Travels in Africa #4 - Kenya Part 2

Morning rang around 7am and we slowly motivated to packing our things and getting on the bikes again. We'd debated how we were going to get to a crater lake which sits inside one of the small cones of a mountain on Lake Naivasha. We skipped the matatu to walk option in favor of returning to Fisherman's camp for breakfast on bike and continuing on to the lake. We stopped at the bike "shop" just outside of YMCA camp to add air to my rear tire. The helpful owner lent me a small pump I could take with me and a patch kit. I was hopeful I wouldn't need them.

We biked down to Fisherman's camp once again. We stopped for breakfast and coffee, both of which took quite a long time to be served. When we were finally ready to make our way I realized that my front tire was completely flat. A bit of investigation proved that the valve needed a readjustment. Then, not five minutes later, my rear wheel began wobbling. The hub had shifted slightly on the axle, exposing the bearings. It was beginning to seem as if going to crater lake wasn't meant to be.

We biked back to the shop and showed the owner. By then it was 10am and neither of us had the energy to try to complete the 30km round trip in two or three hours. We politely returned the bikes and explained that we wouldn't be paying for them. Amusingly, the owner still wanted us to make a partial payment.

Peter at the YMCA camp was surprised to see us back so soon. Based on our speed the previous day I think he thought we may have made it to the crater and back in the hour and a half we were gone. With a bit of time on our hands before we really wanted to leave, we set out to catch a view of the lake from behind the YMCA property. The Y doesn't actually sit on the lake, so Peter explained the general route we would take, which involved jumping a couple of fences.

Once we hopped the first fence we started walking down a dirt road which appeared to split the developed side of things and the marshy grasslands leading to the lake. On either side of the YMCA property on the developed side were large greenhouses and fields of flowers butting up against them. Just then a car driving on the dirt road stopped next to us. The gentleman driving was white with a clean, short haircut and designer glasses. A tad snootily, he asked us if we were staying at Crayfish Camp, a camp similar to Fisherman's camp but closer to the YMCA. We told him we were at the Y and were in search if the lake. In a recognizably Dutch accent he said "this is private property, but you may pass.".

We never were able to find the actual waterfront, though we did stomp through a good deal of marsh land. We caught a glimpse of it at one point, though we'd hoped to make it lake side.

We packed up our things from the Y and said our goodbyes. Like most helpful and caring people in Africa, Peter was very genuine in hoping that we'd be safe and that we may return again one day.

We easily caught a matatu back to Navaisha town, and after a bit of confusion about where we could catch a matatu to Nairobi we purchased tickets and waited with the countless other post holiday travelers trying to make it back to the capital. We arrived around 4pm, dropped our bags at the trian station and then walked 25 minutes across town to the Nairobi Java House. We splurged on veggie burgers and a couple cups of coffee needing them to tide us over until the morning. That is whem the night train would dump us in Mombasa.

Rain began falling heavily shortly before the train arrived for boarding. We'd paid for second class, but declined bedding (sheets, pillow, etc) and dinner in the dining car. This cut our fare by 60%, but still entitled us to two beds in a four bed compartment. By the time the train started moving our travel companions still weren't present. Now each of us had a choice of whether we'd like a bottom or a top bunk.

Still not feeling perfect I spent much of the beginning of the ride lying down. The rain had subsided enough where people could hang out in the hallways, peering out the windows. Night had already fallen, but Robert kept reporting anything interesting he saw.

Before too long turned in for the night, hoping to awake well rested in Mombasa. Little did I know what the next 40+ hours would have in store.

I had strange dreams on the train, all in regards to sleeping. I know we stopped quite a few times during the night, but at 4:45am I remember us coming to a dead stop. I thought little of it and returned to sleep. At 6:30am I was up for the morning, yet we still hadn't moved. I presumed that we must have stopped just a few hours shy of Mombasa and would begin moving shortly, arriving near our scheduled 830am arrival.

Within an hour many others on the train were awake, too, though we still hadn't begun moving. By 830am people, especially those in 3rd class, who weren't provided with the luxury of their own cabins nor beds to lie on, had piled out of the train. Soon enough, those from first and second class, especially those eager for a nicotine fix, had followed suit.

