Hidden Art in the Park

Rock art figures in Nairobi National Park

Rolling over another bump along the dirt roads of the national park, the passenger door of the beat up Land Cruiser in which we are riding swings open – again. The door latch is old and doesn’t hold. There’s a risk of tumbling out onto the savanna at every curve and landing amidst the wild animals that inhabit this stretch of savanna. We laugh.  The car is turning out to be as rickety as the adventure on which we have embarked.

It is the last day of my mother’s visit to Kenya. We’ve celebrated her birthday on the warm seafront of Lamu Island, off the northern coast of Kenya. We’ve slept in a luxury tent, had a cheetah sit on the open roof of our vehicle, and enjoyed other great sights in the Maasai Mara reserve. Now we are on a final quest, to discover the African rock art hidden in Nairobi National Park.

The trip has been a long time in the making, and it has involved numerous contacts with the Trust for African Rock Art (http://africanrockart.org/). Known as TARA, they are involved in preserving rock art and promoting awareness and income-generating opportunities for the communities that live near it.

According to TARA, rock art can be found on rocks, caves, and rock shelters all over the continent, from the Sahara to the southern-most regions of Africa. Many depict human figures and animals, some dating back as many as 12,000 years or more.

Rock art predates writing by tens of thousands of years, and is found across vastly diverse countries and cultures. Some of it is quite beautiful, and often a bit mysterious. You see animals that no longer exist, like aurochs and wooly mammoths, in climates that have changed radically from icy cold to temperate or lush jungle to desert. The famous Wadi Sura, or Painted Valley, in Egypt (featured in The English Patient) contains a cave with images of people who seem to be swimming, in a part of the Libyan Desert that’s now completely arid.

In Kenya, rock art is not part of the usual tourist circuit, and it is not readily accessible for most visitors. The best sites are in western Kenya on some islands in Lake Victoria, and further north along Lake Turkana.  But there are some small sites near Nairobi, including the one to which we are headed – presumably.

So far, our quest has been something of a fiasco. As is too often the case here, attempts to plan ahead and secure logistical details have failed completely. We’ve waited over an hour for a park ranger to accompany us, who never materialized. So, we’ve left accompanied by a park guide (plucked at the last minute from his other duties) and a TARA staff member. They are both well-meaning, but neither knows the exact location of the site.

Our guides do have written instructions and lots of determination. So we drive to a spot where we have been told to leave the car. The rock art is supposed to be fairly close by and within easy walking distance from the road. So we get out and follow the guides as they start off, climbing up a steep hill. There is no path. And for the time being, there’s no immediate sign of danger providing you ignore the antelope skull, picked clean, and scatterings of water buffalo poop.

Within a few minutes, our guides are far ahead and out of sight. I begin to feel that we look a bit too much like potential prey for nature’s version of the hunger games.

We hike back to the car.

The minutes tick by.

Knowing I have afternoon meetings on the other side of the city, our time starts to run out. But just as we are about to call it quits, shouts echo across the valley. Our TARA guide has found the spot.

No one knows the true age or origin of these geometric figures, painted on the sides of a rock shelter near a small river. Presumably, they were made by pastoralists, either Maasai or their predecessors. One resembles a shield, the rest are pretty abstract.

The painted images aren’t particularly compelling or beautiful, but what is amazing is the resilience of this art form. If you’ve ever tried to etch or paint something on a rock, you’ll discover that it’s not easy, particularly if you want your artwork to survive the tests of time and natural forces.

We leave satisfied. We’ve attained our goal. And we’ve survived the tests and frustrations that come with quests that take you off the usual tourist circuits and beaten paths. The annoyances will soon be forgotten, leaving only the adventure and elements of a good story for later.

Found! Elusive rock art site in Nairobi National Park