Monday, October 10, 2011
Map
By popular demand, here is a map of where traveled for three months in southern and eastern Africa...!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Kenya
LAKE NAKURU and the RIFT VALLEY
We rented a car at Nairobi International airport for the last 8 days of our trip in Africa. We hadn't seen enough Rhinos (only one in Kruger, South Africa) - so we headed first to Lake Nakuru National Park where we were practically guaranteed to see white rhinos with a good chance of seeing black rhinos (rare). We sat in Nairobi traffic for an hour - Charles has really become proficient at aggressive driving on these huge round-abouts in the cities...it's like a big game of chicken. So we stayed a day in Nakuru town (Charles had his first pick-pocket attempt) and then headed to Lake Nakuru and camped the second night. After seeing 4 tree-climbing lions within a mile of camp - and earlier seeing aggressive baboons and vervet monkeys - we were most comfortable sleeping INside the picnic cage which was JUST big enough for our tiny tent. Phew.
At Nakuru, we were seeing sparring rhinos, lions right next to the road eating a zebra (what? yeah!) and mating giraffes - this place was probably the most jaw dropping for crazy wildlife sightings in quick succession.
RIFT VALLEY TO DESERT
From Nakuru, we drove north to see if we could see Mt Kenya (nope, socked in for days). We decided rather than go through Nairobi (traffic) again, we'd try to take a short cut to the northern coast area of Lamu. The road looked good on the map...but...
I guess we should have known by the reaction of the locals we asked. Each had a different way of getting to the road we wanted. Eventually we started descending into this dry desert area off of the lush fertile rift valley. We know now that this was a huge mistake and it was probably dangerous for us to visit this area. Not only the roads and the car/tires we had, but we had heard about 'shifters' or Somali pirates that operate in the area. Awesome (not).
After an hour on an insane 'dirt' road - mostly small boulders, sand, and washboard - we came upon a police-type check point at a village. We were asked if we could give a volunteer a ride - sure. Yoseph told us about the drought that lasted for 4 years already, how livestock and people were starving, and explained the caravans of camels and mules we were seeing were groups of the Burundi tribe trying to find water. What? But, we'd just come from the lush valley where it was raining all around Mt Kenya....to here. This was crazy. No water for 4 years, the road was terrible, more loose sand and stones - top speed was 14 miles an hour. Nobody in sight on these roads except the occasional caravan of camels/mules. Dry dry... dead standing trees and shrubs. No green leaves in sight. At one point, we saw pavement - underneath sand that had blown over the road. Everywhere else, you'd never know there was pavement once before (or if there ever was). This place was surreal - we could not comprehend it.
After hours, we reached Garba Tula, a pretty large village, bone dry. Wow - how do people live here? This desert village was near an intersection of another dirt 'main' road - we decided we were going to change plans and go straight back up hill to pavement and go all the way around - and not continue to the coast the back way. Our little car had taken a beating...not sure how the tires were going to last either. Sharp rocks...every stone that was kicked up to the undercarriage (which was about every 5 seconds) made us hold our breath. We came to the intersection, there was a young woman waiting to get a ride to a village in the direction we were now heading - so we picked her up (glad we did). It was 4 p.m. and Tosa had been waiting since 8 or 9 a.m. for a ride... and we were the first car that passed the entire day. What?
An hour later, we're still driving and the road was worse. We were getting close to a small village, Pochi (half-way to her village), when we almost ran INTO 4 cheetahs...literally. They scattered off the road and turned to stare at these crazy people. Less than one kilometer later we rolled into the village on a flat tire. We could still see the cheetahs. Talking with the locals there, we were told that the road beyond Tosa's village is 'bad' and we better go back the way we came - that's the best way to get up and out of the desert. No f'ing way - we are not driving back on those roads (we were stuck between terrible roads and more terrible roads - great). Tosa told us she knows some men in town who can fix our tire - we only had 1 spare...(not good)..and there is one hostel in the village we can stay the night. Deal. So we changed the flat tire within site of the cheetahs, and proceeded through another police checkpoint and ...on a crappy spare we drove an even worse section of road to her village...for another hour.
It was getting dusk at this point and the only thing we could do was hope and pray - I think I actually prayed - that we'd make it to her village OK. All of us were holding our breath as the car scraped bottom and crawled over sharp rocks/stones and through bouldery sand ...and with no spare... we were 100% insane.
