Africa Adventures...the full story
After leaving Swakopmund we ‘bush camped’ at a place called Spizkoppe, which had some pretty amazing rock formations, from old volcanos. We were also told that there was a leopard who lived in the area and not to look it in the eye! Gladly we didn’t see the leopard and left early the next morning (after the blokes had pushed the truck out of the bog of sand which it settled in the afternoon previous. From there we headed to Etosha National park, in the north west area of Namibia. We ‘game drove’ into the park, (slowly driing to see what we could see) and were pretty stoked to see lots of zebras an elephant, giraffes, warthogs. Nothing had quite prepared me for the size of an African Elephant, I thought that it was a huge rock formation! We camped in the National Park for two nights, it was good to have a rest from packing the tent every morning. We went on three game drives managing to see a leopard, lots of giraffes, a lioness, jackals, ostriches, elephants, wilderbeest. All of the ‘big five’ except the buffalo, they don’t live in Etosha as it is too dry. At the back of the campground there is a waterhole with a viewing area, behind a fence that looked a little too climbable for my liking! At night they use low floodlights to light up the waterhole and as the surrounding area is desert it’s a real show of animals. We sat up late both night watching a heard of elephants charging in and drinking, giraffes waiting off in the wings until everything else had left before making their way to the water. Giraffes are really nervous near water as they are so awkward in having a drink, they are very vulnerable, so they are quite frustrating to watch! At one stage there was about 5 rhino at the water hole, Oryx, Zebra and springboks. On the last night we watched a plethora of animals, it was amazing,. At one stage we counted over 40 elephants! Then they all charged off as they must of sensed the lionesses close. Many people left thinking it was all over, then we spotted the first lioness walking in the distance (at this stage I got out of my sleeping bag incase I needed to make a quick exit, it was freezing!) Another three lionesses stalked in and surrounded a springbok, this was all happening about 60 meters from us, the springbok had a lucky escape due to the inexperience of a couple of the cubs and the lions then came down to the water for a drink. We were sitting in dead silence (except the camera shutter) They hunted around at the edge of the light for a long time afterwards, then we headed off to bed, very thankful for the 12 foot fence that surrounded the campground. The public toilets in the national park are also surrounded by very high fences, no one offers to open the gate! One toilet fence that we saw had a huge hole in the south side, and another in the north side where an elephant had barged through! From Etosha we headed towards Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, a city of about 250,000 people, which is about 10% of the countries population, it’s pretty bare and baron. We spent a night in a dorn of a backpackers and had tea at a local beer house, most people went for the bushman’s skewer with zebra, oryx, kudu, crocodile and ostrich, we went with the vegetarian pasta, although it wasn’t as good as anything which we have eaten on the truck, the food is just getting better and better. Yesterday we had a very long day on the truck, leaving Windhoek at 8am and arriving at camp in Ghanzi, Botswana after 8pm, with only a short stop for lunch, a stop at the border, after which the truck wouldn’t go! But Patrick had it all sorted out pretty quick, lift the cab up and replace the fuel filter ready to continue. This morning we had a desert walk with some of the traditional Kalahari people, it was just like ‘the gods must be crazy’ (which was actually filmed in South Africa), we learned all the traditional medicines and thank god for western medicine. After a nother long day we arrived ln the morning we were up and packed and had all our gear to take to the delta loaded onto an open sided truck for the two hour trip to the Mokoros and polers, a mokoro is a traditional dug out canoe, poled along by a local village person. That day we poled to our camp in the delta, Our poler was one of the head polers so we though we were in safe hands, but he spent too long telling all the other polers what to do and started rocking the mokoro whist he was turning around and not paying attention, we started to get water in over the sides as there was literally 1cm of mokoro between the water and the top of the boat. We were still pretty relaxed when he said, keep your fingers inside, it’s deep here and a crocodile usually lives here. Thirty seconds later he was leaning off the back of the mokoro helping another poler move a pot and the mokoro lunged right and water flowed in over the side, and not just a little bit of water, I was laying in water until we were able to pole to the edge and bail out, the little camera took a drink, but was dried off quickly and is OK, I was very glad that the rest was in my waterproof camera bag! A little further on we came across a funny grunting noise, ‘hippos’ the poler announced, still soaking wet with very little faith left in the poler, I started to get a little nervous, three hippos wallowing in the water on the next bend, although in the time was sat liiking at them our poler was still too worried about what everyone else was doing and we continued taking on water over the side! Bloody glad to get to camp!