We were stopped beside a very small station whose small track exchange meant that there was one track parallel to the one we were stopped on. The small sign for the station indicated we were still 999m above sea level. Using a rough conversion to nearly 3000 feet, we could only guess that we weren't more than half way from the mile high capital to the seaside city of Mombasa. The intermittent cloud cover kept the train relatively cool and the rocky hillside afforded a beautiful backdrop.

Rumors began circulating on what was going on, when we'd begin moving, and how far we were from Mombasa. One of the amazing things about Africa is the multitide of answers you may receive if you ask enough people. Often, even if the answer is unknown, they will tell you something anyways. Or, they'll just respond with an "mmmmm.". That's been my favorite. I may employ that when I return to the US. "Mike, when are you going to get that project finished?". "Mmmm". It's pretty damn funny.

Deciding to seek answers for ourselves, and alleviate some of the boredom of sitting, we ventured out on the parallel track and made our way toward the conductor. It turns out that the track 2km ahead was flooded and they were waiting for the waters to recede. Though the sun peered more intensely through the clouds with each passing moment, we had our doubts that we'd be moving anytime soon. At the same time, having had relatively good luck with everything related to travel in Africa thus far, I was sure that they had a grasp on it.

As we walked back towards our car we passed a group of smokers standing directly across from the small station we were stopped in front of. There was an older sedan sitting in the one mud filled parking space. One of the women in the group was attempting to negotiate something in the way of transport. An African passenger muttered something about how the group just needed to relax; things would work themselves out. Just then, another, twenty-something woman from the group said "we're English, we don't know how to relax."

Having exhausted the information source at the front we headed towards the back of the train, armed with noon hour beers. Robert hopped onto the caboose platform to peer in. He was greeted by a railroad employee resting in the back, shirt unbuttoned to provide relief from the heat. Like everyone else, he had a different answer to what was going on.

We retreated back to our car and began playing cribbage. The cabin full of a Swedish family next door to us was beginning to make arrangements to have a car come get them. People were getting frustrated. We settled into our second beer each and decided we'd ride it out. Within an hour, one of the African men who kept issuing reports to us informed us an engine was coming to pull us backward. It turns out there was a lot of controversy over this decision, and it took 10+ hours for someone to make it.

Soon enough a railway employee was walking the parallel track, green flag in hand, indicating everyone should reboard. Another 30 minutes expired before the engine arrived and was attached to the caboose. It was only moments following that we were on our way. We traveled about 10km before we reached a station only slightly larger than the one we'd just been stopped in front of. Nevertheless, the necessary room to disembark was there for everyone. We quickly gathered our things and felt a bit of remorse for those people traveling with families or large pieces of luggage. Much of first and second class was filled with westerners or middle class Africans heading to the coast for some sort of vacation/holiday. Alternately, third class was filled with the occasional westerner and then a multitude of Africans who use the train as a viable means of transport, goods included.

I briefly attempted to seek a refund from the train manager, but he informed me that would only happen in Nairobi or Mombasa. We hightailed it for the road running between the aforementioned cities which was about 1km away. An American couple was with us. The woman was kind enough to lend me her hat, fearing that the sunlight would negatively affect a patch of blistering skin which had appeared the right side of my nose. I was not convinced it was a sunburn to begin with, but took her up on the kind offer.

That couple and many others sought a matatu (mini-bus) towards Mombasa. We made an impromptu decision that we should for go our intended destination in favor of returning to Nairobi. Though it would be back tracking, something neither of us are fond of, we could catch a night bus there to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

It took us a bit to track down a matatu, but eventually a guy who looked like the gang leader of Ice Cube's rival gang in Boys in the Hood opened the side of one of the mini buses and fit us in. Closer to Nairobi than Mombasa, we'd hoped the journey would take a bit under 3 hours. It was 3pm when we got in. Four and a half painful hours later we were dropped in the heart of Nairobi's transport part of town. Sore from being crammed in a vehicle with absolutely nothing to soften the constant barrage of potholes and speed bumps, we walked briskly towards the long distance buses. After a few dead ends with other companies, we ended up on a Spider Bus company Dar es Salaam bound bus with an 8pm departure.

