Africa

KENYA

FROM MY DIARY

16/01/03

When I woke up this morning, the realisation struck me like a slap in the face.
Oh my god.... WE ARE IN AFRICA.
The feeling of excitement grew as I started to hear what was going on outside. The African music that was playing down in the loud, busy, busting market the voices of the market sellers, the noise of the traffic made me even more excited and then apprehension soon set it.
We ventured (rather timidly)downstairs expecting hoards of people to jump on to us like they did at the airport. But they didn't. A few people stared, lots looked but generally they completely ignored us.


Our safari itinerary was as follows:

1. Great Rift Valley - Masai Mara
2. Masai Mara
3. Masai Mara
4. Devils gate
5. Lake Nakuru
6. Samburu Natural Reserve
7. samburu
8. Nunyuki
9. Mount Kenya - Bottom to Old Moses camp 3300ms
10. Mount Kenya - Old Moses camp up to Shipton 4200
11. Mount Kenya - Shipton up to Hausberg col. and back to shipton acclimatising day
12. Mount Kenya - Shipton to Point Lemana and down to old Moses camp
13. Mount Kenya - Old Moses camp to Bottom

FROM MY DIARY

23/01/03

We have had a perfect day today.

We started off with an 'early' game drive, which ended up starting around 7.00 because breakfast wasn't ready. "Polle polle" = "slowly slowly"!.

The park is a beautiful place and we had a great drive. It was very active despite the time that we got there and we saw a lot of wildlife. We took lunch back at the camp and the THE highlight for myself and Maurice was that we could go to the lodge, where we could use their swimming pool. We were so into this idea that we didn't do the afternoon drive, and stayed there the whole time. At 6.oo when the pool closed we were taken to another part of the lodge. It was really close to the river and apparently the crocodiles would come up to be fed by the lodge!.

And they did. It was the closest I have ever been to any animal that big and almost nothing stopping them coming through the fence and eating me instead.

They looked so scary, such cold looking creatures. There was one point, when Maurice and I were looking at them, they they all suddenly just turned in our direction and stared at us. They stayed like that for a long time, so long in fact that we stopped being paranoid that they were out to éat us. I was more scared than Maurice, as usually they go for the smallest person!.

28/01/03

Wow what a trip (up Mount Kenya) Here we are back at Old Moses camp. Feeling dirty, Smelly, tired and generally unapproachable but totally exhilarated. We have had a really good time.

We left this place a few days ago, and did the 18 km walk up to the next camp- Felt really good and made it in about 6 hours. Exhausted that night and went to bed early. Had a relaxing day the next day and toacclimatisee we took a short climb up to one of the high points, then a long rest for the remainder of the day.

Today we were woken up at 2.30am and left the camp to go up to the summit. I had had a really awful nights sleep and the dinner that we had the night before was not that great so I was not in the walking mood at all. Once we started walking, I got into it. It was really dark and we had to watch each others feet all the time. Maurice was behind our guide and I was behind Maurice, with one of our porters behind me. It started to get steep, but manageable, but then gradually, we were having to do very short zig zag turns on a very steep gravely surface. We got higher and higher and it became harder and harder to get a grip on anything (especially wearing DM's!). I couldn't cope any more and had to go back down.......

I must have been too embarrassed to write more about why I didn't make it to the top, so here it is. I could see the moon, and looking down I could see the whole camp lit up by the moon, but still couldn't see arms length in front of me. Every time we stopped I knew that I couldn't carry on for much longer. I sat and cried three stops, and then finally I admitted it to Maurice, the guide and the porter and more importantly, to myself that I had to go back down. I regretted it, but even now, I still don't think I would make it up to the top. That was my limit. Another thing that made it hard for me was the fact that we had two Irish girls laughing, singing and giggling all the way up in front of us. I couldnt understand why I didn't feel like they did.

........Maurice carried on and got to the top and found it "challenging, fatiguing and painful". After everybody came back from the summit, after breakfast and a bit of a rest, we set off back to Old Moses camp. We legged it! We hardly stopped and made it in 3.5 hours!. Dead tired at the end of it but it was worth it.

KENYAN MEDICINE

• 50CL VODKA
• LIME JUICE
• LIME QUARTERS
• CRUSHED ICE
• LOTS AND LOTS OF HONEY

ETHIOPIA

We arrived in Ethiopia and started our trip in Addis Ababa. After a day of sightseeing around the city, we decided that we would leave and go south. Our first stop was Wando Ganet. After a long journey, with a change of bus in Shasemene (home of the Rastafaris) we arrived at our destination. A hotel that was shaped like a space station right next to some wonderful hot springs, that they had made into pools to swim and relax in.

