Monday 25th June 207 Bush camp Nairobi
Nairobi…….forget all you have experienced and heard! This city is beautiful. The ‘new’ government which has been ruling for 5 years, and will, by all accounts rule for another 5years, has changed things around. Anyone caught littering is put into jail and brought before the courts the next day, so the city is clean. There are no street hawkers, and very few beggars. The men in the CBD are dressed in smart suites, the women in slack suites, and all chick and smart and business-like. The city is very reminiscent of London, rather than an African city. There are steel, newly-painted and attractive barriers along the streets to prevent indiscriminate jay-walking. The roundabouts are all planted with attractive gardens. Signs advertise the fact that there is a programme of tree-planting and beautification. In the industrial area, as all industrial areas, it is dusty and busy, but there are street sweepers and cleaners, and frequent little piles of burning rubbish instead of huge accumulations which await removal, spreading in the wind. We ‘walked the CBD flat’ today and loved the interesting, modern and unique architecture. There were no empty and derelict buildings. We had lunch in a choc-a-block little coffee shop, expensive but quality. We spent part of the day walking around a huge supermarket with the slogan, ”you want it, we have it”, and we could get anything there. There are the usual traffic delays, but traffic wardens direct the traffic efficiently and to the best of their ability. So Nairobi is worth a visit, even only to change the perception of it being “Nai-robbery”.
The Landrover garage found lots of things wrong with Brian’s Landy, so it will only be ready tomorrow at 10am, so we caught another taxi to the camp. This taxi driver quoted KSh350, put it up to KSh500, then when we arrived said he wanted KSh1000 (R100). Well, a nasty scene ensued with Nev refusing the higher amount, and paid him 500, which was a fair price. Eventually the owner of the camp, Martin, took over and the driver ended up by wanting to refund all the money!! We didn’t take it, because KSh500 was fair, but it shows what power black has against black at times.
Map of Africa
Our route
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Nairobi
Sunday 24th June 2007
Today we thought of going to the Kenyan National Museum, so set out on foot. The streets of Nairobi are clean, the buildings modern and of interesting architecture, and we were pleasantly surprised by the city beautiful roundabouts full of gardens and fountains made the place very attractive. We caught a taxi to the museum which was closed for extensive renovations, so walked around town, had a greasy lunch at a Wimpy and….. went to a MOVIE!!! Pirates of the Caribean 3, lots of fun and laughter, and caught a taxi back to the campsite. Nairobi doesn’t have water for much of the day and the electricity goes off periodically, as I the rest of Africa, sigh.
Saturday 23rd June 2007 Beach n Bush Adventures camp site, Nairobi
Nev and Brian went to Landrover in Nairobi to get a quote for fixing Brian’s clutch Thrust bearing, and to get his cab reinforced. The struts on either side of the windscreen were cracked, probably due to the weight on the roof-rack, but Brian attributed it to the forces of the wires he has connected from the roof-rack to the bull bar. The quote to service our Landy was too high so today was spent skoffling (me) and servicing our Landy, changing oil, greasing axils and bearings (Nev). All the stuff I haven’t used since we started is irritating me, but I don’t really want to throw it away, like cosmetics!!!! No not make up, but face wash, creams, lotions etc that I would happily be using at home, but are just too much bother to use while camping. The more streamlined the better. As soon as all the shampoo and soaps are used up I am going to use the LCD products for everything. I regret not having brought the strong soap powder along, as I can see how good it is at getting filth out of clothing.
Friday 22nd June 2007 Beach n Bush Adventures camp site, Nairobi
Although we didn’t pay for today in the park, we are allowed until 12 noon to transit to the Sekenani gate. So we packed up at leisure and started our trip to Magadi Lake, south east of Nairobi. Brian’s Landy’s struts have cracked, and after trying to do some repairs in Narok in vain, he was happy to wait until we get to Nairobi to have them fixed. We took a road which we thought was a short cut to Magadi, because we wanted to by-pass Nairobi at all costs. And, yes, you guessed it. It turned out to be a terrible, bumpy wrong road, and when Brian’s Landy started to make clutch bearing noises, we decided to turn round and head for Nairobi. The Maasai were not helpful regarding camping there for the night. The alluvial soil here in this part of Rift Valley near Nairobi is very friable and there are massive dongas and wash-aways as if the seasonal rain torrents down and washes the top soil into Lake Victoria hundreds of Kilometers away. On the plains the solitary red-cloaked figures of the Maasai herd their groups of cattle, goats and sheep. Their livestock are amazingly obedient, as they do not break from the herd. Ours would keep running in all directions and our calves would never stay in an ordered group by themselves like those of the Maasai do. They do, however, beat them mercilessly with knobkierries if they misbehave, so no wonder they have learned so well. We followed Brian’s Landy with our front bumber virtually stuck to his back spare tyres, under Maureen’s excellent navigational directions, in the dark, to the campsite of Martin Gathogo called Beach n Bush Adventures, not in either Bradt nor Lonley Planet, but better than the one recommended in both books, and just around the corner from it.
Thursday 21st June 2007 Crocodile campsite, Talec gate Masai Mara
Another early morning, and another good day in the reserve. We went to different places today, along a huge plain where there used to be many trees, but the elephants have devastated most of them, and the remaining trees had tall stems with a little tuft of leaves at the top, cropped just up to giraffe height. One giraffe was reaching, reaching, stretching up high, and nearly had to jump to reach the leaves. We saw the crossing points for the herds, but there were only hippo and a few crocs there at the time. We timed it correctly so that we could get back to the camp just before the reserve closed, but were stopped by a group of armed Maasai who wanted $40 each for us to pass through the community area. We didn’t have the money, and objected to this iniquity, so turned round and raced back the way we had come, passing large herds of animals, two baby hyenas in a culvert and a python on the way, and then came across a10-tonne lorry stuck in the ‘black cotton’ mud, and blocking the way. Eventually we pulled it out with our little Landy, and got back to the camp just as it was getting dark.
Wednesday 20th June 2007 Crocodile campsite,Talec gate Masai Mara
We paid our $40 each and R80 for the car (per day) and we had the most wonderful day spotting all the main game, and lots of it. We didn’t see the wildebeest and zebra doing their jumping over the croc-infested Mara River though, as that happens in July, peak season. As it was there were 22 viewing vehicles around the lion kill. In July there would be more like 300. We ended the day on a high, having seen two leopards together, 12 lions at a buffalo kill, cheetah kill, lots of elephant, topi, gazelle and many more, and lots of birds. Edward Lion, a Maasai welcomed us to the crocodile camp site right outside the reserve.
Tuesday 19th June 2007 Oldarpoi Maasai Safari, Sekenani Gate, Masai Mara
The trip from Gavin to Narok was interesting but chaotic. Brian got stuck four times and had to be pulled out, and once he had to use his winch. The potholes in the dirt road had filled with water, and on several occasions Nev waded into the water to feel which the better line was to take through the mud. He sank thigh deep into some holes before finding a line. He had to dig the mud out of the way with our trusty spade at most places. On one occasion I drove and he directed me slowly slowly, balancing on slippery tyre-width dykes (having dug shallow tracks to keep me on line) with deep mud holes on either side, giving his subtle hand signals of come, left, right, stop etc. When I put on the brakes he would make an ugly face and I knew I had done something wrong. You know how he likes a challenge and wants to try for himself first, before resorting to being pushed by spectators, especially when the want R200 for pushing. When I got through, though, the spectators on either side would cheer and applaud and one even congratulated me on getting through, but it was the team work and communication between Nev and me that got us through. Also Nev first looks carefully, assesses the situation, decides, and then acts. We got past four really bad situations, and then came across the worst.
There were already four vehicles stuck in the mud at all angles in the section that we still had to get through. Our hearts sank and we thought we would have to go back 200Km but we helped the others get out by lending them our rope, on condition they waited to help us until we through. Our Landy managed it miraculously, but Brian got stuck and we were able to pull him out. Shoo!!!!!
The rest of the road was fine (for Kenyan standards) and we got to Narok, and proceeded to Masai Mara on a terrible road and slept at a Maasai community campsite outside the gate.
Monday 18th June 2007 Gavin & Sabrena Mouritzen Mau Escarpment
Left the wonderful pressure cooker with the steam emerging out the ground straight up into the cool, still morning air and made our way towards Nakuru. The road took us through the middle of fields of commercial sisal plantations with the workers cutting the branches from the bottom. Brian did a spectacular jump off a ledge diagonally into a mud puddle and squashed his… exhaustpipe a bit.
In Nakuru we topped up our fuel and bought DRC and Rwandan flag stickers from a vendor who really went out of his way to find them for us. Dave and Beryl didn’t want to go to Masai Mara so they and Willy and Ingrid headed for the coast while Brian, Maureen and we headed south west to the 3000m high Mau Escarpment to find Gavin Mauritzen who went to school with Brandon. The road was good, tar until the last 10Km and the rain had made the well-cambered road slippery, and fun. The escarpment was a mixture of commercial and subsistence farms. Commercial is all wheat and the farms are enough to make us drool. The fertile gently sloping deep soiled lands are magnificent. Gavin manages 2500Ha of undulating wheat for a politician. Had quite a bit of rain lately and the planting is a bit late. They soil doesn’t change colour for two meters deep, but they do lime at 2tonnes a Ha every couple of years, do have to fertilize similar to us, and can achieve 6tonnes of wheat with no irrigation. They get R2500 a tonne with wheat import levy protection of 35%.
Sebrena made us a magnificent meal and they welcomed us with open arms. Their little 2 year old daughter Ella had her party yesterday. Louise and Dave Rose also entertained us and advised us where is Kenya to visit. The temp dropped to 4.3 deg, (and they do get frost) but we were snug in our tent. Brandon, Gavin says you must come up here and go trout fishing with him in the streams and rivers!!!
Today we thought of going to the Kenyan National Museum, so set out on foot. The streets of Nairobi are clean, the buildings modern and of interesting architecture, and we were pleasantly surprised by the city beautiful roundabouts full of gardens and fountains made the place very attractive. We caught a taxi to the museum which was closed for extensive renovations, so walked around town, had a greasy lunch at a Wimpy and….. went to a MOVIE!!! Pirates of the Caribean 3, lots of fun and laughter, and caught a taxi back to the campsite. Nairobi doesn’t have water for much of the day and the electricity goes off periodically, as I the rest of Africa, sigh.
