An African Music Video

From Zanzibar to the Motor City

I left the island on a 3pm flight yesterday afternoon with an airline called Fly540. The plane sat maybe twenty people which meant no complimentary soda and no spirits for purchase. In fact, that meant no flight attendant or even an announcement as to where we were going. I felt a bit relieved to know that we were at least flying north. SB and I were under the impression that we would have a stop in Dar es Salaam and another in Arusha but an hour and a half later we landed in Nairobi without stops. We were very pleased.

After a quick stop at the market for a few last travel necessities like more tea to add to the 2,000 bags I already have, I was back at the airport to make the haul back to the States. It looks like I'm going to make it! I survived two eight hour flights with a sickling blowing her nose every four minutes, a woman that spilled diet coke all over me while I was sleeping, two obnoxious French gum chewers, an old man that played with his dentures, and another oldie that sucked the spit through his teeth like there was something caught in there. He only let up to take a nap.

When we landed in Brussels I went to use the restroom and stood marveling at the stall. I couldn't believe how clean it was. And the hand dryer was some Dyson dry-razor contraption that I used multiple times because it was fun. I even dried my toothbrush with it. But now I'm in scenic Newark watching the lemmings strolling in and out of Hudson News. I tried to buy a tea at Starbucks but I somehow had trouble. It went like this...

Emily: "Could I have one tea bag...in a medium cup...umm....with some water, too...yeah, that's what I want. Black tea."
Barista: "So you're saying you want a grande tea?"
Emily: "Oh, I guess if that's what you call it. Then yes."

Then I went to pour the milk and sugar in but decided on splenda. No, sugar. No, splenda. And what about the milk? I wonder where the cow is...I wonder how long ago that cow was milked...Oh dear, this is exhausting. I better pull it together. Quick. Next I'll go to Detroit for some good mid-western mullet mania, mustaches, and mustangs. Yeehaw. Plus I'll get some much needed family time. Goodbye East Africa. Hello Motor City.

Dolphins and Unicorns

You know you've been traveling a while when the conversation turns to Darrin no. 1 vs Darrin no. 2 from Bewitched. Of course it's Dick York! The three of us withstood the madness of Mombasa relatively unscathed. The downtown experience was less pleasant than I had expected with it's narrow streets creating a vortex of hot sweat and mostly men. Two of them apparently deemed us stalk-worthy and followed us through town until we ditched them inside the budget supermarket. I think that's the only thing we were safe from in there. Even the Weetabix seemed questionable. We stayed downtown only long enough to buy some overpriced trinkets and get the story on the hospitals in the area. There is one public hospital and three private, but mostly the better doctors gather 4 or 5 doctor buddies and start a clinic.

We woke on the third day in Mombasa excited for our flight to Zanzibar. Because the oh-so-friendly border patrol in Tanzania blessed us with a handwritten scribble of a $100 multiple entry visa on our last trip, we thought we should take advantage and head south again. We flew a small local African airline that brought us right onto the island. The Zanzibar airport is actually similar to a Yooper airport. (in other words, small) Only it's in Tanzania. They barely glanced at our passports and we were off. We took a ripoff of a taxi to Mnakwerkewe, or something like that, and waited for a bus. We quickly became impatient around yet again more sweaty men and hopped in another taxi that took us to heaven. I mean...our hotel.

Karamba is on the southern tip of the island where supposedly dolphins are a thing. Remember that, dolphins. Our room is a bungalow type structure with a grass roof and a brilliant view of the ocean. The romance abounds but SB and I usually throw the flower petals on the floor and laugh. I feel a bit spoiled having come from parts of Kenya where my dessert would buy a hospital visit but the decompression is much needed. The silence was actually startling.

I would say we lasted about sixteen minutes before making lifelong friends with a British newlywed couple down the way that suggested a dip in the ocean with some dolphins. Yes. My only frame of reference is still Flipper and posters of Sea World, but yes. We will swim with dolphins. And 6am? Perfect. Dave, our new favorite Englishmen preemptively announces he's vile in the morning but I conveniently keep my secret tucked far far away. (That would be my motion sickness.)

We climbed through a jungle of sea urchins to get to our boat that looked more like a dinghy abandoned by a 17th century pirate ship. We had been told it's best to leave at 6am before the crowds of other boats join in but we quickly realized that it was only because our boat was was 20 minutes slower than the others. The motion sickness set in almost immediately and I was a proper shade of green. The only comfort was in knowing that Anna, the sweet bride, was feeling just the same, and ended up wretching over her side of the boat. And for what? No dolphins. Our Tanzanian tour guides, James and some other dude in his underwear, attempted to navigate while whistling for what we deemed unicorns, without success. We came to the conclusion they were actually in search of the mating rituals of unicorns and dragons. Three hours of misery passed and we finally found ourselves in front of the hotel and decided we must at least give a snorkel a try.

After unknowingly being stung by jellyfish for 20 minutes, the boat sounded like an acceptable option to carry me home, until I was back on board. My stomach flopped twice and I hurled myself back in the water. I decided to take the jellyfish over the dry heaves. And so the journey ended with one that barfed, several swimmers stung by jellyfish, no dolphins, and two that swam home. A success! Vacation sure is going well.

The other side of the Karamba experience is a feeling of absolute calm. I woke the next morning and grabbed my yoga mat to practice a few sun salutations and some quiet time in the wake of a sunrise and an ocean breeze, all alone. The most stressful part of the day is deciding what to have for our next meal. Again, I am left feeling guilt of incredible magnitude having just walked away from people faced with the worst imaginable medical and financial hardship. That's been a struggle.