After dark, we arrived at her village. The police checkpoint guy was pretty animated at how lucky we were to not have run into any shifters...and how crazy we were to have driven this car. And that we should go back because the road is only worse going up to Isiolo, where the pavement was (about 5 hours away). It was either him or another man in the smaller village we passed who said this was the second small car they'd ever seen on these roads...in their lifetime. (i...n...s....a...n...e...)
Lucky for us - very lucky for us - her family operated the only hostel. They had a room for us (some family member they kicked out for the night) and fed us dinner. We met and instantly befriended her english-speaking brother, Abdulahi. He wanted to know all about us and our education (he had completed a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry, spoke perfect english, very smart...and out here... what?). Again, surreal. This is a dry dry village, no leaf on any trees, crazy roads you hope to survive (you don't want to think about what would happen if you were broken down out there), pit toilets, sponge bathing/no shower, no electricity and pitch blackness except 1 million stars. We were eating dates while listening to the Muslim call to prayer, chickens, camels...and here he was, speaking almost perfect english and asking us about school and our travels. He and about 5 young men were working on our tire for a while and...in the morning we saw their solution (to our tire which was a tubeless tire - big problem): they put a bike patch on the outside wall of the tire - where the gash was. Oh...noo. Bike patch on the outside of the tire - that should last about 2 minutes. But that's all we had so we put that tire on, had a plan B to send a motorbike to get a new tire if it didn't work - but the air seemed to hold. So we loaded up the car. Abdulahi arranged the night before that he'd accompany us - great! - but the 2 other young brothers were a last minute add on...and so were the live chickens! But we made do and moved things around to get everyone in the car. So, going 10-14 miles an hour, tension every second waiting for the tire to puncture, remarkable driving by Charles, good conversation - we miraculously made it 4 hours before the bike patch failed and the skid plate was almost totally detached and dragging.
Another village, another police checkpoint, unloading the car, chickens, bags to the get to the spare, change the tire, wire the skid plate on, and we were off...more slowly now. But in higher spirits the closer we got to pavement.
And we made it. I swear I've never come close to tears so happy to see pavement ("tarmac road"). We did it. Good driving Charles - you are the BEST. Of course, at the elevation of Isiolo and the pavement road, it was raining and green and fertile. Rivers actually had water in them. Surreal again.
For both of us, this experience proved to be the most memorable of our three months in Africa. Sitting before our lamb and chapati dinner the night before at the family's house/motel, eating dates and listening to chickens and the call of prayer under a million stars. We we got to Isiolo - the pavement town, we loved having lunch that day with all the brothers and a town friend - eating communally while digging in with your hand to eat rice and meat stew. Messy, delicious. The tire and skid plate were fixed in this small town. Only some paint scratches but we didn't care. The car made it!
We got out of Isiolo after lunch - thanking our lucky stars. We made it to Nyeri where a real hotel bed and a hot shower were tear jerkers. This experience will stay with us for a while.
We got an text from Abdulahi a few days later that during his absence from home (he'd gone to Nairobi for a few days to go to a peace conference where he was representing that area/larger set of villages) that all the family's camels had been raided.
MOMBASA AND WASINI ISLAND
We drove from Nyeri, through Nairobi, and on to Mariakani, a large Swahili town 2 hours from Mombasa (which we made it to the following day). The traffic on this 2-lane highway was horrible - high speed cars passing slow trucks and buses passing broken cars - all while narrowly missing oncoming traffic doing the same thing. I think Charles got a little more grey on this road. We agreed once we got to Mombasa that we'd pay whatever we needed to to drop the car in Mombasa and fly from there to Nairobi.
In Mombasa, My sister Kateri knew people at nearby Wasini Island area from when she lived there for a year about 15+years ago...they still remembered her - gave us a deal on a snorkel trip even. We drove to Diani-Tiwi Beach for the remaining 3 days of the trip and camped at a lovely spot right on the beautiful coast. We set up our camp hammocks and had a perfect piece of paradise with campfire meals and amazing sunrises.
