Scorpion sting, Bike Safari and More dust

Baobab at Sunset

Scorpion sting, Bike Safari and More dust
Today I was stung by a scorpion. We had arrived late at our campsite and I was erecting the tent and pulling out sleeping bags in the dark while Ilda prepared supper. At first I thought that it was a bee sting but the rapid spread and intensity of the pain was staggering. Further exploration of the bags revealed the culprit and to my horror I noted that he was of the “small pincers bad sting” variety and by now I was beginning to feel slightly unwell! My pulse rate was picking up, the knife-like pain had reached up to my axilla and I had this vague sensation of impending doom! While Ilda rushed off to check with our hosts what medical facilities were available and, perhaps antivenom (none!), I did what any ER doc would do, got prepared for the worst. I really was not sure as to what to expect so figured that I might as well prepare for the worst. Besides, we had been carting the medical kit around for months, so we might as well use it. I threw down a couple of antihistamines, some Panado and Codeine and, seeing as I had a beer in my hand, partook of this and used the cool bottle to locally ease the pain. With Margot’s help, I managed to insert an iv cannula into my right cubital fossa and taped this in place. Then we drew up adrenaline and had iv promethazine and hydrocortisone ready too. Margot recorded what I had taken and I instructed her and Ilda what, and how to give, any further drugs I may need. Fellow campers came with their tales of woe which did little to ease my anxiety and by now I had developed a reasonable tremor and had finished my beer. More campers arrived with Vodka which seemed to work wonders, not locally but orally. After an hour or so my symptoms abated and with vodka and Cinnarazine on board enjoyed a blissful and pain free nights sleep.

After our fleecing in the Crater we decided to lie low and set up at Paradise camp not far from the eastern shores of a very low Lake Manyara. We had briefly and unknowingly, visited Tarengere national park in a vain effort to find camping and I have this amusing memory of Ilda and the girls riding on the back of the Pathfinder yelling about being attacked by Tsetse flies while I drove virtually headlong into a large herd of elephant, prompting a rapid retreat! Paradise Camp was quiet and relaxing and we achieved a bit of school. We went on a fascinating visit to the huts of the local Manyate tribe and were gob smacked at how primitive they were. Low basic mud huts, no water or latrine and apathetic, filthy children literally swarming with flies who kicked around in the dirt, dust and litter. And yet amongst this we found a loving mother, immaculate and suckling her 3 month old son who, in the tiny confines of her clean hut, offered us pap with milk butter and valuable fresh milk to drink. She demonstrated her exquisite marriage skirt made from softened calf hide and intricate beadwork and tolerated our simplistic ‘wazungu’ questions with humour. We left small gifts and a little money and bade farewell just as her herdsman husband returned with his scruffy herd, followed by a pall of dust and the setting sun.

Our host managed to scrounge a couple of Masai bicycles for the day and we set off with the girls’ pillion. The going was tough with missing pedals, wonky seats, soft, bald tyres and sandy and thorny tracks. We rode in the vague direction of the Lake and enjoyed lots of Zebra, Gnu and Impala before stopping off at a local Lodge to witness how the other half travel. Ice cold face flannels, iced tea and a swimming pool were somehow appealing.

I’m not quite sure what made us head due south and avoid Dar-a-Salaam and the exotic island of Zanzibar, but I think it was a combination of being fed up with the give-me-de-money frantic tourist hotspots, a knowledge that we will enjoy beaches in Mozambique, visas with only a few more days on them and a road on the map that looked ok! The roller-blade smooth tarmac soon ended, not far beyond the turnoff to the Crater and we were back on red, talcum dusty tracks that rattled our teeth and shook the door rubbers from their mountings. I cursed for about 200km but the ordeal was partially sweetened by dramatic countryside and views, virtual isolation and a superb lunch which included roasted minute birds, which were either quail or chicks, and a delicious stew of ox tongue, we think, and Ugali (pap). Dodoma is in the plum centre of Tanzania and we loved the place. A strong Islamic influence with turrets everywhere (and a call to prayer at 04.00!), bustling little street-side shops, good food, an immaculate hotel and a relative lack of traffic and tourists made for a great stop. The reason for the isolation became apparent the next morning as we bucked onto the rough dirt track heading south, even before the city limits had been reached. We were in Baobab country and saw kopjes completely covered in them and mammoth trees along the roadside. What initially appeared to be some primitive pagan ritual turned out to be locals thrashing their sorghum and we enthusiastically got involved beating along with them, with long clubs, to the rhythm of their beautiful voices. Our thirst was quenched with a taste of Sorghum beer which wasn’t too bad and we bade farewell to shouts of encouragement.

