Zanzibar – Dar Es Salaam – Mikumi National Park

14/8/19

Ah, how I love being on vacation! This morning we were able to sleep in for a little bit, get some freshly made eggs for breakfast and even some meat samosas before a small group of up headed off with Saidi to the beach front. We stopped on the way for a cash point, as we would not have access to any cash for the coming few days, and then we hopped on a small motor boat with our guide, Mohammed.

The 5 of us were off to Prison Island, a small island which once served as an offshore prison when the British were in charge. Yes, it’s a story that sounded familiar to us Australians… The island now belongs to a super rich Indian businessman who, according to our guide, is a bit crazy. He refurbished the prison into a hotel, complete with restaurant, tennis court, everything you would need. It looks magnificent and he could charge a fortune to stay there. But for some unexplained reason, he refuses to have guests claiming the hotel is “under renovation”. Apparently he has also shut a hotel on the Zanzibar mainland, so seems it’s a common thing for him.

In any case, it is now open for visitors to walk around this eerie place. It’s as if some mysteriously happened overnight and all the guests just vanished. There are hotel room keys, restaurant menus on the blackboards and even ketchup bottles on the tables. Very strange. But the views overlooking the turquoise blue ocean are absolutely incredible. We ran around like the crazy tourists we are to get all the shots with this insane view, and I think the results were quite great.

The main appeal of the island however is the giant tortoise sanctuary which has been set up alongside the hotel. This breed of giant tortoise is very endangered, and thus the sanctuary helps to raise them and keep them alive hoping to save the species. Including the little baby tortoises – so so so cute! – the centre houses around 100 individuals. The eldest of these is a whopping 194 years old, and honestly she doesn’t look a day over 150!

Turns out these beautiful creatures are very much gentle giants. You can crouch down with them and pat them, and as I found out, they absolutely love neck rubs! When scratched on the back of the head, my tortoise friend would extend his neck all the way out of his shell to get as many scratches as possible.

Our guide then went to pick out some nice juicy green leaves from the trees to feed the tortoises alongside their cabbage leaves. Giant tortoises eating, now that’s a cute sight. The process involves trying to catch the leaves with their mouth, opening wide and munching on it – very much like I do actually! One of the tortoises I chose to feed, was also a it moody, and every time he missed the leaves or poked his head into a branch, he would sigh deeply and scoff, refusing to try again for half a minute. Love that guy.

We spent ages with the tortoises and loved every second of it. Once we finally left, we made our way back towards the boat, taking another few photos along the way, and then back to the main island. We were at the hotel about 10 minutes before picking up all our bags and heading out to take a 2 hour bus to the northernmost part of the island for our beach vacation!

We’d hoped to be directly on the beachfront, but unfortunately Rachel and I were placed in a larger apartment at the back of the hotel. The new girl on our tour – Joanna – joined us in a triple room for the 2 nights on the beach, so we all got in dropped our bags, put on our swimsuit and headed down to the restaurant by the beach.

Lunch took forever. We decided to fulfil a pizza craving but did not think the time it would take to prepare our meals would be almost an hour and a half. By the time we had received the food and finished eating, it was basically time for our sunset cruise already, and I was glad I had brought everything with me and didn’t need to run all the way back to the room.

The cruise was on a dodgy wooden boat, but the bartender knew his stuff! It was another unlimited drinks cruise for 2 hours, but the ratio of alcohol to soda was half and half, and that’s definitely my kind of drink. We cruised for about an hour and a half before they anchored the boat ad let us take a swim stop. So there we were, cannon-balling off the top of the boat into the ocean. Great fun!

We made it back to shore around 18:30, so just enough time to go shower and wash hair before coming back for dinner. They offered a buffet dinner, but I was still finishing the pizza digestion ad decided on a lighter menu dinner instead. With Pete and Francis able to enjoy the evening off, we had a fantastic evening, ready for a whole day of doing nothing tomorrow!

15/8/19

VA.CA.TION! I’s amazing to just wake up knowing you get to spend the day at the beach with nothing planned. Joanna got up earlier than us to head out to her snorkelling excursion, while Rachel and I made the most of a mini sleep in with an actual comfortable bed. By 8:30 we headed down to the breakfast area, had a couple of crepes and then made our way to the beachfront.

The morning was a little chilly, but the sun made it so nice. Rachel decided she wanted more sleep after all and went back to the room, while Michael figured sleeping out in the sun was good enough. I headed into the. Water for a crisp but welcome swim, and on my way back ran into some women offering hair braiding.

Well once again, the instructions I gave were misunderstood. I asked for half the head to be braided, and I am currently wearing a full head of very thin plaits. I’ve never seen so much of my scalp before! The experience was made even more fun when it started raining and the ladies working on my hair had to drag everything to a small hut for cover, while I ran with hair tied up in every possible manner.

Almost an hour and a half later, I walked back to our seats where I found Michael just waking up from his morning nap. He went for this leftover dinner for lunch, while I headed to the restaurant and ordered a crab linguine. Huge mistake, as it turns out they went full authentic, none of that “canned crabmeat” stuff. So I spent about 20 minutes taking out the pieces of crab shell from my pasta and, using only a knife and fork, somehow had to crack my way into getting the meat out. Not cool…

The snorkelling people made it back to the beach by lunch, having swum with the dolphins and corals. The next round of people were heading out to swim with turtles while I made my way back out to the sunny beachfront. This time with a cocktail in hand. Vacation!!!

The afternoon was basically just that, swim, sun and cocktails, and it was amazing. By about 18:00, Rachel came back from the turtles saying it was absolutely fantastic. We then had just enough time to have a shower and change before meeting up with the guys again for our final dinner.

Unfortunately this is the end of the trip for many of our people. Brandon and Nicole had left already during the afternoon to get closer to the airport for their morning flight, and all the people we had picked up in Nairobi would be finishing the next day. We decided to go to a nice restaurant a little further down the beach to celebrate the last night. In the morning we would be making our way back to Dar Es Salaam where we will have a final farewell before departing with only our small group of 11 for the rest of our trip.

16/8/19

Today’s return to the mainland turned out to be just as exciting as I had anticipated it would be. We left the hotel at 8:30 sharp and made our way back to Stone Town by 10:15. A very rocky road, with trucks carrying giant loads of rocks without a back to keep the rocks in. Needless to say it was a very tense several kilometres watching closely the truck in front of us for signs of a rock avalanche at any moment.

Once in Stone Town, we dropped off our bags at a nearby hotel and rapidly went off for a quick lunch. I just managed to get a spaghetti bolognaise and eat it in time to make it back to the hotel, pick up our bags and head to the ferry terminal. There we ran once again into the other tour group of our tour company, doing our exact trip in reverse whom we had spent the Zanzibar holiday with.

The ferry ride is where it starts to get interesting. The return to the mainland took longer than the way over, and was a lot rockier. Fairly quickly into the ride, Rachel stood up to run off to the bathroom, and wasn’t seen again until hopping off the ferry. After about half an hour, I had wanted to go check on her, but quickly realised if I stood up, I too would redecorate the inside of the ferry. Not to mention that when I did eventually get up towards the end to see if she was ok, I almost tripped on about 5-10 people lying on the floor dying. Fun ride!

The best part was the movie which they put on to distract us during the ride. We had expected to watch “Australia” with Hugh Jackman, and instead on pops Jackie Chan, in Chinese, travelling India as a newly made Indiana Jones. IN CHINESE. I’m only sorry that I had to shut my eyes to stop the nausea and therefore missed half the movie, because the ending with Jackie Chan dancing Bollywood clearly indicated the rest was completely crazy.

Once we finally got off the boat from hell, things once again got interesting. Immigration should have been instantaneous, but we hadn’t counted not he Vice President of Tanzania returning from a conference on the same ferry. Immigration was blocked for what seemed like forever, while he apparently just stood there chatting around. The only comfort was that the other tour group – with whom we had developed an amicable rivalry – was stuck behind us as well.

Both groups then walked up the road to get picked up by mini vans and taken to the other ferry to cross the river. We were once again piled onto a tight ferry with cars everywhere – desperately hoping their hand brakes were fully operational. Once on the other side, we went through the frenzy once again of trying to follow Pete, only this time without our very tall Brandon to help us out.

The next bit is where the trip exceeded all my hopes and dreams. Instead of taking a bus or even taxis back to the campsite we had been stying at, we were piled into about 7 tuk-tuks. Rachel and I managed a private 2-seats instead of the crowded 3-people per vehicle the others got, and I was privy to her very first tuk-tuk ride.

This was surreal. Our driver – like all tuk—tuk drivers really – was hellbent on getting us killed or at least close to. Rachel was petrified and closed her eyes half the time while I simply laughed my head off as we almost ran into cars or ran over people. Then came the 4-wheel-drive worthy road back to the campsite and that was the best fun I have had in years.

I was convinced we would fall out of the vehicle, and even more so when another tuk-tuk took over the first position of the race. Then he got really competitive and screw the suspension! Now this ride really was like Mario Cart, with tuk-tuks battling it out for first place, and the passengers yelling out things like “where’s a banana peel when you need one?” Or “we need to blue-shell that guy quickly!”. Best ride of my life!

Once back at the campsite – mysteriously in one piece – we threw on our togs once again and ran back to the beach for another bit of swimming while we still can. We then had a dinner with much fewer people than usual, as the tour for the others had officially finished at 17:00. We still met up to help them clear out their items from the bus and one last set of drinks all together before a heartfelt farewell as we move on and they start to fly home. My first night alone in a tent…

17/8/19

I didn’t sleep well at all that night, though I can’t say for sure if it was longing for a tent buddy or something else that prevented it. Let’s just say the 3:30 wake-up was brutal for everyone anyway. Some of the guys helped me take my tent down which I very much appreciated, we had a quick stand-up breakfast and left the campsite at 4:30, directly behind the truck of the other tour group.

They were heading north towards Arusha while we were on our way south to Mikumi National Park, but part of the road on our way out of Dar Es Salaam was shared. Being the fun and crazy group that we are, we decided to have a bit of fun with this, and started waving at them or mimicking a rowing formation as we took them over one last time and then went our own ways. What better way to start a morning right?

Unfortunately that was the only real fun of the day, as I finally came down with the bug which everyone on tour had been progressively catching for 24 hours, and then passing on to the next person. At our first stop, I realised I was feeling queasy but suspected it was nothing more than a good old fashioned “shit water” coming my way once again.

By our second stop however, when I realised this did not seem to be the problem, I began to worry a bit as I gelt progressively worse and worse. We picked up takeaway food to eat on the bus later – though breakfast had been so early that by 10:00 we were all digging into our lunch – so that we could get to the campsite as soon as possible and allow Joanna to do her first game drive in the afternoon. We’re a very sympathetic bunch!

I had a few bites of lunch but decided I was just feeling worse and worse and stopped. I spent as much of the trip trying to sleep, but on our next stop I did step out for some air and Pete caught on that I wasn’t feeling so hot. Still, I figured it would pass once I had slept a bit.

Oh how wrong was I… Pete came to the back of the bus towards lunch time and started to give us the run-down of the next couple of days and the activities that would go with it. I heard basically none of it as I just shut my eyes and tried to control my breathing with my head sticking out the window for air.

We then started driving through the Mikumi National Park to get to our campsite, and everyone was thrilled to be spotting giraffes and impalas and so on. After a bunch of zebras, it dawned on me that it was definitely time now, and I shakily begged Pete to stop the bus. Unfortunately, within the national park, it was impossible to stop and let me off – lest a lion or something foolishly decide I would make a good lunch.

I then begged the rest of the tour for any sort of bag or anything. To my relief, we had long ago created a makeshift bucket out of a 5 litre water bottle, still unused as of yet. Which they passed down to me just in time for the gates of hell to finally unleash my lunch. Jess – our resident nurse on the trip – handed me a pill which would serve to prevent further reflux, and I promptly made my way to the improvised bed on the floor at the back of the bus reserved for those with this damned condition.

We thankfully made it to the campsite not too long afterwards – thus avoiding the stinking up of the bus – and I begrudgingly ran to the bathroom to shove my head under an ice cold tap in an effort to feel slightly more human. Putting up the tent was a genuine effort this time, and I’m grateful that my travel companions did not mention the being sick and came to help me put up my housing for the night.

Jo ran off to do her game drive, and the rest of us were grateful for the early arrival which meant we could finally chill a bit and get some laundry done. I somehow managed to clean 7 days worth of clothing without passing out, which I’m hoping will be dried by the end of the evening.

I then tried to sleep a little but realised I was running a bit of a fever and would get nowhere. I therefore joined the rest of the group at the bar, attacking a cold outlet of water and popping some paracetamol while enjoying a bit of well earned internet. I’m cautiously optimistic on the rest of the night, but will definitely be skipping dinner and keeping my newly cleaned water bottle bucket by my side tonight.

Ngorongoro Crater – Arusha – Dar Es Salaam – Zanzibar

10/8/19

We finished the night around a nice bonfire having a drink to celebrate one of the girls’ birthday. It also gave us a temporary feeling of warmth, which well and truly had dissipated during the evening. The campsite was on the rim of the crater, meaning over 2000 meters in altitude. And that is cold! I eventually found the solution was to wrap myself completely in my blanket, then zip up the sleeping bag to my nose, and essentially behave as a human cocoon for the night.

We had another 6:00 breakfast, exchanging stories on how each of us tried to survive the cold – Namibian desert is going to be fun! By 7:00, we were on our way down into the crater itself. I wish I could say it got warmer there, but the lack of sunlight and wind meant driving with the roof open was very refreshing!

The game drive seemed like it would be fairly uneventful, passing a multitude of zebras for some very artistic shots. But in the end it proved to be great after all once again! We spotted a few jackals, which essentially just look like a weird fox, and a couple more lions chilling in the sun.

We then came across a hyena lying alone in the sun, and just as we were about to dismiss her and move on, out hops a little black blob bouncing around. Little miss Hyena had 2 pups with her (at least that we saw) who were struggling to walk, thus indicating they were barely a week old. To be honest, if I didn’t know any better I would have thought she had gotten the pups wrong and taken a bear cub by accident! The little thing looked almost fully black with a white belly, very much like a bear, but was simply adorable!

The drive then took us to a hippo pool, where we found another large group of hippos huddled together napping. In the back however was a mummy hippo with her tiny – at least for a hippo – baby climbing on her back for a nap. So freaking cute! Such chubby little cheeks and not very agile as it attempted to climb on his mum’s head. Basically it was well worth the detour for us.

The crater is home to one single rhino apparently, but try as we might we didn’t see him during our drive. I did however come across another pod of hippos, this time out of the water. Finally! And one of these babies was fully standing, walking around his sleeping friends. The elusive standing hippo photograph! I was ecstatic!

This basically completed our drive in the crater. We pulled the roof down (finally!) and re-ascended the crater before heading back down to the entrance of the conservation area. It was a real feeling of joy when we finally made it back to actual roads that would no longer shake us around and cause me to bump my head on the side of the car several times. We stopped for lunch at the souvenir place we had stopped on the way in, and made it back to our Arusha campsite by 16:00.

I desperately wanted to take the afternoon off and just go shower and nap, but Pete had booked us in for a village walk. Since about half the group had decided they wouldn’t go, I chose to sacrifice the shower and nap in favour of doing the visit.

Our guide from the tribe started by taking us to a Maasai cultural museum, essentially showing different steps in the life of the Maasai people. Most of this we already knew from the last tour, but the boys certainly started to pull a face when we were told of the teenage circumcision required to become a man and a warrior of the tribe. Particularly as one could not blink or move during this process or he would lose all respect of the tribe and probably be driven out. I was glad to hear the government outlawing female circumcision was respected mostly by the tribes, but I suspect as did our guide that many still practice this in secret.

He then took us to his village where we were welcomed by a hoard of children desperate to play with us. I can comfortably say I am glad not to have chosen a paediatric career path. 10 minutes of throwing the kids around and I was exhausted. And it seemed although they clearly understood the meaning of the word “no”, the appeal of playing with the muzungus was much stronger than the threat of a scolding in a foreign language.

We returned to camp with just enough time to wash our hands and then start dinner. Pete had made us a traditional dinner, consisting of some flour and water mixture which is then eaten with cooked cabbage and other vegetables. I confess this really was not my preferred meal, but the barbecued lamb leg more than made up for that! No time to lounge around tonight though, as we had to repack our bags and sort ourselves out for another early morning, long drive ahead of us tomorrow.

12/8/19

Not a great deal happened yesterday, so I decided to take the day off writing. We got up early in the morning and left the camp by 5:00. A couple of stops here and there, including a lunch buffet, and after a long long drive, we finally made it to Bagamoyo – affectionately nicknamed Bag o’ Mayo by the Aussies on our tour – by around 17:00.

The campsite was really nice actually, it was a shame we were only there for a night. The bar area had a pool in the centre – very cold so no swimming for me! – and we enjoyed a bit of chilling out with a beer before dinner.

