taking the long way home. almost to the finish line.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

and after a prolonged period of a serious lack of motivation to write anything, i'm finally back again. i suppose i will start with christmastime and work from there. jen's dad and one of her sisters were in town for the holidays, giving hilary and her family a much needed break from us. jen's dad whisked us away for a couple of nights to the lap of luxury at the stanley hotel in nairobi. there, we finalized the arrangements for the dodgiest rental car deal ever and rested up for our only african safari. unfortunately, the night before we took off, jen fell seriously ill with food poisoning, or something like it. regardless, we dragged her out of bed the next morning for our meeting with rufus, the car guy. he was late and with him he brought the smallest 4wd he could find. it was a rav4 junior on which almost nothing worked, but desparate to get started, we took it and were on our way. the first day (christmas eve) we decided to get just as far as the gate to the safari park and camp. now, when i say camp i mean plow the rav4 over stumps and small bushes, through some fields not necessarily meant for cars, find a hidden spot, light a campfire and sleep next to it sans tent. all the while, we were not entirely without weapons. we had a police baton, (which i promptly broke trying to beat some firewood apart) a masai stick that really could kill someone, an unsharpened machete which couldnt even cut down a sapling let alone kill someone and some pepper spray. at any approuching sound jen would clutch her spray, i my stick and her dad would bang the machete on a rock. needless to say, we survived the night (though with less than a restful night's sleep) and when we woke up it was christmas, tinsel and all. jen's dad had had the foresight to bring some christmas joy with us into the bush and decorate our little corner of africa for the occasion. we celebrated over campfire coffee and some gifts, packed up camp and were on the way, the tinsel now decorating our festive rav4. still not ready to hit the safari trail, we cruised around offroading for most of the day before deciding to hit a stream and wash up before setting up camp. however, there was one man who seemed to think that he owned all of the bush. he somehow stalked us from campsite to campsite threatening us unconvincingly with a spear and telling us not to camp there. we blew him off, took a quick river wash up and were on our way to find a decent site before it got dark. we found a spot that looked to have been previously inhabited by some elephants (there were broken down trees and large piles of what could only have been elephant poo) and decided that at least we would be hidden from the crazy man who owned all of kenya. we made it till about 4 in the morning until we were awakened by what seemed like a more serious animal noise than we had previously heard. we shined our flashlights around us and all we could see was what seemed like fifty sets of blinking green eyes. we weren't sure what they were, but they certainly seemed aware of us. we tried to out-cool each other for a while by staying out by what had previously been our campfire. but then the hyenas started whooping. we laughed nervously a bit, but then they came closer. and that is when we (more casually than was most likely necessary) strolled to the car to finish of the night. the next day we took off, less than refreshed to finally have our safari. we saw giraffes, birds, water buffalo, zebras, elephants and lions. one of the elephants decided that our car was too high risk to have anywhere near her baby, trumpeted (like you hear in nature shows) and chased us. really literally chased us for at least a half a minute. i dont think that rav4s are really made to withstand an elephant trampling, and the outcome if we had been caught could have been disasterous. towards dusk, our safari adventure over, we rolled out of the park to what the man at the gate said was a "very bad road." but we gave it a try anyway. what the man probably should have said was "there is no discernable road at all. it is only a giant mud field that will confuse you and get you lost. doom and gloom ahead. abandon hope all ye who enter here." it probably would have been more accurate. we skidded around in the mud flats for a bit trying to find anything that looked like a road to a city but gave up when it started to get dark. we pulled into what was our spot for the night and all got out to get ready for sleep. and that is when we heard the popping and snapping of elephants ripping down trees. a big bull elephant lumbered up around the corner and headed for the car. we all piled in as fast as we could and took off, fishtailing madly in the mud. around the corner was the rest of the elephant herd, surrounded by their howling hyena friends. this was not a good campsite. so we drove a great distance more (maybe 500 meters) and called it good enough. we blamed the mud for not even attempting to sleep outside again. instead we all sat in the car and distracted ourselves from possible impending doom by telling travel stories. the next morning we woke to find our elephant friend still wandering around looking for trouble and a river to cross that would have been ok had our car not been a tinker toy. becky (jens sister) and i patiently, and i think somewhat helpfully, sat in the car and waited while (still sick) jennifer and her dad tried to pile rocks on the way to make it through. with a crash and a bang and mud flying everywhere we made it across, and we thought, on our merry way. we thought that because we saw about three safari tours stopped to watch us cross the river. what they were actually watching was a couple of lionesses with about 8 little cubs. nice. so there we were wandering around with a pride of lions and not one of them gave us a little heads up. perhaps they were hoping to see a kill. as we contemplated the coldness of our fellow safari travelers we noticed that the car smelled strangely of gasoline. yes. our broken car was now more broken. it wasn't enough that the back door flew open periodically or that the windows didnt reliably roll up... now we may be stranded with no gas in the middle of a place where the other people traveling in it seemed to want to see us eaten by lions. awesome.