The dirt ended, the dust settled, we washed, we ate…then I got stung. Our days in Tanzania are numbered and we look excitedly at the map of Malawi and Mozambique beyond.

Margot reading

Zara washing dishes...5 Rands worth!
Child at window

Flies on child

Sandy and Zara on Masai bike- Lake Manyara

Road work on the way to Dodoma...more dust!

Baobab

Road south between Ngorogoro and Dodoma

Ngorogoro Crater, Roses and Ice-Cream

Sheep at sunset

Kitengela Glass African Map

The fluffy white cloud cascading over the crater rim above us provides a magical frame for our early morning game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. We have dropped a few hundred metres from our chilly crater rim campsite and in the evolving dawn have descended into this extraordinary spectacle. At 19.2 km in diameter, 610m deep and 304 sq km in area it is the largest unflooded and unbroken caldera in the world. It is said to support a resident wildlife population of up to 25 000 animals and as the warm African sun pours forth her golden rays we are welcomed by huge herds of zebra and wildebeest. Our early start has been worthwhile and we arrive before the constant procession of commercial tour trucks and for a couple of hours enjoy this paradise in relative isolation. A lone cheetah on the prowl, an ancient tuskless elephant, belligerent buffalo and lethargic lions keep us occupied during the dawn until we find a peaceful little lake for breakfast where pods of hippo wallow and inquisitive guineafowl peer at our cornflakes. By now the commercial operators have arrived and a mammoth procession of brown or green Landcruisers stop and spew forth their cargo of khaki clad clients, lipsticked and lensed to the max. We are surprised to find that we are the only independent visitors to the park and attract inquisitive stares and questions from amicable Americans…”Say, is that really your own car….you don’t have to have a guide?.....did you really drive all the way from South Africa?” The decision to come into the crater was not easy; at US$420 (R3000) for 24 hours it has been a massive blow to our budget and of dubious value. The campsite is $5 basic where we tussle with cold showers and leaking pipes and a cooking area swamped by commercial operators and their punters. Our other option would have been to take a 3-day commercial trip to the crater and Serengeti, but that would have set us back about US$1500 all up! Such is the scene here now and although I am glad we have had the privilege of experiencing this I wonder whether the intimacy and price of our KZN parks is more appealing.

Back in Kenya a lucky break gets us a visit to one of the massive flower farms providing flowers to the world. Margot’s diary provides a good report.

“Last Friday we visited a flower company near Lake Naivasha called Oserian Flowers. Kenya is famous for its green houses and at Oserian they use them too.. A friendly man called Roddy Benjamin took us for a visit of the factory. Roddy is the man in charge of the rose department. Oserian is a big flower company that exports their flowers to Europe, USA and even Australia! Roddy first took us to see the packaging and storing place. “After the roses have been picked”, he explained “we store them in a fridge at 4 degrees centigrade to keep the roses from opening.” We went into the fridge and it was freezing cold! “The farm was established in 1974”, he shouted over the buzzing noise of the generators, “So it is quite new!” “Clank” the door of the fridge slammed shut behind us. We went up some stairs into the store room. We all had to put on some colourful pink coats. Then we went down to the place where they package the roses. “We have about 4.5 thousand workers at Oserian and 600 acres of land which makes us the biggest single standing flower farm in the world.” I was trying to get all that he said down on paper but didn’t get everything. These are some of the facts I got;
Oserain farmers harvest the good roses twice a day
The green houses are 4 acres in size
Most of the workers work 7and half hours per day
They pick about 1million stems per day
The factory sells the roses to supermarkets for about 10 eurocents per rose or 1 Euro for 10 roses, but the supermarkets sell them for 40-45% mark-up.
The roses have four days between Oserian and their destination and have one week shelf-life in the supermarket.
After that we went to see the baby roses growing. They use 70% hydroponics to grow the roses in pumice which they mine on site. Oserian’s carbon footprint is 12% that of Holland flower producers. I loved the smell of the purple roses because they smelt like Turkish Delight. The thing that amazed me at Oserian is that they use tinsy-winsy spiders that eat the bad bugs on the roses!”

