred bucks to obtain Tanzanian visas for each member of our family… which it did.

The Horse’s Mouth

The Kenyan website worked a bit better. But it indicated that yellow fever vaccination (or a doctor’s note attesting the shot should be avoided) was required to enter the country.

Additional research revealed such proof was required only if entering Kenya from a “high-risk” area. Was Tanzania among them? It was unclear. I decided to call the Kenyan embassy.

After several calls that no one answered, I finally reached a woman who sounded like she was in the bottom of a well.

“Good afternoon. May I help you?”

“Good afternoon”, I replied. “I’m a US citizen planning to travel to Kenya from Tanzania next month. Do I need to have proof of yellow fever - or any other - vaccination to do so?”

“No”, she laughed. “There is no yellow fever in the United States.”

“Yes, I know”, I responded. “But we will be coming to Kenya from Tanzania…”

“You do not need it”, she interrupted.

“Even if we come from Tanzania?”

“Yes.”

“Can you send something on Kenyan government letterhead corroborating that?”, I requested.

“Why?”

“In case someone asks me for proof at the border.”

“They won’t”, she insisted thru rising irritation. “You are hearing this from the horse’s mouth.”

“Is that the reference I should provide the border agent?”, I wondered.

A couple other members of our party had similar questions about Kenya’s yellow fever requirements. They also called the embassy, and received the same answer from a woman who called herself “the horse’s mouth.” I’m sure it was the same person, probably the only employee of the Kenyan “embassy”.

While comforted by the possibility no vaccination was required, I remained unsure. All documentation I’d seen implied (or insisted) that it was.

The only contrary evidence was an assertion from some nameless voice in what claimed to be the Kenyan embassy. I doubted a border agent would accept that when I tried to enter his country.

We’ll never know. When we came to Kenya a few days ago, no one requested my yellow fever vaccination card.

Maybe “the horse’s mouth” was right. Or perhaps such uncertainties are inherent crapshoots when going to countries with green in their flag.

Just as they are in those where it isn’t.

JD