After arriving we set up camp and then had lunch, even though Mariki had to carry all the food on canoes and had almost nothing to cook with and no refrigeration, we still ate like kings! That afternoon we were allowed to take the Mokoros for a pole, easier than it looks. We watched two elephants cross the waterway just meters from our camp, there were even more impressive when viewed from ground level. We split up into groups for a game walk, tracking game on foot, we had one poler in the front and back of the group with sticks, we saw hundreds of zebra, pelicans, wilderbeest, The next morning we were up early for another game walk then the mokoro journey back, another water experience! Af ter arriving back in Maun (which took 2 hours in the back of a truck with some of the deepest and longest river crossings that I have ever seen), I went on a scenic flight over the delta, which swells to 1500 square km’s at some times of the year. Can’t say that I was a fan of the little 5 seater plane but the view was amazing, they fly at 140 meters so you can spot all the herds of animals, we saw a heard of probably over 50 elephants crossing the water, buffalo, giraffes, zebra, wilderbeest. I was certainly glad to land, it was a long 45 minutes!
We arrived at Victoria falls on Tuesday afternoon, Spencer and I didn’t go to the falls with the rest of the group as they only had two hours so we spent most of Wednesday out there, on the Zambian side, It is so amazing, photos just don’t do it justice. There is so much water and it is so huge. My chopper flight fizzled out as it was over priced and they couldn’t guarantee a window seat, so instead of paying $135 USD for 15 minutes, I spent more money than that on visas and went across the river to the Zimbabwe side, which is 2/3 of the falls, it was amazing! We leave Livingstone on Saturday, there are only 8 people on our tour to Nairobi at the moment, so we will not be short of room!
After leaving Livingstone we spent a night on the Kafue river, 50km out of Lusaka capital of Zambia). We arrived at the port, which was a crude pontoon made from 44 gallon drums to see our boat crash park into the pontoon! We cruised along the river for a couple of hours before making camp on the side of the river, not far from the water. The boat went back to drop off some locals and when it arrived back we were summoned onboard for our dinner. Some of the local village folk danced and sang for us after dinner. The following morning we were back on the boat and up to the local village for a visit into their very primitive living conditions; no electricity, no running water, very small mud huts with thatched roofs and big families, one man with 17 kids! The south Korean man travelling with us asked if the house was the toilet was it was so small (he is a rude man, I’m sure that he knew it wasn’t a toilet!) We were shown how to separate and grind the corn to use for cooking and had a tour of the orchard before back onto the boat and back to our truck which had been left under the guard of the local policeman. Usually Patrick or Marijtie pronounced as Mariki) usually stays with the truck, as they can be a bit of a target for thieves). We continued on 50km’s into Lusaka for a stop at a local shopping centre for lunch, internet and supplies. We stayed in a campground just outside of Lusaka which had zebra’s, giraffes, impalas and buffalos strolling through the grounds. Very pleased with the zebra, they were pretty tame and amusing, not too keen on the buffalos though, the locals seem more concerned about buffalo than any other animal, apparently they are unpredictable and if chased you need to climb a tree. The following day was a long driving day; we came across a truck accident, which must have happened only a minute before we came over the crest in the hill. I was glad that we had stopped for a toilet break back up the road as the truck may have crashed into us, its breaks had failed and it had hit the bus in front of it from behind, and then rolled over, spilling its load of peanuts all over the road. The driver was able to climb out, but the truck passenger was trapped inside the crushed, overturned cab. The locals were all crowding around, but achieving very little, eventually they managed to cut some of the rope from the load free, attach it to a four wheel drive and pull the cab open to free the passenger, who amazingly walked away. Spencer and another passenger and our driver Patrick cut down a tree to allow our truck to pass around the outside of the truck as it was lying right across the road. I asked Patrick that night how long he thought the truck would stay there for, he just laughed. Apparently it costs more to recover the goods and vehicle that to just leave it there, so we assume that the locals in that area will be eating peanuts for quite a while!