Two nights disappeared and it was time for checkout. That's where the dream ended and reality began. They don't take credit cards. We scraped together every penny we had in cash and came out with $2 to spare. Sigh. We were safe. Until I found that they don't take dollar bills from before 2006, and that ruled out a quarter of the money we had. WHAT? I've never heard of such a thing. In the end, we traded some old “dodgy” dollars with our friends the Brits and made it out alive. We headed for a new hotel closer to Stone Town and the airport and tomorrow is a spice tour. Cloves, curry, and anise. Yum.

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Greetings from Mombasa!

I really like saying “Mombasa.”

Mombasa.

Mom-BASA

MOM-BA-sa

Mom-Ba-Saaaaaaaa.

Okay, so spending time in Mombasa is sort of like planning a relaxing beach vacation in Mexico and then spending all of your time in an extra dirty, run-down and mostly Muslim version of Tijuana.    The best beaches and resorts are a distance from the city. 

We found a nice hotel in Bamburi Beach, which is about a 25 minute tuk-tuk (a motorized bike with a carriage attached to the back) ride north of the city.    The Kahama hotel is set one layer back from the three key exceptions:

1. Our room has three beds but only two blankets and the staff seems unwilling to see this as a problem;
2. Every three hours a paralyzing smell of sewage wafts through the room, and
3. There is a late-night bar/restaurant attached to the hotel that blares music so loudly until after midnight that I tend to confuse the pulsing bass with my heartbeat.

Other than all of that, we’ve found a good place.   There’s a quick path to the beach, and we have a beautiful salt-water pool. 

We’ve been getting up at 6am to walk on the beach (Emily runs, and Dami and I walk) and enjoy the sunrise over the Indian Ocean.   It really is beautiful.   If you get there before 8, you beat all the vendors, whose primary sales tactics involve obscene harassment.   You can’t walk 5 feet without a salesman shoving something in your face, following you and relentlessly asking questions or trying to convince you to go for a ride in a glass-bottom boat.  It’s too bad, because the level of harassment – particularly towards white people – precludes any remote opportunity to enjoy an otherwise beautiful beach. 

We’ve learned to be off the beach by 8 and to spend the day by the hotel pool, which is wonderfully relaxing. 

We’ve also learned to appreciate the value of paying a little more for a hotel on the beach – that offers lounge chairs on private property and security guards paid to keep the vendors away.    When we head to Zanzibar tomorrow we’ll pay the few extra dollars to secure that privacy.

Today, our last full day in Mombasa, will be spent lounging by the salt-water pool here at the hotel.   Being here, really allowing myself to relax, makes me realize just how deeply tired I am.   

Safari Pics!

Sunrise over the Mara

Wow.

Love the Zebras

Hungry Hippos

Domestic Squabble over a Wildebeest

Cheetahs looking at their recent kill

Elephants!

Lazy Lioness




Lilac-Breasted Roller

Maasai Mara

We arrived back in Nairobi on Monday after a not-so-easy ride on the Easy Coach. It took about 8 hours on some pretty rough roads and ended with some steamy mid-afternoon traffic in the city. We called our resident taxi man, John, and he scooped us up and brought us home. We snuck in a few hours of sleep that night before our Safari mini-bus picked us up in the morning.

Makau is a man about 36 years old that owns the Wilderness Zones safari company that I was referred to by an American man on a bus in Tanzania. The man has been traveling to Kenya every year for 25 years and said that Makau runs the best ship around. I couldn't agree more. Makau was there to pick us up and introduce us to our guide, Jeff, and we set out for Maasai Mara. The drive took about 6 hours as it carried us right through the Rift Valley and into the game reserve.

Our accomodations were tents and I expected more bucket showers with cold water and most likely pit latrines. Man, was I wrong. They were tents, but the permanent kind, with HOT running water, and lights, and real toilets! We were ecstatic. We ate a traditional Kenyan lunch with rice, some ground meat that tasted like goulash, and kale. Yum. That afternoon was our first game drive. Within minutes we were staring down an extremely endangered black rhino, some giraffes, a couple of lions, and a whole mess of wildebeasts. Without actually knowing or planning it, we just happen to be in Kenya during the great migration so the Mara looks like a sea of wildebeasts. We finished up our drive just as the sun was setting over the Serengeti which as one could imagine inspired a few oohs and aahs. And then we slept.

5:30am rolled around and we woke to set out for another drive. Within hours we had seen the big five. The rhino, elephant, lion, leopard, and buffalo. We presented Jeff with a new title, the Sargent, or Sarge for short. We definitely got lucky with this one. He would maneuver our little bus through rivers and up the sides of mountains to get us the best views. I couldn't have wished for anything more. Except maybe more time. I did manage to sneak in a few minutes at the clinic in the park, though. They treat travelers but mostly Maasai from the villages around the outskirts of the reserve. They have only one nurse on duty at a time, no doctors, and the woman said they are in great need of more help. It was surprisingly tidy and spacious but maybe only in comparison to some of the devastation I've seen over the last few weeks.

Our three days came and went much too fast and suddenly we were back in Nairobi. Icky. But the day didn't end there. Sarabeth and I had just enough time to repack our bags and catch an overnight bus to Mombasa. We got in about 5am and grabbed a tuk tuk to take us to Bamburi Beach. So here I sit at 6am in the lobby of a hotel near the shores of the Indian Ocean. I'm looking forward to relaxing but at the moment the mosquitos are gnawing at my neck and I'm starting to lose my composure so here ends this post. Tea time!

Farewell Vihiga

Our time in Kisienya has come to a close. We're out of water and the solar powered light bulb is out of juice so maybe it's good timing. The week has been so uplifting that I'm ready to venture out into the world of organic chemistry and all things scientific with a rejuvenated outlook. If I could bottle up the Mugofwa family energy and shower everyone I meet with it, the world would be a near perfect place. For now, it's back to Nairobi then off on Safari. Watch out wildebeasts, here we come.