The last day getting out of there and to Mombasa airport was insane - a memorable way to end the trip in Africa. We powered up our laptops and camera/phones and realized when it was time to leave we had a dead car battery. Crap! A well-intentioned camping neighbor put the positive on negative while giving us a jump and proceeded to blow out several car fuses. Ugggh. Now we were were starting to panic - being late for a plane would make us miss our international flight to Spain later in the evening. So a German couple (who drove from Germany!) drove us into town and got some fuses. 20 minutes back to the tarmac road, the car was acting funny and died right as we reached the main road...luckily. We got the nearest taxi to race Charles into town to get an 100amp alternator fuse (didn't see this was blown earlier). After three shops we found one that...might...work. Got back to the car and yanked out the blown fuse. The metal posts were stuck in the fuse box (good!). Then I (Charles) examined the fuse I bought. Got lucky. The fuse I had was the opposite. So I bent the posts and jammed them into the new fuse. The taxi driver pulled out a couple miscellaneous wires to jump the battery and boom, we're in business, but running 2 hours late. We'll never make our Mombasa to Nairobi flight. We still had a slow ferry (and waiting for the ferry was nothing short of excrutiating). Our rental car driver met us at the other side to the ferry and hopped in the drivers seat. 10 minutes to get through Mombasa traffic and to the airport - ain't gonna happen. But the driver was screaming through traffic (this was the most insane driving experience EVER) and I (Kristi) was in the back seat calling the airline and begging them to make the gate wait for us. 'No way'. We got the airport, the gate had closed we were out of luck. Perhaps begging and then after 15 minutes giving up and going next door to buy a ticket at another airline made them change their mind? But 1/2 hr AFTER the flight was supposed to depart, we were told 'yes', got the fast lane through security and boarded the plane as the doors were closing. Totally wet with sweat and anxiety, parched, and shaking with tension...we...were...going...to ...make...the...international...flight. Thank goodness.
Once in Nairobi, it was smooth sailing. We checked in on Qatar airways, a beautiful airline company, stopped over in Doha (midnight temps were scorching hot), changed planes and headed on to Madrid, Spain.
We made it to Madrid Spain and met Mom and Chuck and Sara and Ed - we were all there to watch and support Sara swim the Strait of Gibraltar, which she did successfully in just under 5 hours on September 11. A victorious day and an end to a trip we'll not likely forget for a very... very long time.
We're glad we had this amazing amazing experience...but we're so happy to be home!
We rented a car at Nairobi International airport for the last 8 days of our trip in Africa. We hadn't seen enough Rhinos (only one in Kruger, South Africa) - so we headed first to Lake Nakuru National Park where we were practically guaranteed to see white rhinos with a good chance of seeing black rhinos (rare). We sat in Nairobi traffic for an hour - Charles has really become proficient at aggressive driving on these huge round-abouts in the cities...it's like a big game of chicken. So we stayed a day in Nakuru town (Charles had his first pick-pocket attempt) and then headed to Lake Nakuru and camped the second night. After seeing 4 tree-climbing lions within a mile of camp - and earlier seeing aggressive baboons and vervet monkeys - we were most comfortable sleeping INside the picnic cage which was JUST big enough for our tiny tent. Phew.
At Nakuru, we were seeing sparring rhinos, lions right next to the road eating a zebra (what? yeah!) and mating giraffes - this place was probably the most jaw dropping for crazy wildlife sightings in quick succession.
RIFT VALLEY TO DESERT
From Nakuru, we drove north to see if we could see Mt Kenya (nope, socked in for days). We decided rather than go through Nairobi (traffic) again, we'd try to take a short cut to the northern coast area of Lamu. The road looked good on the map...but...
I guess we should have known by the reaction of the locals we asked. Each had a different way of getting to the road we wanted. Eventually we started descending into this dry desert area off of the lush fertile rift valley. We know now that this was a huge mistake and it was probably dangerous for us to visit this area. Not only the roads and the car/tires we had, but we had heard about 'shifters' or Somali pirates that operate in the area. Awesome (not).
After an hour on an insane 'dirt' road - mostly small boulders, sand, and washboard - we came upon a police-type check point at a village. We were asked if we could give a volunteer a ride - sure. Yoseph told us about the drought that lasted for 4 years already, how livestock and people were starving, and explained the caravans of camels and mules we were seeing were groups of the Burundi tribe trying to find water. What? But, we'd just come from the lush valley where it was raining all around Mt Kenya....to here. This was crazy. No water for 4 years, the road was terrible, more loose sand and stones - top speed was 14 miles an hour. Nobody in sight on these roads except the occasional caravan of camels/mules. Dry dry... dead standing trees and shrubs. No green leaves in sight. At one point, we saw pavement - underneath sand that had blown over the road. Everywhere else, you'd never know there was pavement once before (or if there ever was). This place was surreal - we could not comprehend it.