The next day we climb extinct volcano Mt Longonot with stunning views of the Rift Valley and Lake Naivasha. At over 2500m elevation, the 500m climb to the summit is hard work but we revel at the exertion and the girls don’t even bat an eyelid at our suggestion to circumnavigate the crater which takes a further 3 hours! The crater floor has thick bush and we see a few Zebra and bush buck. Sadly the path is badly littered and heavily eroded and I think that these Kenyans need a couple of New Zealand rangers over here to show them how to look after a national park!

In Nairobi we are spoilt again this time by Sylvia Cassini. Sylvia lives in a beautiful 1930’s Cotswold stone house in Embassy-chic Nairobi. We met her and her two young children on Safari in Botswana and she had invited us to stay. She is of Italian descent, Kenyan born and bred and Oxford alumni and has worked at everything from furniture design to cartography to project management. She calls a spade a spade! We feast on her delicious Italian cooking and with rare tender fillet washed down with a chilled Sauvignon, we are in heaven! We use the time to restock, do some school and even wander the shops where we treat ourselves to Italian ice-cream. I get the Pathfinder serviced and discover that I didn’t really need to cart all the spares up from RSA, they have them here, and the Nissan dealer makes ours in PMB look like a baby! The price is steep but then I figure I’m paying for reassurance too! The drive home in Nairobi rush hour traffic turns my beard grey. Gridlock by mini-bus is a scary concept and how I get home unscathed I’m not sure but breathe deep sighs of relief. Thank God for Garmin and “Tracks for Africa”. We take the girls to the David Sheldrick elephant orphanage and are entertained by habituated little ellies that are bottle fed specific soya milk formula and have carers that live with them 24/7, even sleeping on a bunk in their stables! Maxwell is the blind habituated Black rhino who has also been hand reared after his mother abandoned him. The hope is to reintroduce most of these animals back into the wild.

From there we drive on a rough road to Kitengela glass where we see how glass is blown and marvel at the red hot furnaces fuelled by recycled engine oil and melting recycled bottles. The place is eccentric and quirky with all manner of colourful glass creations and contraptions scattered about and we are fascinated by the ‘inventor-artist’ Toombe as he tinkers with an old wooden briefcase that is being converted, with a myriad of recycled gadgets, into a magical case with a secret opener known only to the owner!

It takes us two hours to escape Nairobi and we make a mental note to return only when the Chinese roadworks are completed. The ‘ring-road’ is no more than a congested parking lot. The Tanzanian frontier beckons and we are welcomed by views of Africa’s highest mountain, Mt Kilimanjaro.

Total Solar Eclipse

Road towards Nogorogoro Crater

Lake Manyara

Scene down Ngorogoro Crater

Looking down Ngorogoro Crater

Koraan

Migration and Masai Mara

Migration and Masai Mara

We are at that stage of our African adventure where our social balance is possibly in question. Are we becoming more feral than is healthy and forgetting the usual social norms?! When cooking on a smoky fire is standard, using a squat pit latrine in preference to a flush one, vigorously recycling clothes and reminding Zara that using a spoon and fork in preference to her hands might be a good idea! That said, we feel a harmony with the land and the people we meet and revel in this raw African experience away from our normal organized and sophisticated lives. We have turned the corner (geographically not metaphorically!) crossing the Equator for the second time and now in Kenya, start our migration south.