Saturday 23rd June 2007 Beach n Bush Adventures camp site, Nairobi
Nev and Brian went to Landrover in Nairobi to get a quote for fixing Brian’s clutch Thrust bearing, and to get his cab reinforced. The struts on either side of the windscreen were cracked, probably due to the weight on the roof-rack, but Brian attributed it to the forces of the wires he has connected from the roof-rack to the bull bar. The quote to service our Landy was too high so today was spent skoffling (me) and servicing our Landy, changing oil, greasing axils and bearings (Nev). All the stuff I haven’t used since we started is irritating me, but I don’t really want to throw it away, like cosmetics!!!! No not make up, but face wash, creams, lotions etc that I would happily be using at home, but are just too much bother to use while camping. The more streamlined the better. As soon as all the shampoo and soaps are used up I am going to use the LCD products for everything. I regret not having brought the strong soap powder along, as I can see how good it is at getting filth out of clothing.
Friday 22nd June 2007 Beach n Bush Adventures camp site, Nairobi
Although we didn’t pay for today in the park, we are allowed until 12 noon to transit to the Sekenani gate. So we packed up at leisure and started our trip to Magadi Lake, south east of Nairobi. Brian’s Landy’s struts have cracked, and after trying to do some repairs in Narok in vain, he was happy to wait until we get to Nairobi to have them fixed. We took a road which we thought was a short cut to Magadi, because we wanted to by-pass Nairobi at all costs. And, yes, you guessed it. It turned out to be a terrible, bumpy wrong road, and when Brian’s Landy started to make clutch bearing noises, we decided to turn round and head for Nairobi. The Maasai were not helpful regarding camping there for the night. The alluvial soil here in this part of Rift Valley near Nairobi is very friable and there are massive dongas and wash-aways as if the seasonal rain torrents down and washes the top soil into Lake Victoria hundreds of Kilometers away. On the plains the solitary red-cloaked figures of the Maasai herd their groups of cattle, goats and sheep. Their livestock are amazingly obedient, as they do not break from the herd. Ours would keep running in all directions and our calves would never stay in an ordered group by themselves like those of the Maasai do. They do, however, beat them mercilessly with knobkierries if they misbehave, so no wonder they have learned so well. We followed Brian’s Landy with our front bumber virtually stuck to his back spare tyres, under Maureen’s excellent navigational directions, in the dark, to the campsite of Martin Gathogo called Beach n Bush Adventures, not in either Bradt nor Lonley Planet, but better than the one recommended in both books, and just around the corner from it.
Thursday 21st June 2007 Crocodile campsite, Talec gate Masai Mara
Another early morning, and another good day in the reserve. We went to different places today, along a huge plain where there used to be many trees, but the elephants have devastated most of them, and the remaining trees had tall stems with a little tuft of leaves at the top, cropped just up to giraffe height. One giraffe was reaching, reaching, stretching up high, and nearly had to jump to reach the leaves. We saw the crossing points for the herds, but there were only hippo and a few crocs there at the time. We timed it correctly so that we could get back to the camp just before the reserve closed, but were stopped by a group of armed Maasai who wanted $40 each for us to pass through the community area. We didn’t have the money, and objected to this iniquity, so turned round and raced back the way we had come, passing large herds of animals, two baby hyenas in a culvert and a python on the way, and then came across a10-tonne lorry stuck in the ‘black cotton’ mud, and blocking the way. Eventually we pulled it out with our little Landy, and got back to the camp just as it was getting dark.
Wednesday 20th June 2007 Crocodile campsite,Talec gate Masai Mara
We paid our $40 each and R80 for the car (per day) and we had the most wonderful day spotting all the main game, and lots of it. We didn’t see the wildebeest and zebra doing their jumping over the croc-infested Mara River though, as that happens in July, peak season. As it was there were 22 viewing vehicles around the lion kill. In July there would be more like 300. We ended the day on a high, having seen two leopards together, 12 lions at a buffalo kill, cheetah kill, lots of elephant, topi, gazelle and many more, and lots of birds. Edward Lion, a Maasai welcomed us to the crocodile camp site right outside the reserve.
Tuesday 19th June 2007 Oldarpoi Maasai Safari, Sekenani Gate, Masai Mara
The trip from Gavin to Narok was interesting but chaotic. Brian got stuck four times and had to be pulled out, and once he had to use his winch. The potholes in the dirt road had filled with water, and on several occasions Nev waded into the water to feel which the better line was to take through the mud. He sank thigh deep into some holes before finding a line. He had to dig the mud out of the way with our trusty spade at most places. On one occasion I drove and he directed me slowly slowly, balancing on slippery tyre-width dykes (having dug shallow tracks to keep me on line) with deep mud holes on either side, giving his subtle hand signals of come, left, right, stop etc. When I put on the brakes he would make an ugly face and I knew I had done something wrong. You know how he likes a challenge and wants to try for himself first, before resorting to being pushed by spectators, especially when the want R200 for pushing. When I got through, though, the spectators on either side would cheer and applaud and one even congratulated me on getting through, but it was the team work and communication between Nev and me that got us through. Also Nev first looks carefully, assesses the situation, decides, and then acts. We got past four really bad situations, and then came across the worst.
There were already four vehicles stuck in the mud at all angles in the section that we still had to get through. Our hearts sank and we thought we would have to go back 200Km but we helped the others get out by lending them our rope, on condition they waited to help us until we through. Our Landy managed it miraculously, but Brian got stuck and we were able to pull him out. Shoo!!!!!
The rest of the road was fine (for Kenyan standards) and we got to Narok, and proceeded to Masai Mara on a terrible road and slept at a Maasai community campsite outside the gate.
Monday 18th June 2007 Gavin & Sabrena Mouritzen Mau Escarpment
Left the wonderful pressure cooker with the steam emerging out the ground straight up into the cool, still morning air and made our way towards Nakuru. The road took us through the middle of fields of commercial sisal plantations with the workers cutting the branches from the bottom. Brian did a spectacular jump off a ledge diagonally into a mud puddle and squashed his… exhaustpipe a bit.
In Nakuru we topped up our fuel and bought DRC and Rwandan flag stickers from a vendor who really went out of his way to find them for us. Dave and Beryl didn’t want to go to Masai Mara so they and Willy and Ingrid headed for the coast while Brian, Maureen and we headed south west to the 3000m high Mau Escarpment to find Gavin Mauritzen who went to school with Brandon. The road was good, tar until the last 10Km and the rain had made the well-cambered road slippery, and fun. The escarpment was a mixture of commercial and subsistence farms. Commercial is all wheat and the farms are enough to make us drool. The fertile gently sloping deep soiled lands are magnificent. Gavin manages 2500Ha of undulating wheat for a politician. Had quite a bit of rain lately and the planting is a bit late. They soil doesn’t change colour for two meters deep, but they do lime at 2tonnes a Ha every couple of years, do have to fertilize similar to us, and can achieve 6tonnes of wheat with no irrigation. They get R2500 a tonne with wheat import levy protection of 35%.
Sebrena made us a magnificent meal and they welcomed us with open arms. Their little 2 year old daughter Ella had her party yesterday. Louise and Dave Rose also entertained us and advised us where is Kenya to visit. The temp dropped to 4.3 deg, (and they do get frost) but we were snug in our tent. Brandon, Gavin says you must come up here and go trout fishing with him in the streams and rivers!!!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Mau Escarpment
Monday 18th June 2007 Gavin & Sebrena Mouritzen Mau Escarpment
Left the wonderful pressure cooker with the steam emerging out the ground straight up into the cool, still morning air and made our way towards Nakuru. The road took us through the middle of fields of commercial sisal plantations with the workers cutting the branches from the bottom. Brian did a spectacular jump off a ledge diagonally into a mud puddle and squashed his… exhaustpipe a bit.
In Nakuru we topped up our fuel and bought DRC and Rwandan flag stickers from a vendor who really went out of his way to find them for us. Dave and Beryl didn’t want to go to Masai Mara so they and Willy and Ingrid headed for the coast while Brian, Maureen and we headed south west to the 3000m high Mau Escarpment to find Gavin Mauritzen who went to school with Brandon. The road was good, tar until the last 10Km and the rain had made the well-cambered road slippery, and fun. The escarpment was a mixture of commercial and subsistence farms. Commercial is all wheat and the farms are enough to make us drool. The fertile gently sloping deep soiled lands are magnificent. Gavin manages 2500Ha of undulating wheat for a politician. Had quite a bit of rain lately and the planting is a bit late. They soil doesn’t change colour for two meters deep, but they do lime at 2tonnes a Ha every couple of years, do have to fertilize similar to us, and can achieve 6tonnes of wheat with no irrigation. They get R2500 a tonne with wheat import levy protection of 35%.
Sebrena made us a magnificent meal and they welcomed us with open arms. Their little 2 year old daughter Ella had her party yesterday. Louise and Dave Rose also entertained us and advised us where is Kenya to visit. The temp dropped to 4.3 deg, (and they do get frost) but we were snug in our tent. Brandon, Gavin says you must come up here and go trout fishing with him in the streams and rivers!!!
Sunday 17th June 2007 Lake Bogorio, Kerio Valley
We left early and made our way further south along the Kerio Valley and the erosion was horrific. The deep red soils were devoid of groundcover, and had been eroded so the trees’s roots were exposed and they were perched on islets of soil. The big G word: Goats, were responsible for the devastation. A forest reserve indicated what the vegetation should have been, lush forest and deep red fertile soils. We arrived at Lake Borgorio and were shocked to have to pay R520 to get in. Well worth it, yet again because we are, in effect, sitting on a pressure cooker. There are geysers everywhere, small steam spouts coming out of the ground at over 100 degrees. Luckily the weather is cool, because I think it could be really hot here. It is so amazing to think we are right in the middle of geologically young ground where the earth is being pulled asunder and the steam from deep down in the earth is being slowly released. Some spouts are shooting high up into the air. Our prop shaft universal had to be changed and Dave’s radiator is leaking again.