We spent three nights on Lake Malawi, which actually looks like an ocean it’s so big, 50 odd kilometres wide and three hundred or so kilometres long, it’s a surprise when you dive in and it’s not salty, it even has waves. We spent a morning in a day centre ran by a lady from Lexton in Victoria, they have about 20 sites and feed about 1000 orphan kids a day. Spencer and I went back later in the day and donated a jacket and t-shirt which had been given to us after we were robbed and some cash, whilst we were there a little boy got his foot stuck in a traditional wooden drum, there was a visiting paediatrician and his midwife wife from Geelong there so they had to cut the drum to get his foot out, his sister freaked out and was screaming louder than he was!
From there we spent another night further north on Lake Malawi and then crossed into Tanzania for two very long days of driving. Yesterday we were up before 5am which was 4am in Malawi timezone!) and had packed up tents, kitchen gear, eaten breakfast and were on the road by 5.30am, lucky that we were early leaving as we only got ½ hour down the road and the truck (Tana, named after the Tana river in Kenya) started sounding a little funny, a gut full of diesel watered down with water was the culprit. Patrick changed a couple of filters and we were back on the road quickly, however strange sounds continued and we had an unplanned stop in the Baobab valley when we met another Acacia truck, more filters changed and we were finally away. We were late to our lunch stop, 3pm makes a late lunch after breakfast at 5am! We made it to our camp site at Dar es Salam at 7.30pm. This morning we were woken by the call to prayer before 5am, belting out of the speakers, we had to get up early anyway as we took the 7am ferry the 40km’s to Zanzibar. Tonight we stay in Stone Town, which is a quite amazing and very old town which puts me more in mind of the middle east than Africa. Tomorrow we head up to a beach north of here for two nights. We spent today eating at the bakery, amazing amount of spices here in Zanzibar, went to see the site of the old slave market, checked out the house of wonders at the old palace and then meandered our way through the maze of little alleyways and roads.
After spending a couple of days discovering the World Heritage site of Stone Town we headed up to Kendra Beach in the North of Zanzibar Island. We had a lovely couple of days in a room with a bathroom, the first bathroom in a room we have had for about 6 weeks, it was also the first time in that many weeks that we spent two nights in the same bed! After sunning ourselves and managing to turn away the hoards of people selling snorkelling trips, necklaces, paintings, massages and weed, we made our way back to Stone Town in time to eat some great vegetarian samosas and board the ferry back to Dar es salam. The ferry took about 2 hours, in that time we had to sit through ½ of a crappy amarican movie, played witht he sound turned off, then half of a ridiculous movie of people eating lions stalking a safari truck, which was in Japanese! Back at Dar es salam we had a short taxi trip to another ferry, which amongst 500-600 people and about 20 cars we managed to squeeze on for the trip, which we had to make standing amongst the cars as there was literally no other room, the smell was potent at the end of a work day!
The following morning we were up at 4.30am to the sound of ‘allah’, ‘allah’ etc etc roaring out from the nearby mosque, after a couple of minutes the other two mosques started in a competition on who could be the loudest and before we knew it they were having a ‘mosque off’ the outcome for us was that we were packed up and in the truck ½ an hour early, Allowing us to leave at 5.30am! Our truck ‘Tana’ seems to still be suffering from the dodgy diesel from days ago (even after Patrick drained the tank and cleaned all the filters whilst we were on Zanzibar) we had two stops during the day to clean the filters which only gave a temporary solution. That night we ended up camping at Moshi as Patrick wasn’t confidant on taking the truck coughing and spluttering up into the hills where we had planned on camping, all in all the day was a 13 hour day spent on the truck. I have taken to not packing up my sleeping bag and using it to lean against the window and look out the opposite window, although today I lay completely flat along all the front row, it’s so much better having less people in the truck!