FROM MY DIARY

We have had a very varied day today.

We started off by a relaxing time in the pools and after a while a bus came slowly up the hill. We realised that soon the pools would be crowed so we arranged with one of the locals to take us for a walk up the mountain to see the hot springs. It was beautiful, the water was really hot in parts, enough to cook food apparently. The walk was great and we had some fantastic views over the whole area. When we arrived back at the pool we were in need of another swim...Well, as its there!. I ended up teaching most of the kids that had arrived in the bus how to swim. It was so much fun, the kids were lovely and SO beautiful.

We left the kids again and took a walk down to the town where we weregapedd at quite a lot, and followed, just by people who didn't mean any harm, but were just curious. We went to the towns market. It was amazing, when we first started walking in there, people just stopped and stared. I saw two lady's holding onto each other so tightly, their mouths open so wide trains could have been going in and out of each, and then they started laughing and screaming at the same time they were that shocked. We were surrounded by people looking at us. As we started to walk further into the market, people would leave what they were halfway through bargaining for and start to follow us. Maurice wanted to buy some tobacco, so were lead by one guy and followed by at least 40 others.

As we were leaving the market, we were still being followed, but I don't think that we were completely on our own until we got onto a horse and cart up to the hotel. I am now sitting back chewing on some sugarcane, while Maurice is feeding the monkeys our breakfast - bananas on our balcony. Apart from the monkey that came into our room without me noticing (while I was writing this), and stole one of our worming tablets, they are quite sweet!. He nearly got away with it, but Maurice bargained with him with a banana, so we got it back!.

Had a fantastic day.

We left Wando Ganet and made our way back through Sheshmene again, though a wonderful place called Konso where we went to another market, we visited the Konso tribal settlement and met some nice people. We had met a Slovinian guy named Matt, who was traveling with us and joined us in Jinka....

13/02/03

WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW

What an eye opening day. Matt and I left the hotel this morning and got on a bus to a place called Key Afar for the tribal market. We had been told that this would be a great opportunity to see many different tribes all come together for the monthly market. Maurice just couldn't wake up, so totally missed it all!.

We arrived in Key Afar, quite early in the morning and had a few hours to kill before it actually started, but that didn't matter, we ate a breakfast of 'tips' (goats meat, spicy in oil with injera). As we sat eating people from all these different tribes were passing before our eyes. Beautiful colours, perfect, unblemished strong bodies and neat fitting clothing. We started to talk a walk and went in the opposite direction of the people that were going to the market. The manners of all the tribes (The Banna, The Hamma and the Bodi) we saw today were impeccable. As we approached them, they would stop, wait until we reached them and hold out their hands to us saying Hello in either Ethiopian Amararic or English. On the way up we played with children, walked to a few people from the tribes and even drank some local brew beer that tasted awful, but the ladies that were making it and drinking it, seemed to be having a fabulous time. We both tried it, but despite her trying to get us to finish it, we couldn't!.

So, we arrived back in the market again. Nothing was really going on but it was still so interesting. We sat down with some of the Banna tribe for a while and a little girl started playing with my hair, then they all seamed pretty interested in it!. Eventually the market was buzzing we mingled with the people and had a wonderful time. At one point we took a break from the market and sat outside a cafe where we could look at people and take sneaky photos of these beautiful people. As we sat we gathered a few people around us, as they were also interested in us, including one of the Banna tribe, who started to do double jointed tricks. We both started seeing if would could beat each other with tricks, and I think we came out even. He could step through his hands and then bring them over his head!. I could twist my arms and put them over my head and even he couldn't do that one!. By the end of it all we were all laughing and everyone was trying to do something flexible, even a little frail old man who was trying so hard!. I took a truck back, leaving Matt there. The back of the truck was full to the brim with people and I had 6 frantic goats pushing on my legs the whole journey and at the other end of the truck were around 30 big honey pots....Interesting!. None of the passengers could speak English, apart from one woman who said to me very very seriously "Mother, I love you".

At the end of the journey a guy opened his coat up and took off his necklace and just as I was getting off, he handed it to me, the truck left with him still on it and I didn't even say thank you, never mind find out why he gave it.

Apparently the market was not as good as it usually is, as some of the tribes had not been there as there were some problems further north.

It took us a while to find a person who would take us to see the Mursi tribe, and when we finally did, we were then told by the manager of our hotel that we should not go. After talking to more people, our guide then told us he would not take us as he was scared himself. The story was, that the Mursi and another tribe share a game reserve and they both have their own boundaries within which they can hunt their animals. The Mursi tribe had killed a buffalo within the other tribes boundaries, and when the other tribe's leader came to confront the Mursi's, he was shot. The park ranger was also shot when he approached the Mursi's and a few days later two police were sent down and shot.