Saturday 16th June 2007 Catholic Church on the hill, Kerio Valley
We wound our way up from 1000m to 2400m through mist-covered hills North from Kitale through Marich Pass up towards Sigor. From sub tropical through arid acacia bushvelt which had just had rain so looked green and lush. Evidence of goat and cattle overgrazing was evident throughout. The tiny indigenous (boran-type) cattle are so small that a cows weighs about 200Kg and in-calf heifers about 150Kg. They are very narrow, and look like toys, like dexters but narrow, and obviously very hardy. The people (Pokot) are short, about 1.4m and many look very San-like (bushman). We went along a main road which had not been maintained since its inception and 90% of the bridges and culverts were not functional and higher than the roads. We had to ford the rivers and streams, some of which were deeper than the Landrover. We did some pulling and towing to get the vehicles through. At the top of the mountain we turned southwards and skited the Ceorangani Mountains traveled along the Kerio Valley, and the vegetation changed to higher rainfall. We ran out of time again and had to find a safe sleeping place.
Willy found a catholic church perched high upon the side of the hills with the most magnificent panoramic view of the Kerio Valley and we camped there for the night. I tried to explain to a local old woman what we wanted to do, and my smattering of Swahili with the aid of a dictionary did the trick. Till a whole hoard of people arrived and they could speak English, so Brian entertained them for a while, and then they wouldn’t leave. I gave them an old loaf of bread and said to them “Kwaheri” and waved both arms in the air in a gesture indicating they were dismissed in a nice way, and they turned around and left!! We paid a guard to keep the cattle, goats, donkeys and people away and had a peaceful night. The people were friendly and sone greeted Nev as Osama Bin Laden because of his beard hehehe.
Friday 15th June 2007 Delta Crescent Camp Site, Kitale.
We went for a ride on camels this morning. Nev rode on Captain, and I rode on Dash. We had to say “walk walk’ to get them going, and they had to be led by handlers. The ride was not as uncomfortable as we had been warned, because we just used our waists to go with the camel while our upper bodies remained static. Very like riding a horse, but just more relaxed legs. Nev’s camel started to kick out backwards because he was slipping off its tail. It only had one hump, (a dromedary), and then it lay down! Nev got off. Mine then started to buck which panicked the handler more than it panicked me because I just hung on to the rail and laughed with the handler shouting “hang on hang on!!” and tried to calm the camel down. They get down onto the ground in three stages, front, back then front again, and then you gracefully step off in a very ladylike manner.
Then we went for a short walk in an animal sanctuary where they have tame giraphs who eat out of your hand. They have such soft, long upper lips, and flat noses. Two tame white rhinos grazed safely on the other side of an electric fence, and four Somali ostriches were available for riding at a fee. These ostriches are bigger than my old ostrich, with much thicker legs and less colour on their faces.
Hey, Pat and Marion Long: We went to find Adrianne and Tony Mills, but found they had gone to Tanzania on holiday, and left Dan Shaw farm-sitting their seed-maize and dairy farm. Dan remembers Pat and Marion from Kitale, and I now have a photo of him. He very kindly and proudly spent the whole afternoon taking us all around the farm showing us the seed maize, which was really impressive in its height. The commercial maize was 4.2m high and the cobs are nearly 3m high, so they are going to have a problem reaping them. Everything, except the planting is done by hand. They have people protecting the maize from the blue and vervet monkeys which could devastate the crop. The rainfall is 2000ml per year and they deep soils which Nev would give his eye teeth for. Minimum wage is R10.60 per day and he gets R1.78/l for his milk. They milk 174 cows by hand, and have recently installed a 2000l bulk tank chiller which has increased the quality of the milk. The milk is still transported by cans, and all the records are hand written with each cow having a name. It brought back many happy memories of our early days milking at Mill Park. His neighbours are all African farmers who also have outstanding crops. It was a very enjoyable afternoon spent while the rest of our group cooled their heels in the camp.
We were rocked by an earth tremor in the night which lasted about ten seconds. I thought Nev was moving the Landy and he thought I was. Then we both thought someone was rocking it from outside, but there was nobody there, then we realized it was an earth tremor. Wow!!
Thursday 14th June 2007 Delta Crescent Farm Camp, Kitale
We went through highly scenic route around Mt Elgon. The road was excellent up to when the tar stopped, then we were very glad it was not raining because the road was red mud like the soil at our old farm, Mill Park except it was very deep.
The locals cutivate ll the steep slopes where there is soil and do agri-forestery where they plant pines and Cyprus quite far apart and then plant maize and beans in between, The new crop, yams is also grown. Once over the mountain we came to the best farmland we have seen for ages, with a gentle slope where they grow maize and wheat. In all the mountainous areas and the flat areas, the crops were excellent. We saw a man spraying his potatoes whith a knapsack sprayer. These people can surely teach John Armstrong a thing about planting spuds on 60 degree mountain slopes!! We passed a sign saying: High altitude training Camp at 2400m above sea level. We then came across the border from Uganda to Kenya which was the most dilapidated border post we have seen so far. It was a real backwater post, and the official took half an hour to find a new receipt book!! I don’t know why, but ‘madmen’ seem to gravitate to border posts, and Brian and Willy’s vehicles were interfered with by a man who kept taking off their valve caps and throwing them into the grass, wanting to be paid for their return. When he started to get aggressive the police intervened and we proceeded into Kenya along a much better road passing through amazingly fertile and gently sloping land kilometer after kilometer all growing lovely maize, and a flower farm which flies the flowers out for export (the road to the nearest international airport, Nairobi is too far and too bad.
We arrived at Delta Crescent Camp at the foot of mount Elgon intending to go for a walk, but then the rain came down and we settled in for the night.
Wednesday 13th June 2007 Sipi Falls, Twalight Family Camp site.
We headed north to Sipi Falls. Went through far flatter terrain and they grow more or less the same crops including yams. The beans we have been seeing all the while have been yams all this time, sorry, hehehe!! Saw two lots of beautiful falls. It was a spectacular walk after a solid hour of rain and the air was clear and everything was green. The footpath was slopey and narrow and we had to run past the safari ants to prevent getting bitten. I slipped and fell in the mud three times and our guide held my hand like a vice and reassured me that I wouldn’t fall again, as he was helping me, and he was strong. He was so sweet!! I did fall again, and nearly pulled him down the hill! I was really full of mud when we got back. It was great fun. The camp is run by a South African youngster. It is the first time we have been to showers which only had a hot tap. The temperature of the water was controlled by a man outside adding cold water to an open drum if the water got too hot.
Tuesday 12th June 2007 Jinja, Eden Rock Camp site.
Three months today we left home.
Set off for Jinja and on the way saw the Kampala Museum. We found a really funny headline out of a newspaper from Jan2007 saying that the mayor of Jinja advocated that the Jinja people took Chinese fertility drugs to make female’s breasts hard and males more virile so that the people can “breed like rabbits” so that Jinja’s population can increase to 500,000 to reach city status to get more investments. They are presently at 200,000. Man oh man, we aren’t the only country who has politicians saying funny things!!! Otherwise the museum was really third grade with nothing about the Amin era, which I wanted to learn about.
Monday 11th June 2007 Kampala
Another day of vehicle repairs. New cylinder head gasket and new bushes for suspension. Brian and we tightened bolts and service. Dave service and two new master cylinders for brakes and two new tyres. Brian fixed broken shock. Stocked up with food from a Shoprite. As usual the water went off, and the electicity went off, but luckily we had got our washing done.
Left the wonderful pressure cooker with the steam emerging out the ground straight up into the cool, still morning air and made our way towards Nakuru. The road took us through the middle of fields of commercial sisal plantations with the workers cutting the branches from the bottom. Brian did a spectacular jump off a ledge diagonally into a mud puddle and squashed his… exhaustpipe a bit.
In Nakuru we topped up our fuel and bought DRC and Rwandan flag stickers from a vendor who really went out of his way to find them for us. Dave and Beryl didn’t want to go to Masai Mara so they and Willy and Ingrid headed for the coast while Brian, Maureen and we headed south west to the 3000m high Mau Escarpment to find Gavin Mauritzen who went to school with Brandon. The road was good, tar until the last 10Km and the rain had made the well-cambered road slippery, and fun. The escarpment was a mixture of commercial and subsistence farms. Commercial is all wheat and the farms are enough to make us drool. The fertile gently sloping deep soiled lands are magnificent. Gavin manages 2500Ha of undulating wheat for a politician. Had quite a bit of rain lately and the planting is a bit late. They soil doesn’t change colour for two meters deep, but they do lime at 2tonnes a Ha every couple of years, do have to fertilize similar to us, and can achieve 6tonnes of wheat with no irrigation. They get R2500 a tonne with wheat import levy protection of 35%.
Sebrena made us a magnificent meal and they welcomed us with open arms. Their little 2 year old daughter Ella had her party yesterday. Louise and Dave Rose also entertained us and advised us where is Kenya to visit. The temp dropped to 4.3 deg, (and they do get frost) but we were snug in our tent. Brandon, Gavin says you must come up here and go trout fishing with him in the streams and rivers!!!
Sunday 17th June 2007 Lake Bogorio, Kerio Valley
We left early and made our way further south along the Kerio Valley and the erosion was horrific. The deep red soils were devoid of groundcover, and had been eroded so the trees’s roots were exposed and they were perched on islets of soil. The big G word: Goats, were responsible for the devastation. A forest reserve indicated what the vegetation should have been, lush forest and deep red fertile soils. We arrived at Lake Borgorio and were shocked to have to pay R520 to get in. Well worth it, yet again because we are, in effect, sitting on a pressure cooker. There are geysers everywhere, small steam spouts coming out of the ground at over 100 degrees. Luckily the weather is cool, because I think it could be really hot here. It is so amazing to think we are right in the middle of geologically young ground where the earth is being pulled asunder and the steam from deep down in the earth is being slowly released. Some spouts are shooting high up into the air. Our prop shaft universal had to be changed and Dave’s radiator is leaking again.
Saturday 16th June 2007 Catholic Church on the hill, Kerio Valley
We wound our way up from 1000m to 2400m through mist-covered hills North from Kitale through Marich Pass up towards Sigor. From sub tropical through arid acacia bushvelt which had just had rain so looked green and lush. Evidence of goat and cattle overgrazing was evident throughout. The tiny indigenous (boran-type) cattle are so small that a cows weighs about 200Kg and in-calf heifers about 150Kg. They are very narrow, and look like toys, like dexters but narrow, and obviously very hardy. The people (Pokot) are short, about 1.4m and many look very San-like (bushman). We went along a main road which had not been maintained since its inception and 90% of the bridges and culverts were not functional and higher than the roads. We had to ford the rivers and streams, some of which were deeper than the Landrover. We did some pulling and towing to get the vehicles through. At the top of the mountain we turned southwards and skited the Ceorangani Mountains traveled along the Kerio Valley, and the vegetation changed to higher rainfall. We ran out of time again and had to find a safe sleeping place.