so we patched the hole as best we could with soap and limped our stupid car through the bush towards what we hoped was civilization, throwing balloons out the window to the local kids as we passed. and as soon as we made it to the paved road, our newest problem finally killed the car. not only had the gas been leaking but the transmission fluid as well. and that was the end of our glorious safari. we took a public bus to nairobi, demanded our money back and sent jen's dad and sister on their way.
simmering in the background to this story was, of course, the subplot of the kenya elections which just so happened to be held on the day we were limping our car from here to there. jens family got out with no problems and jen and i started to plan our exodus from nairobi. but no. the country erupted instead. and while we saw very little aside from abandoned streets and riot police, we had no way to get out. all the roads out were closed and we were essentially on lockdown in the city center. we were stuck there for about ten days. the city was running out of food, and they wouldnt sell it to foreigners, i have no idea why. so jenny and i sat in our little yellow hotel room and stared at each other, contemplating just how crazy we might go if we were stuck there much longer. we spent new years eve like that. but our clock was wrong and we forgot about the new year, so when the fireworks and shouting started we thought that the trouble had finally reached our part of town. it hadn't. we were just so lame as to miss midnight. as soon as the roads opened again, we were off. we ran, alongside the kenyan refugees, straight into kampala, uganda. we didnt realize that we would get stuck there for a month as well. but this time we were paralyzed by the sheer volume of foreigners around us at the hostel. as a treat we decided to stay at "backpackers" (a backpacker's hostel, duh) instead of a local place where we were guaranteed to be oddities and alone in our foreignness. the strange thing about traveling is that any friends you make are likely to be a fairly intense and quick friendship. people you have known for weeks become best buddies that you are convinced will be friends for life. i am fairly sure that this is what happened in uganda. we did almost no travel to speak of because hanging out everyday on our couches seemed so much more appealing at the time. and it is there, at backpackers that our africa trip split into our own respective trips, jenny on hers, and i on mine. it wasnt a bad split, but sometimes when you have been staring at the same person for the last 2 years in various hotel rooms, you just want a little change up. and so last week i travelled to rwanda to catch a plane. rwanda was nice, if not bland, and the genocide museum was just as wrenching as you might expect. but i have very little to say about rwanda as i was only there for 4 nights. it was just my jumping off point to get out of africa.
and i am, out of africa, that is. and you might ask where exactly i went. well, i decided to give traveling on my own a try, and where else might a cheap single traveler go but to bangkok?! and here i am. it's crazy developed. a huge urban sprawl so far. and it was a fairly huge shock after so long in the developing world. i am fairly sure that the rest of thailand will prove less so though. so, my new plan is thailand, laos, cambodia and vietnam. and as for traveling alone, i dont know how it is going yet as i was adopted by two other solo travelers right off the airport bus. an italian boy and a chinese girl. we make a fairly odd trio. so, now i will say goodbye and i am off to take a water bus down the river to a night market. if we make it, it should be cool. i hope everyone had a good new years and valentines and whatnot.