From the Rift valley we are headed for the Masai Mara game reserve in the south of the country, but have many pleasant surprises to come on our way. We drop dramatically from our high perch on the Rift Valley escarpment down into the Kerio valley and, with a busload of excited, local school kids, marvel at a deep river gorge and spy a resident croc. We climb steeply again up the far side of the valley and are headed for Kembu farm and camping in the Highlands, were many white settlers enjoyed their colonial life of old. We shun the conventional route and stick to the spine of the escarpment enjoying dramatic views of Lakes Baringo and Bogora in the Rift valley below but are once again on a rough pot-holed ‘tar’ road. We stop for our favourite local lunch of Chapatti, beans and chai and for about R14 reckon we are doing pretty well!

Kembu Farm is owned and run by the Nightingale family, who have been in Kenya for a few generations, and is a fascinating, co-operative, comprehensive, community involved enterprise. Various family members run the dairy and horse stud, agriculture, camping and cottages and the wool weaving project. We share the campsite with a couple of novice overland trucks fresh form Nairobi and erect our tents not far from the milking sheds with a good waft of cow! Margot and Zara waste no time and are soon exploring the dairy, bottle feeding calves, walking with highly strung yearlings being prepared for sale and romping in massive mountains of hay bales. We purchase fresh milk from the dairy and enjoy the luxury of a bar/restaurant and that evening, a lovely wood fire. Ilda works marvels with home baking managing to bake bread in the hot water “donkey” and I enjoy an early morning jog with the 15yo Nightingale son who is training for his rugby season. It is winter chilly in the morning and at about 2400m the air is thin. We visit the wool weavers as the morning school project and are impressed by the home spun wool, natural dyes and hand knitted wares that, like Kenyan fruit and flowers, are exported around the globe.

From Kembu we choose a cross-country route again that our guide book describes as “a good dirt road that could become problematic in the rainy season” and skirt massive potholes and trenches but are spared the deep mud. Zara buys hot roasted corn-on-the-cob from a street vendor and we arrive at the Masai town of Narok. Like most Kenyan towns, and in stark contrast to Rwanda, the filth and litter is appalling, but we dine in an excellent local restaurant on our usual chapatti, chips and fried cabbage washed down with sweet hot milky chai. We are impressed by the hand washing facilities where neatly cut newspaper serves as hand towels and Ilda buys fresh fillet at the entrance of the restaurant where a large carcass is suspended from a meat hook above. The meat was surprisingly good and we seem to have suffered no ill effects.

The road from Narok to the Masai Mara has comfortably earned the mantle of our worst road in Africa, making even those in the west of Tanzania seem pretty smooth. Massive pot holes, remnants of tar, rough gravel and dust, lurched and rocked the poor Pathfinder to the limit and we were surprised at this poor access to Kenya’s iconic park. But then most guests probably fly in anyway! The trip was alleviated slightly by good sightings of giraffe, wildebeest and occasional strutting warthog. We pass Masai hamlets in almost desert-like over-grazed countryside, and their herds of cattle, and find this blurred mix of game and livestock interesting. We arrive at dusk at the Sekanani gate and skirt west on a vague track to avoid entering the park and the exorbitant park fees. We are headed for the Talek riverside camp and after about five minutes the deluge started. I think that we now have some idea of what Noah must have felt sitting in his ark. The arid ground was impermeable and our surroundings turned rapidly into a lake and rushing rivers. I will admit to having some concern for our safety and that of the Pathfinder and we were relieved to link up with a Bakkie laden with locals who, through a slit in the window and bucketing downpour, shouted, “We go together!” We skidded, slipped and sloshed after them and, to avoid a flooded Talek river, detoured into the park onto better roads and even enjoyed some good sightings of beautiful Topi, large herds of Zebra and hyena. Again, the lack of a boundary park fence meant that we frequently encountered herds of Masai cattle intermingled with game. The complete lack of grazing outside the park makes this their only hope, but I wonder how sustainable this will be and whether man’s encroachment will once again be at the expense of Africa’s wildlife.