Willy found a catholic church perched high upon the side of the hills with the most magnificent panoramic view of the Kerio Valley and we camped there for the night. I tried to explain to a local old woman what we wanted to do, and my smattering of Swahili with the aid of a dictionary did the trick. Till a whole hoard of people arrived and they could speak English, so Brian entertained them for a while, and then they wouldn’t leave. I gave them an old loaf of bread and said to them “Kwaheri” and waved both arms in the air in a gesture indicating they were dismissed in a nice way, and they turned around and left!! We paid a guard to keep the cattle, goats, donkeys and people away and had a peaceful night. The people were friendly and sone greeted Nev as Osama Bin Laden because of his beard hehehe.
Friday 15th June 2007 Delta Crescent Camp Site, Kitale.
We went for a ride on camels this morning. Nev rode on Captain, and I rode on Dash. We had to say “walk walk’ to get them going, and they had to be led by handlers. The ride was not as uncomfortable as we had been warned, because we just used our waists to go with the camel while our upper bodies remained static. Very like riding a horse, but just more relaxed legs. Nev’s camel started to kick out backwards because he was slipping off its tail. It only had one hump, (a dromedary), and then it lay down! Nev got off. Mine then started to buck which panicked the handler more than it panicked me because I just hung on to the rail and laughed with the handler shouting “hang on hang on!!” and tried to calm the camel down. They get down onto the ground in three stages, front, back then front again, and then you gracefully step off in a very ladylike manner.
Then we went for a short walk in an animal sanctuary where they have tame giraphs who eat out of your hand. They have such soft, long upper lips, and flat noses. Two tame white rhinos grazed safely on the other side of an electric fence, and four Somali ostriches were available for riding at a fee. These ostriches are bigger than my old ostrich, with much thicker legs and less colour on their faces.
Hey, Pat and Marion Long: We went to find Adrianne and Tony Mills, but found they had gone to Tanzania on holiday, and left Dan Shaw farm-sitting their seed-maize and dairy farm. Dan remembers Pat and Marion from Kitale, and I now have a photo of him. He very kindly and proudly spent the whole afternoon taking us all around the farm showing us the seed maize, which was really impressive in its height. The commercial maize was 4.2m high and the cobs are nearly 3m high, so they are going to have a problem reaping them. Everything, except the planting is done by hand. They have people protecting the maize from the blue and vervet monkeys which could devastate the crop. The rainfall is 2000ml per year and they deep soils which Nev would give his eye teeth for. Minimum wage is R10.60 per day and he gets R1.78/l for his milk. They milk 174 cows by hand, and have recently installed a 2000l bulk tank chiller which has increased the quality of the milk. The milk is still transported by cans, and all the records are hand written with each cow having a name. It brought back many happy memories of our early days milking at Mill Park. His neighbours are all African farmers who also have outstanding crops. It was a very enjoyable afternoon spent while the rest of our group cooled their heels in the camp.
We were rocked by an earth tremor in the night which lasted about ten seconds. I thought Nev was moving the Landy and he thought I was. Then we both thought someone was rocking it from outside, but there was nobody there, then we realized it was an earth tremor. Wow!!
Thursday 14th June 2007 Delta Crescent Farm Camp, Kitale
We went through highly scenic route around Mt Elgon. The road was excellent up to when the tar stopped, then we were very glad it was not raining because the road was red mud like the soil at our old farm, Mill Park except it was very deep.
The locals cutivate ll the steep slopes where there is soil and do agri-forestery where they plant pines and Cyprus quite far apart and then plant maize and beans in between, The new crop, yams is also grown. Once over the mountain we came to the best farmland we have seen for ages, with a gentle slope where they grow maize and wheat. In all the mountainous areas and the flat areas, the crops were excellent. We saw a man spraying his potatoes whith a knapsack sprayer. These people can surely teach John Armstrong a thing about planting spuds on 60 degree mountain slopes!! We passed a sign saying: High altitude training Camp at 2400m above sea level. We then came across the border from Uganda to Kenya which was the most dilapidated border post we have seen so far. It was a real backwater post, and the official took half an hour to find a new receipt book!! I don’t know why, but ‘madmen’ seem to gravitate to border posts, and Brian and Willy’s vehicles were interfered with by a man who kept taking off their valve caps and throwing them into the grass, wanting to be paid for their return. When he started to get aggressive the police intervened and we proceeded into Kenya along a much better road passing through amazingly fertile and gently sloping land kilometer after kilometer all growing lovely maize, and a flower farm which flies the flowers out for export (the road to the nearest international airport, Nairobi is too far and too bad.
We arrived at Delta Crescent Camp at the foot of mount Elgon intending to go for a walk, but then the rain came down and we settled in for the night.
Wednesday 13th June 2007 Sipi Falls, Twalight Family Camp site.
We headed north to Sipi Falls. Went through far flatter terrain and they grow more or less the same crops including yams. The beans we have been seeing all the while have been yams all this time, sorry, hehehe!! Saw two lots of beautiful falls. It was a spectacular walk after a solid hour of rain and the air was clear and everything was green. The footpath was slopey and narrow and we had to run past the safari ants to prevent getting bitten. I slipped and fell in the mud three times and our guide held my hand like a vice and reassured me that I wouldn’t fall again, as he was helping me, and he was strong. He was so sweet!! I did fall again, and nearly pulled him down the hill! I was really full of mud when we got back. It was great fun. The camp is run by a South African youngster. It is the first time we have been to showers which only had a hot tap. The temperature of the water was controlled by a man outside adding cold water to an open drum if the water got too hot.
Tuesday 12th June 2007 Jinja, Eden Rock Camp site.
Three months today we left home.
Set off for Jinja and on the way saw the Kampala Museum. We found a really funny headline out of a newspaper from Jan2007 saying that the mayor of Jinja advocated that the Jinja people took Chinese fertility drugs to make female’s breasts hard and males more virile so that the people can “breed like rabbits” so that Jinja’s population can increase to 500,000 to reach city status to get more investments. They are presently at 200,000. Man oh man, we aren’t the only country who has politicians saying funny things!!! Otherwise the museum was really third grade with nothing about the Amin era, which I wanted to learn about.
Monday 11th June 2007 Kampala
Another day of vehicle repairs. New cylinder head gasket and new bushes for suspension. Brian and we tightened bolts and service. Dave service and two new master cylinders for brakes and two new tyres. Brian fixed broken shock. Stocked up with food from a Shoprite. As usual the water went off, and the electicity went off, but luckily we had got our washing done.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
070610 Kampala again
Sunday 10th June 2007 Kampala at Rita and Terry’s place again.
We left Kabale, fully intending to take it easy and sleep at a lake, but it rained on and off all day and was overcast and cold, and Rita and Terry’s warm and dry home in Kampala beckoned. We passed through much flatter country than anywhere else in Uganda, past farms containing the huge-horned, but small, Ankole cattle, could have been Estcourt except for the little plantations of the matoke type green bananas, dotted around the slopes. Lovely fruit: (avos, bananas, pawpaws, pineapples) and veges (potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, tomatoes) were for sale in stalls for next to nothing, along the roads, as was never the case in Rwanda. And we hit the huge speed bumps, ‘sleeping policemen’, in every village again, none of which were in Rwanda, and the eroded sides of the tar, and the hellish bus drivers.
Saturday 9th June 2007 Levasta Inn, Kabale,
We drove to Kigale where we first visited the Genocide Museum. In the first hall the history and events leading up to the genocide was graphically displayed. Propaganda was used to incite hatred of the Tutsis by the Hutus who called them cockroaches, only fit to be exterminated. The torturous way the killings were perpetrated, accompanied by torture, rape, hamstringing to prevent escape until they got round to the clubbing. Many were thrown into wells, up to 10 thick on top of each other and stones thrown on top until the screams could no longer be heard. In another hall were thousands of photographs and the intimate memories of parents who survived and saw their innocent children slaughtered. In another were a few of the bones and sculls of victims, the tools used (hoes, picks, machetes, knives, traditional weapons and anything the perpetrators could lay their hands on). In another section were the graphic details of other genocides which have occurred eg Hereros in South West Africa by the Germans, the Jews in the holocaust of WW2 by the Nazis in Europe, Armenians in Armenia, the Muslims in Bosnia in 2000, the Cambodians under Pol Pot, the horrifying list goes on. Outside, were the mass graves with the bones of more than 250,000 people (from Kigali alone) are buried, up to 20 in one coffin. And a beautiful garden where one can meditate undisturbed in peaceful beauty. Purple is the colour of mourning and everywhere in Rwanda there are gardens with purple flowers, in front of houses, alongside the roads, in the middle of towns, as if to heal the atrocities with beauty. All over Rwanda are memorials with the motto “NEVER AGAIN”.
The people are slowly healing under the present president who is uniting the tribes as one nation of Rwandans. Today, because the courts could not handle the number of cases, traditional courts, Bacaca, made up of relatives of the victims and members of the village’s courts, are to this day every weekend, 13 years later, trying those accused of taking part in the genocide, and bones continue to be discovered in excavations, wells, and confessed places. Violence is not tolerated anywhere in Rwanda and there is no corruption. Prisoners are dressed in pink shirts and pink burmuda type pants do much of the reconstruction in the cities.
We then went to two churches, one contains the bones, clothes, books, mattresses, utensils of the 12000 people who had sheltered there for three days before the priest told the killers where they were. The Hutus threw hand grenades into the church, and then went inside and hacked, clubbed and battered the survivors to death.12000 of them.
The other church is a memorial now to the more than 10000 people who were sheltering there. The blood stains remain where young children were thrown against the walls, their brain matter splattered on the roof. The roof has holes from the bullets. Both churches (10Km away from each other) are covered by a steel shed to protect them and preserve them as they were found.
The presentation is done by locals in a very matter-of-fact way and no exaggeration is done or needed to instill a sense of shock and horror. Every politician should visit these four sites and speak to Rwandans themselves, so that “never again” is entrenched in the minds of leaders. It is a lesson in humility. It is the leaders of the country who have the power to be humane or evil. Even as I type there are occurrences in the world where people are steadily being ‘exterminated’ because of their membership of a certain group, whether political, religious or other. The world does nothing even now.