Starved, I had a guy lead me to a small restaurant serving beans. Rice and veggies while Robert kept our seats and an eye on our valuable bags. Soon enough I was on my way, with each separate portion of the meal tied in its own plastic bus. Knowing there was no cutlery available, each of us combined the contents of our separate bags into our main plastic bag, bit a whole in the taught end and sucked out the meal. It was one hell of a meal!

The Spider bus which leaves at 8pm seemed to be a combination cargo and human carrier vehicle. We wanted to put our larger backpacks beneath the bus, but it was full of overstuffed cardboard boxes which had been reinforced by tying string around them multiple times. We were able to put our bags in the back row of seats, where many other boxes and bags were. In addition, there were bags and boxes in the entire aisle of the bus. It was treacherous to traverse the distance from our seats, halfway back, to the door each time we had to exit.

We departed on time and by 1030pm we were at the Tanzanian border. We filled out our Kenyan exit papers and walked across to the Tanzanian side. There we were hit with a hefty $50, 3 month visa fee. We found the bus across the parking lot parked in front of the customs office. We retrieved our respective bags and then had a seat on the cold tile floor near the bus. It appeared as if customs was inspecting the contents of the boxes beneath the bus. However, it was quite confusing, because no one bore any insignia nor did anyone wear a uniform. We noticed a guy in a vertically striped soccer jersey, oddly resembling that of a referee's. He was one of the inspectors. We kidded that was how he must have gotten the job. He had the closest thing to a uniform fit for the job. The other inspector was dressed like an old man just released from the hospital: wearing light blue pajama bottoms and a light tan trench coat.

After a bit of inquiry our worst fears about this trip were confirmed; the bus would wait at the border until 530am when the Tanzanian side would open and allow us to enter. A third guy working for the customs agency allowed me to charge our cell phones in the office. George was his name, he was in his mid-twenties, and he was dressed no better than his co-workers. He explained to me that unlike Kenya his country did not have police manned check points at night, and therefore night travel was dangerous and illegal. It was hard to tackle the idea of passing the night in the bus, the stganant hot air barely circulating out of the open windows. We opted to defer that inevitable fate by crossing the border on foot to the small canteen restaurant just on the other side.

We had a plate of stale fries and a cup of sweet tea. George came with us, presumably concerned for our safety and eager to talk to a couple of westerners his age. There were about 10 people sitting at the various, humble tables. Everyone's focus was on the 17-inch television in the corner. There was a program showing young African men and womenn, dressed in all white, walking through the woods.

It cut from that to a group of warriors dancing in the woods. Just as we began wondering if we were watching some sort of ritual, a computer generated head, similar to an old madball toy, flew into view on the screen. Instead of a cultural program that could've been created for National Geographic we were watching something suited for Saturday morning television. It was comical to us, taking everything we'd gone through in the last 30 hours in stride.

George inexplicably picked up the tab for my tea, but stayed in the bar while we retreated to the bus. A few hours later I found him asleep on a small wooden chair outside the office which held my phone. I tapped him lightly on the shoulder to wake him. His soft, kind eyes opened and he knew what I needed. Before I loaded my phone into my pocket George asked for my number, so we exchanged them. It was one another one of those great moments of travel. While everyone at home was out at Thursday night happy hour I'd made a brief connection with someone on the other side of the world. Neither of us will probably ever use numbers we exchanged, nor will we think back to this one night in December of 2006 often, but at that particular time in that particular place we shared a mutual respect and friendship.

By the time we began moving at 530am we'd created a cast of characters for our bus. After much confusion as to whom was in charge of bus operations, as no one here wore any sort of uniform either. Stripey and Claw-9, named for their respective shirts (Stripey had on a velvet polo shirt, which we later realized was a G-Unit shirt, and Claw 9 had on an "Akademics" t-shirt with his nickname printed on the back), made for a fantastic team.

As we traveled through the cloud covered Tanzanian landscape for the rest of the day these two were contantly up to something. Usually, we noticed, it was something sketchy. The bus always seemed to be stopping for one reason or another, and Stripey usually hopped off the bus while it was still moving to greet whomever was waiting for us. Though we were on a bus and not a matatu we surely were travling unconventionally.

To be continued in part 3......