We are beginning to look forward to our week off in Nairobi after the gorillas, but we won’t hold our breath as Spencer still hasn’t been able to source an Ethiopian visa to replace his stolen one so he may have to fly into Addis Ababa to get a visa issued on arrival as they don’t issue then on the land border crossings anymore, he would then fly back to Nairobi. Currently the only way to get an Ethiopian visa is at the airport or in your home country before you leave, which is amusing, because if your home country does not have an Ethiopian consulate then you need to go to Harare! The visas in some of the countries are just hilarious, Sudan charge $150US for entry, they will not take local currency, or any other currency, only US dollars, the more amusing part is that they won’t let US citizens in!
Spencer is still travelling on an Emergency passport, which only has four pages, his new full one has been issued, but we just need to be in the one country long enough to courier his emergency one down to Pretoria and then the courier will return with his new one, we had never imagined losing a passport overseas, and it turns out that it’s a real pain in the ass! New emergency checklist 1. Camera 2. Passport!
‘Tana’ limped into Arusha at half of the maximum speed limit due to a continuing mechanical problem. Whilst we were hunting down wildlife in the Serengeti and Ngorogoro crater Patrick had the problem diagnosed and a new fuel pump had been installed by the time we returned.
The afternoon we arrived in Arusha we walked through a Maasai village and literally got mobbed by the kids, at one stage I had about 10 kids hanging off my camera another couple of kids hanging off my watch, another kid feeling my pocket to work out if I had a pen or sweets for him (bad luck, it turned out to be a polarising filter!) and whilst this was happening I was trying to reclaim my sunglasses from another boy! To this day I am still cleaning the grease off the camera; thank god it was the old one!
The following day we spent some time in town and then back out to the snake park, everyone else headed off to watch the chickens being fed to the snakes, I stayed back to begin preparations for my vegetable lasagne African style, which I had volunteered to cook for the group for tea to give Maritjie a night off. The local supermarket had only one variety of lasagne sheets and had only three packets left and one had been opened already! Well I guess that beggars can’t be choosers in Tanzania! I cooked the spinach lasagne on charcoal, feeling very guilty about the environmental damage of the charcoal trade in Africa! What we refer to as a ‘camp oven’ in Australia is called a ‘Portjie’, pronounced as ‘poiki’ in Africaans. Turns out that a Portjie cooks a mean lasagne and Maritjie immediately asked me to cook it again on the gorillas tour. 24 hours later as we were setting up tents in the wilds of the Serengeti she came over and said ‘what I wouldn’t give for a slice of that lasagne now!’ in a strong africaans accent.
The following day we headed out in land cruisers towards the Serengeti, we stopped on the rim of Ngorogoro crater for lunch, I was very impressed at sharing my lunch spot with some grazing zebras, but not so impressed with the crested kites that were out to relieve people of their chicken! Another couple of hours of bone shattering corrugations and coughing up dust, we were in the gates of the Serengeti, popped the roof open and started checking out the wildlife, by the time we had hit camp we had sighted, three lions, two cheetahs, heard of elephants, male bull elephant , ostriches, hyenas, jackals, zebra, buffalos and giraffes. It was quite amusing to see just how close everyone set their tents up that night, after the warnings of not getting out of your tent and if you do; ‘shine your torch out, if you see eyes and they are high, don’t get out!’ no one was going anywhere! After having seconds of entree and going back for seconds and thirds of the main meal I woke up realising that overeating in the Serengeti was best left to the lions! After an uncomfortable night of listening to some form of hoofed animal that turned out to be buffalo in the camp we were up to hear out driver telling about the lion that he had heard nearby at 4am, thank god I didn’t hear it, I may have died of fright as I was so jumpy that I had hit the roof of the tent when Spencer farted in his sleep!
That morning we were having breakfast when a giraffe wandered into camp, munching away on the thorns of acacia trees, after a few quick photos we were in the land cruisers and off to see hippos, many more lions, zebra, etc etc, on our way out of the park one of our travelling companions spotted a lion by a waterhole, as there were no other safari trucks around our driver took us down for a very close look, it was amazing feeling to be so close to such a big cat (I did kick my window almost closed whilst hanging out of the roof of the truck!) the male lion soon got jack of us interrupting his drink and headed up the hill, our driver Godfrey followed where he was heading and our lion led us straight back to it’s kill, a zebra which met it’s unfortunate end a little earlier that day. We think that Godfrey was out for good tips from us, so we were off the track and right in front of the lion before we knew what was happening, my big lens has a minimum focusing distance of 1.8m and when I couldn’t focus without flicking my focus distance switch I realised that I was pretty close to the lion! I was staring straight down the lens into his eyes and nose, every movement felt like he was inside the truck, my knees were shaking! Another lion had been near the kill and moved off into the grass about 10m, the colour of his mane and the grass meant that he almost disappeared, scary to think how hard they are to see! Days later we are still saying ‘just how good was that lion!’.