The next day after hearing this, the local airport in Jinka (the landing strip was also used as a cows grazing land and a football pitch!) was closed to flights and the army started coming in. That evening, three cars passed our hotel with coffin's inside. So that really knocked the idea of going to see the Mursi's on the head!.

16/02/03

We had quite a nice day yesterday, the Jinka market was very interesting and there were so many people there. We were taken around the market by a little boy called Weener, who was really helpful, informative and had great English. We decided to let him hang around with us all day and when we left the market, we told him that we would like to swim somewhere. He led us to this small river and to a little swimming spot where lots of his friends were playing. It was lovely. Maurice started throwing money into the water and the kids had to dive for it. When they found it, they couldn't believe that they were allowed to keep it!. After our swim, we invited Weener to come with us to a small pastry shop. While Maurice was gone, he asked me for a promise. It took me ages to work out what he meant, that he wanted a gift...as a gift is a promise!. Later on, Maurice took him to the shop and bought him the book he wanted. As they were leaving the shop though, Maurice said that Weener had to give the book to his best friend to hide up his jumper as the school bullies would try to take it off him.

We had both been ill on and off for some time, and we decided that we would go back to Addis and then make our way up north. We were really looking forward to eating normal food and especially we needed calcium. The first thing we did when we arrived was make some normal sandwiches. With cheese, and ham and topped off with a carton of milk. Yum.

21/02/03

We had a very odd day yesterday, we were walking down a street on the way to a big indoor market, when somebody tugged on my arm and o´pointed across the road saying "it's this way!". I shook him off and didn't look in that direction, and at that moment, another little kid was in front of Maurice and pulling at his trousers near his knees!. Then an older kid from behind stuck his hands in Maurice's pockets and they all ran off in different directions! Luckily, we did realise that that could happen, so they only got away with a lighter and chewing gum!. It was so well planned that it was actually hard to believe what had happened.

A few hours later we were in the market, apparently it's the biggest in Africa. We started off by looking around the produce area, such a the spices, the fruits and veg etc. Then we went to an indoor part which sold all the tourist stings (which we hadn't really seen that much since we had arrived in Ethiopia) and some wonderful jewelry. I started to feel quite ill then, very light headed and felt as if I was about to faint. We started to leave and Maurice left me on the steps outside the market, while he went to get a taxi. People kept asking me if I was OK, and then suddenly, and old woman ran up the steps towards me and dragged me up, telling me not to look... Obviously I did, and a kid was being pulled around the corner and was being pulled to where I had been sitting. A huge crowd gathered and started to beat him up. I could see Maurice from where I was standing and when he turned around to look for me, the look on his face was one full of terror as there were so many people where I had been sitting!.

After Addis Ababa, we made our way up to Lalibella, the site of 11 rock hewn churches. Although it was a wonderful place, we were both quite ill and even though we did get to see as much as we wanted to see, I don't think we appreciated it as much as we would've liked to. When it was time for us to go and get back to Addis Ababa, we were quite ready, but did we have the transport?.......

04/03/03

We really don't deserve this. We were very lazy about leaving Lalibella, trusting other people to get us there. We deserve to still be there. The people that have helped us in the past two days have definitely made our trip end on a good note.

To start with, on Saturday (before we had found out that it was a national holiday the next day) the whole group of us (tourist friends we had met) were asking around for 4 wheel drives as a lot of us wanted to go to Addis at the same timwe. Then the others went to a Tej beat (bar) and got drunk - they had given up, and we had just relied on them to take us there!. We hadn't found anything ourselves by then so we decided to go in the morning. Either get the bus or plane. Then we found out it was a public holiday.

The next morning, Sunday, we went down to the airport office, just to see if it was open...and it was! AND there were flights leaving that day to Addis! Can we be ready in 30 mins? HELL YEAH!. But...... to pay for the flight, it HAD to ba cash. They had no credit card machine. There is no bank in Lalibela and the only place that would change travelers cheques was a hotel that you had to stay in to be able to change cheques!. We spoke to the manager and he was adamant that we could not change cheques there. So we missed the flight.

So many plans and ideas ran through our minds after that about how we would get there or how to change the ticket back to Kenya, so we didn't miss the flight. Finally we decided that we would change our tickets and we talked to the leader of the big group on the Dragoman to see if we could get a ride with them for three days. He was happy with that and it started to sound like fun. By that time, as we had checked out to catch the nonexistent flight, our room had been taken by someone else, and there were none left. We checked into another hotel down the road and then we noticed a truck sitting there almost ready to go. We found out that it was going to a place called Woldia, which is on the way to Addis. So instead of checking into the hotel, we jumped on to the back of the truck, made ourselves comfortable (it was very empty) and made our exit from Lalibella, asking someone to let the Dragoman guys know that we had gone!.