I have tremendous respect for the ordinary Rwandan people,that they are managing to put the past behind them, and grow towards a future as one nation without anger and bitterness. There are 9 million people there now, over 300 per SqHa, in Uganda it is 100, in SA about 50. Rwanda has made a huge impression on me.
Rwanda apparently has a “Community Day” once a month when no cars may be driven, and no-one goes to work until 12 noon. During this time, everone has to go outdoors and clean up Rwanda ie, pick up papers, rubbish, plant grass etc. Because of this it is definitely the cleanest and neatest African country so far. It teaches the people not to litter as they will have to clean up later. A lesson South Africans could take heed of.
We left the beautiful city of Kigali, cleanest and most organized capital so far in Africa, very reminiscent of the lay-out of Pietermaritzburg, to find the Minister of Defence’s dairy farm, but couldn’t find it, and found ourselves near the border with Uganda in the late afternoon, so went through, finding out we paid Ush116,000 as a road toll, instead of Ush35000 as a temporary license at the border when entering from Kenya. We will try to claim a refund when we pass through into Kenya again. We stayed in a room in a very clean Levasta Inn on a hill overlooking Kabale. We chose a traditional chicken stew for supper, and couldn’t eat the chicken, it was so tough. How do you mess up a chicken for Pete’s sake? We counted the total number of putsy maggot holes: I now have 33, Nev has 20. I hope that is the end of it now.
Friday 8th June 2007 King’s Palace Gardens, Kibuye
We were both in agony from being hosts to a PUTSY FLY infestation. We worked out that we had washed our sheets in the Kibale Forest camp site and, quickly, before we went chimp tracking put the nearly dry sheets back onto the bed, little realizing the horrible consequences. The flies had laid eggs on our sheets, and when we lay down they hatched and burrowed into the tender parts of our bodies. We suffered for a few days with the lava burrowing into our flesh causing huge boils at every point. Kita’s information was welcomed and we put Vaseline on the points to suffocate the creatures. Theoretically, after an hour most of the lava would turn round and come up for air, when we would gently squeeze them and pull them out with tweezers. In practice some were more difficult than others and in our bumbling attempts to get them out, we caused much pain and suffering to our poor flesh. We have red, pussy sores now at most of the extrusion points, but they are not so sore anymore, the relief was instantaneous. I had 23, Nev had over 10, and we are still feeling the odd bite, but now we know exactly what to do. They go for the tender parts of the skin. We will be much more careful with our washing in future, drying it properly, and not using it for 48 hours to make sure the eggs die first. The maggots are the size of a big rice grain, and every now and again they bite as if someone stuck a needle into you. Some of the wounds have what I call ‘putsy poo’ in them and are pussy. Apart from the extrusion process we proceeded to Kibuyu where 90% of the population was exterminated in 1994. Dave and Beryl went straight to Kigali and we went to the King’s palace by ourselves in*******************. The king who built it died in 1982, and his mother was one first killed in the 1994 genocide. The present king is in exile in America, but the palace is still there and is now a museum and art gallery. We asked the sweet guide, Dianna, if there was any camping in the area, and she came back with permission for us to camp in the garden of the palace, something that had never been done before. We spoke for a long time to the caretaker, Ronald, about the present state of Rwanda. We also visited a milk bottling factory there.
Thursday 7th June 2007 Father Patrick’s mission, Rwanda
No visa necessary to get into Rwanda, and we had to drive on the RIGHT side of the road. Immediately the difference in road condition was apparent, from bad muddy gravel in Uganda to tar in Rwanda.
We took a gravel ‘road less traveled’ through rural precipitous, conical shaped hills where the road had to wind its way along the contours of the 60 degree cultivated slopes. 43Km straight line, took us the whole afternoon as the roads wound round the hills. Sometimes we would be 20Km from our destination, and 5 minutes later we would be 21 Km from our destination. We kept crossing over culverts made of poles laid parallel with the road. When one gave way under the Landy, we were lucky that the vehicle didn’t fall into the culvert. I have never seen such a densely populated rural area. Every (and I mean every) square inch has been cultivated and there are people all over the place. It is difficult, if not impossible to find a private place to stop. They speak French and a local indigenous language Kiyarwanda. As we traveled slowly down the narrow road the people ran out of their houses and lined the road to look at us, an oddity in that part of the world. Expressions ranged from nervousness, fear, curiosity to amazement until I caught eye contact, smiled and waved. It was like switching a light on in their eyes and a special contact was made as they grinned broadly and waved back with both hands. These people touched my heart in a way far more profound than seeing the gorillas.
We eventually ran out of daylight and we saw a modern building (church or school) where we hoped we could camp. There in the middle of Rwanda were two white people. We couldn’t believe our eyes and we fervently hoped they could speak English instead of French or the local lingo. They were husband and wife, an elderly paediatrition and social worker from Germany who spend one month every year volunteering their expertise in Rwanda at Father Patrick’s mission. They work with the poorest of the poor who have nothing, often orphans from the three month genocide in 1994 when 1.5million Tutsis were tortured and slaughtered, before the RHS, the Tutsis in exile, intervened. We spent a very interesting evening talking to Father Patrick and the two Germans about Rwandans, their history and culture. The view from the clinic overlooked Lake Kivu with its hundreds if islands and precipitous slopes.
We left Kabale, fully intending to take it easy and sleep at a lake, but it rained on and off all day and was overcast and cold, and Rita and Terry’s warm and dry home in Kampala beckoned. We passed through much flatter country than anywhere else in Uganda, past farms containing the huge-horned, but small, Ankole cattle, could have been Estcourt except for the little plantations of the matoke type green bananas, dotted around the slopes. Lovely fruit: (avos, bananas, pawpaws, pineapples) and veges (potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, tomatoes) were for sale in stalls for next to nothing, along the roads, as was never the case in Rwanda. And we hit the huge speed bumps, ‘sleeping policemen’, in every village again, none of which were in Rwanda, and the eroded sides of the tar, and the hellish bus drivers.
Saturday 9th June 2007 Levasta Inn, Kabale,
We drove to Kigale where we first visited the Genocide Museum. In the first hall the history and events leading up to the genocide was graphically displayed. Propaganda was used to incite hatred of the Tutsis by the Hutus who called them cockroaches, only fit to be exterminated. The torturous way the killings were perpetrated, accompanied by torture, rape, hamstringing to prevent escape until they got round to the clubbing. Many were thrown into wells, up to 10 thick on top of each other and stones thrown on top until the screams could no longer be heard. In another hall were thousands of photographs and the intimate memories of parents who survived and saw their innocent children slaughtered. In another were a few of the bones and sculls of victims, the tools used (hoes, picks, machetes, knives, traditional weapons and anything the perpetrators could lay their hands on). In another section were the graphic details of other genocides which have occurred eg Hereros in South West Africa by the Germans, the Jews in the holocaust of WW2 by the Nazis in Europe, Armenians in Armenia, the Muslims in Bosnia in 2000, the Cambodians under Pol Pot, the horrifying list goes on. Outside, were the mass graves with the bones of more than 250,000 people (from Kigali alone) are buried, up to 20 in one coffin. And a beautiful garden where one can meditate undisturbed in peaceful beauty. Purple is the colour of mourning and everywhere in Rwanda there are gardens with purple flowers, in front of houses, alongside the roads, in the middle of towns, as if to heal the atrocities with beauty. All over Rwanda are memorials with the motto “NEVER AGAIN”.
The people are slowly healing under the present president who is uniting the tribes as one nation of Rwandans. Today, because the courts could not handle the number of cases, traditional courts, Bacaca, made up of relatives of the victims and members of the village’s courts, are to this day every weekend, 13 years later, trying those accused of taking part in the genocide, and bones continue to be discovered in excavations, wells, and confessed places. Violence is not tolerated anywhere in Rwanda and there is no corruption. Prisoners are dressed in pink shirts and pink burmuda type pants do much of the reconstruction in the cities.
We then went to two churches, one contains the bones, clothes, books, mattresses, utensils of the 12000 people who had sheltered there for three days before the priest told the killers where they were. The Hutus threw hand grenades into the church, and then went inside and hacked, clubbed and battered the survivors to death.12000 of them.
The other church is a memorial now to the more than 10000 people who were sheltering there. The blood stains remain where young children were thrown against the walls, their brain matter splattered on the roof. The roof has holes from the bullets. Both churches (10Km away from each other) are covered by a steel shed to protect them and preserve them as they were found.
The presentation is done by locals in a very matter-of-fact way and no exaggeration is done or needed to instill a sense of shock and horror. Every politician should visit these four sites and speak to Rwandans themselves, so that “never again” is entrenched in the minds of leaders. It is a lesson in humility. It is the leaders of the country who have the power to be humane or evil. Even as I type there are occurrences in the world where people are steadily being ‘exterminated’ because of their membership of a certain group, whether political, religious or other. The world does nothing even now.
I have tremendous respect for the ordinary Rwandan people,that they are managing to put the past behind them, and grow towards a future as one nation without anger and bitterness. There are 9 million people there now, over 300 per SqHa, in Uganda it is 100, in SA about 50. Rwanda has made a huge impression on me.
Rwanda apparently has a “Community Day” once a month when no cars may be driven, and no-one goes to work until 12 noon. During this time, everone has to go outdoors and clean up Rwanda ie, pick up papers, rubbish, plant grass etc. Because of this it is definitely the cleanest and neatest African country so far. It teaches the people not to litter as they will have to clean up later. A lesson South Africans could take heed of.
We left the beautiful city of Kigali, cleanest and most organized capital so far in Africa, very reminiscent of the lay-out of Pietermaritzburg, to find the Minister of Defence’s dairy farm, but couldn’t find it, and found ourselves near the border with Uganda in the late afternoon, so went through, finding out we paid Ush116,000 as a road toll, instead of Ush35000 as a temporary license at the border when entering from Kenya. We will try to claim a refund when we pass through into Kenya again. We stayed in a room in a very clean Levasta Inn on a hill overlooking Kabale. We chose a traditional chicken stew for supper, and couldn’t eat the chicken, it was so tough. How do you mess up a chicken for Pete’s sake? We counted the total number of putsy maggot holes: I now have 33, Nev has 20. I hope that is the end of it now.