That night we camped on the rim of Ngorogoro crater a collapsed volcano which is home to more than 20 000 animals and has a diameter of 20km. As we were setting up tents a bull elephant appeared from the bushes nearby! After more warnings of staying in our tents we spent another night at close quarters to each other, trying to identify the snorers and farters in the group We spent the following morning in the crater and then came back to pack up camp and have lunch. Spencer was taking our tent down as I was taking photos of some random zebras hanging out by the toilets when another elephant appeared from the bushes, after snapping some photos of the ‘phant’ I went back to my mates the zebras and one of our travelling companions yelled out ‘there’s another elephant up the hill’ and sure enough, there was another male elephant on the other side of the camp, drinking from the tank! People are stupid and so many crowded around so close to the elephant, one bloke on our truck was standing about 1m away, crazy! I think that people were thinking that African elephants are all nice and friendly like Asian elephants....I was hiding near the building and loving the fact that I have a good lens which allows me to stand well back from cranky elephants!
Off to Moshi tomorrow and we start our Kilimanjaro climb on Saturday, managed to pick up the last few items today in town, including a pre loved Leki walking pole for 15 000 shillings (price started at 40 000 so I figure I did OK) Hoping that it is not too cold, we have managed to get good gloves, sleeping bags, wind proof jackets , beanies etc, so hopefully we will keep the cold out!
Africa Update – Standing on the roof of Africa- Mt Kilimanjaro - 5895 meters above sea level
Up early last Saturday to have breakfast and pack the last of our gear ready for our Mt Kilimanjaro attempt, I had been a little nervous about my lack of fitness, but sitting at the hotel and watching some of the other people getting ready to set out, put me at ease, it was apparent that many people had purchased all their gear for this trip and had very little experience. We watched one lady put on brand new gaiters wrong, and then tell her friend how to put them on, wrong! (surely one of them would have got tangled up in them and face planted by the end of the first day!) Our other concern was just why they needed their gaiters on in the hotel? Or on the hour long truck ride to the gates? Or even for the hour or so that we had to wait at the gates! Hilarious!
The first days walk took a little over four hours, and was pretty easy as you are walking so slowly, the guide would say ‘pole pole’ which is pronounced ‘poley-poley’ which means slow, so you walk at a snails pace to acclimatise. The first day we climbed 1300mts and camped at an altitude of 3000m. Years ago when we climbed my Kinabalu in Borneo we slept at 3000m and found that we had very little sleep and woke with headaches, so we were surprised to sleep very well and show no effects of the altitude. The whole pole-pole thing works well, the only time that Spencer and I ended up out of breath was when we walked off alone in camp to the toilet, only a little bit of exertion at that altitude has you breathless.
We were taking diamox which is a drug to limit the effects of altitude sickness, we noticed tingling in our fingers and toes whilst taking it and as it is a diuretic we needed to go to the toilet lots, and the toilets were just not great, I did honestly say to Spencer that ‘Mt Kilimanjaro has the worst toilets in the world’ just a hole in the floor, that was not big enough for people with the shits due to altitude sickness, and a bunch of dickheads who wouldn’t know their ass hole from their elbow and just left coils and poo-plops on the floor 30cm behind where the hole was! One morning I went to the toilet to be greeted with a river of piss running from the toilet from everyone who didn’t manage to find the hole!