After hours, we reached Garba Tula, a pretty large village, bone dry. Wow - how do people live here? This desert village was near an intersection of another dirt 'main' road - we decided we were going to change plans and go straight back up hill to pavement and go all the way around - and not continue to the coast the back way. Our little car had taken a beating...not sure how the tires were going to last either. Sharp rocks...every stone that was kicked up to the undercarriage (which was about every 5 seconds) made us hold our breath. We came to the intersection, there was a young woman waiting to get a ride to a village in the direction we were now heading - so we picked her up (glad we did). It was 4 p.m. and Tosa had been waiting since 8 or 9 a.m. for a ride... and we were the first car that passed the entire day. What?
An hour later, we're still driving and the road was worse. We were getting close to a small village, Pochi (half-way to her village), when we almost ran INTO 4 cheetahs...literally. They scattered off the road and turned to stare at these crazy people. Less than one kilometer later we rolled into the village on a flat tire. We could still see the cheetahs. Talking with the locals there, we were told that the road beyond Tosa's village is 'bad' and we better go back the way we came - that's the best way to get up and out of the desert. No f'ing way - we are not driving back on those roads (we were stuck between terrible roads and more terrible roads - great). Tosa told us she knows some men in town who can fix our tire - we only had 1 spare...(not good)..and there is one hostel in the village we can stay the night. Deal. So we changed the flat tire within site of the cheetahs, and proceeded through another police checkpoint and ...on a crappy spare we drove an even worse section of road to her village...for another hour.
It was getting dusk at this point and the only thing we could do was hope and pray - I think I actually prayed - that we'd make it to her village OK. All of us were holding our breath as the car scraped bottom and crawled over sharp rocks/stones and through bouldery sand ...and with no spare... we were 100% insane.
After dark, we arrived at her village. The police checkpoint guy was pretty animated at how lucky we were to not have run into any shifters...and how crazy we were to have driven this car. And that we should go back because the road is only worse going up to Isiolo, where the pavement was (about 5 hours away). It was either him or another man in the smaller village we passed who said this was the second small car they'd ever seen on these roads...in their lifetime. (i...n...s....a...n...e...)
Lucky for us - very lucky for us - her family operated the only hostel. They had a room for us (some family member they kicked out for the night) and fed us dinner. We met and instantly befriended her english-speaking brother, Abdulahi. He wanted to know all about us and our education (he had completed a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry, spoke perfect english, very smart...and out here... what?). Again, surreal. This is a dry dry village, no leaf on any trees, crazy roads you hope to survive (you don't want to think about what would happen if you were broken down out there), pit toilets, sponge bathing/no shower, no electricity and pitch blackness except 1 million stars. We were eating dates while listening to the Muslim call to prayer, chickens, camels...and here he was, speaking almost perfect english and asking us about school and our travels. He and about 5 young men were working on our tire for a while and...in the morning we saw their solution (to our tire which was a tubeless tire - big problem): they put a bike patch on the outside wall of the tire - where the gash was. Oh...noo. Bike patch on the outside of the tire - that should last about 2 minutes. But that's all we had so we put that tire on, had a plan B to send a motorbike to get a new tire if it didn't work - but the air seemed to hold. So we loaded up the car. Abdulahi arranged the night before that he'd accompany us - great! - but the 2 other young brothers were a last minute add on...and so were the live chickens! But we made do and moved things around to get everyone in the car. So, going 10-14 miles an hour, tension every second waiting for the tire to puncture, remarkable driving by Charles, good conversation - we miraculously made it 4 hours before the bike patch failed and the skid plate was almost totally detached and dragging.
Another village, another police checkpoint, unloading the car, chickens, bags to the get to the spare, change the tire, wire the skid plate on, and we were off...more slowly now. But in higher spirits the closer we got to pavement.
