Here are quips from the road trip last week -- four days between Rwanda and Masai Mara in Kenya. I decided to go overland because I'd heard horror stories and adventure tales. Western Tanzania is absolutely desolate, with one real road out of hundreds of miles of bushland, and nobody drives after dark. So I pieced together enough taxis and minibuses to get myself over to Kenya, saved a lot of money, visited new tribes and towns, and met new people.
I crossed out of Rwanda at Rusumo Falls. Here Rwanda's steep green hills give way to brown, rolling bushland. I hitched a minibus from Kigali to Rusumo, hopped off and walked across to Tanzania. There is a raging river and waterfall here that feeds into Lake Victoria downstream. Even at the height of dry season it is running swiftly. Like so many places in Rwanda, the beauty cannot be easily separated from the legacy that genocide left behind. As militias fled the RPF invasion in 1994 and carried out genocide as they went, they were backed into this corner of the country before crossing into Tanzania as refugees. Tens of thousands of bodies were dumped into the river here and turned up weeks and months later in Lake Victoria.
After crossing into Tanzania, I lugged myself and luggage up the hill to find the migration office and a taxi. It had turned unbelievably hot, it was the height of the afternoon, and it took about four tries, but I made it. My huge travel duffel - containing six months of livelihood and weighing in at about 60 pounds - was a constant pain in the ass, throughout the roadtrip. It will be a recurring character in this post. Anyway, I found a taxi at the top of the hill to take me to the nearest town, 30 min away, called Benako. They graciously gave me the front seat. We set off, drove about 100 yards, and stopped to add another passenger, drove another half mile and stopped again, and again, and again. After 15 minutes we'd gone about two miles and had 10 people in the car, a station wagon, with three people straddling luggage in the back. I ended up with a 3-year old boy in my lap while his mother held his twin brother behind me. As with almost every leg of this trip, I was constantly glancing to the rear to make sure my bag wasn't being rummaged through.
In Benako I found the last minibus to a town called Kahama, where there were rumored to be a few hotels and guesthouses, about four more hours. The van wasn't leaving until we found at least four other passengers, so I sat by and waited for a couple of hours. Benako is essentially an outpost of about twenty tin shacks in a row along the highway. I dropped my bag off in the parked van and strolled over to a cafe, where four men were sleeping away the afternoon in the shade. I went in and was thrilled to find Miller High Life on the shelf. Who knows where it came from. I cracked a High Life, sat out under the awning with the napping men, listening to African music float in from somewhere far off, enjoying the break in travel. If that's not a High Life moment, I don't know what is.
Made it to Kahama by 9 at night. On the way, we put 25 people in that 12 passenger van. I ended up on a lap, half standing and hanging out of a window for a full two hours. I found Kahama to be a bustling town - the only electricity I saw for a full day and a half. Even at night, the market was bustling. Apparently Kahama is the primary bus hub in Western Tanzania for travelers trying to get to places like Arusha, Dar, or Nairobi. So I found a guest house for about ten bucks and got a cold shower with it as well. I paid an Indian man named Mohammed about eight bucks for the next leg of the journey, leaving at 7 a.m. the following morning. He owns a bus company called Mombasa Raha - giant blue buses with Simba painted on the back and Genie (Aladdin) on the side -- at least that's what mine looked like. I grabbed a cheap, hardly cooked dinner and walked to the nearest bar, where every businessman in town saw fit to buy me a round. I meant to be in bed by 10, but got back to the room at 1, started to unpack for a shower, and discovered that my shaving cream had exploded in my bag. Amateur mistake. Fuming, after an hour of cleanup, with half my belongings laying around my room to dry, I collapsed in bed. Over my head somewhere, a loudspeaker was blaring hardline Islamic propeganda out into the night, following the final call to prayer a couple of hours before.