We ate in a ‘mess tent’ which the porters slept in overnight. As we were the only ones on the trek we ate alone, by candlelight with our own waiter! The food was fantastic, although I was starting to look like porridge by the sixth day! We were amused to eat off china plates and bowls and drink from ceramic mugs at 4600m! It seemed that funny items showed up at random times and I would not like to think that they were carried up on someone’s head! On day three ‘fresh’ fish arrived from somewhere and I hadn’t seen a fishing rod, or a river for that matter. The night before summit day we sat down for a huge three course meal (they were all three course) with a whole watermelon carved with kiribu kili (welcome to Kilimanjaro in Swahili) and filled with fruit salad! Although it was cold each day, we had our chocolate melt from the heat of the porters head!
Each afternoon as we got to camp we had ‘tea’ hot drinks accompanied with freshly popped popcorn and roasted peanuts and bread, then an hour or two later we would be called for ‘dinner’ which was always three course!
On day two we hiked up and down and up to Shira Cave at 3800m, dropped our packs, settled in and then took an ‘acclimatisation walk’ to Shira Hut at 3900mts, the idea being ‘walk high, sleep low’, we were expecting some signs of altitude by this stage, but still none, great nights sleep which apparently is unusual at that altitude.
The following day we climbed and climbed and climbed up a ridge to reach 4600m, where it was freezing! We huddled near a rock until the mess tent was erected then huddled in for a three course lunch, we joked that drinking tea at 4600m was truly the definition of ‘high tea’! After lunch we waddled out of the tent and started downhill past the lava towers and down the Baranco valley to our camp at Baranco Hut 3950m. After arriving at camp I got a headache and started to worry that I was getting altitude sickness, I woke up at 3am to go to the toilet (thanks diamox!) struggled out of the iced over tent into the sub zero temperatures to have a wee and noticed the most magnificent scene I have ever seen, glaciers lit up by the moonlight, full cover of stars and the lights of Moshi township, amazing! Then I realised that i would freeze my ass off if I didn’t get back into the tent quick!
The following morning we were up and climbing the Baranco wall or breach wall which is an old lava flow, it looks like a 300m cliff face, it was amazing to see the porters clambering over the rocks with gas bottles, tables, tents etc balanced on their heads! After climbing the 300m we descended 300m into the Karanga Valley and then ascended another 300m to Karanga hut for lunch. I was glad that my headache from the previous day was gone and we were both feeling fit, we sat at the top of the track and took great amusement at the straggle of hikers huffing and puffing their way up! We were certain that some people had done little or no training as we didn’t even huff and puff like that on summit day and had done no training!
From Karanga hut we climbed up to 4600m to Barafu hut, arriving and having tea early so that we could rest ready for our summit attempt. We still felt really good at this stage, however I started to question myself a little after walking out of the toilet and noticing that a European bloke was staring at me, then I realised that he was looking at me very funny, then I realised that I had walked out of the toilet without zipping or buttoning my trousers and they were hanging down below my butt (lucky i had thermals on!) I wasn’t sure if it was the altitude or the smell of the toilets that caused my too-eager evacuation of the loo! He he
We were in bed by 6.30pm, our tent had frozen over, inside and out by this stage, we were woken up at 11.30pm ready for the summit, we had managed to sleep very well, most people didn’t. We were served tea and biscuits in our tent and we were off walking by 12.30am. It was freezing. I was wearing two layers of thermals my lucky red zebra tshirt, polarfleece, wind-proof jacket and down jacket, two pairs of gloves, bottom thermals, trousers and waterproof pants, gaiters, two pairs of socks and had instant heat packs in both of my gloves and both of my shoes (thanks Emma D!), I also had a beanie and my towel as a scarf! Up and up we climbed, you could just see the glaciers in the moonlight and the sting of climbers with their head torches snaking up the mountain, we walked up switchbacks for hours! We were huffing and puffing less than most but it was still bloody hard work, still feeling fine. Then of a sudden I felt everything spin and though I was going to pass out, my legs didn’t even feel attached anymore, called a drinks break had a drink, which was almost frozen by this stage, a glucogel and a sit down for a minute and felt fine, I must have just exerted myself