I got a great feeling of excitement and happiness as we drove in that truck, and although it might of diminished a little when the rain, thunder and lightening started, it was still good to know we were getting closer and closer to Addis Ababa. Part way throughout he journey we made a stop and the driver asked if we wanted to get into the cabin with 5 other people. It was a tight squeeze, but we really welcomed it when the weather got even worse. The clouds were heavy and thick over the mountains we were driving up. At one point we had a long stop as they had to change a tyre in the middle of nowhere. The weather had cleared a little, but it was damp, cold, and ah! so nice to get back into that cabin!. When we finely arrived in Woldia, we were found by an transport broker who told us that he would arrange a car for us for the morning. We arranged to meet with him at 5.00 am and he would have a car for us. We went back to the hotel that we stayed in when we went through here before and we didn't have enough money to pay for the room. Same story,no travelers cheques accepted and only hard cash. We had to go to a much cheaper and not-very-nice-at-all hotel, but just as we were leaving, the manager came running up to us, having heard what happened and asked us how much we could pay, we told him ,and he gave us a better room than we had before for half the price!. How sweet.

So, the next morning, there we were, waiting for our guy with the car. Instead of totally believing him, we split up. Maurice went off to talk to other bus and truck drivers, while I waited with our bags for our man. Finally he turned up, saying he had a car then went looking for Maurice. Maurice turned up and we waited even longer for him to turn up. Just when we thought we had missed our chance, Maurice went back into the hotel to use the toilet and bumped into a Danish woman, and we were invited to go to Dessi with her and her driver (We had stopped in Dessie before as well, so we knew it was on the way) IN A REALLY NICE COMFY CAR We couldn't believe our luck and we were really grateful to her. They dropped us off at the local bus station in Dessie, but there were no busses leaving that day. We had some funny conversations in Dessie:

"We want to get a car to go to Addis today"

"You want to go to Addis, you have to get bus"

"No, no bus to Addis today"

"Oh. Where do you want to go?"

"Addis!! Your Capital!"

" No, no bus today"

"Yes we just told you that!"

At one point, we thought we were onto a winner, we had been offered a ride to Addis!. We got in the car and and they drove us to one end of town and back again. FOR NO REASON. They just wanted to drive around (looking back I think one of them was a micaninc and had just fixed it!). The fact that they had let us in and told us they were going to Addis was just silly.

After a while we got a lift that took us 25kms out of Dessie, we landed in the middle of nowhere, but at least we were out of Dessie!. From this town we were told that a bus was leaving for Addis soon, we found the bus but it was jam packed and for no money would the driver let us on. A feeling of pointlessness came over me then, and I didn't really want to carry on, but, I still knew that somehow we would make it, so we ploughed on. We started walking out of town, asking various truck if they could take us. Finally we found a man that could, but because his vehicle was slow he would not get there until the morning. We jumped in with him and his friend anyway, and decided that we would get out at the next town. That passed and it didn't look too promising, so we carried on. The journey with those to was fun, if a little squashed. They had a huge , massive supply of chat and were munching their way through it.

After 1 or 2 hours, we pulled over a 4x4 and our driver managed to persuade the driver to take us to Addis with them. We felt so thankful to these guys, they saved us so much hassle. So, we spent the rest of the journey with these two guys, who could speak relatively good English and made us feel welcome and comfy in their car. We stopped to eat and had a wondeful injera (the first one that I have actually enjoyed!) which we payed for to thank them for their generosity. We finally made it to Addis and they didn't want anything off us. It was at leats a 7 hour journey, and neither did the driver before.

Just through that journey yesterday, we've realised how varied the people of Ethiopia are.

We arrived back in Addis and had a few very well deserved beers in the hotel. The staff here are wonderful and so excited to have tourists to have fun with. When the bar closed, they put on their best music and danced for us, and slowly we joined in...Shoulder movements, foot shuffling etc. It wasn't superficial, they just wanted to dance. As it was our last night, I gave my 'sister' a few presents incense, some clothes and shampoo, she was very happy and I still think about her a lot.

What a wonderful last night in Ethiopia.

As our flight back to Europe was leaving from kenya we few back there and still had a week to kill before we had to go home, so we took a train to Mombasa and spent the week, and my birthday on the beach. We had a wonderful bungalow on this almosdeserteded beach that had monkeys everywhere. Everything was perfect (apart from a stomach bug left over from Ethiopia) the weather, the beach the people we met and the food..Itit was nice to be back in some kind of civilization again.