Friday 8th June 2007 King’s Palace Gardens, Kibuye
We were both in agony from being hosts to a PUTSY FLY infestation. We worked out that we had washed our sheets in the Kibale Forest camp site and, quickly, before we went chimp tracking put the nearly dry sheets back onto the bed, little realizing the horrible consequences. The flies had laid eggs on our sheets, and when we lay down they hatched and burrowed into the tender parts of our bodies. We suffered for a few days with the lava burrowing into our flesh causing huge boils at every point. Kita’s information was welcomed and we put Vaseline on the points to suffocate the creatures. Theoretically, after an hour most of the lava would turn round and come up for air, when we would gently squeeze them and pull them out with tweezers. In practice some were more difficult than others and in our bumbling attempts to get them out, we caused much pain and suffering to our poor flesh. We have red, pussy sores now at most of the extrusion points, but they are not so sore anymore, the relief was instantaneous. I had 23, Nev had over 10, and we are still feeling the odd bite, but now we know exactly what to do. They go for the tender parts of the skin. We will be much more careful with our washing in future, drying it properly, and not using it for 48 hours to make sure the eggs die first. The maggots are the size of a big rice grain, and every now and again they bite as if someone stuck a needle into you. Some of the wounds have what I call ‘putsy poo’ in them and are pussy. Apart from the extrusion process we proceeded to Kibuyu where 90% of the population was exterminated in 1994. Dave and Beryl went straight to Kigali and we went to the King’s palace by ourselves in*******************. The king who built it died in 1982, and his mother was one first killed in the 1994 genocide. The present king is in exile in America, but the palace is still there and is now a museum and art gallery. We asked the sweet guide, Dianna, if there was any camping in the area, and she came back with permission for us to camp in the garden of the palace, something that had never been done before. We spoke for a long time to the caretaker, Ronald, about the present state of Rwanda. We also visited a milk bottling factory there.
Thursday 7th June 2007 Father Patrick’s mission, Rwanda
No visa necessary to get into Rwanda, and we had to drive on the RIGHT side of the road. Immediately the difference in road condition was apparent, from bad muddy gravel in Uganda to tar in Rwanda.
We took a gravel ‘road less traveled’ through rural precipitous, conical shaped hills where the road had to wind its way along the contours of the 60 degree cultivated slopes. 43Km straight line, took us the whole afternoon as the roads wound round the hills. Sometimes we would be 20Km from our destination, and 5 minutes later we would be 21 Km from our destination. We kept crossing over culverts made of poles laid parallel with the road. When one gave way under the Landy, we were lucky that the vehicle didn’t fall into the culvert. I have never seen such a densely populated rural area. Every (and I mean every) square inch has been cultivated and there are people all over the place. It is difficult, if not impossible to find a private place to stop. They speak French and a local indigenous language Kiyarwanda. As we traveled slowly down the narrow road the people ran out of their houses and lined the road to look at us, an oddity in that part of the world. Expressions ranged from nervousness, fear, curiosity to amazement until I caught eye contact, smiled and waved. It was like switching a light on in their eyes and a special contact was made as they grinned broadly and waved back with both hands. These people touched my heart in a way far more profound than seeing the gorillas.
We eventually ran out of daylight and we saw a modern building (church or school) where we hoped we could camp. There in the middle of Rwanda were two white people. We couldn’t believe our eyes and we fervently hoped they could speak English instead of French or the local lingo. They were husband and wife, an elderly paediatrition and social worker from Germany who spend one month every year volunteering their expertise in Rwanda at Father Patrick’s mission. They work with the poorest of the poor who have nothing, often orphans from the three month genocide in 1994 when 1.5million Tutsis were tortured and slaughtered, before the RHS, the Tutsis in exile, intervened. We spent a very interesting evening talking to Father Patrick and the two Germans about Rwandans, their history and culture. The view from the clinic overlooked Lake Kivu with its hundreds if islands and precipitous slopes.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
gorillas
Wednesday 6th June 2007 Vurunga Hotel Camp
6.30am we left to do the whole thing again! This is the second time we are going to the DRC! Going on the road bumpy bumpy, windy windy, to the base of the jungle-covered volcano. Instead of, like yesterday, no guards, today there were 13 waiting for us. Off we set with two guides and two armed guards with rifles and machetes to ward off the elephant and buffalo which sometimes appear. After walking through the jungle for about 3Km, 1.5hours, there they were. A huge, alpha male gorilla, the ‘silverback’ and five females, four babies and two youngsters, a troop of twelve in all foraging on the leaves of vines on the ground. We got within half a meter of the babies and two meters of the adults. Their gentle eyes and manner belies their strength, and the guides were very wary, grunting and cutting the branches to warn them we were changing position. The babies swung around playfully with each other in the trees while the adults looked at us slowly straight in the eye then carried on eating. The huge, massive silverback would not look at us at all and carried on slowly stripping the leaves from the vines and slowly munching them. We stayed a very short hour and then trekked back down through the damp, (muddy in places) rain forest. The rain forest experience itself would have been worth it, without the gorilla encounter. The once in a lifetime remote touching of souls was moving beyond the telling.
Tuesday 5th June 2007 Vurungu Hotel Camp
We thought we had arranged for five of us to go tracking gorillas in the DRC, but on arrival at the camp Thomas wouldn’t accept our ‘old’ 1999 dollars. (We have been having this trouble in most parts of east Africa) After canceling and making arrangements to go in the Uganda side of the Virunga mountains (Ruwanda, Uganda and DRC Volcano Parks back onto each other), he suddenly changed his mind and ‘Hakuna Matata’, now accepted them. So we decided to stick with our friends and went with Thomas as he said he had a ‘professional operation’.
This morning at 6.30 we left in a sedan to go to the border. I had to sit on Nev’s lap in the front seat with the other three in the back. Sometimes he takes seven people in a car the size of Tori’s!! After a terrible road, scraping the sump and chassis on the rocks in the road we arrived in 30minutes. We went through the border with no problem, some stranger welcomed us into the DRC with a warm handshake and “welcome to DRC”, and were taken to the office of Daniel, the Wildlife Officer in charge. Here we were subjected to a long lecture about how gorillas were wild animals and we were not to go nearer than 7m to them, cough and sneeze away so as not to spread infection, and if they were to charge us, to crouch down and look away. Also we were to be patient as this was not a tour like that in Serengeti where one is taken directly to the lion, Africa time is “flexible”, and we were not to talk like the Americans who want to see the gorillas at exactly 10am, as they had a plane to catch. He then proceeded to write out the permits, but didn’t have a pen and had to borrow Ingrid’s. He wanted to make a phone call and had to send out for more air-time. He then wanted to dial the number, but couldn’t see because his arm was too short and didn’t have any glasses, so had to ask one of us to do it. Man, it tough getting old.
We were then loaded into a very decrepit, no shocks or springs Landcruiser, and were warned that the roads were much worse in the DRC. We were told, Hakuna Matata, its just a short ride to the jungle. We arrived at our destination an hour and a half later, and they were right about the roads. We parked on a slope as the car couldn’t start without a run. Another spectacular drive, scenic wise, similar the Ugandan steep slopes, but here all the hills are terraced and planted mostly with runner beans climbing up poles, and the other crops. It looked more fertile than Uganda and in the road cuttings we could see the layers of volcanic ash as it had settled after pouring out of the eight free standing volcanoes, two of which are still active but dormant at present, last eruption as recently as 2002. There are lots of fizzy rocks from the lava around.
When we reached the park we found the guide had turned up missing!!! Our driver who couldn’t speak English only French, left us with the two armed guards, and sprinted off into the jungle. After an hour and a half he returned, and communicated in broken English, Swahili and French that the guide could have gone in any direction, and we had better come back tomorrow. We of course were furious, but this is Africa, and instead of Hakuna matata (No problem) we heard a lot of Matatas, which we had never heard before. We got back to the border (it seemed twice as long because we were disappointed) and while waiting in Daniel’s office for him to sort out the matata, my troubles started. First a chap stormed into the office and started swearing at us, and only after someone had removed him did they tell us he was mad. We then went down to customs, and while we were waiting, a second man sat right in front of me on the floor and started eating dried fish. He suddenly stood up and aimed his clenched fists at me, I got the fright of my life, and after he was removed by the locals, I couldn’t help but burst into tears. They told us he was also mad, and there many like him because of the war, but are now very happy with Kabila as the new president. To cut a long story a bit shorter, we have to do this again tomorrow, when we hope to see the gorillas.
The DRC people seem to be poorer and dirtier than those in Uganda, who have better housing and seem more industrious, from the impression we got.
The bicycle has not evolved here, they are using hand-made wooden scooters to transport their goods to market. The wheels are made of wood with a strip of tyre around the outside.and a hole drilled through the middle with a pipe for an axle. Just in front of the back wheel a piece of tyre sticks up which the driver pushes down on the wheel with his heel as a brake. They travel downhill at death-defying speeds very similar to the “Flintstones”. Two people usually handle a loaded ‘vehicle’, one steers and one pushing from behind. Except downhill, when they both jump on together with the load. We have seen them loaded with 200Kg. The front even has a suspension made out of tyre strips. Man, its tough in Africa.
These countries are so backwards but their telephone system is as good, if not better than ours, although there are virtually no telephone lines, cell phone coverage is excellent and cheap. 10 minutes on the Internet cost R2.50.
Monday 4th June 2007 Vurungu Hotel Camp
We proceeded to Kisoro south west Uganda along one of the prettiest and most interesting drives yet. It was like the Valley of a Thousand hills X10. All the natural forest jungle has been removed and the Ugandans cultivate from the top of the hills to the bottom of the valleys – every square inch, up and down hills so steep no mechanical devices can be used, only hoes. It is unbelievable that people have to climb up such high steep mountains, do a day’s work and cart their produce down on their heads. We would be exhausted just getting to the top of the mountain. And this went on for 150Km. They then have to caryy their produce by head or bicycle to the markets. Although it is 2500m above sea level, they grow bananas, pawpaws, madumbes, maize, sorghum, wheat, rice, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, avocados, pineapples, sugarcane (stems thicker than Nev’s wrist) and wattle, gum and pine trees. It is still very fertile, but continual cropping is taking its toll and in certain areas there is evidence of lack of fertility. The government is promoting timber production in the areas of lower fertility. There are thousands of people and only the proclaimed areas are natural, which is minimal.
Sunday 3rd June 2007 QENP Ishasha Camp- ant camp
We went for a game drive along a long-disused track and found an open plain with a variety of animals, but not in large quantities. We came across a hippo carcass with vultures still pulling at the meat. On further investigation Nev discovered it had been poached. The animals are fairly plentiful but only a few types eg Kob , Waterbuk, Topi (similar to Hartebeest), Buffalo, Elephant, Hippo, Babboon, Monkey and birds of course.