We find, with some relief, the Talek campsite and the inevitable overland truck with its skitterish load of English backpackers. We erect our tents in the now abating rain and get an early night in preparation for an early start. Our Masai guide directs us into the park through a ‘back’ entrance and we are struck by how different this park is, with its massive meadows and savannah and paucity of bush and trees, to those of South Africa. On the plus side though, it is easy to spot game and we soon see massive herds of zebra, wildebeest and a herd of about 1000 buffalo. We are about two weeks too early for the migration though but enjoy some time at the famous Mara River where the ‘crossing’ will happen and watch hippo, giraffe and enormous crocodiles. We are alerted to some action buy numerous hyena sauntering across the plains and follow them to a gruesome Zebra carcass where up to thirty Hyena, numerous black backed Jackal and a huge flock of white backed vultures squabble, snap and tear away fresh flesh from the last scraps of this unfortunate beast. The sight of bloody faced hyena with glistening white fangs burrowing into the red carcass was dramatic and kept us enthralled for ages. We later saw the bloated sleepy lions on a nearby hillock. We return to camp, again avoiding the official gates and reckon we may be lucky and avoid the US$190 (R1330) park entry fee, but a visit by the Park guards, after we refused to pay the dodgy campsite owner who was intent on pocketing the fee, put an end to that.

The next morning, while toasting bread on the fire, we are visited by a human-size baboon which I scare off, but he runs straight for Margot, and only her piercing scream and holding her ground deflects him off into the bush, with a few stones following. We laugh later, but that was scary! We visit the local clinic again, all donated by a Canadian aid outfit, and like RSA, the emphasis is on vaccination, malaria and HIV.

Back on the nightmare road again the fuel gauge suddenly reads empty. We peer into the engine and scan the sump for leaking fuel but all looks dry and we cautiously purchase ten litres of exorbitant diesel at a local village and enjoy the company of a trio of immaculately turned out traditional Masai teenagers. We make it back to town followed by some helpful Americans and deduce that the fuel gauge is bust and add it to the list of things to do in Nairobi next week.

Now we are camped under massive Fever trees on the edge of Lake Naivasha enjoying Colobus monkeys and hippos and a wealth of birds, including flamingos, pelicans and exquisite Love birds. Tomorrow we have a visit arranged to one of the famous Kenyan flower ‘factories’, then we climb the volcanic crater Longnot on our way to Nairobi.

Wazungu and Mud

Wazungu and Mud

We are perched on the edge of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya and, at over 2000 metres, feel somewhat euphoric at this incredible site. The Rift Valley extends from Jordan to Mozambique and is what divided Arabia from Africa. Evolution here stretches back 25 million years and with the incredible palaeontological findings, including the bones of early ‘apeman’, we feel privileged to witness this “Cradle of Mankind”. We are camped at Lelin campsite and, like on so much of our travels, are the only guests and have the run of the place. Ilda and the girls are schooling in one of the thatched ‘bandas’ overlooking the valley below and progress seems good. The ill-fated school parcel from New Zealand has surfaced in Lusaka and is being forwarded to Nairobi where hopefully we will find it. Zara’s comprehension of math’s astounds us but reluctance to write, alarms us and Margot progresses calmly and confidently. They are both devouring books and Zara’s desire to recount her latest Peter Pan or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory brings tears to my eyes and Margot has just finished Elephant Whisperer and of course wants us to get some pet elephants! A definite disappointment on the trip has been the total lack of other families travelling. The girls have missed their friends and, other than the occasional massive overland tour truck, we have been largely solo.