This morning was rough however. We were given some sleeping in time as we were only leaving at 8:00, but that was not withstanding the morning prayers. Turns out Tanzania is mostly Muslim, particularly on this side of the country, and our campsite was right next to a mosque. Furthermore, today was a holiday of sorts in the religion, meaning the traditional 5:00 morning prayer carried through until about 6:30. I respect all religions and their beliefs or practices, but lying in bed wide awake at 5:45 on my sleep-in day, I was definitely not thrilled with the guy on the microphone…

The upside on this was that at 8:00 we were well and truly out of the campsite and on our way to Dar Es Salaam – since everybody was wide awake long in advance. We had expected a significant amount of traffic, but got lucky and made it through fairly easily and finally by lunch time we had made it to our beach resort campsite.

Unfortunately the rain made it there before us, and we had to arrange our lunch under the bucketing torrents. A brief glimpse of dryness gave Rachel and I enough time to put up our tent before it came crashing back down. We were all quite depressed looking at our first beach day slowly going down the drain – literally.

For Lizzy however, being Danish and from the UK, this was the perfect weather to go swimming! In the end, Vincent and I were convinced to hop in for a quick dip despite the rain before lunch, and I don’t regret it. Not nearly as cold as I had anticipated, and after all, we were swimming in the Indian Ocean for the first time, that’s kind of cool!

After lunch, a bunch of us went out of the campsite walls to check out a few shops. We had hoped to find new comfy bus pants for Michael who has long since ripped his first pair beyond repair. No luck in finding the low-hanging pair that I have which will never rip, but we’re optimistic on the life expectancy of the new set. And by the time we had made it back to camp, the sun was finally out and the beach party was back on the menu.

The afternoon was spent between the ocean, cocktails and snacks, and tanning. I’m proud to say I am currently sporting a watch tan and a mild thong tan – that’s flip flops for non-Aussies – which as a redhead is basically unheard of. With just over a month of travel to go, I reckon it might be enough to start a mild bronze – wishful thinking no doubt.

Later in the evening, a guy about our age came up asking if we were on the tour starting tomorrow. We were a little confused as we knew there would be a girl joining us but theoretically no one else. We took him to Pete, and after several minutes of waiting, it was decided there had been a clerical error and his information simply hadn’t been sent all the way to us.

This was good enough for us, so we happily welcomed another 2 people for the price of one to our growing family. Pete went through the long explanation of the process getting to Zanzibar tomorrow, which we promptly forgot of course, and we then grabbed another drink before bed time. Tomorrow it’s vacation time!

13/8/19

Sleeping next to the ocean is amazing, especially in a tent with no soundproofing – as demonstrated by the morning prayers yesterday. The sound of the waves all night is simply therapeutic. This morning was a bit emotional as it was the last night I shared a tent with Rachel, who will be leaving just after Zanzibar.

Pete made us French toast for breakfast – honestly he’s too good for us! – and we left the camp at 7:15. We drove about half an hour before stopping at a petrol station. We thought this was for an ATM stop, but Francis then told us to grab our bags and get off. And this is where the fun begins.

Francis drove back to camp with the bus while we followed Pete down the street with our day packs, trying to avoid getting hit by cars on our way to the waterfront. First step: a ferry to the other side to get us to the main ferry. I’m talking local ferry, full to the brim with people and cars. By the time we had gotten through the gates with our tickets, the boat’s horns were sounding the departure, and we all scrambled onto the boat, somehow leaving no one behind.

About 5-10 minutes later, we made it to the other side, and chaos erupted. Everyone started running off the boat, in an effort to not get run over by the cars trying to get off. We could barely see Pete off in front, so Brandon being the tallest on our group went up the front to look out for him. As he and Nicole are leaving directly from Zanzibar, they had brought all their bags and souvenirs, including several large paintings wrapped up in a pole. And thus, Brandon became our Asian tour guide with a rolled-up painting replacing the traditional umbrella stick!

We rushed down the road, past the wonderful fish market smells, and onto a private bus. A few people didn’t quite realise it was private and tried to get on before promptly getting kicked off. Who knows where they were hoping to get with that bus, but never mind, off we were into the next unknown.

We made it to the ferry dock with about an hour to spare. We passed security checks, and then stayed in the VIP waiting room waiting for the ferry to arrive, where Francis met us just in time for the boat. During this time, the rain started up again and we were all very much hoping this would pass quick, because dammit we’re on vacation here! We’ve got our Zanzibar outfits and we’re going to the beach!

Once on the ferry, we scrambled to some seats – indoors given the weather had just been quite harsh – and got ready for our journey. Out of nowhere however, we heard a weird bird-like noise. Either someone had a weird cough that seriously needed some medical attention, or more likely, there was a chicken onboard!

Lizzy was white as a sheet – apparently she hates birds of all kinds and chickens are definitely no good. Each time we heard a peep out of the bag moving on the row of seats next to us, she freaked out big time and we were left in fits of laughter. I can only imagine the face of the guy at bag security when a chicken showed on his screen – if he looked at all!

What an interesting ferry ride that was! Not only did the chicken almost make it out to freedom – a full head and wing made it out and were promptly shoved back into the bag – but at one point we heard a buzzing noise behind us. Sure enough, there was a guy shaving his beard with electric trimmers. And just when you think it can’t get better, the first thing to come off the ferry in Zanzibar are 4 guys carrying a coffin! Whether or not a dead person was in fact in there I have no idea, but again, I would have loved to see the security checks on that!

Finally we had made it to Zanzibar, an island almost part of Tanzania and almost independent all at once. Once everyone had made it off the ferry in one piece and with their luggage and passed immigration, we walked off to our hotel, roughly about 10-15 minutes. On the way we met our local guide Saidi who started pointing out restaurants and markets or shops that we might be interested in checking out at some point.

Our hotel – that’s right, it’s a hotel!! – is a nice looking 3-star place, a bit of a maze but with spacious rooms. And to be fair, after a month of camping, anything is good with us! We were paired off as best as possible, dropped off our luggage and promptly returned to meet Saidi and discuss our optional activities for the upcoming days.

I started off with the spice tour along with about 9 others, as one of the guys which had done the Kampala leg of the journey with us had told me it was great. And he was right, it was fantastic. Part of this was due to our guide being absolutely brilliant, particularly as he had learned a lot of good old Aussie phrases and slang which we were delighted to hear him dish out!

We started by going for lunch in a very nice Indian restaurant. Zanzibar having been a primary trading port once upon a time, a lot of Indian culture has come through in terms of architecture and cuisine. It’s all intermixed with Arabic culture, also prevalent in this part, with about 95% of the population being Muslim. Interestingly though, the African cultural love for colourful clothes has prevailed, so women wearing a full abbaya (black robes from head to toe) instead replace their head piece (hijab) by some of the most colourful pieces I’ve seen. It’s an interesting and beautiful mix.

After lunch, we drove to the spice plantations we would be visiting, which used to be owned by a slave trader known around here as Tippu Tip – the sound of his gun when he tested them by shooting his slaves. Nice guy. Zanzibbar exports mainly black pepper and nutmeg, however it has a wide variety of other plants and spices cultivated for domestic use.

Our plantation helper started by climbing up a tree and cutting off a piece of bark to give us: cinnamon. The smell was intense, the taste crazy as well, and it looked nothing like the cinnamon stick it would one day become. We were shown mimosa, turmeric root, tiny little red chillies – good on you Michael for taste testing that one for the whole group! – and so many more.

One of the plants makes a fruit which the local women used to use as a natural organic lipstick, which of course we tried out. We were shown the lemongrass plants – which we rubbed on our arms and feet to ward off any mosquitoes – were shown the pepper plants – who knew black pepper is actually little green balls growing on vines?! – and finally their trademark nutmeg, which is actually beautiful when freshly cracked open.

They also had several fruit trees around the plantation, including little baby pineapples – almost as cute as a baby hippo! Finally once we had smelled, tasted and touched every possible fruit and leaf of the plantation, we were taken for a quick tea taster. The ginger tea was definitely too strong for me, but I admit I almost bought the Masala tea which tasted wonderful.

We were then driven back to the centre of Stonetown where our guide showed us around some of the main buildings. The architectural influences from around the world are striking, and I’m a huge fan of the decorations on the doors indicating the exact nature of the family business of the house. Also a big fan of how they used coral stones found on land to build some of the buildings – hence the name Stonetown.One key moment of this was a stop at the house in which Freddie Mercury used to live before his family moved to England.

Around 17:30, we were dropped off at a rooftop bar to overlook the water with the sunset. We had a few drinks – which I strongly suspect were heavily watered down – and then made our way over to the markets we had been shown earlier this afternoon. The “Zanzibar pizza” had nothing to do with a pizza, more like a Nutella crepe really, but the Shawarma was beautiful.

We decided then to walk around the market area a bit despite the crowds. At one point we were almost run over by teenagers running to the edge of the ledge and jumping off the walls to land into the ocean. Needless to say there were rocks at the bottom, wet ground which might make them slip and no one to check the last guy had swum out of the way before the next one went. We figured we didn’t want our holiday ruined by some kid killing himself jumping off a ledge and called it an early night.

On the walk back to the hotel however, we began discussing our rooms, and it became apparent that we all had been put in very different accommodation. So, just for fun, we began our mini group tour of everyone’s bedrooms to assess who had the best and worst deals. No surprises: Rachel and I got the short straw here. Also no surprises in saying the shower was in fact, not hot… But who cares, we’re on vacation, and tomorrow it’s beach time!

Nairobi – Arusha – Serengeti National Park – Ngorongoro Conservation Area

6/8/19

And that’s another year piled on, 27 years old! And to celebrate my getting older, we had a very calm and uneventful day – something I am totally ok with!

I woke up fairly early and enjoyed a bit of a snooze before finally getting up and heading to breakfast. By 7:30 we were back in the vans and on our way back towards Nairobi. Tom had a friend in the front seat with him this time though, which I think moderated the driving a bit – or he was hoping not to lose a wheel again perhaps!

The road was just as bumpy on the way back, and we were glad when the free back massage was finally over ad we were back on tarmac. Not that that is any safer than anywhere else really. If I’ve learned anything on this trip it’s that cows are borderline suicidal and love to walk right into vans!

We stopped for a would-be brief stop while the drivers went to get some fuel and we could do some souvenir shopping. One of the new girls found herself a massive mask and decided to ship it back home (for almost the same price as the mask itself) which took forever to organise. We were ravenous by the time we finally left.

About an hour and a half later, we stopped at a lunch buffet. Very quick stop though, as we were ushered out promptly to make room for another tour bus arriving just behind us. On my way out I found a couple of African dresses I tried out, and settled for a nice colourful one again. My Zanzibar wardrobe is really shaping up!

The drive took about 5 or 6 hours in total, with a coffee shop stop just before we finally arrived. Unfortunately, while our tents had gotten cleaned out, they had still gotten taken down while we were gone. So our first order of the day was to put up our tents again and show the newbies how to do theirs. With this done, I hopped in a cold shower – just for a change… – before grabbing a drink with the others hogging all the Wi-Fi.

Dinner was cooked by Pete and Francis, whom we finally got back after 2 days away. As we started doing the dishes though, they all arrived with a beautiful chocolate cake wishing me a happy birthday. So very endearing! With a quiet night, a few drinks to celebrate my day, we still had quite an early night, ready to he’d off i the morning and leave Kenya for the last time.

7/8/19

Off we were on the road again, heading off to the Tanzanian border. We made a brief stop, and made it to the border after about 4 hours driving more or less. Much like the first Ugandan border, this was a one-stop border, meaning all the desks were under the same roof.

We started with the health desk to check our yellow fever certificates, then the Kenyan departure counter. We then moved on to the Ugandan arrival counter next to the visa counter. We had been warned that we would need to go pay our visas further Dow at the bank and then return to the counter, but thankfully the guy at the counter decided he could handle payments – no doubt based on how full the immigration counter had just gotten.

We got through, got back on the bus, and then were told we needed to get our bags checked. So 20 people suddenly all had to go back to their lockers, rearrange the mess to manage to take out the one large bag. Then walk back to the office, put it on a scanner that no one was looking at, and walk all the way around again. Never mind that anything we would’ve wanted to hide could just stay on the bus, never mind that nothing could be seen on the scanner, and never mind that no one would know if you had put your bag through or not in the end. Total waste of time but hey!

So here we are in Tanzania! The difference in scenery is striking. Tanzania is very mountainous – after all the tallest mountain in Africa is in this country – and quite volcanic. The landscape is very arid and dry compared to Kenya or the very green Uganda. Fewer and shorter trees, it’s mostly rocks, dirt, dry yellow grass and small crevasses no doubt formed over years of tectonic plate movements. Basically very different to the rest of our trip thus far.

We stopped first at a shopping centre to take out some cash, get some snacks for the next few days and get a few last minutes of internet before going off the wire for a few days. Half the group also rushed towards Pizza Hut to fill a craving, while the other half went to a coffee shop for a decent cup!

From here we were taken to a “cultural heritage” location – essentially a very large set of shops selling statues and other souvenirs. Most importantly though, it was a significant seller of Tanzanite stones and jewellery.

Tanzanite is a blue stone, varying in shade depending on it’s size – and thus density – with a set of chemical properties unique to the environment around Kilimanjaro. It thus can only be found in those 2 mines, making the stone much rarer than diamonds. I decided I deserved a birthday present to myself and invested in a beautiful – if expensive – set of earrings. Get ready to see every fancy event picture for the next 10 years with me wearing these!

After our shopping stop, we were taken to our campsite where I was pleasantly surprised to run into some of the same campers we had had in Nairobi. We put up our tents, got our laundry ready for the next day, and had a few drinks before dinner. It’s crazy to think it’s been 20 days of tour already, when it feels like so much less, and that I’m not even halfway yet. Tomorrow, it’s off to the Serengeti park. Come at me big cats!

8/8/19

What I thought would be another boring driving day turned out to be one of the most incredible experiences of the trip yet! We got up nice and early, packed up everything and then put our tents and day packs in 4 cars, heading out to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Serengeti National Park.

Most of the drive was fairly uneventful. By around 10:30 we had made it to the Ngorongoro Crater, a massive crater which caved in on itself a very long time ago, but was once even taller than the Kilimanjaro mountain. This conservation area is where the local tribes are still around to live and to herd their cattle. The bells around the cow’s necks in Africa sound like “ngoro ngoro ngoro” hence the name given to the area.

We continued travelling through, spotting some giraffes walking around and a few zebras grazing with the cows and sheep. Eventually we stopped for lunch at a picnic area with all the other tourists. Every jeep tour apparently stops in the same area, makes the same packed lunch – with the same mango juice box – and then the same campsite later on. The fun part about the lunch stop was looking out for the carnivorous species of bird flying around trying to eat our chicken right out of our hands!

Just a little further down the road, we made it to the entrance gate to the Serengeti National Park – named after the local word Siringeti meaning “endless plains”. Once again we came across our regular gazelles, impalas, zebras and giraffes. We even found some warthogs not shy at all with a cute bird perched on their back. Very cute stuff!

Our driver then started speeding up and aiming for a large amount of cars parked on the side of the grassland. And at a distance, there she was: a beautiful leopard. But this wasn’t good enough for our driver, who doubled back on himself and sped up the road with several other cars following him.

When he stopped, I felt sure we’d lost the leopard without even getting a shot at a photo. But then we saw her head bob up and go back down, with her tail poised in the air behind her. Turns out our little lady was on the hunt, and we had front seats to the show! The gazelles around her however picked up her scent almost immediately and began to run away, so she didn’t even try her luck here.

Instead, she walked towards us and right through the cars. For a leopard to be so close for photos is incredible, but our luck wasn’t over yet. On the other side of the road was another herd of gazelles, most of which were moving away. But a couple of stragglers seemed to be staying back, and our spotted girl had picked out her target.

For the next 15 or so minutes, the 30 or 40 cars stood silently watching the leopard stalk her prey. Low in the bushes, head occasionally coming up to see, and then crawling through. We could see the muscles in her shoulders move so calmly as she got closer and closer to the gazelle.

I have never wanted brutal cold-blooded murder more than I did in that very instant. Our leopard was behind the gazelle, upwind and completely camouflaged. She made it so close tot he gazelle I was sure she could have licked it, and I stood there saying “come on, pounce baby pounce!”.

Finally she leapt at the gazelle, but the herbivore was a bit too slick for our big cat. She chased it a few meters, then turned tail and accepted her defeat as the gazelle watched her walk away, no doubt nagging her. But before we left, we had the amazing pleasure of seeing our disheartened feline climb up a tree to settle in for a sulk. The whole experience was simply an incredible shot of adrenaline for us.

By this point we thought things had peaked and it was time to head off to camp. But we were taken by surprise at a troupe of elephants, about 15 or so individuals including some youngsters, 2 small babies and 1 itty bitty tiny baby trotting in between her mother’s legs. The adults were clearly not so happy with our presence, especially each time we moved the car for a better look. They repeatedly regrouped around the babies making chuffed noises, and I was fairly sure we were going to get charged.