Saturday 2nd June 2007 QENP Ishasha camp- ant camp
Nev woke up ecstatic with hippos and his favourite animal, spotted hyena having shouted all night long. We made our way slowly down to Ishasha camp, still in QENP. The road was rather bad in places, potholes and mud, exacerbated by the graders churning up the mud and making the conditions temporarily worse. We made it in the end, having called in at fishing village on the edge of the Lake Edward. Lots of the mottled, hairy/bald, ugly yet graceful Maribu storks were the official rubbish collectors, and since the people were too poor to buy anything disposable, the Maribus feasted on all the rubbish, which was biodegradable anyway. The smell of fish was overpowering. They fish, dry the fish, bag them and transport them out for sale. A lot goes to the DRC. We then proceeded to Ishasha camp. We set up camp and were attacked by large, big, ants that got into Nev’s pants and BIT HIM hehehe. He jumped around in pain and eventually managed to remove them. We moved our Landy three times trying to get away from them, but it didn’t help. Only Dave and Beryl weren’t worried by them. The soldier variety would bite into our shoe/skin and hold on tightly, as if their pincers were trapped, and drew blood when pulled off. Some were still holding onto our shoes the next morning!! Safari ants. The Hardmans used antkiller and Ingrid still got them in her pants. The sounds of lion, hippo, hyena, baboon and red-tailed monkey were around all night.
Monday, June 4, 2007
QENP
Firday 1st June 2007 QENP Campsite No 2
Early morning coffee, and the Ruwenzoris tower to the north, the sun is climbing in the east, to the south the channel connecting Lake George with Lake Edward, two of the Rift Valley Lakes harbours grunting hippo and in the west the full moon is sinking over the bushveld, alive with the calls of birds. Man, its tough in Africa!!
Spent the day exploring having established that Nev’s head would just get in the way if her were to try to help to fix the Landy, and drove to various crater lakes, one of which was being used as a rice field, the other was surrounded by basking buffalo. The game was sparse and the park looks hopelessly undergrazed. These parks were poached out during the Amin era and are now slowly recovering.
Round the fire in the evening I posed an interesting question to each one in turn: “how long could you carry on living like this?”
Willy: could carry on for a while, but not indefinitely.
Ingrid: missed her Mom, her home, her dogs and her kids (in that order) and could quite easily go home now.
Brian: forever, but would like to slow down the pace.
Maureen: indefinitely, but the pace is too fast, not enough time to ‘smell the roses’.
Beryl: Only till the end of this journey as she misses her kids and is doing this really only for Dave.
Dave: Already bored with seeing new things every day, but will finish the trip and go straight home. (We all laughed at this, but he was dead serious!!!)
Nev and I feel the same: At this stage could carry on indefinitely although we do miss our family.
Interesting and very revealing answers indicating slight underlying tensions.
Thursday 31st May 2007 Queen Elizabeth National Park Mweya Camp
We woke to rain. What looked like a set-in 3-day continual downpour, and I was all prepared to snuggle in the tent until the sun shone again. However, we have a lot of Africa to see, and luckily the rain let up for just enough time for us to pack up. In the west the highest mountain range, and the highest peak of the range, Mt Stanley at 5109m revealed its snow/ice/glacier as the mist cleared for a few minutes. We are virtually on the equator, and to see frozen water and feel chilly temperatures here is amazing. The locals have resorted to subsistence farming and we chatted to one young man who was planting tomato seedlings using a sharpened stick as a trowel. He said he was an engineer (I think he was a wannabe engineer) but couldn’t get work and had to come home to farm. He was saving up to get married, and grew tomatoes, matoke, bananas and cassava to sustain himself and to sell. The total size of his property was 30mX40m , and he leased another property of about the same size on the steep fertile slopes of the mountain, and he, his brother and his brother’s family manage to live off those small pieces of land. The cultivated land up the mountain is steeper than those we have seen cultivated in Losotho. At the bottom of the mountains is a huge flat area which they don’t cultivate because it is less fertile, and they just use it for grazing. The road from Fort Portal to here is first class,(donated funds), but one cannot go very fast as every couple of Km there are ‘sleeping policemen’, a series of five severe speed bumps negotiable at only 5Km/hr.
The rain poured down again and a man rode his bike with a banana leaf as protection over his head. Hardly anyone was around, and even the goats were hiding from the rain under the overhangs of the shop roofs.
At Kasese Willy managed to order a new gasket for his Landy, and we are hoping the head isn’t cracked too. We limped south to QENP with Willy adding water to the radiator every 10Km or so. The rain stopped and the game viewing was fun.
Mweya campsite had ‘habituated’ waterbuck, warthog and maribu storks. One of which nearly managed to feast on Dave and Beryl’s fillet steak which was defrosting on their bonnet. Dave ran to rescue his supper and the maribu slowly stalked off in its slow haughty stride, eyeing the lost meal. As the warthog approached a nervous Maureen, Brian came to the rescue, but the warthog didn’t give way and Brian shoo-ed it, while bravely retreating.
Our drive revealed a pack of lions, three of which were reclining in the branches of an old euphorbia tree – a prickly cactus, whose thorns didn’t deter them at all. Nor did they deter a vervet monkey nearby who sat on the very top of a euphorbia surveying the area. A herd of the small elephants of the area brushed past the Landy as I snapped away, until a tsetse fly bit my foot whereupon I gave a yell which gave Nev and the elephants a fright. These elephants, ‘forest elephants’ are far smaller, darker and hairier than ours at home.
The Landcruiser’s suspension is causing a lot of trouble and its radiator has been leaking causing over heating.
Wednesday 30th May 2007 Ruwenzori Mountain camp
South again parallel to the growing Ruwenzoris, the famed “Mountains of the Moon”, completely covered in clouds. Will’s Landy has pooped a gasket and keeps getting hot, so we are limping along, waiting for the Landy to cool, refilling it with water, and limping on again. The mountains are clearing in front of me as I type, and are highly reminiscent of the Berg around Cathkin Peak. Three tiny kids are standing next to fence chanting the three English words they know over and over: ”How are you” . The men are drinking beer (except Nev who is drinking Fanta) chatting, and fixing Will’s two punctures. Maureen is resting, Ingrid is typing her journal and Beryl is reading while waving her fly swatter. All three other girls have had their hair shaved to a No6 or shorter. I feel mine is short enough as it is. It is quite peaceful here I this camp of soft soil. Nev has done the washing (he is so good about doing the laundry, and helping in general – got him trained? hehehe!!) I hope our Landy hasn’t sunk to it’s chassis in the morning.
Tuesday 29th May 2007 Kanyanchu Camp Kibale Forest
South again to the Kibale Forest where we booked to track some habituated chimps. We left at 2pm in small groups so as not to scare the chimps and walked for about an hour through tropical rain forest (it didn’t rain). The guides were in radio contact so when one of them found the chimps, they would all converge. Suddenly we heard the pant-hoot of the chimps, one started, and the others joined in until they were all calling in a loud goose-bump evoking crescendo. Then they were easy to find, but we were not allowed to get closer than 8m from them. A troop of about 25. Some were lounging on the ground grooming each other, others up trees eating. A female with a swollen vulva (on heat) approached and copulated with a male – it took about three seconds. They stay on heat for 4 weeks, copulating with most of the males, but during the 4th week, only with the alpha and his second. 15% of their diet (apart from leaves, bark and fuit) is meat. They catch and eat monkeys or antelope by working together and driving them into an ambush. They hold a sapling down, drive the monkey towards the sapling and when the monkey leaps from a tall tree to the sapling, they release the sapling which springs up and the monkey falls to the ground where the chimps are waiting for it. They eat in the trees, but travel on the ground. Females can change troops safely only if her baby is female. A male baby will be killed by the new troop. Fascinating.
We had a braai tonight in the light of a nearly full moon.
Monday 28th May 2007 Ambereere Camp
Today was spent skoffling again. I had to rearrange the Landy and put disused reference books somewhere out of the way, so that things I use every day are more accessible. Also catching up on the washing, and generally resting. Dave’s car alarm woke us (again) before break of day and he got teased mercifully about it. Dave and Beryl made some bread which they were so proud of, they even took a photo. I took a photo of them taking a photo of their bread!! We were afforded a taste, and it was very good.
In Fort Portal we came across a “milk factory” where the locals brought cans, plastic containers or whatever with the morning’s milk. It is sieved through a kitchen strainer (to remove the very few lumps of dirt),into a bucket. It is then tested for added water using a floating instrument and poured into a cooling tank. When cold it is decanted into 1litre plastic bags and sold for Ush500 (R2.30). the farmer gets Ush350 (R1.60 – delivered to the factory). The factory is a one-roomed shop with a1000l bulk tank, table and bucket right next to all the other little shops. The subsistence dairy farmers only milk the cows in the mornings so they do not need cooling facilities because the milk is delivered fresh straight to the factory. The calves run with the cows during the daytime, and shut away at night, and the cows are milked in the morning. The commercial fresh milk is sold in the shops for about R5/l and long-life milk for R10/l.
A tea ‘pluckers’ (not picker) told us he gets paid Ush5 per Kg (2.5c/Kg) for the tea they pick. Then told me, the ubiquitous “we are suffering” story which I don’t buy, but might get to some stinky rich foreign whites.
I bought and cooked some matoke and introduced the carbohydrate to everyone else, who said they taste just like potatoes. Now everyone is eating them hehehe.
Sunday 27th May 2007 Ambereere Camp
We traveled south to Fort Portal to the limestone caves and waterfall. The campsite was charming, pretty with flower gardens, lovely grassy campsite, and the water emanating from high in the north Ruwenzoris, so crystal clear, it was blue. It belonged to an ecologically aware 86-year old Ugandan farmer, whose young teenage grandson was our guide. The caves and waterfall was part of his farm, and the “schpeel” from our guide included the geographical features, as well as the so-called historical (actually mythical) details. The cave was actually a small overhang with a sheet of icy water cascading into a clear pool surrounded by lush, green indigenous foliage. After a short damp slippery walk through the forest, the limestone caves were presented to us. Actually, a small overhang with tiny stalactites dripping onto little stalagmites and thereafter into a beautiful clear pond. Mmmmmmmmmm seen better, but this was charming.