a little too far in overtaking someone and ran out of oxygen, i don’t think having my towel wrapped around my face and breathing in my exhaled air was a good idea either! the air is very thin at this altitude, containing very little oxygen (we were at about 5500m by this stage). Got going again as it was too cold to stop (somewhere between -5 and -15) and chugged our way up to Stellar Point, I had heard from others that the track from Stellar to the summit was easy, so I just set my goal on Stellar, the last couple of hundred meters was a killer, soft volcanic scree, the horizon just visible, the air cold and thin, face freezing. We arrived at Stellar point and had a ginger tea, good to settle my stomach, then took off for the summit, about 45 minutes hike away, we watched the sun rise between Stellar and the summit and it was the most spectacular sunrise I have ever seen, No I didn’t take a photo, but I have the best photo ever in my memory! We reached the summit at 6.30am, awesome! Up there about 20 minutes, would have loved to stay longer but it was just too cold. The lens froze open in the little camera and I didn’t take too many photos with the big one as it was too cold to handle! Our guide took a bit of a liking to my camera and wanted to use it at every opportunity, hence many photos of Spencer and I together! So we got lots of photos on the summit and then we decided to get a group one with us and the two guides, I got the little camera out and gave it to a South American man, lined up at the sign to see some dodgy looking bloke firing off pictures with the 5D! Got both cameras back and took a few pictures with red m&m man, much to the amusement of others. One bloke laughed at us later that day as we headed back down the track, he said ‘I just keep expecting to look behind you two and see a little m&m man with walking sticks behind you!’.
We descended the 1300mts back to our camp, and by this stage we were feeling rotten, as though we were hung-over (unfortunately they don’t serve beers at 4600m), headache, huffing and puffing just to go to the toilet! Had a sleep for an hour or so, had some lunch and then descended another 1500m to 3000m (total descent of 2895m today) where it seemed so hot and the air felt so thick compared with 5895mts! Slept like logs that night!
Woke up the following morning shocked that I could still walk, and descended another 1300m to the gate to be picked up, back to the hotel and time to wash the dust out of EVERYTHING! We got back to Moshi at 11am, Spencer was straight off to DHL to try to sort out his passport which was still sitting at the Australian high Commission in South Africa, DHL South Africa had refused to pick it up for two weeks, despite many phone calls, and deliver it to Moshi, they claimed that they needed authorisation, which had already been given. We heard later that day that the passport had left the High Commission and would be in Moshi (in best case scenario) at 10.30am the following day. Worst case scenario, two days later, now great considering we were paid up to leave for Nairobi the next morning and off the Uganda the morning after that. Certain that ‘this is Africa’ and the passport would not arrive for days we decided for me to travel onto Nairobi and meet back up with the Acacia truck and Spencer to wait in Moshi for his passport. I had been on the bus to Kenya for four hours when I heard that Spencers passport had indeed arrived at 10.30am (still in shock!) and that he was on the following bus to Kenya, about 5 hours later than me. The Tanzania border official refused to stamp him out of Tanzania as he did not have an arrival stamp in his new passport, he just told him to ‘leave’, over the border the Kenyan officials were hesitant to allow him in due to not having a departure stamp from Tanzania! Traffic in Nairobi is hell, it took me 2 hours to travel the 20km from the airport to the hotel, I was the only ‘mazungu’ (stupid white ass in Swahili!) on the bus by this stage and at one stage the driver had to yell at some boys calling out ‘mazungu’ etc etc (can only imagine what they were saying in Swahili!) into the bus windows. Arrived at the hotel, to a fuss and bother over our booking...ho hum....finally after 10 hours to travel just over 200km’s I get into the hotel room!
Met up with our guide from Acacia again, she was supposed to have eight days off in Nairobi, but one of the other trucks had broken down and she had to take ‘Tana’ down to Arusha with the new crew of people on it, those people have stayed on ‘Tana’ and we now have the broken down truck! Thank god we left the keys for out lockers and the safe with Maritjie as we had stored our excess gear in the truck! Along with that she said that Patrick had contracted malaria again (I think this is his fourth time) and had been really sick, but was better now!