Eventually they decided simply to cross the road, though this required more walking around the cars as elephants are not quite so nimble as the big cats are. They came so close to the car we couldn’t take our eyes off them and their giant butts walking off. And we probably should have, as Rachel suddenly told us to turn around, and one of the adults had walked right up to our car, close enough she could have taken my glasses off my face if she had wanted to! At that moment I was certain we were done for, but once again, she simply walked around us and called it a day.

After this very eventful and exhilarating game drive, we were finally ready to get to camp. One of the vans had preceded us with all of our camping equipment and had set up our tents. All we had left to do was listen to the safety instructions because this time, this was the real thing: camping in the Serengeti. I’m talking camping out, in the middle of a national park filled with all kinds of animals, big, small and carnivorous, and with no fence or defences put up of any kind.

The instructions were fairly simple really. Don’t keep food in the tent or elephants might grab your tent – that was almost tempting, but the alternative was wild pigs and I decided I would not die by a wild pig attack, so the food went away. Then wear closed shoes because snakes, spiders and sharp rocks – and probably running from animals! And finally, always have a torch light on you when going to the bathroom at night, and if you see glowing red eyes, turn the hell back around and pee next to your tent!

Turns out however, glowing red eyes was way too much of a exaggeration. A simple “glowing eyes” would have been plenty! We had our cooked dinner in the giant dinging hall with all the other campers, when suddenly Pete came rushing in and told us to hurry on outside. Right there, walking out of our tent area and towards our toilet block, were 2 fully grown lions.

The whole experience was surreal. I had expected baboons, maybe an elephant with some luck, but lions was beyond any off our wildest expectations. The guides held us back from the toilet block, while those stranded in the bathrooms had to stay there and hope for the best.

Once the lions were far enough from us, a small convoy of about 8 of us headed in a pack to the toilet, short of peeing our pants from fear. We could literally see the lions lying in the trees in the back and let me tell you that was some pretty intense stress pee! Only then as we started walking back to the tents, so did they. We huddled by the washing sinks and watched the lions look at us again before walking away, more or less.

A little Italian boy walked past holding his dad’s hand at this stage and crying because he was petrified of going to brush his teeth in the bathroom. I tried to help out and convince him the danger was gone, even though we had all seen the green eyes of a hyena out there in the darkness. It was far enough though that he was under no danger. Still, the rest of us decided we would be brushing our teeth in the washing sinks, just in case.

Just as I was heavy into my brushing however, someone shined their light out into the darkness. And there was the hyena, not 20 metres away from us, having crept in our direction without us even realising. The light blew his cover though, and he slowly turned tail clearly not wanting to take us on anymore. That was enough for us however, and we decided to call it an early night safely locked up in our tents.

9/8/19

Well what a night that was. I fell asleep imagining a lion sniffing the area where the dog had peed on our tent a few campsites ago and deciding to pee on our tent as well – which Rachel thought was hilarious. Meanwhile Vincent had a near-death experience when, halfway through the night, Michael decided to “sleep-walk”, just unzipped the tent shining his light and calling out for Brenton, completely oblivious to the pressing fact that there were predators roaming the camp.

By 6:00 we were all having breakfast, and we left camp around 7:00 ready to start another amazing game drive. And what an amazing game drive this way. Directly from the start, we came across a lonesome hyena walking around. We stopped to watch her, she crossed the road right in front of us and then got down on her stomach with her ears pricked up.

Up ahead, in the bushes, was a female cheetah. And her 4 little cubs. Unbelievable. Completely impossible. The little ones could be seen just over the grass, pouncing on each other, their tails flicking in the air, and must have been not yet 3 months old. Mummy cheetah was looking further ahead at a group of gazelles, clearly deciding they would make a suitable breakfast for her babies.

As she walked off, the cubs sat back clearly responding to a signal she had given them to stay. Meanwhile however, our friend the hyena was still watching, and once mummy had gotten far enough, the hyena started slowly moving towards the babies. This I couldn’t watch. Show me a leopard killing a gazelle any day, but a hyena taking a cub would have destroyed me.

Mummy felt the same way about this, as she decided the gazelle was not worth it anymore and trotted back quickly to the babies. The hyena started to back away (understandably) but that wasn’t good enough for mum. She started prowling toward the hyena, the babies bouncing around her, then suddenly leapt out at it. It wouldn’t have managed to kill the hyena of course, so it didn’t actually try to sprint, but it was enough of a fair warning for the puppy to walk away.

We continued to watch the mother and her cubs, getting so beautifully close we could see the whiskers on the little ones. They they crossed the road and went off to stalk another set of gazelles further up, and we finally lost sight of them and left. Needless to say, we were amazed at how lucky we had been. A once in a lifetime opportunity.

After a quick pee break, we continued our drive. We came across a lone lioness in between cars, before crossing a river and finding a few massive “pods” of hippos. I don’t know if they’re even called pods, but suffice to say it was 2 groups of about 20-25 individuals each, all amassed on top of each other having a mid morning nap. Occasionally one would move, creating a ripple effect that would shake all of the others, before going back to sleep. But this was the opportunity for the amazing mid-yawn shot! That’s another thing off my bucket list!

We then double backed and found that a couple of giraffes had come to have a drink. Finally, the shot of the giraffe drinking! Giraffes are so tall, that in order to drink, they have to spread their front legs and bend down entirely. It the most beautifully endearing thing ever. Then once they are done, they flick their heads a few times to get the blood pumping again, all the while licking off the remaining droplets from their face. Freaking priceless.

We drove up, and further on came across another cheetah. This one however had successfully made a kill and was in the process of eating it. All we could see was the occasional head coming up to check for scavengers, before going back down. Nuzzle covered in blood of course, it was just awesome. At this point, I just don’t see how this trip could get any better!

Just a little further, we found a group of gazelles and topi acting very agitated. And with good reasons, as they had 2 lions walking towards them. I don’t think they were hunting – or if so they were doing a pretty poor job at it – but the gazelles weren’t happy. They kept moving away, but only a few meters at a time and then turning back to look. Doesn’t seem like a good survival technique but then what do I know…

The best part however, was that the lions walked right past them. We thought for sure they had sniffed out the cheetah’s kill and were going to scavenge her lunch, but they walked off in another direction. That direction happed to be right into the cars, and I had the immense pleasure of seeing Pete roll up his window at the speed of light when the young male came up to his car. I get the feeling he’s enjoyed this game drive more than any he’s ever been on!

We drove back towards the Ngorongoro Conservational Area start for our lunch. A nice lunchbox once agin – these guys sure are treating us! After lunch we drove up to the rim of the crater about 2 hours up, but will be visiting the crater tomorrow. For now, our tents were up and most importantly: the showers were hot! Thank goodness too because I’ve never felt so dusty in my life! The Serengeti Park is absolutely amazing, but dear me it’s dust everywhere!

We were rewarded with a bit of downtime finally, which I happily used to catch up on my travel stories. As we were sitting minding our own business in the dining room, a large elephant started coming out of the bushes, directly toward our building. For a second it looked as if he might come right up to the widow and take our phones right out of our hands, but he eventually decided to just walk away. Next up, we are expecting to find a buffalo grazing outside our tents – apparently this campsite is more dangerous than last night’s! Excellent!

Maasai Mara

4/8/19

Oh what a day! This morning we were up and ready by 8:00, happily leaving our tents to be cleaned for the next 2 days. Unfortunately traffic meant that Pete and the other vans arrived about an hour later than planned. But it was finally time to meet our 6 new tour members who would be travelling to Zanzibar with us. They dropped their bags in the big truck, and we all split up in smaller 3 smaller vans to head out to the Maasai Mara.

Our driver, Tom, was excellent. The road to the Great Rift Valley was filled with trucks everywhere, swerving around like madmen – apparently Sunday drivers are even crazier in Kenya! At one point a truck started to come into our lane, onto our van, and we all began to scream, either in fear or hoping to alert the truck driver of our presence! Thankfully he backed away at the last millisecond, leaving us heaving and panting at the insane feat. Tom, completely unfazed, tells us not to be afraid, it’s all good. Crazy guy…

We stopped once again at the Great Rift Valley viewpoint. I appreciate the new guys have not yet seen it and therefore could enjoy the view, but we’ve seen it for the third time now, we’re good… We then continued our road towards the Maasai Mara and I, as is my habit, happily fell asleep in between a few songs our party bus had decided to sing.

When I woke up, we were travelling well over the speed limit – although to be fair, Tom’s speedometer didn’t work so how could he be sure? – on a long road full of speed bumps. And we were taking the speed bumps full on, I definitely hit my head on the roof a few times! Eventually we started hearing a rattling on the ground and feeling a weird vibration under our seats, and it didn’t take a genius to figure something was wrong. We started to wonder if we’d maybe hit a cow and taken it’s bell or something!

Tom pulled over, as did the van following us with another third of our people, and we had a look. I’m no mechanic, so don’t take my word for this, but one guy reckons the shock absorber was the bit that was dangling. All I can say with certitude was there was a pipe-like thing dangling on the floor that should not, in fact, have been dangling on the floor!

We stood there assessing the damage and trying to work out how long the repairs would take, but not the drivers. In a demonstration of forward-thinking I don’t think even MacGyver would have come up with, they walked up to the wired fence on the side of the road and started pulling it apart until they had a full wire of about 30-40cm. Then – and with the car engine still on I might add – one of the guys slid under the van, somehow tied up the piece with his newfound wire, and called it a day!

Off we were again, though only briefly until reaching a quick toilet stop. By the time we stepped back out, our van was gone with all of our belongings inside. He returned about 20 minutes later claiming he’d gotten it fixed, and we felt slightly more secure about finishing the day in this van. More the fool us…

We continued the drive until we made it to an unpaved road. A severely unpaved road. Here everything started to get real! It felt very much like the drivers were on a race to the finish line, maybe the last one to reach the camp had to pay lunch for the others, who knows. In any case, Tom was flooring the accelerator all the way on the shitty, unpaved, rocky road.

Gone was the suspension! The shock absorber might as well have stayed off, and we were convinced the roof would fall off with it! The guys in the back were grabbing onto the handles so hard we thought they would rip, I was gripped to Lizzy’s seat as much for my sake as for hers, since her seat wasn’t properly attached to the car and threatened to send her flying with each bump. Then occasionally Tom would detour onto another road in an effort to beat one of the other drivers. It truly felt like we were on a Mario Kart race, where you can take the secret detours that go faster, but it is a more risky road and you might miss the rainbow and die.

Throughout this whole ordeal however, we couldn’t stop laughing. Lizzy decided she wanted to get her driving license – I’m glad I will have left England before then! – and the whole experience was so surreal we just had to laugh about it. Not to mention the road was also shared with cars coming in the other direction we had to avoid, we narrowly drove through herds of goats crossing the roads, and screw the shrubs and bushes on the sides! Until finally they slowed down, took a turn and started up the difficult road to the campsite.

While the previous road had simply been unpaved, made insanely bumpy from the speed at which we were driving, the next road was simply not a road. It was more a concentration of various sized rocks to create a path. He took this road much slower – obviously – but it still shook us well until we finally arrived at the campsite. And somehow, crazy as this sounds, we were still alive!

Here we had a quick lunch, dropped off our bags in our ready-made tents, and took off for the game drive. That was the plan anyway. About a kilometre down the rocky/muddy path, we hit a few potholes and then Tom just stopped the car. I thought for a second that we had gotten stuck in mud, just like the ditch incident a few weeks ago at Queen Elizabeth National Park, but no this was even better.

Turns out our back wheel had come off the van. We were in absolute hysterics, though felt a bit bad for Tom of course. The third van was stuck behind us, and the first van turned around again to join us. The drivers took a look, but we had lost most of the bolts and this was a bit bigger than a simple MacGyver job! So we split our group into the 2 other vans, which now were very very crowded. Climbing into the van definitely felt like a strong sensation of deja vu, and we already started looking at the roof to try to throw Sarah up there again!

Our first stop was at the hot air balloon section, where most of our group was signing up for the sunrise balloon ride the next morning. With my fear of heights – whereby a Ferris wheel is the worst torment possible – I decided it was probably smarter for me not to waste so much money only to spend an hour and a half hyper-ventilating, clenched to the sides with my eyes closed!

We then proceeded to the start of the Maasai Mara National Park, which was voted the most beautiful national park in Africa several times – and with good reason! At the gate we were welcomed by several Maasai women, dressed in the traditional Maasai blankets – a sort of cross between a blanket and a shawl with patterns and colours – and selling their beaded necklaces, bracelets or wooden animals. While I was not interested in buying anything, I must admit I was entranced by their ears, which had holes and stretches for earrings everywhere. Some had even folded the stretched earlobe back over the top of the ears. Not my thing…

We finally started our game drive, a little disappointed that the car events and traffic delays meant we would probably only get an hour maximum in the park before needing to leave. Still, we kept our spirits high, and were welcomed by a herd of wilderbeast, absolutely massive in numbers. Turns out, it is currently the migration period for the animals of the Maasai Mara, so you could see thousands and thousands of animals in formation all over the park heading towards the Serengeti.

Thankfully the van that had broken down was fixed easily and caught up with us early enough to get us into a more manageable number of people per car. The drive took us around a few more herds of wilderbeast, some gazelles, a couple of warthogs, and our favourite zebras and giraffes of course.

One of the highlights of this evening was the group of about a dozen elephants, including a few youngsters and babies. They were so beautiful, just so damn beautiful! We sat there watching them for so long, we didn’t even realise they were walking in front of a gorgeous lioness lounging in the grass. Finally a good shot of a lion!

We left the park a bit later than we should have, but were rewarded with a stunning sunset over the herds of wilderbeast. Step aside National Geographic: there’s a new photographer in town! Finally we returned to camp and went directly to dinner, a beautifully home-cooked meal by the campsite.

We were then given a brief talk about the proceedings of the next day, followed by a basic safety talk. While most of the animals stay within the Maasai Mara, many roam around the campsite area. We’d seen a few gazelles and elephants, and it occurred to me then that there might be predators too… Yep! Sure enough, we were told not to worry if we heard walking around the tent during the night, it’s just the night guards patrolling to ward off the hyenas and jackals. I’m going to sleep SO well here…

Quick note about the tent: What luxury! We were put in a triple tent to try to mingle with one of the newcomers of the group, so Dorothy stayed with us. We promptly instructed her not to get used to the beds, standing space, or lightbulb… The tent also comes with an “en-suite” meaning we have a zipper at the back leading to the toilet (which flushes!) and another zipper behind that leading to the outdoor shower – with hot water! Serious luxury!

5/8/19

Rachel and Dorothy got up very early in the morning to go to their balloon ride. Myself and 4 others had decided to stay back however and were rewarded with an extra hour sleep – let’s not get ahead of ourselves though, we were still out of the campsite by 6:30. Left alone in the dark tent, I was absolutely convinced I was hearing hyenas all around and was totally freaked out when meeting the other guys, who laughed at my unreasonable fears of course.

We grabbed some breakfast and headed off nice and early to the national park again. While the others were enjoying their balloon ride at sunrise and a champagne breakfast, we went on an early start game drive for a few hours before meeting them. Spoiler alert: I have absolutely no regrets about skipping the balloon ride because this was the most amazing and insane drive yet!

Once again, we began with a few wilderbeasts, giraffes and zebras as usual. We suddenly started seeing a few vultures however, and quite a lot hanging out in a group on the floor. We took a sharp left and came across an almost fully eaten carcass of a wilderbeast. Clearly this had been some big cat’s dinner last night, the vultures’ breakfast this morning, and no doubt hyenas would show up sooner or later to finish off the bones. It was so cool in the creepiest sort of way, especially watching the birds pecking at the eyes of the poor beast. But still so cool.

This season is not just migrating season in the Maasai Mara, it’s also the mating season for lions. Which means they are all currently paired off around the park and lying in the sunlight. About half an hour into our drive, we found a handsome young lad and his lady, basking in the early sunlight. They suddenly got up and right there in front of the car, just started doing it. I feel kind of sorry for the poor lioness, as she gets only a very very quick show, and gets it several times per hour for about 7 days. But she started rolling around on her back so I took that to be a good sign for the male lion’s performance.

We stayed watching them a bit longer – with a double dose of loving for Mr. Lion – and took off again. We drove around quietly admiring the antelopes, the gazelles, the Elan antelopes – the largest one out there. Basically a nice chilled morning.

Then suddenly the driver heard something on the radio, pushed his 3rd gear in and we went flying across the park. He easily doubled the speed limit, I stood in the middle of the van trying to act as a counterbalance for the rocky uneven roads. We passed right in front of another large group of elephants and he didn’t even glance at them. Whatever this was, it was going to be big!

And my goodness was it big. Cheetahs. A family of 5, fully grown cheetahs, lazing in the grass and sun, surrounded by about 20 vehicles that had sped their way to this location. They must have had the equivalent of Bill Gates’ fortune worth of camera equipment pointed at their spots, and they did not give a care in the world. They just lied there peacefully, with an occasional tail flick or ear twitch.