We were then taken on a welcomely breathless (after two months without formal exercise) short, steep hike up an extinct crater to view the lakes in the craters and Fort Portal in the distance.
On our way down I quizzed the guide as to the diet of the local Ugandans. Their staple is the matoke. A green banana, peeled, boiled and served in a “soup” (Gravy or sauce I suppose) which tastes similar to a madumbe. Also cassava, sweet potatoes, maize meal, ‘Irish’ potatoes served with various sauces, local fruit in season, and wild spinach. They do not make maas with milk, but boil all the milk and have it with their porridge and tea. Poso is like Zim sudsa which they use like bread, hot or cold with a gravy.
I worked out why they would possibly want to eat horrible green bananas when they could be eating lovely sweet yellow ones. The only scientific reason could be that matoke is very low GI, so it sticks to your ribs and your insulin levels don’t jump around.
Early morning coffee, and the Ruwenzoris tower to the north, the sun is climbing in the east, to the south the channel connecting Lake George with Lake Edward, two of the Rift Valley Lakes harbours grunting hippo and in the west the full moon is sinking over the bushveld, alive with the calls of birds. Man, its tough in Africa!!
Spent the day exploring having established that Nev’s head would just get in the way if her were to try to help to fix the Landy, and drove to various crater lakes, one of which was being used as a rice field, the other was surrounded by basking buffalo. The game was sparse and the park looks hopelessly undergrazed. These parks were poached out during the Amin era and are now slowly recovering.
Round the fire in the evening I posed an interesting question to each one in turn: “how long could you carry on living like this?”
Willy: could carry on for a while, but not indefinitely.
Ingrid: missed her Mom, her home, her dogs and her kids (in that order) and could quite easily go home now.
Brian: forever, but would like to slow down the pace.
Maureen: indefinitely, but the pace is too fast, not enough time to ‘smell the roses’.
Beryl: Only till the end of this journey as she misses her kids and is doing this really only for Dave.
Dave: Already bored with seeing new things every day, but will finish the trip and go straight home. (We all laughed at this, but he was dead serious!!!)
Nev and I feel the same: At this stage could carry on indefinitely although we do miss our family.
Interesting and very revealing answers indicating slight underlying tensions.
Thursday 31st May 2007 Queen Elizabeth National Park Mweya Camp
We woke to rain. What looked like a set-in 3-day continual downpour, and I was all prepared to snuggle in the tent until the sun shone again. However, we have a lot of Africa to see, and luckily the rain let up for just enough time for us to pack up. In the west the highest mountain range, and the highest peak of the range, Mt Stanley at 5109m revealed its snow/ice/glacier as the mist cleared for a few minutes. We are virtually on the equator, and to see frozen water and feel chilly temperatures here is amazing. The locals have resorted to subsistence farming and we chatted to one young man who was planting tomato seedlings using a sharpened stick as a trowel. He said he was an engineer (I think he was a wannabe engineer) but couldn’t get work and had to come home to farm. He was saving up to get married, and grew tomatoes, matoke, bananas and cassava to sustain himself and to sell. The total size of his property was 30mX40m , and he leased another property of about the same size on the steep fertile slopes of the mountain, and he, his brother and his brother’s family manage to live off those small pieces of land. The cultivated land up the mountain is steeper than those we have seen cultivated in Losotho. At the bottom of the mountains is a huge flat area which they don’t cultivate because it is less fertile, and they just use it for grazing. The road from Fort Portal to here is first class,(donated funds), but one cannot go very fast as every couple of Km there are ‘sleeping policemen’, a series of five severe speed bumps negotiable at only 5Km/hr.
The rain poured down again and a man rode his bike with a banana leaf as protection over his head. Hardly anyone was around, and even the goats were hiding from the rain under the overhangs of the shop roofs.
At Kasese Willy managed to order a new gasket for his Landy, and we are hoping the head isn’t cracked too. We limped south to QENP with Willy adding water to the radiator every 10Km or so. The rain stopped and the game viewing was fun.
Mweya campsite had ‘habituated’ waterbuck, warthog and maribu storks. One of which nearly managed to feast on Dave and Beryl’s fillet steak which was defrosting on their bonnet. Dave ran to rescue his supper and the maribu slowly stalked off in its slow haughty stride, eyeing the lost meal. As the warthog approached a nervous Maureen, Brian came to the rescue, but the warthog didn’t give way and Brian shoo-ed it, while bravely retreating.
Our drive revealed a pack of lions, three of which were reclining in the branches of an old euphorbia tree – a prickly cactus, whose thorns didn’t deter them at all. Nor did they deter a vervet monkey nearby who sat on the very top of a euphorbia surveying the area. A herd of the small elephants of the area brushed past the Landy as I snapped away, until a tsetse fly bit my foot whereupon I gave a yell which gave Nev and the elephants a fright. These elephants, ‘forest elephants’ are far smaller, darker and hairier than ours at home.
The Landcruiser’s suspension is causing a lot of trouble and its radiator has been leaking causing over heating.
Wednesday 30th May 2007 Ruwenzori Mountain camp
South again parallel to the growing Ruwenzoris, the famed “Mountains of the Moon”, completely covered in clouds. Will’s Landy has pooped a gasket and keeps getting hot, so we are limping along, waiting for the Landy to cool, refilling it with water, and limping on again. The mountains are clearing in front of me as I type, and are highly reminiscent of the Berg around Cathkin Peak. Three tiny kids are standing next to fence chanting the three English words they know over and over: ”How are you” . The men are drinking beer (except Nev who is drinking Fanta) chatting, and fixing Will’s two punctures. Maureen is resting, Ingrid is typing her journal and Beryl is reading while waving her fly swatter. All three other girls have had their hair shaved to a No6 or shorter. I feel mine is short enough as it is. It is quite peaceful here I this camp of soft soil. Nev has done the washing (he is so good about doing the laundry, and helping in general – got him trained? hehehe!!) I hope our Landy hasn’t sunk to it’s chassis in the morning.
Tuesday 29th May 2007 Kanyanchu Camp Kibale Forest
South again to the Kibale Forest where we booked to track some habituated chimps. We left at 2pm in small groups so as not to scare the chimps and walked for about an hour through tropical rain forest (it didn’t rain). The guides were in radio contact so when one of them found the chimps, they would all converge. Suddenly we heard the pant-hoot of the chimps, one started, and the others joined in until they were all calling in a loud goose-bump evoking crescendo. Then they were easy to find, but we were not allowed to get closer than 8m from them. A troop of about 25. Some were lounging on the ground grooming each other, others up trees eating. A female with a swollen vulva (on heat) approached and copulated with a male – it took about three seconds. They stay on heat for 4 weeks, copulating with most of the males, but during the 4th week, only with the alpha and his second. 15% of their diet (apart from leaves, bark and fuit) is meat. They catch and eat monkeys or antelope by working together and driving them into an ambush. They hold a sapling down, drive the monkey towards the sapling and when the monkey leaps from a tall tree to the sapling, they release the sapling which springs up and the monkey falls to the ground where the chimps are waiting for it. They eat in the trees, but travel on the ground. Females can change troops safely only if her baby is female. A male baby will be killed by the new troop. Fascinating.
We had a braai tonight in the light of a nearly full moon.
Monday 28th May 2007 Ambereere Camp
Today was spent skoffling again. I had to rearrange the Landy and put disused reference books somewhere out of the way, so that things I use every day are more accessible. Also catching up on the washing, and generally resting. Dave’s car alarm woke us (again) before break of day and he got teased mercifully about it. Dave and Beryl made some bread which they were so proud of, they even took a photo. I took a photo of them taking a photo of their bread!! We were afforded a taste, and it was very good.
In Fort Portal we came across a “milk factory” where the locals brought cans, plastic containers or whatever with the morning’s milk. It is sieved through a kitchen strainer (to remove the very few lumps of dirt),into a bucket. It is then tested for added water using a floating instrument and poured into a cooling tank. When cold it is decanted into 1litre plastic bags and sold for Ush500 (R2.30). the farmer gets Ush350 (R1.60 – delivered to the factory). The factory is a one-roomed shop with a1000l bulk tank, table and bucket right next to all the other little shops. The subsistence dairy farmers only milk the cows in the mornings so they do not need cooling facilities because the milk is delivered fresh straight to the factory. The calves run with the cows during the daytime, and shut away at night, and the cows are milked in the morning. The commercial fresh milk is sold in the shops for about R5/l and long-life milk for R10/l.
A tea ‘pluckers’ (not picker) told us he gets paid Ush5 per Kg (2.5c/Kg) for the tea they pick. Then told me, the ubiquitous “we are suffering” story which I don’t buy, but might get to some stinky rich foreign whites.
I bought and cooked some matoke and introduced the carbohydrate to everyone else, who said they taste just like potatoes. Now everyone is eating them hehehe.
Sunday 27th May 2007 Ambereere Camp
We traveled south to Fort Portal to the limestone caves and waterfall. The campsite was charming, pretty with flower gardens, lovely grassy campsite, and the water emanating from high in the north Ruwenzoris, so crystal clear, it was blue. It belonged to an ecologically aware 86-year old Ugandan farmer, whose young teenage grandson was our guide. The caves and waterfall was part of his farm, and the “schpeel” from our guide included the geographical features, as well as the so-called historical (actually mythical) details. The cave was actually a small overhang with a sheet of icy water cascading into a clear pool surrounded by lush, green indigenous foliage. After a short damp slippery walk through the forest, the limestone caves were presented to us. Actually, a small overhang with tiny stalactites dripping onto little stalagmites and thereafter into a beautiful clear pond. Mmmmmmmmmm seen better, but this was charming.
We were then taken on a welcomely breathless (after two months without formal exercise) short, steep hike up an extinct crater to view the lakes in the craters and Fort Portal in the distance.
On our way down I quizzed the guide as to the diet of the local Ugandans. Their staple is the matoke. A green banana, peeled, boiled and served in a “soup” (Gravy or sauce I suppose) which tastes similar to a madumbe. Also cassava, sweet potatoes, maize meal, ‘Irish’ potatoes served with various sauces, local fruit in season, and wild spinach. They do not make maas with milk, but boil all the milk and have it with their porridge and tea. Poso is like Zim sudsa which they use like bread, hot or cold with a gravy.
I worked out why they would possibly want to eat horrible green bananas when they could be eating lovely sweet yellow ones. The only scientific reason could be that matoke is very low GI, so it sticks to your ribs and your insulin levels don’t jump around.
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