And we made it. I swear I've never come close to tears so happy to see pavement ("tarmac road"). We did it. Good driving Charles - you are the BEST. Of course, at the elevation of Isiolo and the pavement road, it was raining and green and fertile. Rivers actually had water in them. Surreal again.
For both of us, this experience proved to be the most memorable of our three months in Africa. Sitting before our lamb and chapati dinner the night before at the family's house/motel, eating dates and listening to chickens and the call of prayer under a million stars. We we got to Isiolo - the pavement town, we loved having lunch that day with all the brothers and a town friend - eating communally while digging in with your hand to eat rice and meat stew. Messy, delicious. The tire and skid plate were fixed in this small town. Only some paint scratches but we didn't care. The car made it!
We got out of Isiolo after lunch - thanking our lucky stars. We made it to Nyeri where a real hotel bed and a hot shower were tear jerkers. This experience will stay with us for a while.
We got an text from Abdulahi a few days later that during his absence from home (he'd gone to Nairobi for a few days to go to a peace conference where he was representing that area/larger set of villages) that all the family's camels had been raided.
MOMBASA AND WASINI ISLAND
We drove from Nyeri, through Nairobi, and on to Mariakani, a large Swahili town 2 hours from Mombasa (which we made it to the following day). The traffic on this 2-lane highway was horrible - high speed cars passing slow trucks and buses passing broken cars - all while narrowly missing oncoming traffic doing the same thing. I think Charles got a little more grey on this road. We agreed once we got to Mombasa that we'd pay whatever we needed to to drop the car in Mombasa and fly from there to Nairobi.
In Mombasa, My sister Kateri knew people at nearby Wasini Island area from when she lived there for a year about 15+years ago...they still remembered her - gave us a deal on a snorkel trip even. We drove to Diani-Tiwi Beach for the remaining 3 days of the trip and camped at a lovely spot right on the beautiful coast. We set up our camp hammocks and had a perfect piece of paradise with campfire meals and amazing sunrises.
The last day getting out of there and to Mombasa airport was insane - a memorable way to end the trip in Africa. We powered up our laptops and camera/phones and realized when it was time to leave we had a dead car battery. Crap! A well-intentioned camping neighbor put the positive on negative while giving us a jump and proceeded to blow out several car fuses. Ugggh. Now we were were starting to panic - being late for a plane would make us miss our international flight to Spain later in the evening. So a German couple (who drove from Germany!) drove us into town and got some fuses. 20 minutes back to the tarmac road, the car was acting funny and died right as we reached the main road...luckily. We got the nearest taxi to race Charles into town to get an 100amp alternator fuse (didn't see this was blown earlier). After three shops we found one that...might...work. Got back to the car and yanked out the blown fuse. The metal posts were stuck in the fuse box (good!). Then I (Charles) examined the fuse I bought. Got lucky. The fuse I had was the opposite. So I bent the posts and jammed them into the new fuse. The taxi driver pulled out a couple miscellaneous wires to jump the battery and boom, we're in business, but running 2 hours late. We'll never make our Mombasa to Nairobi flight. We still had a slow ferry (and waiting for the ferry was nothing short of excrutiating). Our rental car driver met us at the other side to the ferry and hopped in the drivers seat. 10 minutes to get through Mombasa traffic and to the airport - ain't gonna happen. But the driver was screaming through traffic (this was the most insane driving experience EVER) and I (Kristi) was in the back seat calling the airline and begging them to make the gate wait for us. 'No way'. We got the airport, the gate had closed we were out of luck. Perhaps begging and then after 15 minutes giving up and going next door to buy a ticket at another airline made them change their mind? But 1/2 hr AFTER the flight was supposed to depart, we were told 'yes', got the fast lane through security and boarded the plane as the doors were closing. Totally wet with sweat and anxiety, parched, and shaking with tension...we...were...going...to ...make...the...international...flight. Thank goodness.
Once in Nairobi, it was smooth sailing. We checked in on Qatar airways, a beautiful airline company, stopped over in Doha (midnight temps were scorching hot), changed planes and headed on to Madrid, Spain.
We made it to Madrid Spain and met Mom and Chuck and Sara and Ed - we were all there to watch and support Sara swim the Strait of Gibraltar, which she did successfully in just under 5 hours on September 11. A victorious day and an end to a trip we'll not likely forget for a very... very long time.
We're glad we had this amazing amazing experience...but we're so happy to be home!
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