These are probably the most beautiful creatures I’ve seen since the start of this trip. I am biased towards felines of course, but damn these cats are stunning! It’s the most amazing shade of yellow, with black spots all over, a playful looking face and a white tipped fluffy tail. Lean and muscular, just absolutely breathtaking.

The leader of the pack eventually got up and started to walk around, and then went walking right in between the cars. He passed not 2 meters away from where we were standing in our van, still clearly not caring about our presence there. To be perfectly honest, a part of me kind of hoped he would leap at tourists in one of the other vans because that would be an amazing photo!

He came to the other side of the vehicles, than plopped down to the floor. The others progressively followed one by one, happily gliding in between the vans and then lying in the grass on the other side. They would get up, walk a bit further, then plop by down. Finally they got up once and for all and continued to walk onwards. In the not so far off distance, we could see 2 lone gazelles staring intently at this pack of predators and start to prance away, but the cats didn’t seem to care as they walked on. I believe they were looking for the shade of the trees further down the valley, but maybe it was the appeal of the wilderbeast for lunch, who knows.

We stayed gobsmacked several minutes staring into the distance before heading off again. We came across a fair few pairs of lions, each seeming quite pleased with themselves, and a couple of warthogs. Still love those misunderstood creatures. They apparently drink water by walking into the river backwards, because otherwise they forget which way they came from. I. Love. Them!

As we headed out to meet up with the others who had finally finished their balloon ride, we came across a beautiful ostrich. Finally! And out of nowhere, he falls to the ground and starts waving his wings and throwing his head backwards in a figure of 8. Well yes, sure enough, that was a mating sign and about 100 metres down was an ugly brown female ostrich, who seemed very enthralled with the dance.

We simply couldn’t believe our luck by this point, to have randomly chanced upon these birds and to see them courting was incredible. More still, the lady ostrich was delighted with her contender and he galloped over clearly thrilled to be getting some! Compared to the lioness, Mrs. Ostrich has a hell of a lot more luck it seems, because he went on for quite some time, and she then literally just flopped to the ground from exhaustion. Ostrich vs. Lion: in love it’s a clear win!

Finally we found the other cars and I rejoined my party bus group. They seemed to have well enjoyed their ride, but were obviously very envious of the incredible morning we had had. We therefore drove off at the speed of light to go find another few sets of lions for them to photograph. So did the other vans in the park, and one finally bumped into one of our vans – not mine for once! – and broke the window. Considering how close these game drivers keep their vehicles, I was surprised it was so light an accident.

The drive took us very deep into the Maasai Mara, all the way to the Mara river and the crossing of the animals from Kenya to Tanzania. They seemed so eager to get to the other side of this river, the wilderbeasts broke into a gallop – more like a stampede, RIP Mufasa – and almost ran our van over in the process. They finally reached the other side with herds of zebras and groups of elephants, and settled down there. Absolutely magical.

We had lunch on the bridge overlooking the Mara river. The lunch the campsite had packed for us was great and very filling. We also had the pleasure of spotting a few more hippos in the water – still not a full one out of the water but I haven’t given up hope! – and even some crocodiles. Turns out African crocodiles are much brighter than our Aussie one, looking almost yellow, so I was delighted.

With our lunch finished, we took a short toilet break – one which made me wish I had chosen the bushy bush instead – and took off back towards the main entrance gate. The drive back took well over an hour as we had gone quite far into the park, and we were still looking out for cool animals. No other felines unfortunately, but we did get close and personal with a hyena taking a bath on the side of the road.

Once back at the gate, we doubled back and headed to a Maasai village. This particular tribe supposedly is one of the most traditional ones still out there, though I am sceptical as to what degree it was really authentic. In any case, we were welcomed by some traditional dances, complete with spears in the hands of warriors, and some singing by the women.

One of the highlights of this visit was the demonstration of the competition between men, which essentially serves to let the ladies decide whom to marry. The concept is to basically jump on the spot as high as possible. The higher the man jumps, the more attractive he is. Our guys were taken into the circle as well to try to show off, and while Vincent and Brandon showed some promise, Mark surpassed them all and was even jumping higher than some of the warriors there. Hopefully his partner Lizzy was appropriately moved by his performance!

The visit of the village consisted of an explanation into the ways of life primarily. The Maasai are a nomadic tribe, moving location every 10 years. They live primarily off the animals the men herd, while the women are in charge of the children, the cooking, and building houses. That’s right, although their culture is a polygamous one, when a woman marries she has to build a house for her and her new husband. She builds it to her height however, so the taller men had better find a tall wife or they’re in for a lot of sore backs!

After a very insightful look into this unique culture, we finally returned to camp where we had about an hour to relax and wash off the dirt which had accumulated during the game drive. This was followed by another great dinner – I’m starting to think I might put on weight instead of losing it on this tour! – and then a nice evening around a bonfire. Tomorrow it’s back to Nairobi for our last day in Kenya.

Nairobi

2/8/19

Lake Naivasha was just the campsite that kept on giving! Around 3:00 in the morning, there was a loud commotion, which turned out to be the horse returning to bin for a bit of a midnight snack, and tipping the damn thing over! In the morning, we packed up our tents, had breakfast, and then watched in amazement – mixed with horror – as horsey had told his friends about the open buffet, and no less than 5 horses were hovering around the bin trying to get a piece of the action!

We took off for the fairly short drive over to Nairobi, stopping only at the Great Rift Valley again as we had on the first day. As this was the last day for a few of the girls, we were keen to get a group photo of “the originals” of the tour. When we got there, the place was packed with Asian tourists.

I hate to be too stereotypical, but Asian tourists are just weird! We found a spot for all 19 of us (including Pete and Francis) to take a group photo, and several of the other tourists started taking photos of us too. Several of the women even just came up to us to be on the photo! At one point we literally had to tell one of the women to go away because we actually did want a group photo of us, and she appeared to be offended, even though she had been on 3 of the photos already! You just can’t make this stuff up…

We continued our drive until we made it to Karen Shopping Centre, not far from our camp. What we found here left us gobsmacked. It was a full blown, open air, mega modern shopping centre. We felt like we’d time travelled, or left Africa completely. The shiny new toilets had toilet seat sanitizer, and it took everything I had in me to not go into the fancy soap shop to buy bath bombs, just because they were there!

We found a Burger King and promptly ran to it. I could already taste the double whopper when the cashier told me there was a problem and there would be a 10 minute wait on food. We reconvened, decided we REALLY wanted the damn whoppers and decided to just get it takeaway as we were running out of time. The cashier goes to get her colleague, who tells me they have a small problem, not a big deal, they just maybe need about 15 minutes to get food.

If I’ve learnt one thing in the last 2 weeks of travelling, it’s that African minutes were not the same as Western minutes, and if the second cashier was already adding more time to it, we were no fools and understood we would miss the bus. So we reluctantly made our way back to KFC, again, for some fried chicken, again…

Our next stop was a brief stopover at an ATM which would potentially give us US Dollars. Immigration offices at the borders do not accept local currencies or any other currencies other than USD, so screw you if you’re not from the US basically. With only one ATM available, this took a very long time, much longer than the 5 minutes “we’re not actually allowed to park here so hurry up” stop it was meant to be!

Around 13:00, we had made it to our campsite, where we were ecstatic to hear we would be putting up the tents, then leaving the campsite in 2 days but not taking them down! After our trip at the Maasai Mara we will be returning to this same campsite, where our tents will have gotten cleaned out as well. I literally whooped at this magnificent news. to that rolling up a wet and muddy tent every morning isn’t great fun, but you know…

We finally had a lazy afternoon to relax. I took this opportunity to was my jumper and cargo pants, which had taken a muddy turn after the many treks I had put them through. Not such a good idea in the end, as shortly after putting them up to dry, torrential rain started coming down… Most importantly, the internet seemed to be working at a decent speed, so we all began abusing the download options in preparation for the next long drives we may get.

For dinner we had booked ourselves into a restaurant called “Carnivore”. As the name indicates, it’s all about meat, and very similar to a Brazilian Barbecue. They come around with giant skewers, throw them on your plate and keep cutting until you take off the flag and therefore surrender. Some of the fancier meats on offer included crocodile, ostrich meat slices or meatballs, and ox testicles. That’s where personally I had to draw the line I have to admit.

As expected, I held out my own quite well and matched the Aussie meat eater and the 2 metre tall Canadian almost slice for slice, doubling on the slices when they got different cuts just to make sure. Obviously I did not sleep all night, but it was totally well worth it!

3/8/19

For the funny anecdote, by the time we had made it back to camp the night before, some random campers had placed their tents all around our tents. We were left very confused, as all the tents looked identical in the dark, and I almost walked into the wrong tent. That would have been fun.

Said campers were up nice and early, and with the torrential downpour of the morning – my poor laundry! – and the indigestion, I decided sleep was hopeless. Instead I went to get some breakfast with some of the others who were already up. I found Vincent getting all close and personal with the local cat and, of course, got very jealous of this. Only the arrival of my plate of bacon convinced the feline that I was also worth her attention. Slut.

Today was a free day in Nairobi, with Pete having left for the 2 days – presumably to hang out with his family – and Francis going to get the truck cleaned in preparation for the new people arriving tomorrow. As such, those who had not yet gone to see the elephant orphanage and giraffe centre went out to spend the morning there.

For my part, I decided it was time to take my hair out. The end bits were all flicking out, I had redone a few of the knots already and most importantly I didn’t anticipate there would be much time available after this day off for me to take them out and then wash my hair. So I grabbed my scissors, borrowed the campsite bin, and started hacking away at the 80 or so braids on my head.

It took just under an hour and a half for the head to be done completely. About halfway through, Sarah thought it would be fun to join in and helped me take out the rest of the braids. The head of curls I sported for about an hour was interesting, very much a woolly sheep. For fun though, I decided to give it a quick brush. Well, with the redness of the hair in the sunlight, the size of my afro would have put Mufasa to shame!

The guys came back from their excursion earlier than we had planned, so we were able to have lunch all together. Around 14:30 however, we were all ready to go and headed off to the cinema to finally – FINALLY! – watch the lion king! The look on the kids faces, as 10 fully grown muzungus walked into the cinema armed with our popcorn and singing “Hakuna Matata”, was simply priceless.

And what a wonderful movie! We resisted the urge – mostly – to sing along to all the songs, but loved every bit of it. Our driver was waiting for us by the time the movie was over, and we took the crazy road back to the campsite. I say crazy, not so much because of the road itself, but the driving in Nairobi somehow is even scarier than outside!

Once we were back, it was showtime. We all needed to have our day-packs ready for the next 2-3 days, the rest packed up comfortably in the truck ready for the new people to join us early in the morning. A lot of commotion on the truck, but in the end I think – I hope – that we’ll be good to go. Packing the blanket and the beanie just in case it gets really way too cold, and ready for the great migration of the Maasai Mara!

Jinja – Lake Naivasha

30/7/19

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t sleep wonderfully with my hair up in the massive bun which allowed only side sleeping on specific angles. Add to that another group leaving camp ridiculously early and loudly, I was basically well awake by 7:00 and once again using up the internet by the reception. Pete treated us this morning with freshly made crepes for breakfast, and after 3 crepes stuffed with Nutella I was ready to tackle the day!

A few of us had signed up to the school community project for the morning – Soft Power Education – so we headed off to the project’s preschool. We were introduced to very excited groups of 3-6 year olds, and were sectioned off into pairs for each class. I took on the special needs class on my own however, a small group of students with learning difficulties. I didn’t do or say much as I didn’t want to get in the way of the teacher’s work with them, but I was impressed that the class was in the process of learning ore English words. With learning disabilities it’s hard enough to learn in your own language without adding another one in the mix.

At 10:30 it was break time. That’s when shit got real. Children always love to play, but add to that 7 Muzugus – the name given to white people in Swahili – and it was crazy. I was pushed and pulled and grabbed from all places by I don’t know how many children all at once. Lizzy was in her element, loving every second of it and chasing the kids to try to tickle them – which meant I was being used as a human shield! It was only a 30 minute break, but it felt like a lifetime.

After the break, the 3 year olds had grabbed Courtenay and myself and dragged us back to their class, leaving no room for hesitating on which class we would be joining. These kids are freakishly strong! I took off my shoes before being pulled in and then was dragged to the floor so I was at their level to play. I turn around and one of the kids has put on my thongs and is handsomely showing them off. They might not understand a lot of English, but they certainly understand “no” and finger pointing!

I’m not sure how long we were in the baby class, perhaps only about 20 minutes I think, but it was the most hectic, energy consuming time of my life. Having been dragged to the floor, the kids then started fighting and climbing over each other to get to sit on us – oblivious to the fact that we weren’t in fact chairs. They were also particularly intrigued by my glasses which I eventually put away in my bag hoping to avoid a disaster. The teacher was trying to teach something to the class I’m sure, but the novelty of the new toys in their class meant she was talking to herself more than anyone else.

Eventually our programme coordinator came to save us and we headed off to. Different smaller room for more one on one learning with some of the older children. We were given plastic fruits for the kids to name and identify the colours of before then drawing and colouring them in. Our small group was composed of a British, a Canadian, a German and myself an Australian, so the poor kids looked so confused as we each used different words for some of the fruit and had to agree which ones to use! Vincent got himself the 2 top achievers of the class, very much teacher’s pets which reminded me a lot of myself at that age, while my kids were more on the artistic side and frankly could draw bananas much better than I could.

At 12:30, it was finally time for the children to go home. We said our final goodbyes and waved them off while we took a detour back to the campsite to pick up a t-shirt of programme for one of our girls. For 20 years they have been providing education to children who would otherwise not be able to go to school, and I look forward to returning to this place one day to volunteer a few weeks. You can’t help everyone of course, but if I can at least help these kids then it will have been worthwhile.

Once back at the camp, we made it just in time for our village walk. A young guide, Shadraek, basically showered us around the local community a little bit to give us a view of the real Uganda people live in. We started with a home cooked feast, consisting of cooked, mashed bananas called “Matoke”, a special variety of spinach called “Dudu”, some cooked cabbage, cassava chips and an incredible peanut sauce. I’m a carnivore by nature and usually frown questioningly at pretty much every element of this lunch, but my god it was good!

Shadraek showed us the houses people live in and explained that people essentially build their own houses out of wood, mud and a highly technical engineering component – cow poopoo. About once a year, often at Christmas, they then coat the house with a variety of other materials to protect it from the rain. The houses are perfect to keep cool in the very hot summers and equipped with electricity so they can even watch TV as a family.

He then took us around the “backyard” and showed us each of the plants and trees growing there. Essentially they grow almost all that they eat, and currently many have coffee bean trees which they can then sell. They even had the pig, cow and chickens for the occasional meat they don’t have to buy from elsewhere. I guarantee no hormones or pesticides on this 100% organic food!

We walked around the village and got to learn a bit more about our guide who is studying to become a doctor despite his poor background. People have taken to helping him pay his studies bit by bit, and hopefully it will be enough to get him through he 10 years of study required. He’s also a pioneering feminist, having seen his sister marry very young from sheer lack of other options for the women particularly in the villages. He aspires to climb high enough to make a difference to this, to give more options than marriage to women around Uganda, and to find ways to give them overall better health knowledge. I could only wish him the best of luck with his inspirational dream.

Finally back at camp, I jumped in another cold shower – still not getting used to these… – and put on a nice shirt ready for our boat cruise on the Nile. 2 hours of unlimited drinks and some snacks, we were all very keen. And you know, cruising the Nile and seeing the birds and stuff. We took over the top deck for ourselves, but were eventually joined by yet another group of snotty British kids. Getting real tired of those now!

We didn’t really see a full sunset since the sun was hidden away, but it was a nice relaxing cruise – and drinks! Once we were back to the camp, we all sat down for some small dinner, having filled up on the snacks on the boat, and a few too many drinks to celebrate our last night in Uganda. After all, we were looking at a 13 hour drive the next day, you might as well sleep the whole way!

31/7/19

Yeah the drinks were probably not the best idea we’d had, but somehow we made it work. Up before 4:00, packing up tents in the dark and rain, and definitely not ready to stomach any food. The second Pete closed the bus door we were all passed out until the border crossing a few hours later. By this point, I was starting to feel a bit sick and desperately hoped it was just a weird hangover and not whatever bug seems to be taking us down one by one.

We crossed the border fairly easily, being checked once again for fever and having to send back some of the guys that had forgotten to stop at the second window for the entry stamp into Kenya. Like I said before, I can see a lot of flaws with how this system works… While we waited though, some street sellers arrived with drinks and samosas, and my god was that a good hangover revival cure!

I carried on sleeping most of the ride, stopping with every bathroom break still feeling a bit shit – no pun intended. Eventually we stopped for a late lunch at a very fancy mall in Eldoret. Fancy mall means fancy toilets, so I was delighted! We grabbed a KFC lunch while some of the guys went to help Pete do a massive round of shopping for the next few days.

I slept basically the whole drive in an effort to feel a bit better, and hope this was the worst of it. The drive took us all the way down to Lake Naivasha. Originally this was not on our itinerary, but we decided to change things up a little bit a few days ago so avoid stops in Kampala and Eldoret where there was not much to do. Instead, we had gone to Jinja one day earlier than planned and by skipping the stop in Eldoret, we were granted a 2-night stop off-course.

