The work at Intona Ranch involved the organization of a six-month field trial, a first for me. Luckily Alan had a system in place for his own trials and I just “piggybacked” on what he had created. As he was the Head of the project he kindly supported my work very generously and enthusiastically. He lent me his work Land Rover, herdsmen and the routine disease monitoring system. I needed to add the tick burden evaluation part by bringing in my own people to carry it out. Visits were required for monitoring purposes and to replace personnel every two weeks. As mentioned earlier, I had employed two people: Kimondo and Tommi. The latter was a Maasai who was no stranger to the Transmara and although he was not as hardworking as Kimondo his local knowledge would prove of immense usefulness. We were a good team!

The work would consist in the creation of two groups of cattle immunized against Theileriosis by Alan and his group. This would enable me to stop applying tick-killing chemicals (acaricides) to one group while the other would be maintained with strict tick control. The comparison on their live weight gain and the tick species and burdens observed would enable me to estimate the expected losses that the ticks themselves would cause to the cattle. Clearly it was only a start but something that had not been possible to assess before.

Now I needed to find the right cattle for the trial and get them to Intona. This required some planning and involved travelling to Laikipia in Northern Kenya. I was searching for Boran, a Bos indicus breed as these would remain at Intona ranch once the trial ended and we knew that Joe would be very keen on them.

Gilfrid[1] had his ranch beyond the slopes of Mt. Kenya in Laikipia and he had the cattle we needed. I organized a “cattle-buying” trip. Luckily in Alan’s Land Rover, I departed for Laikipia with Kimondo and Tommi to assist me on the journey. A large lorry followed us to carry the animals. We drove past Murang’a with its amazing vegetable offer, Nyeri and Nanyuki on the slopes of Mt. Kenya. The views beyond Mt. Kenya into the very dry Northern Frontier District were worth stopping to take in. At Nanyuki we went West towards Rumuruti, gradually descending from the mountain into nomadic grazing land to finally arrive at the ranch. Gilfrid was waiting with the cattle on display for us to choose what we needed. The selection done, over a cup of tea we agreed on the final price and payment and then loaded the animals on the lorry. As the latter was slower than us, we agreed on the route to follow and told them to depart before us, as we were hoping to arrive at Nakuru to spend the night there.

We lingered a bit longer talking to Gilfrid while he showed me his ranch. He was clearly an interesting “character” and drove a “Hang over”, due to a modification he made to the back badge of the Range Rover! Returning to the house I saw three or four skulls on the roof of the verandah. I realized that they were lions’. Gilfrid explained that they had been “cattle-eaters” that needed to be shot, as they killed far more animals than they needed to eat. “I tolerate losing a few cattle but not that one lion needlessly kills ten cattle in one night!” he asserted. However, he reassured me that lions were still plentiful in the area and that he loved to hear them roaring in the evening, provided that they kept away from his cattle! I could not help asking for one and he promised to remember me the next time a lion overstepped the mark[2]. He agreed and after a while we said our farewells, as I needed to catch up with the lorry. I liked Gilfrid and would return to him for more cattle in the future.

After about an hour, the cloud of volcanic dust in front of us indicated that we were approaching our truck. As I positioned the car to overtake it and its dust plume, I saw a grid on the road that I just managed to avoid by braking and swerving to one side. Recovered from the sudden jolt we came close to the lorry again. “What on earth is going on!” I muttered while I tried to make sense of what I saw. The back door of the lorry was missing and a line of cattle were looking at me! The sudden appearance of the grid on the road suddenly became clear, it was in fact its back gate! I started hooting and flashing my lights hoping that the driver would stop. He ignored us or did no hear us so I took the risky decision of overtaking it to stop it from the front. The maneuver was not easy as it was a narrow dirt road but somehow I managed, probably helped by my stress!

We agreed that as soon as the lorry stopped we would jump out to stop the animals from jumping off and scampering into the endless savannah, as there are no fences in that part of Kenya! Luckily we managed to stop the lorry before any of the animals jumped and, while the herdsmen held the animals in check, I rushed back to collect the back gate that, luckily, somehow fit inside the Land Rover! I mentally thanked the cattle for being wise and verbally the herdsmen for keeping them at bay. The gate fixed, we resumed our journey with our car in the lead.

We managed to get as far as Kericho where we watered the animals and made sure that all was tightly secured before we retired for a fully deserved rest. As the lorry was much slower than us, we also agreed that it would depart at dawn towards Kisii and onwards until Kilgoris and eventually to Intona Ranch. I was really exhausted both physically and mentally and managed to count about three cattle jumping before I crashed into sound sleep!

When we were ready to go the next day, the lorry had already left as arranged. We headed for Kisii following the tarmac, expecting to find our lorry on the way. We got there and didn’t find it so I assumed that they must have continued towards Sotik, the next town so I proceeded to that destination. Still no lorry! I could not believe that they had already passed Sotik so I retraced my steps looking for it, as it was likely that they had stopped on the way and I had missed them. This proved to be a mistake as we still found nothing on the way back and by this stage I had lost too much time to catch up to it on the road!

My first and rather distressing thought was that my cattle had been stolen! There were lots of stories of cattle rustling taking place in that region of Kenya at the time and I had been warned about them prior to our departure. Not sure about which Police station to report the theft to, I decided to leave that as a last resort and instead pushed on to get to Kilgoris as this was our final meeting point before we took the rougher road to Intona Ranch.

We drove silently all the way and arrived at Kilgoris in the late afternoon, rather crestfallen and upset with myself for having been so careless. As Kilgoris is a small place, if the truck was there we would be able to see it, so we entered the town with a glimmer of hope. “There it is” exclaimed Kimondo and there it was, our lorry was almost the first vehicle we saw, parked at the prearranged meeting point in the town square. As expected, the lorry was totally surrounded by Maasai that were keenly watching our cattle. Through Tommi I learnt that they were really excited and very complimentary about our rather lovely and fat Boran yearlings! My worries increased again with the knowledge that Maasai believe that all cattle belong to them!

We finally found the driver at a nearby shop and told him of our adventure. Happy to see us again, he laughed at our obvious travel miscalculation. He had left Kericho earlier than we thought, as he was not sure of the condition of the road and got to Kisii and then Sotik with ease. Seeing this, he decided to push on to Kilgoris to save time and to arrive there before nightfall as I had recommended to him. He got to Kilgoris early, parked the lorry and waited! He shared my wariness about the curiosity shown by the Maasai crowd and we agreed that his “tout” would sleep on the lorry to avoid any nocturnal mishaps!

I was relieved to see that things were back to normal and I treated everyone to some “Nyama choma“[3] and “ugali“[4] and then went to the hotel to sleep. The place was rather basic, prepared for a Maasai clientele but I did not mind and slept soundly as we were reunited with our “lost” cattle!

The following morning we drove in front and, luckily, the road was dry. We reached Intona ranch without further disasters. The field trial could now start!

[1] See: http://suyiantrust.wildlifedirect.org/author/gilfrid-powys/

[2] See “Lion Skull” later in this blog.

[3] Barbequed beef.

[4] Maize meal.