The following morning we headed out of Nairobi for Lake Nakuru, home to thousands of flamingo. I had always thought that Nakuru National Park was known just for the flamingo, but turns out that it has lots of other wildlife also. We fended off baboons whilst eating lunch at the main gates then headed into the park on a game drive, spotting zebra, flamingos, buffalo and rhino. After stopping at the rhino we found that our new truck wouldn’t start again, Patrick was out trting to sort out the battery, (a national park with lions is not a great place to break down!) in the end we ended up getting a tow by another truck and we were off, a short way down the road we spotted other cars looking at a pride of lionesses, camp was unfortunately not that far away from the lions and it was dark by this stage! As the truck’s illness had still not been diagnosed Patrick parked it facing downhill for the morning, I am sure that his parking manouvers were greatly amusing to the german tourists who were camped nearby!
A few of the people new to the tour were a little edgy as they put up their tents in the dark, but after cooking started and people began chatting everyone relaxed. Two of the new blokes wandered across to the drop toilets about 60m away and came back saying that they had seen a lion and asking for a torch to go back over! I for one did not believe that they had seen a lion, because who in their right mind would go and have a look on foot! We ate a fantastic meal of cashew nut, spinach, tomato pasta with cream and talked some rot, Patrick told his lion and baboon stories again and we prepared for bed.
Not usually being a night poo person, I am quite confused about just why everythime I am in a National park i suddenly need to poo at night, I never need to normally! So just before bed I figure that I have to make the 60m trek to the toilet, another girl says that she needs to go too and asks to walk with me, I have my headtorch on and am scanning, scanning, scanning before I step too far away from the truck. The two English blokes that had claimed to see the lion earlier said that they would walk over too. We got about 20 meters, stopping and scanning until we saw two small sets of eyes, close to the ground, the eyes close to each other, figured that they were small animals, possibly jackals and continued another couple of meters, I looked tot he left and saw what in the dark looked to be a lion about 30m away, said, theres something there, and remembering all the advice of how to escape different animals, remembered the ‘stand still’ for the lion advice. I was straight out of there, saying ‘I’m not going over there’ and walking off, hoping that I wasn’t making a fool out of myself being scared of a log or something!, in my most controlled walk, wanting to run like the wind, but walking slowly (Maritjie says that the only animal that a human can outrun is a tortoise, so you may as well stand still and hope that the lion gets bored before it eats you!) The others are somewhere not in my reality and they continue walking for a few more steps. I get back to our tent, right next to Patricks tent and tell him that ‘there is something out there’, he goes to investigate! I think after staring down a lion years ago he is less afraid of them. I get into the tent, zip it up tight and tell Spencer that i still need a poo and that now I cannot have one!, He asks if it was a female of male lion, my answer was something like “I don’t give a f%^k, I’m still not going back out there!” Patrick in the meantime has confirmed that it is indeed a lion, and I lay awake all night fighing to keep my poo in (not something that one usually has to do when in close proximity to a lion on foot!) and thanking my lucky stars for all sorts of things!
The following morning I get up, still too scared to walk over to the toilet in the daylight, dropping hints about leaving early and driving the 60m to the toilet before our morning game drive, Maritjie assures me that baboons hate lions and sense when they are around and scatter, so I walked through the throng of 60 odd mating baboons to the toilet, to be greeted with a poo that someone couldn’t quite get in the hole! Back over tot he truck, truck won’t start! All seeming a little comical at this stage. So we try roll starting the truck, three attempts later, we have ran out of slope and there is still no sign of life in the truck. The german people nearby refuse to jump start us, there is no one else around and no mobile phone service and we are contemplating asking the baboons to help us push, there sure was enough of them! Finally the german relented and offered to help tow us, ‘pffffpt! Now thats going to be a too big a job, even for a Nissan patrol’ were my words, but with 13 of us pushing at the back and the patrol pulling from the front and the baboons looking on and thinking were surely mad creatures the truck starts up and 30 minutes later we are off (an hour and a half late for the game drive).
The truck didn’t get turned off all day, for fear that it wouldn’t start again, once we were at camp in Eldoret (yup, in Kenya) Patrick took off int he truck to get is sorted out, word back from town now is that it’s the solenoid in the started motor, and all the Mercedes shops are shut! Lucky the bloke who owns this campground has tata trucks so has allowed a swap of the solanoid and payment to be made later. What a day! But poor Patrick, who is still not 100% after his malaria has been under the truck or driving all day!