The final part of the drive took forever. It was well and truly dark by the time we had made it to the campsite, after the longest and bumpiest road. The guys started getting sick of it ad therefore put on some music and turned the place into a party bus! By the time we had finally stopped and Pete opened the door, he was met with cheers like he’d never heard before!

We pitched our tents much like how we had unpatched them this morning: in the dark and rain. Most people decided to upgrade to rooms to avoid having to pitch, but as it turns out this particular campsite isn’t all that fancy. Several of the upgrades had to request towels, pillows and even toilet seats for the bathroom!

Once we had put up the tent we headed off to the restaurant to order food. Normally we should have been cooking tonight, but we had arrived way too late to start that so it was easier to order at the restaurant. Or so we thought… We ordered and then were told to go to the bar to get a drink as none of the food was ready and it would take 45 minutes to be made. O…K… So off to the bar we went for a drink and to meet Chris who is our local contact in charge of activities around this area.

We went back to the restaurant but still no food in sight. It took them well over an hour and a half to get our food ready, and we were absolutely famished by the time the wannabe spaghetti Bolognaise and beef stews were presented. We didn’t linger long after dinner, preferring to go to bed as soon as possible, given a few of us would be up nice and early, again, for a game walk.

1/8/19

Ok, so this is a campsite like no other! The common toilets do not have seats, nor do they really flush or have toilet paper. The showers are less than appealing, and to get to the bathroom block you need to make sure you look out for the horse poo along the way. When I went to brush my teeth last night, I met one of the keepers of the campsite who for some reason decided that was a good time to get the boiler on. So I stood there, brushing my teeth in the open with smoke from his newly-made fire coming into my face. Lovely!

The morning was equally as interesting, as the water tank on top of what I can only describe as a large chimney was overflowing. Really overflowing. As in, I did not need to go shower since I could just go to the sink and get the same results! Meanwhile some of our upgraded people were surprised when in the middle of the morning, their shower suddenly turned on alone! Like I said, a very interesting campsite.

Pete was already making breakfast for the 5 of us leaving early by the time I was up and running. Eggs and sausages – honestly he treats us way too well! So we sat there having our breakfast, and then watched in absolute horror as a couple of the dogs around the campsite trotted around the tents, stopped on my tent, and decided to use my tent bag as their toilet! And agin when we left! Tomorrow morning I will be throwing boiled water on that bag before packing up the tent…

Chris drove us to the game reserve where we were dropped off, right in the middle of a herd of buffalos. Looking intently at us. I casually decided to stand behind Vincent just for good safety measures, but eventually the buffalos decided we weren’t that interesting and moved on to graze.

The walk was absolutely fabulous. We were off-trail most of the time, just following whichever animals we had decided to follow. The warthogs didn’t like this very much – like I said before they are incredibly shy and always run away – but we spotted a giraffe in the distance and were desperate to get closer. Turns out it was one mummy giraffe acting as a baby-sitter for 3 youngsters, looking very curiously at the weird group of two-legged visitors.

Near the giraffes we also found some herds of zebras happy to graze and stare at us as long as we kept our distance. Further down, we saw another group of giraffes tearing the bark off the acacia trees, which the trees then have to recover from quickly or they die. A few beards of antelopes and impalas were also all around us, and it was just magical to be there, right in the middle of the wildlife.

Chris then spotted massive hippo tracks, including baby hippos, and we decided to follow them to see if we could find them. Within the tracks however, we could also very clearly identify leopard paw prints making us even more eager to follow! Chris had told us if we were to come across a leopard, to not make eye contact so he would not feel challenged, but needless to say we were very very keen on coming across Spots!

In the end we were unable to find either the hippos or the cat, but were rewarded with several curious giraffes coming to say hello and many monkeys playfully jumping from tree to tree. I am also now confident in saying I can identify all types of poo and attribute each one to which animal did it. Hippos man, hippos know how to take a shit!

We returned to the car, still surrounded by the buffalos, and drove up to a small walking path. Here we steeply walked up to the rim of a small volcanic crater turned into a lake. The view was beautiful and you could even spot more buffalos and giraffes. Apparently half of the reserve’s leopard population lives in the area around the crater, but once again, still no luck.

We returned to the campsite for some relaxing time and lunch. At 14:30 though, the 5 of us along with Courtenay and Sarah headed off to Hells Gate National Park. I’m yet to understand exactly what possessed the 2 explorers to name it after hell and the devil itself though, because it was absolutely magnificent. Essentially the park is home to a superb gorge – Hells Gate – and many beautiful cliffs along the way. It’s also the place which inspired Pride Rock from the lion king and many other movies like Lara Croft.

We began by walking down to a tall rock pillar, passing by dozens of baboons along the way. Finally some good shots of these weird monkeys! We then came across a colony of rock rodents, the name of which I’ve now forgotten, but which kind of looked like very large guinea pigs and were therefore, quite adorable.

We got back in the car about a kilometre or 2 down the road, and then were dropped off at the start of the walking trail leading to the gorge. Being by default a gorge which water at the bottom, we had to go through a fairly steep descent to make it to the bottom floor. Definitely not made for wheelchair accessible, but oh what a beautiful view!

We first took left towards the smaller branch of the gorge which would eventually lead us to the devil’s bedroom. I say eventually because the path was definitely not all that simple! The sights were absolutely stunning, but it was very much a “hands-on” kind of experience. This led to some pretty crazy climbs, particularly ones which were literally rope climbing to the top. I’m delighted to say my pole dance muscles are still in operation and have significantly improved my capacity to rope climb a wall!

The devil’s bedroom is essentially just a cul-de-sac with impressive wall sedimentation. We took our pictures and proceeded to making our way back down the treacherous path. On the way back we even ran into a group of hikers of which the women were walking in sandals and heels, and I can only imagine just how well that rope climb went for them!

Hells Gate is also home to several natural hot springs, which we came across once we had made it back to the main intersection. And they don’t screw around with the “hot” part of hot springs! The water can reach up to almost boiling point on one of the small would-be waterfalls, and it was amazing for us to finally touch hot water again after so many days of cold showers. Honestly if I’d had less of an audience, I may have considered this as a viable alternative!

We walked to the other side of the gorge and then ascended all the way back to the cliff edge for another superb view. This is supposedly what Pride Rock was meant to look like, so needless to say the silly Disney fans that we were took advantage of a couple of photo opportunities here. We stopped at a Maasai craft shop on the way back tot he car, and then finally headed back to camp.

We arrived just in time for dinner, before then proceeding to sorting out my bag. Tomorrow we will be returning to Nairobi and will be needing some day packs for the Maasai Mara excursion in a few days, so a packed up bag is helpful. On my way back from an actually warm shower – who would have thought?! – the campsite provided one more piece of entertainment, as I watched incredulously a full grown horse, in the middle of our tents, eating out of our rubbish bin. This camp will definitely be one to remember!

Lake Bunyonyi – Kigali – Jinja

27/7/19

This morning was a luxurious sleeping in session – woke up at 6:30 and we left with the sun already up! Rachel unfortunately wasn’t feeling so good and decided to use the day to sleep off a bad cold. The rest of us however almost unanimously took on one of the interesting optional activity for the day: we headed off to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

We were split into 2 cars but managed to drive almost continuously one after the other, meaning we arrived all together at the border about an hour after leaving. Now THIS is an interesting border customs! Our driver passed a gate that delimited the start of Uganda, dropped us here and took us to the Ugandan customs office. Thanks to our East Africa visa, this process was fairly simple.

We then had to walk about 400 metres to the Rwandan border. Why we couldn’t just drive there still eludes me, but rules are rules. So we walked past a few shops in No Man’s Land, were approached by many black market currency exchange guys, shadily offering us exchange rates which, to be fair, were significantly better than official exchange bureaus, and made it to the gate showing entry into Rwanda. There, a guy took our temperature – essentially just pointing a thermometer at us and saying “ok” – and we then proceeded to the Rwandan immigration for another questioning and stamping.

And so we were in Rwanda! Like Uganda, the country is very green, although with slightly fewer trees. They are however big on sugar cane plantations and of course, bananas. It’s easy to see why the country is known as the “land of a thousand hills” as the place is just gradients of colours going up hills and mountains one after the other. Which makes me question why Rwandans have a passion for cycling! Seriously, there were easily as many bikes on the road, carrying all sorts of products, as there were motorcycles or cars.

The country is also insanely clean, and we learned that every last Saturday of the month, the entire morning is dedicated to a full blown cleanup, with shops being forced to stay shut and no one allowed to drive a motor vehicle before midday. It works in making this an absolutely beautiful country to visit. So beautiful, it’s easy to forget that this year was their 25th anniversary of one of the most horrific streak of mass murders in recent history.

For those who, like me, weren’t really around during the genocide and perhaps aren’t aware of the events, here’s a brief explanation. In the early 1900’s, Rwanda had been colonised by the Germans, who introduced the concept of racial segregation between the tribes living in Rwanda, associating any person with 10 or more cows as a “Tutsi” and those with fewer as a “Hutu”. The Tutsi’s were in a minority, representing only about 20% of the population. After World War 1, Germany surrendered Rwanda to the Belgians, who maintained control until the 50’s when the country took it’s independence.

By this stage, Rwandan ID cards had to include which tribe a person belonged to, and the Tutsi’s who had in the past been used as allies of the colonists, were now viewed as an inferior race. The government was unanimously Hutu, and segregation against the Tutsi’s continued to escalate, with media outlets promoting the discrimination further. Everything exploded when in April 1994, a plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundi Presidents was shot down while landing in Kigali. The blame was placed on Belgium – though this is more of a scapegoat than fact – and this served as the trigger for the Hutu government to launch the attack they had been planning for months.

What ensued next was nothing short of hell on Earth. The government and the media incited the Hutu’s to take up arms agains the Tutsi’s and kill them all. And the people followed. They grabbed machetes, guns, clubs or anything they could use and carried out the mass murder of almost a million Tutsi’s – women and children included. After about a month or two, the United Nations was finally able to step in with armed forces and resolve the situation, leaving about 120,000 people awaiting trial for partaking in the genocide. Today the country has banned all segregation and is counting on the new generations to continue the restored peace and economic well-being of Rwanda.

Interestingly, due to the Belgian ownership for several decades, Rwanda’s second language is French instead of English. For the first time since the start of the tour, I could see signs written in French (or Frenglish) ad the people we met spoke more French than they did English. I was also shocked to find Belgian beers sold around the place instead of the regular international options.

We made it to the Rwandan Genocide Memorial by 10:00 local time (Rwanda being an hour behind Uganda) and here unfortunately found out that the museum, like the shops, was to be shut until 13:00… So, having 3 hours to waste, we decided to mix up our itinerary and start with a stop at the Hotel des Milles Collines – formerly known as Hotel Rwanda, where masses of people took refuge during the genocide and were brutally killed.

The hotel is actually a very fancy 4-star location, but with more than acceptable prices. Most importantly, for the first time since the start of the trip, the Wi-Fi worked beautifully! Consequently, we were very happy to stay a few hours, try some of the local beers, have our lunch and finally have a chance to upload photos and videos, check our bank accounts, and even try to get some Netflix downloads in preparation for the long drive the next day.

Finally after lunch, we walked off to visit a few craft market stores, and then drove to a memorial to fallen Belgian soldiers. In this building, 10 Belgian military commandos defended their position in order to protect the Prime Minister, who since the plane crash of the morning was effectively the head of the country. The government officials organising the massacre wouldn’t have her in this position however and their armed forces attacked the building for over 7 hours before finally succeeding in entering, torturing and killing all of the men and the Prime Minister in the process.

We then returned to the genocide memorial, which effectively serves as a mass grave for about 250,000 people, and as a museum to educate the next generations on the events of 1994. Much like any such museum the place was gripping and the testimonies from people who had survived the massacre were stomach-churning. They spoke of neighbours turning against neighbours, friends and relatives suddenly attacking them, and many recalled the death of their parents and siblings directly in front of them. Most were now the sole survivor of their families. The room dedicated to photos and information about the young children who had been killed (and how) was the part that was a bit too much for most of us, and after an hour and a half of reading and learning about this part of Rwandan history, we were glad to come back out for some fresh air.

Our driver rallied us together and we promptly left the memorial to make our way back to Uganda. We made it to the border about an hour and half later – I don’t know if he had a hot date or something, but he hit that accelerator big time! – and went through the questioning, stamping and walking between borders all over again.

By the time we made it to camp, it was about 20:00 and the other guys had already finished dinner. Francis had extra meat on the side for us though, and we devoured the most amazing lamb leg I’ve had in a long time. I then rushed for a hot shower (finally!) and started trying to repack my bag. The evening was finished with a few of us trying to explain to a large group of 16-year old little shits that this was a public campsite and that we weren’t going to take 2 nights of their loud crap in a row, narrowly avoiding a physical confrontation. It’s always fun camping!

28/7/19

This morning we left a little bit late as a massive other overland truck was blocking our way out so we had to find the driver. We took the precarious route back to the main road and then started heading back south towards Kampala.

We had several stops along the way however, as some of people were starting to feel sick. I’m hopeful that this is not yet contagious or food related as each has different symptoms, but I suppose it’s Africa right? Eventually we made it back to the equator where we stopped for lunch. Home made avocado filled wraps. I’m not normally a fan of avocado (or capsicum…) but this was not half bad.

We carried through our drive, sleeping most of the way and stopping again a few times for our sick people until we made it to the outskirts of Kampala. Here we said goodbye to Brent and Hannah who were only doing a 6 day tour of Uganda with us. Sorry to see them leave, but at least I get my 2 seats back!

Around 18:30 we made it to our campsite resort in Jinja where we will be staying for about 3 nights. We put up our tents rapidly and then had a tour of the place and the activities it offers. This particular campsite isn’t so big on the game drives, but more into the relax and adrenaline options. A few people jumped at the idea of going rafting down the river – it is the Nile river after all – and we all signed up to the sunset cruise for the last night.

The bar restaurant is open most of the night, so after yet another cold shower – which the reception had promised us would be hot – we headed down there and had our dinner and drinks. We were all ecstatic about finally getting a sleep in the next morning, but habit and sheer exhaustion put us all to bed by 22:00.

29/7/19

Ah what a beautiful morning! At about 6:00 in the morning the tour group next to our tents started getting up and packing their campsite up. We can’t exactly be mad at them, let’s be real – we probably make as much noise when we leave. Thanks to this, I was wide awake by 7:00 and decided to try to hog the Wi-Fi before everyone else got up and broke the internet again.

Pete really treated us for breakfast this time! For those who were up at 8:00, we got bacon and eggs with toast. Freaking luxury! I paired that up with a juice and a coffee, and was very happy having a lengthy breakfast. We were eventually joined by a guy representing the local school and community project we could volunteer at, and needless to say most of us signed up for the next morning to go help teach the kids.

At 10:00, it was finally time for the long awaited holiday moment – the African hair braiding! I wasn’t sure of what style to go with, and decided to stick with hanging braids for now, and we’ll do scalp braids later along the tour. They asked me if I wan’t to keep my natural hair or have extensions. O…K…? Natural hair please. They took another look and suggested extensions would be better – well she knows best so let’s roll with it! They then asked if I wanted my hair colour, which I said would be hard to find, but they thought they might get brown. Otherwise I figured a blond streak could work. Sure enough, she returned with blond hair extensions.

To be more specific, she returned with 5 bags of blond hair extensions. I figured she had bought extra for later clients. Nope. All 5 bags of hair extension went into my hair. Turns out I was wrong in thinking she would use 2 parts of my hair and 1 part of extension. In fact, she used half a part of my hair and 2.5 parts of hair extension for each braid… By the time I realised, I o longer had the courage to tell her to change, and they kept saying how great it looked already so what the hell?!

Each braid took about 5 minutes to make, between the parting of the hair, the oil and segmenting of the extensions, the braiding to the end of the length of hair, knotting the fake hair and then cutting off the loose ends. I watched with dread as several of my fellow tour members came and went for their hour massages, and I just sat their getting my hair pulled and neck hurting more and more.

After 4 and a half long hours, the hair was finally done. The last hour or so was done faster but with much more pulling and all 3 ladies at work since Rachel and Vincent had come down to tell me they had pushed back our next activity to give me time to finish. By 14:30 I was rushing out to put on my bikini and sunscreen, while showing off a nest of blond hair with ginger highlights above my head!

Around 15:00, we were finally heading down the stairs to the river for 2 hours of stand-up paddle boarding. Basically you’re on a wide surfboard type of thing, standing up with a paddle. With my hair freshly oiled and rolled up, I was desperate even more than usual to stay out of the water despite the very wobbly support!

This part of the Nile river apparently has no hippos but does house a few “vegetarian” crocodiles – I’ll believe that when I see them eating leaves! – and giant lizards. Nothing that inspires me to go for. Swim basically! But I’m proud to say we all did splendidly. Vincent and I almost capsized once or twice but the worst was avoided despite the surprisingly strong current.