After our marvelous recovery and comfort in Kampala we elected to start our journey east and travelled to Jinja and the source (so the Ugandans think) of the Nile. We set up camp at Eden Rock near the Bujugali Falls and with stunning views of the Nile up towards Lake Victoria. Our initial plan had been to drive up towards Murchison Falls National Park but with us all just recovering from our nasty Rwandan flu the prospect of 2 big days driving and big fees to see game, we preferred to relax next to the Nile. We took a boat trip out on to Lake Victoria from Entebbe to an island to visit a chimpanzee sanctuary which was interesting but exorbitant. Like the gorillas, I feel unease for these vulnerable primates whose habitat continues to diminish and, although the efforts at the sanctuary are admirable, I fear for their long term prospects. The Bujugali falls were a series of dramatic rapids on the Nile down which intrepid locals swam attached to a plastic jerry can or paddled in pint sized kayaks. It was spectacular just to sit there and watch this drama and we enjoyed a short boat trip getting a close up of the rapids as well as a view of construction of the new dam wall which will cover all of this up later this year. At the nearby Explorers camp we got a taste of the big overland trucks again and how hard they party! Although I did make enquiries, we never got to raft down the big rapids of the Nile, probably a bit epic for the girls and also not really on our agenda. There, as on many of our stops, a walk through the local community providing, always, a rich cultural experience as to how Africans live, eat, farm and play, which I hope will stay with Margot and Zara forever. The constant cry of “Wazungu” (whiteman!) always music to our ears!

The Sipi Falls appear on the Ugandan 10 000 shilling note and we camped at Lacam lodge at the top of these falls. The setting was sublime, similar to the lower reaches of the Drakensberg in RSA, and we reveled in the peacefulness of the place and the sound of the water cascading down to the rocks 100 metres below. Camping here included full board so that we ate like pigs and only a hard early morning run and a good community walk eased the conscience. I visited the local health clinic and was impressed by the service they offered. They even had a lab technician who was able to do malaria smears and basic micro. Our host at the lodge assured us the road to the Kenyan border was tarred and so we set off after school and lunch for Kenya.

The tar ended suddenly about 25km from the lodge and with that came the afternoon deluge. The dusty orange track was transformed dramatically into a muddy, slippery quagmire and we had some anxious moments deliberating what route to take and enjoyed a fair bit of drifting around the road. The BF Goodrich tyres though, despite being clogged with mud, handled admirably. This, however, was only a taste of what was to come! We skirted around Mt Elgon, a massive extinct volcanic crater, passing through many colourful villages rich with crops and activity. The border town of Suam was something out of a movie with mud and chaos! We exited Uganda without any fuss and crossed a muddy bridge into Kenya finding ourselves in a queue behind a bakkie laden with a coffin and mourners. The Kenyan immigration official was a smiling rotund woman wearing a safari hat and sipping tea, reminding me of the Lady detective from Alexander McCall Smith fame. Expecting the usual fleecing for visas I nearly hugged her when she agreed to waive the fee for the girls and then told me that there was no charge for South Africans! So we only bought one visa for “NZ” Ilda! Then to top this, the customs man filled in our carnet for the car, and for the first time ever, didn’t demand a fee of some sort.

And so it was with some enthusiasm that we slid off into Kenya giving a local a lift and very soon stopping to dig out our tow rope to help some other locals in distress. That distress was soon to be ours as dusk drew in and the mud got thicker! We were headed for the Delta Forest camp and smiling locals assured us that the road was fine and ‘got better’. Well it didn’t and the vision of that deep black mud with rutted craters will stay with me forever! My admiration for the Nissan Pathfinder though has grown enormously after it seemed to steer itself through this impossible quagmire and slipping and sliding, frequently at right angles to our intended direction, we squelched out the other end. The camp was a welcome relief and the eccentric, grandiose Kenyan pilot cum lodge owner insisted that we stay in one of his bandas and not camp. We enjoyed a hot shower and a fire and reminisced about our day in Africa! The next morning we were on horseback walking around the ‘game sanctuary’ enjoying our first smattering of Kenyan game including the habituated John the Eland and Mike and Salena, the South African white rhino, which we were able to pet!

And so it is! On we go but now our compass points east and even a bit south. We will make our way slowly to Nairobi and then on into the Masai Mara and down into the Serengeti of Tanzania.