The next morning I woke and set off, lugging all my stuff yet again, walking to the town square to find my bus. It was chaos already, with people bustling about to load buses and sell goods and ask the white man for money or business advice. I saw no Simba buses, went to find Mohammed, and learned that I had unexpectedly crossed time zones the day before, and was an hour late. So I waited another two hours to grab a seat on Genie's next magic carpet. During this time I foiled an attempt by a 'porter' to steal my duffel and shoes. I handed my stuff over to load onto my bus, and just noticed them load it onto another bus running a circle route back to town in the evening, where it would be sitting for them to retrieve after I had hauled off to another part of the country. I got off the bus, yelled at them, and then actually paid them after they claimed it was a mistake and still demanded a tip for taking care of my luggage. I just wanted to leave, so I gave them what I had in my pocket (Rwanda currency-HA). I didn't want to start a scene amidst the Islamic-affiliated AK-47s that were all around.
Bus ride from Kahama to Mwanza - awful. Kept close eye on my bag the entire way. Bus felt like the rear axle was just welded straight to the frame. Every bump was a bone-jarring back injury waiting to happen. On the bright side, met an attractive pair of sisters from Mwanza who helped me transfer money, organize my next trip leg, and bought me lunch.
Caught bus from Mwanza to Musoma. On top were about fifty live chickens strapped down. The buss bumped and weaved so much that only about ten of them survived the journey.
Musoma is one of my favorite spots in Africa so far - a sleepy beach town on the shore of Lake Victoria. Breezy, clean air without any of the crowd and hastle of Mwanza. Ran out of money, slept out on beach. Met two brothers in town who helped me out immensely; I may still be there otherwise. They took me to exchange more currency and find the right taxi back out of town to the highway. They were the only two people I met all day who spoke English. On the spur of the moment, Africa continues to award spontaneity in travel. Every time I'm clueless, rescue shows up right in time.
Took taxi from Musoma to Kenya border at Sirini. My goal for the day was to make a town called Migori, where there was rumored to be a fantastic local market. I had no idea where to go at the border, but in the taxi I met a man named Donald. Donald spoke fantastic English, and it turned out he is a pastor from Migori - in the Anglican church. He had heard of Bishop John in Rwanda. He stuck by me for the rest of the day, helped me exchange currency again, pass through migration with ease and then find the right transport to reach Migori. He took me to the church house when we arrived and showed me to a spare bedroom. So I scored a free room for that night. I bought Donald a late lunch in gratitude, which came with the best passion fruit juice I've ever had. He arranged my transport for the next day, and then took me to a party. It turns out that his congregation's choir had just won the national competition in Kenya, and they were having a blowout to celebrate. There was food everywhere, and dancing of course. The choir sang as well, and it was the most beautiful singing I've ever heard - only 20 of them, might as well have been hundreds. I can't describe it. Singing and swaying and dancing as only Africans can. I exhausted myself with festivity, joined the pastors for tea and collapsed into bed.
The next morning, I bid them a bittersweet farewell - they had helped me so much in the 18 hours I knew them - and hopped the next taxi to Kisi'i. I met Moritz there, a Canadian who works in camp with me, and we made our way five more hours to Narok. That morning was fairly smooth. But, as I should have known, the last leg of the trip turned into a real adventure. We found an old 'bus' at Narok to the final destination - Oloolamutia, outside of Masai Mara. This 'bus' was essentially an iron box with seats, welded onto a flatbed truck. We packed in and strapped our luggage and potatoes onto the roof (next to live chickens again), and set off. The old bus couldn't go much more than 35 mph. The journey took about four hours, over rutted dirt roads full of washboards. The bus and windows vibrated so loudly that we might as well have been in a Normandy foxhole. My window sounded like an anti-aircraft gun, and my ears rang for a full day after that ride. Needless to say, the chickens died again. One of their heads flopped over the edge of the roof and bounced around on the other side of my window for the rest of the ride.
Random note - A hyena is going crazy about 100 ft outside my tent. Just beyond his howling, baboons are raising hell. It means there's a leopard somewhere close by.
Peace & Love.
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