One of the highlights of the 2 hour paddling was without a doubt when our guide suddenly called a break and pulled out the eski on his kayak offering us beers and gin tonics. I went straight for the gin tonic of course, but with no glassware or mixing equipment, the version of drinking became me having. Few sips of the tonic and then us topping that up with gin. I tried to shake the bottle around but those first few sips were definitely mostly gin!

Once we returned to shore, I returned to the hair salon to finish my hair once and for all. Given the tight timing, the girls had put it up it a nest / beehive mode just to get me through the exercise, but they had told me to come back for the “designing”. After the hair extension surprise I was a bit cautious here, but i the end they twisted the side braids, then pulled everything back into a nice bun stuffing the braid ends in the middle. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to manage to sleep with this, and in all likelihood tomorrow the bun will be swapped to a massive braid, but I’m super happy with it for now!

We met up with the whole crew – who rushed to come touch my hair of course – and started to have a few drinks when suddenly the deluge came pouring down with thunder once again. We rushed to save our tents and the dinner that Pete and Francis had been cooking in the open air, and I desperately tried to protect my nest from the rain. Having no covered area for dinner, we remodelled our bus into a diner – quite effectively I might add – and afterwards headed to the bar to watch the videos of the guys who had rafted all day. Good TV entertainment if I’ve ever seen it!

Lake Bunyonyi

25/7/19

Another early start to the day and another full morning of driving. We went back through the plantations with another set of stunning views, another few animals on the side of the road, and carried through until the Lake Bunyonyi shopping centre. There we met Duncan, a young man who was sponsored by an English couple when he was young, and decided to use this chance to build an orphanage and school for children orphaned or from very poor families.

He debriefed us on his work and offered us the opportunity to spend the afternoon at the school to meet the kids and interact with them. The majority of us jumped at this opportunity of course, and proceeded straight to the supermarket to buy supplies for the kids. We focused our efforts on books, pens, shampoo and soap, while I went for feminine hygiene products for the teenage girls. All women have been an embarrassed teenage girl at one point in their lives, and adding the shame of not having the right products is only worse, so anything I can do to help.

After a quick bathroom break (in a real toilet!!!) we got back on the bus and after a very bumpy 30 minutes made it to our campsite on Lake Bunyonyi. We had a quick lunch, grabbed our bags and made our way to the boat that would take us to the orphanage. Not particularly safe, and there weren’t enough life jackets for half of us, but it was a nice little cruise to the Little Angels Orphanage.

I’ll put a disclaimer at this stage to say that I expected to be moved by this place of course, but this excursion really took me to another level. Duncan showed us around the school, explaining that the playground was a recent donation but the kids don’t actually know how to use a playground and therefore have been injuring themselves. He also told us he is getting money together to build a medical clinic for the community, in order to offer services without the long wait and long travel to the city, and hopefully to have volunteer medical people come teach nurses and doctors here how to treat correctly. Not gonna lie, I really wished I had nursing experience right that second.

He then split us into a couple of groups and threw us into classes. The children were absolutely ecstatic, calling to us, squishing themselves into a huddle to make room on the benches and pulling us down with them. The class sits about 25 students, but was in fact holding about 50 already well squashed together, so when the girls pulled me down cramping themselves as much as possible, I just took it, sitting with only half a butt cheek on the bench and holding myself up as much as possible and thanking them for this.

I was put into a maths class where they were learning decimal additions. The teacher started by asking our names, so the kids could learn them and spell them and I have never felt so self conscious about my name! The poor kids had to learn how to pronounce that, and did splendidly I have to say. We then took turns to go up and do a sum with the kids to help them learn – all very proudly succeeding in our equations.

After maths class, I was brought briefly to another class to distribute my feminine hygiene products – that was totally not weird – and we all met up in their open entertainment area. We were invited one by one to dance while the children sang, and in Lizzy I found a fellow dance lover which the kids loved! They then put on a CD and started to do their routine dance. I was ecstatic, it was the most fantastic experience to watch their energy, I started bobbing with it and they dragged me into the dance. Alright, bring it on!

By the time we were through with the songs, we were completely drained. The kids have so much more energy than we do! The girls then asked to braid our hair, and you bet we weren’t going to refuse that! Granted, it was not even close to the hair braiding that I will be getting later in the trip, but it meant the world to me. We went back to dancing a bit more and I took this opportunity to teach the kids my famous shovel, sprinkler and towel drying dance moves. The boys had my ack though and were teaching the same moves along with the good old fashioned shopping trolley – A classic.

Eventually, it was time for the kids to go back to class.That’s when Duncan sat us down to talk a bit about the projects he’s got going, the options we have to help out and, if we wanted, we could sponsor a child. He had mentioned this at lunch already, and I was already thinking about it, but after the unbelievable afternoon, I was sold and I wasn’t the only one. One couple nominated a young girl they had met and asked to sponsor her, Michael also jumped at the opportunity, and many of the others will be doing so in the coming months.

I spoke to Duncan about how we would work out the sponsorship which is a very personal programme. Other than the monetary sponsorship which goes directly to the child’s items or education, they ask to have skype conversations on occasion to keep in touch and help them improve their English. He asked me if I had a child in mind, but I met so many wonderful kids I couldn’t have picked one. So I asked him for a young girl who needed it the most.

When he brought her in, the other girls on tour burst into tears straightaway and I could barely contain myself. The most adorable 4 year old walked in, very shy but with a beautiful smile and tells me her name is Miracle. She is still too young to speak English, so I had one of the ladies help me translate what was happening, and the little one was shyly hugging me with happiness. She’s from a very poor family, has only her mother but lives with her grandmother. This is the most making feeling I’ve ever had to help this little girl grow up and give her a chance at life. Currently she wants to be a nurse when she grows up, though I expect her to change her mind 10 times at least – and hope she wants to be a singer at some point! – and I’m looking forward to being a part of this.

We finally left the orphanage with our hearts on our sleeves, tears still in our eyes. We got back just in time for dinner and for a long speech about the upcoming gorilla trek the next day. We all then hurried to the truck to charge our gadgets ready for a very long and hard day in the morning – but not expecting to sleep from the sheer excitement.

26/7/19

Another 4:30 wake-up, another packed lunch made when half asleep, basically another tough morning! We were split into 2 cars of 7 people and a third of 2 people to go to the gorilla trekking area in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Now this was a bumpy long ride. We were cramped up, 3 of us, into the very back seat and been shaken in all possible ways all the way to the forest entrance 2.5 hours away – think making a margarita and that’s what we were like! Honestly between the night, the fog and the potholes all over the rod, it’s a miracle we made it there alive!

We were sent to another debrief before the trek started. We stuffed our pants into our socks – to avoid the red ants – grabbed our backpacks, and got back in the car for another tough 30 minute drive until we made it to the “top” of a mountain. Our guide met us there, along with 2 armed rangers in case we ran into an unfamiliar family of gorillas or into “forest elephants” – yep, that’s a thing!

The first part of the walk was just climbing up and up and up. Mountain gorillas, as the name details, live in mountains in high altitudes. Thankfully the guide knows her stuff and was able to make sure we stopped regularly to catch our breath. As we continued going up and down several times, we eventually made it to a junction in the path where we were told to take an extended break.

Essentially the mountains are home to several hundred mountain gorillas, of which about 10 families are used to humans and are tracked daily for visitors to spend time with. We were split into small groups of 8 at the start and given a family of gorillas each group would be tracking. Families consist of about 10-15 individuals, with a couple of females, their babies and an alpha male known as a “Silver Back” because of the silver hair on his back.

A couple of trackers had gone into the jungle a few hours ahead of us to track the gorillas. Unfortunately by the time we had made it to this junction, they hadn’t yet located our group, so we had to stop and wait for further instructions on which direction to take. We took this time for a morning tea, drink break and to discuss the many venomous snakes around Africa we might be running into. Fun.

We eventually received a phone call that they had picked up the track and found the nest where the gorillas had spent the night. Not quite there yet, but at least they were now following the morning trail and could direct us on the way in the meantime. So we forked to the left, walked another few hundred metres and then we went “off-trail” – basically our rangers and Florence with a machete in hand taking us through the levels and vines and branches.

About 200 metres in, Rachel and Vincent spotted a footprint in the mud and that was definitely, without a shred of doubt, a gorilla hand or foot. Needless to say our excitement levels were through the roof as we fought the “impenetrable” jungle. This took us to a site of complete devastation with trees turned over everywhere. Yep that’s right, that’s an elephant track. In the mud were massive footprints the size of tree trunks clearly indicating that a forest elephant had been through there.

We carried through the jungle, fighting vines, stepping in mud and slipping many many times along the way – thank god for the walking sticks! Finally we found the trackers, which meant we’d found the group. We left our sticks up the top of the mountain and ever so delicately descended into the leaves, following the wonderful stench of the large male.

And there they were, a female, a 4 year old juvenile and Mr. Silverback himself. Now THAT is impressive. The chimpanzees were beautiful and so human-like, but the gorillas were not only human-like, the male was absolutely huge! At one point taking photos of him, he looked at me directly, grunted, and left me shaking in my mud-covered sneakers! The guides had told us that, should a silver back charge toward us, we were to stand perfectly still, then make some compliance noises – much like just scratching the back of the throat – and if needed, start picking at leaves to look like gorillas. Well in that instant I was ready to eat all the leaves in the jungle!

We spotted another female further down who was carrying a very young baby and not willing to show him off. For the rest of it however, the gorillas were very content to just sit there eating their leaves and not care that we were there, only a couple of metres in front of them. They continued to progressively move down the hill, and we followed them the whole way, trackers first with their machetes to help us get through a bit more.

Once again, I can’t put in words what an experience this was. To be so close to these massive strong creatures who act so much like us in many ways is just incredible. We were allowed an hour with the great apes, as our physiology is so similar to theirs that any longer risked us passing on diseases to them – and them to us of course. So after our hour, we parted ways with these magnificent creatures and scaled back up the hill to our walking sticks.

The walk back to the cars was much simpler of course as we found the main path straight away and just made our way back with our sticks. By about 13:45, we were cramped back into our seats in the van and taking on the crazy roads once again. In the light, and without the fog, the scenery was absolutely beautiful and made the trip much more worth it!

We made it back to camp with a bit of spare time, and I took this opportunity to desperately try to make the internet work for me once again. I also decided it was time for a well earned shower, and learned only after yet another cold shower that the red and blue taps had in fact been switched and the hot water does work. Tomorrow it’s happening!

We had a buffet dinner at the campsite altogether and convinced Pete and Francis to join us to chill out a bit. I also grabbed my sewing kit to fix my new pants I had ripped while taking photos at the orphanage, and should this work I will be fixing Michael’s pants – also ripped int he same way! – in exchange for photos and videos of the trip.

Queen Elizabeth National Park

23/7/19

The evening in Kampala was an early one again. After spending several hours trying to work with the limited internet on offer, I tried the Waragi gin, the last shot in the bottle and decided it was worth getting a small bottle at the supermarket – it’s good stuff! This morning was another early wake-up, before 5:00 for a departure at 6:00 once everything was fully packed up. The day was another mostly driving one as we make our way to Queen Elizabeth National Park.

The scenery has definitely changed significantly from Kenya, not just in the economic way looking at the houses, but even the animals are different. Where in Kenya we sometimes saw donkeys and even baboons, here it’s all about the Ankole cattle – cows with massive horns that can reach a metre long. We also came across a crazy big bird eating chunks of meat from the carcasses hanging at the butchers along the way. Very like a pterodactyl to be honest!

We stopped once again at the equator line, this time in Uganda, for a couple of photos and took the time for a bit of shopping. I walked into a shop to look only, and came back out with a shirt, pants and 2 dresses for under 30 pounds. I’m hoping this will help me limit the number of laundry days I will need to have, while Michael left with what he now refers to as his “bus pants” given how comfortable they are.

Pete and Francis briefly stopped the truck to pick up some fresh fruit as well. Another impressive sight of stalls filled with fruits and vegetables of different colours that clearly are incredibly fresh. Uganda seems to be very good at bananas, with plantations around every corner and trucks carrying entire loads of green bananas one after the other. I look forward to trying one of those by the end of the trip.

Lunch was a stop on the side of the highway, where we pulled out a table and started chopping up cucumber and tomato to make some sandwiches. Out of nowhere, 2 children dressed in ragged clothes appeared and stood behind our truck observing us with intense curiosity. Despite the apparent economic wellbeing of Uganda, it’s clear there are still some severely poor areas or families, and I must say it was not easy to see these children shyly keeping their distance but who I suspect do not have access to the food we were offered for lunch every day.

We carried our drive further, with Francis taking a quick stop to buy some coal for us to use later for barbecues. Here, once again the meat fans started appearing and included the mythical “goat on a stick” Pete had told us about. Of course several of us rushed on this, and with a single bite were promptly brought back down from our ecstatics. Yeah it was goat alright. Goat liver. Without a doubt… We decided therefore to wash that down with some of the beers we had bought yesterday at the shops, anything to kill off the taste of liver. I’m now looking forward to the “lamb on a stick” with a degree of caution…

As is my regular habit, I dosed off sometime on the last part of the drive. When I woke up however, we were crossing the Ankole Tea plantations. Turns out Kenya and Uganda are some of thee biggest producers of tea in the world, though you could definitely see the banana trees everywhere through the plantations as well. The whole plantation was just one massive valley of green, with an occasional house, and it was absolutely breathtaking. The road could definitely use some work but the views were simply incredible ad well worth the drive through.

We then reached the limits of the Queen Elizabeth National Park, an immense savannah about 10 times the size of the one of Lake Nakuru where we would be spending the next 2 nights. Our campsite was on the other side of the park so we had to cross part of it directly on the main road. About 2 minutes into the park, we look to the right and there it is, the largest land mammal in the world. A beautiful lone elephant just flapping his giant ears to keep himself cool. Elephants were always my favourite animal in the world, and until this moment I had no idea just how right I was to love them.

Francis being the amazing driver he is, kept stopping each time he saw any large animal and letting us take as many photos as we wanted. When we were ready, Vincent put his thumb out like a hitchhiker to signal Francis and we were off. We came across a few more water bucks, elephants and even a water buffalo taking a bath on the side of the road. We knew we would be in for an amazing time in this National Park basically!

When we made it to the campsite, we were feeling very hot and humid. So it was a gift from the heavens that we were camped directly in front of a nice cool pool. As soon as the tents were up, in we hopped for a quick cold dip before shower and dinner. After dinner we headed to the campsite bar for a quick drink and to sit at the camp fire while Michael attempted to take photos of the stars which were stunning in the dark. When we get some internet that actually works, we will have to try get proper instructions on how to successfully get those pics to come out.

24/7/19

Waking up at 5:45 this morning felt absolutely luxurious, particularly since for once we didn’t have to take down our tent and could leave it nice and opened. By 6:30 we were split up into 2 groups: one starting with a morning game drive while ours headed out to do the long awaited chimpanzee trek. Kyambura Gorge is home to a community of about 30 chimpanzees, and countless other animals. We had obtained the permits to trek the gorge in the search for these chimpanzees, however due to how quickly the apes move, we left knowing we had only about a 50-50 chance of actually seeing them.

On the drive to the trek, we came across a stunning male elephant on the side of the road, only a few metres from us having his breakfast. The baby elephants from Nairobi were absolutely adorable, but the sight of this magnificent creature so close to us was simply heart-stopping. Even more so when he suddenly snorted and shook his head, which prompted our driver to start driving on as this was a sign he was about to charge us!

When we arrived to the gorge, our driver and Pete went to take care of our permits while we had a chance for a lookout view on the gorge. It is about 16km long and the high trees do not reach the edges of the cliffs, so we got a pretty good idea of the trek that was ahead of us. To be frank, I could already feel my thighs burning and my knees clicking before we even started…

We were joined by Valence, our guide. He is one of the rangers of the gorge who tracks the chimpanzees on a daily basis, dressed in camouflage and carrying a nice AK-47 on his hip – to be used on stubborn clients according to him. The reality is the chimpanzees have several predators, such as leopards, which normally operate only at night, but combined with the other larger animals around the jungle, this sort of protection was necessary.

We headed down a winding “path” to the bottom of the gorge, and while Valence just raced his way down, we were a bit more cautious and I happily ballerina’d my way gracefully. Once we arrived at the bottom, we were briefed on safety measures and to our absolute delight, Valence then told us he’d heard the call that the group of chimpanzees was very close to us. I figured it was just a tourism ploy to keep us cheery while we walk hoping to see something, but played along with it.

Not even 5 minutes later, we found ourselves in front of Moia, a 17 year old male chimpanzee who likes to walk around on the floor. We were awe-struck, particularly since we had expected to be standing a hundred or so metres away from any creature we saw, and in fact we crouched directly in front of him, so close I could see the details in his pupils when he looked back at me right into my soul. And when he stood up and started walking towards us, we were told not to move and let him walk less than 30cm away from us – he could have stepped on my foot if he’d wanted.

I don’t think anything I write here can do justice to what an incredible experience this was. The chimpanzees are used to humans observing them and are very happy to pose and have a bit of a silent communication with us. According to the guide, he also particularly likes women and was probably eyeing us girls off a bit more in an effort to decide if he liked one of us or not. I’ll be honest: I’ve dated worse!

We continued to follow Moia and some of his friends around the jungle through no clear path. They have put up a couple of bridges to cross the river – including a terrifying suspension bridge similar to that of Jurassic Park 3 which I regrettably had to cross 3 times… – and a couple of carefully laid out tree roots to help a climb, but most of the trek was just fighting branches, leaves and roots. My white shoes have turned the colour I expected them to – nice an brown – and I will have several bruises from branches hitting my legs, but I didn’t die so I’m calling it a win!

I have never felt so close to nature as I did today. Moia the chimpanzee decided to have a bit of fun and take us to the very top of the gorge cliff side and all the way back down. But chimpanzees walk with their hands as well, or climb trees. Whose brilliant idea was it for us to walk on only 2 legs?! So we climbed the cliff side as best as we could, grabbing onto tree roots or rocks, sliding on our knees and anything required to get by. I’m normally a bit more careful with this sort of thing, but the eagerness we felt in continuing to watch this amazing creature meant we were willing to get more than a bit muddy!

The walk wasn’t all about the chimpanzees on the floor of course. The rest of the community in the trees could be seen swinging around or feeding, and heard having loud debates, though getting their pictures was not an easy task. Out of nowhere we also heard a very loud grunt from the riverbed area, which it turns out was a hippo calling out. It took a few minutes to figure out what the call reminded me of, until I remembered my father yawning at home with the exact same tones!

We also saw a couple of red-tailed monkeys and another breed with a bushy white tail. These cute little monkeys serve as the main dinner for the community of chimps, who will go out to hunt them around once to twice a week, but don’t eat the tail which is just hairy and meat-less and thus is left on the forest floor. As we walked around observing the small monkeys, our guide suddenly stopped, and promptly began walking back the way we’d come. We looked at him confused, and he asked if we’d heard that. Heard what? The flapping of an elephant’s ears, less than 50 metres directly in front of us, so yes, definitely time to turn around! I was so caught up in looking at my feet hoping not to trip that I would have walked right into him and not realised!

When we caught up with Moia again, he seemed a little more agitated and kept screaming out randomly. It turns out he was lost and was therefore trying to find out where the rest of his group had gone off to. The only way to do that is to call out loudly and then bang on a tree. When a chimpanzee does that less than a metre away from you, it leaves you fully shaken to the core! Particularly given the response coming from the trees all around as the rest of the community answers to announce their position. Absolute goosebumps!

He seemed quite satisfied with this response however, and therefore sat back down and started to pose again for us. He was simply fabulous, happy to be included in selfies, very good at looking at the camera when required, even throwing me a couple of smoulders to get the right shot. He then even decided to get more comfortable and proceeded to sprawl himself on the floor as if he were watching TV, another pose which reminded me of my father!

Eventually we had to leave and trek our way back out of the gorge. As we left Moia, he seemed to get upset at our departure, started to follow us a little bit, then decided he’d had enough and did his ritual calling out and banging the tree again to find out where the rest of his group was. By the time we made it out of the gorge, it had started raining but we were absolutely ecstatic at the incredible experience we had just lived through.

On the drive back, we came across another elephant right next to the road, and watched in horror as the rain kept getting stronger and stronger. I had left the camp this morning with our tent doors and windows open for air, with my bikini and towel drying on top. Luckily, Pete and Francis had stayed at the camp and had rushed to save our tents as soon as the rain had started by putting the raincoats on top. Unfortunately my towel and togs were not so lucky, having been hung on a tree, so I proceeded to place them inside the bus, and I’m hoping this “quick-dry” towel really is as quick as it advertises.

We rejoined the other group over lunch, which we spent hiding under the covered kitchen area to avoid the downpour of rain. During their game drive, the other group had gotten to see a few lions and even a leopard, and we were left a little envious. Leopards are very good at staying hidden and it is quite rare to see one on a drive. So if they had seen one in the morning, it was unlikely we would get the same chance.

The other group left first for their chimpanzee trek. It was still raining like crazy so we did feel a bit bad because we knew the terrain they would have to walk would be absolutely awful. Thankfully the rain stopped shortly before they started the walk itself, but given how slippery we had found the trek during the dry state, we could only imagine the hardships they would get after a good rainfall.

For our part, we split up into 2 cars of 4 people for a more comfortable game drive and headed off, feeling that nothing could beat the exhilarating morning we had had anyway. On the way to the start of the national park game drive, the drivers stopped, scrutinising the fields where earlier today they had seen the lions. We looked for a long time and finally spotted a beautiful lioness in the grass, moving from bush to bush, followed by her cub a few metres behind.

The lions were a bit far from the road however, and so our drivers decided we needed to get closer. He tells us to get our cameras ready, that they’re not allowed to do this but that for just 1 minute they would drive off-road, into the grass to get a closer look, and then promptly back to the road before anyone notices. So we’re armed, standing on the seats with our heads out of the top roof, waving quickly at the guys in the van behind us and ready to take shots of those lions.

We got 5 seconds in before the van got stuck in the mud and dirt. The driver tried reversing, then going forward again and did so repeatedly until we were well and truly stuck. So much for stealth! Several cars started driving by, stopping to help try to push the van (or potentially to report the number plate) but nothing would do it.

The four of us carried on watching the lions, since that was the reason for this mess in the first place and when we turned around, a massive truck with a load of rocks looked about to run us in! They attached a chain to the truck and the van, and finally our driver conceded to letting us get out of the van to make the process a bit smoother.

So we all hopped out and got into the other van, once again standing on the seats for the sake of visibility and also of space – it was after all 6 seats for 8 people. The truck threw on his reverse gear, pulled on the chain and voila! Out goes the van. And just as we were mid-way through our hooting and clapping, we watched in horror as our van continued to reverse, pedal all the way to the floor, and rammed its back into the truck. The break lights were all over the floor, the back window was in pieces and the left half of the van was well dented in.

The driver of the other van grabbed our bags from the car, brought them into our new van and promptly sped away hoping to minimise the risk of being reported also for trying to go off-road. With 4 of us having to stand, head in the open with the wind in our faces, that was an uncomfortable getaway to be sure!

He eventually slowed down and made it to the park drive entrance, where we were able to rearrange ourselves a little bit. Sarah and Hannah were thrown on the bag racks on the roof, hoping the driver would not break too hard lest they slam their heads into the top part of the open roof. Sally moved to the passenger seat and Maddie and I were left standing in the back but with a bit more wiggle room and were able to relax our knees and core muscles a little. He told us they could get another van, but that we would have to wait about 30-40 minutes for it to arrive. Having already wasted some time with the “minor incident” earlier, we decided to just power through with the girls on the roof and just do the drive as we were.

So off we went into the national park’s game drive area. Surprisingly we did not see a single elephant in this area, despite seeing many on the side of the road. My personal belief is that elephants feel fat, and body shamed constantly, and find a sense of relief when they see the large trucks drive past them, knowing they weigh a few tonnes more. I may be over-psychoanalysing though.

In any case, most of the drive was filled with countless herding animals. The local antelopes, look similar to impales but apparently are different (really?) with beautiful ringed horns to low the males to fight over the group of females. We also came across many Water Bucks, cousins fo the Bush Bucks from the other day, who have the capacity to run from danger into the water where special glands release a foul-smelling fluid. Essentially, they are smelly and it makes their meat taste bad, which means the lions don’t eat them. Smart.

Let’s talk a bit about warthogs! I feel like warthogs are underrated animals, and have a new-found love for these shy creatures running way every time they see anything suspicious. When warthogs run, their tail flicks up into the air to help them with balance and direction, which makes them unbelievably cute. The poor things also have front legs longer than their back legs, which means they have to kneel down to eat the grass, another endearing quality. Most importantly however, they are known as the stupidest animals because of their 15-minute memory. Meaning they can be eating grass happily, then get chased by lions, then forget they were chased, start grazing again and go right back to where the lions are!

We saw many warthogs, and their adorable little piglets, but after a few hours of nothing but the peaceful grazers and the occasional buffalo, we were starting to be a bit disappointed. Our driver however was keen to find us a nice cat, and started heading on a path he felt sure we might find one of the few tagged animals of the park.

He suddenly veered off the road into the grass and stopped in front of a patch of grass seemingly no different to the rest all around the park. And there, bobbing its head up, against all of our wildest hopes, was a beautiful leopard. Not very pleased to see us however, he promptly stood up and ran for the bushes. I say ran, but that’s not exactly true, more like trotted away, or I never would’ve managed to get what is assuredly the most beautiful picture of my trip.

We were in awe at the fact that we had gotten to see, oh so clearly, a real-life leopard. But this wasn’t good enough for our driver. He started circling the bush, where we could see the yellow spotted head bobbing up and down trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The guy then stopped and stepped out of the car, telling us he was going to get him out, and for a second I wholeheartedly believed the guy was completely mad and was going to shake the bushes himself. And that we would have to drive the van back ourselves somehow!

He was in fact just moving Sally into the open rooftop are so she could also get the good shots of this. And then he started to ram the bush with the van. The other guys on the drive this morning had told us about this and we hadn’t believed it, but sure enough there he was, driving back and forth into the sides of the bush to try to get the poor kitty out. According to our driver, this one is shy and not yet used to humans, so he needs to get used to us. I somehow feel like driving into his hiding place is not the way to go about that!

The leopard never resurfaced, but we weren’t disappointed at all. After all, the likelihood of us seeing it was incredibly low, and the fact that we even managed a good photo each was more than we could’ve hoped for. So from there we headed off to the edge of lake George, well into the park, passing by a few more antelopes, buffalos and my beloved warthogs.

At the lake, we could finally hear a lot of snorting and splashing, and sure enough there were the hippos! I love hippos. To be more specific, I love creatures that have any funny characteristics with their tails and especially there ears, and hippos are a beautiful example of that as they shake their ears every time they resurface. I could have stayed for hours watching them swim around, with the little hippo calves trying to hop on their mother’s backs. But towards the evening-time is when these guys hop out of the water to hang out on dry land, and they can run up to 40km/h – I can’t!

So we drove back out of the national park where a new van was waiting for us since the rest of the road was a “highway” and we couldn’t have people sitting on the roof for that (officially anyway). When we made it back to camp, we were delighted to hear the other group had also managed to see the chimpanzees, though theirs were in the trees instead of the ground. And despite the extreme slipperiness of the terrain, no one was injured!

We all grabbed our dinner happily, then started preparing ourselves for the next day of driving again. Which meant repacking bags again, rearranging tents to simplify the morning’s early wake-up ritual, and depressive lay looking at all our damp clothes, accepting the simple fact that they would not be dried until our next stop. Lake Bunyonyi, here we come!

Nairobi – Lake Nakuru – Eldoret – Kampala

Welcome to another round of travels with Elodie! In what I can only describe as the craziest adventure yet, I make my way to Africa, camping from Kenya to South Africa and everywhere in between. Armed with my sleeping bag, filtering water bottle, more pills than I ever thought possible and an extra memory card for the camera, it’s time to see what the wildest continent has to offer!

To my surprise, the airport, flight and immigration went as smoothly as ever. I arrived at 5:00 in the morning, and was delighted to see the queue for immigration was almost empty. Given the price for the visa was written everywhere, I had little hope of getting the East Africa visa I wanted to get, which would cover entrance to Uganda and Rwanda as well. But once again to my delight, when I asked about it, they only sent me to the window next door and I was able to get the visa I wanted and therefore will not have to go through visa purchases again in Uganda or, if we make it that far, to Rwanda.

The airport also had very fast free Wi-Fi – honestly I can’t express how impressed I was with the place! So I was able to order an Uber directly from the airport thus avoiding any difficulties with taxi drivers. Johnson, my driver, was a fabulous “welcome to Kenya” moment. With the traffic, we took about an hour to get to the hotel during which time we talked about African culture, particularly with regards to family life. We shared some good laughs discussing how it is very common for a wife here to find her husband a young woman to be what I can only understand as being an official mistress. Because she gets tired and doesn’t necessarily want to “do it” as often as he does, so she picks someone else to keep her man happy. I explained that our Western women get far too jealous for this sort of arrangement, but I suppose I can see the logic in the reasoning!

My room at the hotel was already prepared for me, so I was able to shower as soon as I arrived and then make my way over for some breakfast. There I met a couple of others who would be doing the tour with me, and learned that we had the option of going out to see some giraffes and elephants. So I joined the other 5 people already there and by 9:30-10:00, we were at the giraffe centre.

Giraffes are so pretty!! Seeing them in zoos is one thing, but so up close is just beautiful. They had also put up a small treehouse kind of area to be able to reach their heads and feed them. Daisy seemed to be a bit picky and definitely was only interested in the food (the sign saying “Be careful, giraffes might headbutt you” was clearly put up for her!) but Edd seemed much friendlier and happy to get a cuddle, provided you were going him the goods of course.

The tongues re definitely very blue and very long and sticky, full of slobber – lovely basically! If you were game, you could also feed Edd with your mouth and get a nice sloppy giraffe kiss, which one of our guys decided to do. The saliva is apparently very antibacterial so it’s not a health issue, but personally I like to get to know a guy before we get that intimate! The centre also had a few warthogs we had the pleasure of checking out, who seemed perfectly happy to risk getting stepped on by their impressively tall roommates while lounging in the sunshine.

We left the giraffe centre and made our way over to the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage. As the name indicates, this is a rescue centre for baby elephants who are found to be alone in the wild – usually due to their mother being killed by poachers. As elephants need milk for at least the first 2 years of their life, they would die without the intervention of the centre, who raise the calves on baby formula (apparently the best for elephants!) until they start trying to reintegrate them into a wild herd. As elephant herds work in a family-based society, the elephant handlers will keep a close eye and repeatedly bring them out to the wild and back until the babies can “make friends” and are seen to be accepted into a herd that will care for them. Usually this is done when they are about 4 years old, but the process can take more or less time depending on the level of acceptance of the herd.

For our part, we got to see the little ones being fed, playing around for about an hour and finding a football to be the most amazing invention ever. It was a beautiful experience to watch, and I now hope to get to see an elephant on the back of a pick-up truck on the highway some time being reintroduced to the wild!

We headed back to the hotel after our elephant encounter, and ran into some pretty severe Nairobi traffic. Unfortunately this meant we got back to the hotel much later than planned, and I had to say goodbye to seeing the Lion King at the movies after all – hopefully when we return to Nairobi, having already seen the giraffe centre and elephant orphanage I will be able to sneak in a movie session instead.

We grabbed lunch together, and then Michael, Sarah and I headed out to find a sports shop in the hope of finding them both a sleeping bag. We headed towards the centre, buzzing street with many shops, but it turns out this was not the right direction and we had to turn back to the other side of the hotel. Now this place was NOT a buzzing city street… We walked up and down the dingy looking street looking for what we expected to be a massive sports centre and saw nothing but a massive metal gate where the shop should have been, with guards out the front. We eventually decided to ask the guards where the shop was, and he just opened the gate to let us in. Sure enough, in the building behind the gates was the sports centre. We were of course the only customers and I wonder how they manage to sell anything given the visibility of the place! in the end however, the price was too expensive so the guys chose to try elsewhere tomorrow.

Once back at the hotel, I decided it was time for a well earned nap. The night flight had not been all that great and I was running on only about 1-1.5 hours sleep. 2 hours later, I woke up feeling not much more refreshed but ready to go. We all met up with Pete, our tour manager who would be our guide for the next 58 days, along with the rest of the group. In total about 8 of us will be doing the full tour, with most of the rest of them doing at least half of the tour, so this is shaping up pretty well! The meeting was mainly to make sure we understood the basic requirements of the tour, which most of us already knew from reading the information hundreds of times, but I learnt we may get opportunities to occasionally upgrade our tent to a room with a shower – an option I hope not to need but I am glad to have!!

Most of the group decided to stay at the hotel restaurant for dinner, but Michael, Vincent and I thought we might as well hit up the buzzing street side of things and went to a restaurant our guide this morning had recommended. Very good decision as it turns out, as the prices were very similar to the hotel’s but the quality was far better than our lunch had been. I tried a local fish from Lake Victoria, which definitely tasted like lake, and I’m satisfied in calling this my “local food experience” for now. We almost stopped at a bar on the way back which looked very packed and animated, but in the end decided packing and sleeping was probably the better and safer option, ready to tackle our first day of tour in the morning!

20/7/19

Good old jet lag kicking in, I had a lot of trouble falling asleep, and the alarm at 6:30 was met with a very loud groan! I managed to finish repacking my bags in what I am hoping is the most strategic way for now and went down to a quick breakfast, still half asleep. I’m not sure what the rest of the trip will give in terms of food for breakfast, but I do know it won’t be a freshly made omelette in the morning so I made the most of that!

By 7:30 I was at the bus and met Francis who would be our driver for the tour. He and Pete are regulars of this journey, and just came back from Cape Town last week doing the 41 day return journey of this tour. Our bus is called Tana. I haven’t yet decided if this is the Swahili word for ‘bus’ or if this is the name affectionately chosen by the guys for this bus. Either way, it is superb! It’s a massive 4×4 bus, with some group seats with tables (which will be very useful to type up this diary!) and equipped with power plugs, a fridge for food and massive lockers to put our bags in – I can’t believe it fit! We also have a big red bell at the front to let the driver know we need a bathroom break. As per Pete’s instructions, make sure you ring it when you don’t yet really really have to go, as Francis might need a bit of time to find a place to stop with some nice “bushy bush”. This is going to be great!

Once Pete had made it to the hotel, having fought with traffic and an Uber strike, we made our way out of Nairobi and towards a quick photo stop over the Great Rift Valley an immense valley overlooking the Masai Maara. A local lady approached me to take me to her shop – no surprises there – and told me it also had clean toilets. Now this speaks to me! I didn’t have high hopes of the level of the toilets themselves, but I figured anything she called “clean toilets” had to be better than a “bushy bush” and decided to take the chance. They even had toilet paper and soap to wash your hands, so I deemed that was worthy of a 50 Schilling tip!

We continued our drive onwards stopping only briefly for a toilet break at a petrol station (and when there is an option other than squat toilets, you take it regardless!). Around 12:30 we made it to the Lake Nakuru city centre and shopping centre. Here we had about 40 minutes to buy the last minute supplies and lunch before heading off again. We used this time to try the supermarket for some sleeping bags, which turned out to be 4 times more expensive than the day before! Subsequently, those in need bought blankets and a pillow – things I would later regret not buying as well…

We then all went with the easy, safe and cheap option of KFC for lunch before rushing back to the bus. Here we split up into 2 smaller buses for our very first game drive. The Lake Nakuru National Park is a smaller park than many and offers an enclosed haven for wildlife to live, unaffected by humans who can drive around the park to observe them. The drivers exchange tips on locations of main animal spotting, and occasionally an armed guard can be seen standing around when some of the bigger animals are spotted in the area, just in case.

What an incredible experience to see these animals so lose and so free! We started by seeing a few more warthogs sniffing around bushes and a large heard of impalas with their one alpha male sporting beautiful twisting horns. Their heard also accommodated some larger versions of impalas (I think our guide called them Bush Bucks but I will have to check) of which the male could be seen lying peacefully in the grass with 2 gigantic horns which definitely made you think twice about wanting to pat him.

Further into our drive we came across some zebras including one who decided he was happy to pose for photos and then block our truck – a typical kangaroo really… The contrast of the black and white stripes is just strikingly beautiful. I still don’t know if they are white with black stripes or black with white stripes, but apparently each zebra’s stripes are unique, sort of like fingerprints. The baby zebras – of which my camera is now full of photos – are born with the same stripes as their mother but with a brown coat instead of black, and as they grow up develop their own patterns.

Our drive took us further into the park where we finally spotted some flamingos – white, not pink! Pink flamingos get their colour from the algae that they feed on, however as we are at the end of the rainy season, the waters have risen and therefore the pink flamingos could not eat the algae here and have moved further away. We did see a few towards the end of the drive, and the pink colour is really impressive – Barbie would be proud!

Some of the other animals we saw included beautifully coloured birds, a massive antelope, baboons everywhere and even a few herds of gazelles just prancing around. We then stumbled upon a herd of buffalos, which are the only creature that will keep looking at you instead of turning their backs when seeing tourists. This being because they are deciding wether to charge at you or not – and with those horns I’m very glad they decided not to! Our driver was just as keen on taking photos as we were so our stops were many and lengthy. But all these were nothing compared to the big game we were here to see – the white rhino!

Suddenly the cars around the park started speeding up, and we knew the drivers somewhere had spotted big game and had given the word. We followed suit and before long, we had the pleasure of finally seeing this amazing creature. At this stage we could observe a mother white rhino and her baby walking along the small river, and to our delight found them again at the end of our drive with another 2 rhinos. These are some of the most amazing creatures I have ever seen, and it is truly disgraceful that people – even in this very park unfortunately – would kill them for their magnificent horn. Nothing could compare to the feeling we had of stepping off the bus and taking photos of the rhinos as close as we dared approach, and the exhilarating feeling of knowing that big male could decide to charge at any moment and I doubt we would have gotten very far.

The park is also known to house leopards (usually far too well hidden to be spotted) giraffes (which we spotted at a distance too far and too late to be photographed) and lions. Not just any lions though. Tree-climbing lions. That’s right: Tree. Climbing. Lions. Because if lions weren’t scary enough predators on the ground, they apparently also climb up trees! I struggled to believe this could be a reality, I mean can you imagine Mufasa, king of everything the sun touches, just casually climbing up a tree to look on his kingdom? Like a house cat going after a bird. And can you imagine if, like the house cat, he then got stuck in the tree? It was a myth I was intrigued by but thoroughly sceptical of.

Right up until I myself, with my own 2 eyes, saw a beautiful male lion, with a stunning orange mane blowing with the breeze, taking a nap atop a leafy tree. When we spotted him, a herd of buffalos was acting very agitated around a low acacia tree and gathering around their young in a protective stance. In this tree was an orange shape which upon closer look was in fact a lion chilling in the foliage. We must have stayed at least 20 minutes watching him, just incredulous at the sight we were seeing, well after the buffalos had left and he did nothing but just look at us and go back to his nap.

As we made our way out of the park we came across a pack of hyenas basking in the last rays of sun. At a distance, they almost look like cute spotted dogs, lifting their heads at any sound or movement, it’s almost easy to forget the predators they really are. We left the park and drove off to the campsite where Francis and Pete would be waiting for us. The road was extremely bumpy, but to the delight of my fellow travel companions, this did not seem to impede me from dosing most of the way there – I don’t think they yet realise just how easily I can sleep!

When we got to camp, Pete and Francis had already set up our tents as it was just about to get dark, and were in the final stages of cooking dinner. We started trying to organise ourselves on who would take which tent and most importantly, what to take out of our bags to last us for the night. For the safety of all our stuff, our bags are to be kept in the lockers at all times, which means there was a lot of strategic unpacking and repacking to try to figure out what to take in the tent now and what to leave. To my despair, this is the moment one of my thongs decided to break. I brought 3 pairs of shoes with me and damned if I’m going to give one of them up so easily, so I packed them back up with the intention of finding some super glue to eventually fix them.

Dinner was great, far better than all my expectations, and I am now wondering if my epic plan of losing weight on this trip will work out after all! After dinner Pete introduced us to our itinerary for the next couple of days, and to be perfectly honest, all I heard was “driving” and the rest we will figure out as we go along. After a quick open-air shower (closed door for privacy but open roof to enjoy the cool air…) we grabbed some beers at the camp bar and got to know each other all a bit better. Lengthy discussions about how I would fix my thong came about and I have a feeling it may become a recurring topic of laughter in the weeks to come… But I will persevere!

21/7/19

As I suspected, not buying a pillow had been a huge mistake, and as it turns out so was not buying an extra blanket. Having accidentally bought an inflatable neck pillow, I had thought it would work on its own (which it did not) or wrapped up in my jumper. The jumper idea was more or less functional, but it quickly became apparent my sleeping bag, which advertised to be good for “3 seasons”, did not in fact include winter, or even a cool autumn, as a season… Which meant I had to put on the jumper and try to creat a makeshift pillow from my jeans and shirt. Suffice to say I tossed and turned quite a lot during the night, and I’m thankful that Rachel – my tent buddy – apparently has a deep enough sleep to sleep through that.

We got up at 6:30 and promptly got ready, trying to figure out bag situations all over again. The strategic thinking involved in figuring out how to rearrange everything for maximum efficiency is colossal when one has not had coffee yet! We then took down our tent and grabbed some breakfast before doing our morning exercise of “flapping dishes”. As we do not have the chance to dry tea towels for the next 2 months, our metallic dishes get to dry with the force of the air and our arms flapping around for about 2 minutes. Techniques currently include the Penguin – flapping the arms to the side in unison – and the bad club dance – throwing your arms forward intermittently. The whirlwind – consisting of spinning quickly on oneself – was promptly abandoned due to the rapid oncoming of dizzy spells.

Once the dishes were done, Francis took the time to re-pitch and take down a tent in front of us this time, as from now on we will be doing the camp setup ourselves. Turns out I have been taking down tents wrong my entire life… We packed up the bus, again taking in all the instructions we would be needing for the rest of the trip, and set off back to Lake Nakuru city centre. Here we found the one and only supermarket open on a Sunday where I promptly rushed to the bedding section to correct my fatal error of the first night, thus investing in a cushion and and blanket. After all, if it was cold last night, wait till we get to the nights in the desert… I also found some super glue to begin my master plan of fixing my thong. Not quick dry however, so it will require a little of overnight MacGyvering.

Much of our trip will be spent in the bus driving long distances to reach our destinations, including today’s trek up to Eldoret. Thankfully Tana is a comfortable bus (unlike the one we had for the game drive yesterday…) and as we have extra seats for now, we are enjoying a bit of extra leg room and bag space.

The driving also gives the chance to see Kenya – the real Kenya – for miles on end. The roads are not particularly well made of course, with many trucks making the progress slow, and is shared with people walking or trucks simply stopped on the side. On occasion we drive through what I assume is a small town, with very basic shops in metal huts and occasionally even a hotel generally offering “Swahili food” – something I look forward to trying out. The rest of the time, the view is usually split between the vast expanse of greenery, valleys and trees I have never seen before or small groups of mud brick or wooden houses and crops.

The daily life we can observe from here is as simple as it gets. The roads are littered with cows, sheep and donkeys, generally on a leash, with a herder either taking a nap or selling produce on the side of the road, such as buckets of potatoes. The small houses have fences which are often used to hang clothing to dry, which they women wash in whatever river or creek they have walked to – muddy water which we traditionally wouldn’t dip a toe in, much less wash clothes in. And of course, there are the children, who seem to have an incredible joy of living that I have never seen before. The eagerness with which they wave at our bus and the huge smile on their face when we respond with a wave makes me keep waving back again and again, no matter how often it is required.

We took a brief stop at the equator line, crossing from the Southern Hemisphere into the north. Apparently we can ask the guy in the hut to do an “experiment” to show how a bottle rotates clockwise or counterclockwise depending on which side of the line you are but I believe we will do this test on our way back down. Pete also took this time to point to a small hut for toilets or in the other direction for the “bushy bush”. I took his insistence as meaning that the hut was seriously not an option we wanted to take into consideration however!

By about 14:00, we had made it to our campsite resort in Eldoret. I say resort because it included a pool and a large bar/restaurant area with a pool table. Luxury! We ate our lunch – pasta salad – and then had to decide what to do for the rest of our “free afternoon”. We had the option to take a walk out of the campsite and to the local market place, however as it was a Sunday we knew there would not be much going on there. I briefly considered doing a quick load of washing since there was a perfectly good clothesline, but thought twice about the clouds gathering above us and the very early morning start awaiting us.

Instead I thought to try the MacGyvering of my thong, with socks for shape and rubber band to hold it together. I had to admit defeat after a good 10 minutes however – I just can’t get it to hold the shape for the duration of time it would require, and I’m also question just how “super” this super glue really is. The others who stayed around to chat promptly started coming back to last night’s suggestions, including to melt the thong back together, but I dismissed them – I’ll just fix it with my own super glue at home which I know will work. And in the meantime, I now need to buy a pair of Kenyan thongs…

The afternoon therefore was mostly spent chatting and sharing some good laughs. A few girls took the opportunity to wash their hair or shave legs since we never know what the next shower conditions will be like. This too however proved to be a risky surprise business, with one girl getting muddy water, another boiling water only, and myself condemned to a cold shower.

We then made our way to the bar for a few Tuskers – the local beer and cider. Out of nowhere, the heavens suddenly opened up and let out the deluge. Some of us – Rachel and myself included – had seen the clouds and decided to put the tent “raincoat” on our tents just in case. Those who had not however promptly jumped out of the their seats into the rain in an attempt to save their belongings from total damp disaster. In the meantime, the rest of us decided to try out the pool table, and were more than surprised to see the white ball had been replaced by a white round rock! Needless to say our shots required a bit more effort and luck to work with the dents and angles of the rock!

Dinner was once again fantastic, with barbecued pork chops and home-made mash potatoes. These potatoes were bought by Francis and Pete during our drive, where they literally stopped on the side of the highway, started talking with the women selling their produce and packed up bags of vegetables in the truck. Drive-through grocery shopping! With this over, some of us returned to the bar area for a last quick drink and to sit round the bar bonfire for about an hour. The hope was that this would help us fall asleep earlier, as we would be awake before 4:00 in the morning for one of the long drives of the tour, heading up to Uganda.

22/7/19

By 3:30 in the morning, we were all up and getting our tents ready and then down. What a fun early morning… The only satisfaction I had was that the blanket and pillow worked remarkably well and I was actually able to sleep this time – if only briefly. We were surprised however to find the campsite turned off the water overnight. Those who had planned the morning shower were disappointed, and I would hate to be one of the other campers coming to find the toilets, which would not flush, after a bus load of about 17 people had gone through…

Most of the drive today was basically sleeping and looking out the window. We were absolutely freezing during the first leg of the trip, trying to catch up on the sleep we had missed out on, so the first toilet/snack break was also used to pull out the blankets from the lockers to keep a bit warmer. At this time, you could see all the children walking to school, presumably for kilometres on end, and I was honestly shocked to see how young they were, walking next to the national highway unsupervised at 7:00 on their way to school.

Around 10:30 or so we made it to the Uganda border. A big load of a mess with countless trucks going in all directions to try to get through the border sometime today. We by-passed all of these and made our way to the immigration office with the Kenyan and Ugandan desks one next to another. Our process was fairly simple, just show the passport and our yellow fever vaccination certificate, then for the Ugandan office fill out the immigration form, stamp stamp and voila! I fail to understand how this system works as no other passport checks were made, we just walked in and out of an office and right back on the bus. Theoretically you could just not get the passport stamped, go back on the bus and no one would know I reckon…

So welcome to Uganda! It’s impressive the difference between the 2 countries despite them wing neighbours and sharing. Language. Uganda is said to be the “Pearl of Africa”, due to the touristic appeal it has, namely the gorilla/chimpanzee treks. It’s easy to understand why the apes have chosen Uganda instead of Kenya though, as it is an incredibly green and jungle-like scenery, with so many trees you could easily hide an ecosystem just off the highway.

The country is also clearly more economically prosperous than Kenya. According to Pete the current president is making great progress for the country, and even on the side of the road we can see the difference. The wooden and mud brick houses are no more, replaced by bricks and even sometimes concrete, as are the shops. Housing is in a much more communal setting, not individual residences, and although the streets are essentially just dirt, it is easy to see the quality of the items sold and general are is much higher.

We drove another couple of hours until we made it to a Java coffee shop in Jinja. Here, Pete hopped on a motorcycle to go to whichever tourism or national park office has our permits for the gorilla and chimpanzee treks we will be doing in a few days. This gave us a bit of time to sit down with a coffee and cake, and most importantly get a bit of internet access for the first time since leaving Nairobi. Needless to say the connection was less than minimal, so we weren’t able to fully access news we were after on Facebook or even the internet, and I was unable to upload my travel notes. But at least we were briefly able to answer the messages from concerned family members who, having received no word of life in 3 days, seemed to believe the tree-climbing lions had gotten us!

We took off again in the direction of Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Again, the drive went fairly uneventful, until suddenly we stopped on the side of the road in a small “village” where a hoard of sales people suddenly crowded our truck (and any vans in the area). They all wore Coca-Cola branded coats, and some were selling the products in chiller boxes, but the most amazing items on offer were the “chicken on a stick”. Literally a leg of chicken which had been seasoned and barbecued, and was being sold for less than a pound, or a skewer of beef in the same manner. A few of us decided we were game enough to try it, and so ensued a crazy mess of arms handing out cash screaming out “chicken!” And retrieving a stick from the fan of chicken legs or beef on offer. Will we be sick? Probably yes, but I suppose that’s what the red button in the us is for! Totally worth it though!

We made it past the traffic faster than expected apparently which meant we were able to go for a cheeky shopping session. Finally I picked up a new pair of thongs, probably a bit small and I’m not fond of the beer, but it’s still better than nothing! Michael, Vincent and I also picked up a few packs of beer to carry us through the next few days. As we were on the “cooking” roster tonight, Vincent and I went to help Pete with the shopping for the group. After all, he’s feeding 17 ravenous travellers, plus another 2 joining us tomorrow, and himself and Francis. That’s a lot of shopping!

Half an hour later, we had made it to the campsite: Red Hot Chilli Resort; the hottest place in Uganda. Well alright then! A couple of people decided to upgrade to aa room tonight but I decided to carry through since the pillow and blanket had been such a success! Subsequently however, it meant there were a few extra bed mats which those of us camping it out decided would be worth it. Next up: shower, dinner and trying out the local gin!